Dear Ben!

Your welcome to talk here on your experiences using Castaneda's lucid dreaming techniques, of course! Please do it! Can you answer my questions of the foregoing post? I would be glad! " Has any the of pupils and students and masters in this line ever subjected his abilities to scientific experiment?"

Open conversation should nonetheless stick somewhat to the topic of lucidity. "Fact/Fiction, if Castaneda hadn't written "the Art of Dreaming " we probably wouldn't be here discussing our experiences with LDs, because the Lucidity institute would have never existed."

I know, that Castaneda brought many people to work on LD and all in all to take a different look at different realities. I respect him and his work for that. Have you ever read on Kilton Stewart? His report on Senoi (lucid)dreaming culture (1954, 1969) is nowadays questioned for it authenticity or correctness. Even dreamworkers intensely using the Senoi approach like Strephon Williams include this doubt. I don't know, what Patricia Garfield thinks or what Paul Tholey thought on this subject. Both works are largely influenced by the supposed findings of Stewart. Williams takes a differentiated position (1980). And says (translated from the German version): "At least the 'dreaming people' of Malaya [the Senoi] has become a symbol for the intention of a community, that wants to make dreamwork the constitutive basis of social, cultural and personal life." For me it is, that I want to know what the hell is going on and want to somehow rely on whose works I quote and how I assess these works. Castaneda's books have influenced at least two generations of dreamers, and they are discussed by scientists. Isn't that much? I hope you see, that I don't dismiss Castaneda and his works, but try to see them in the context of scientific research on LDs and the history of developments in the LD realm. This is no simple rejection of what he claimed, but a hopefully reasoned and differentiated, long worked out assessment of his work. And you might have seen, that there is a long history of LDs, there are many roots to what the LI works on today. Think of the Tibetan yoga of dreams has a tradition of ca 1000 years.

And have you read this article:

http://www.lucidity.com/vanEeden.html

We can't verify or falsify the statement you put in the beginning. But we can continue to work out the best techniques to make the best of LDs.

Peter, I just read your posting. I agree, we should take an experimental position and leave the discussion of "bad guy, good guy"

So I wonder, who else has tried Castaneda's techniques with which results.

Yours Ralf

Ralf,

I've tried staring at my hands in an LD. This was interesting, but I prefer spinning or rolling etc for prolonging the dream and making new scenes occur.

So what are the Castaneda techniques that I can investigate to try to improve my lucid dreaming ability? Do you know?

The restrictions are I haven't time to read his books, I don't want to blow my mind with hallucigens, and I'm on the sceptical side on the existence of spirits and such like.

Owen

Owen I skimmed through the book and listed the techniques in it that don't infringe on beliefs but might actually be effective.

Ralf thanks for your continued input. Stephen thanks for putting up with me. Peter your right man; sometimes I just need to relax.

The following techniques I feel are worthy the effort of experimentation.

1.Take quick deliberate glances at everything in a dream. If you focus on something specific it is only as a point of departure. From there move on to look at other items in the dream content, returning to the point of departure as many times as possible. Supposedly brief glances will keep the dream from shifting, thereby stabilizing it.

This seems a good experiment for stabilizing a dream.

2.Wake up from a dream into another dream as many times as you are capable of. In this way learn to change dreams in an orderly fashion. In the Art of Dreaming it is suggested that one can keep waking up into another dream over and over again. I liken this then, to a prolonging technique. It is also mentioned that zooming off to a distant point is yet another way of changing dream scenes, I would also like to test this out for prolonging.

I've had only 3 dreams like this so far (zooming), and two of them seemed to prolong the dream. I know that is weak statistics but hey it's a start. If it is only a placebo effect, how will I know? I believe that it is the focus on a dream item and the sensation of movement that keeps the dream in check, but I will give it an honest experimentation, and then compare it with the spinning technique. How many dreams should I try each experiment? 20? 30? 30 dreams spinning to prolong and 30 dreams zooming ought to be enough to rule out placebo effects. Unless I'm brainwashed, then I'll have to add being brainwashed as a prolonging method!

It will be awhile before I post any results on this, and would like input from others as well.

3.Pressing the tongue on the roof of the mouth. It never states in the book if it means the physical tongue or the dream bodies tongue. It is supposed to result in very keen awareness in dreaming. It was claimed that this gave rise to a keener awareness than daily life. A wild claim to be sure, but what if it's true and no one tries it?

I have noticed some weird sensations pushing my tongue against the roof of my mouth while practicing wild. The times I have done this while attempting wild I have got weird flashes that seemed to take place in my head, as if lighting up my brain. The times I tried it I never got past the hypnagogic imagery and into the dream. So it remains to be experimented with. Given the malleability of hypnagogic imagery as influenced by thought and intention, it may very well prove to be placebo.

4. The twin positions. When you enter dreaming, lay down in the same position as your sleeping body and fall asleep again. The four variations of this exercise are to fall asleep on the stomach, back, right side and left side. It is supposed to make the dream really stay put. Extraordinary results are alluded to in the book, including the tenant mentioning that the only way to have complete control in dreaming is this technique. This is yet another extreme claim that if true would be very valuable. Because of its claim, I'd say it is worth the experimenting. My question is what does happen when one does this, if anything.

I have done it several times with varying results, but not enough times to evaluate whether or not it has real value.

So there it is I left out a few things due to the fact that they impinge on belief systems. I left out the exercise of isolating an inorganic being and following it, as well as seeing energy of items to verify that you are in a real energy-generating world.

I plan to personally experiment with each technique above. I guess I will just try each thirty times and log the results in my dream journal. If anyone has a better idea let me know please. At best I will learn whether or not something here has real value, at worst I will have some fun goals to focus on in dreaming. When I get some results that actually have statistical value I will post them.

Hi, Ryan and all

Thanks for posting the possible targets for experiments. Before we start, let us think about the experimental design, of how we do it.

Let us read:

http://www.lucidity.com/NL7.34.RU.SpinFlowRub.html

and discuss the study to then come up with an experimental design. It might be helpful for us to read the instructions for the "Sleep Posture, ..." experiment (and maybe add data to that experiment, too, while doing what we do, it is still not too late)

http://www.lucidity.com/DreamYoga.html

Maybe someone has additional sources for designs. The thing is, that if we do it, we should at least create a consistent body of data, that can later be analysed.

To give a first comment: Although this aspect of experimental design might be a source of interference, I would suggest to post all experiences here instantly. Just because of the higher motivation and feedback.

And then, if you look at the number of participants in the "Prolonging" study, I think, we should be humble and set our expectations realistic: What we may achieve could maybe give an impression on the effect of different techniques, but no real statistical significance. Of course unless we get more than fifty or one hundred people to participate and send each at least ten dreams or so. I'm not firm in statistics, but it is clear, that a sufficient number of trials and participants is needed to somewhat rule out chance. If I look at how long the sleep posture experiment is going on now, I'm humbled.

Nonetheless I'm willing to give the thing a try!!

Wonder what you think

Yours Ralf

Dream on Dreamers! I am reposting the results of the twin position technique I tried. For those who have already read it, apologies:

"I tried the twin position yesterday and this is what happened:

I woke up to go to the bathroom around 5:30 and decided to do the napping technique. I laid on my right side and got rid of any thoughts I had. I didn't intend for a specific dream but suddenly I found myself exactly where I laid, in my bed, on my pillow, on my right side, with my eyes open. I was facing a bit towards the mattres where an open leaflet laid. I tried to read it but suddenly the letters started swifting. "Ooops! I am not awake in my bed! I'm dreaming I'm in my bed!" It suddenly came to me to try the twin position. It wasn't very difficult to do it since I was already laying down on the side I had slept. So, I closed my eyes, feeling quite sleepy. When I opened my eyes again I turned to my other side just to see that it was 7:20, 10 mins before the alarm goes off. At that time I really thought I was awake because everything seemed to be feeling exactly the same way as dosing in the morning before waking up, the covers, the scent of clean sheets, the size and softness of my pillow. I then closed my eyes again. When I opened them, I looked at the clock and it was 6:15!!!!

I realised that after attempting the twin position, the waking that followed it was again a dream but in my real room (at least it felt exactly like that) just a bit forward in time!

I don't know what to make out of this, but it was quite fascinating for me! Mind you I didn't have any expectations from trying this. I just let myself experience whatever was coming to me."

Until today, I can still rememeber the realness of that dream. It had me fooled big time.

I don't believe that this is hard data but that's the outcome of my experimentation.

Na eiste oloi kala! (from GR: Be well, all you)

Nicolas

Ryan,

I'll try those things out.

I'm interested to see if the first possibility looking at lots of things then returning to the start might aid in remembering the dream scene.

I mentioned in an earlier post that when spinning I'v tried rubbing my tongue with my fingers on the grounds that a substantial part of the cerebral cortex is devoted to thumb and fingers. Rubbing the roof of mouth with tongue is a distinctive sensation and it would keep the hands free and its possible to hum loudly while doing it so I'll give it a go.

I use spinning or crawling to wake up into new dreams but probably I've never spun more than three times in an LD. First I'm a bit scared because I've noticed that lot of spin enhances the typical slight LD headache that I sometimes get on awakening. Also it seems that I cannot remember the beginning of some of my multiple spin dreams - which is no good! No point in having an LD if you cannot remember it?

I've never got back into bed after a false awakening that turned into an LD. This sounds interesting. I don't grasp the concept of getting to sleep and then re-dreaming in the dream though.

Regards,

Owen

Hi,

I've not read, let alone contributed to this forum in a couple of months (finishing uni and the joy of job hunting!), and what a discussion I've been missing! A couple of points, firstly, I've never read 'the art of dreaming', but I intend to...though I'm generally 'scientific' in my approach to this subject, I've had some weird encounters with 'beings', mainly during sleep paralysis. Scientific as you may start out, there are times when you can't help but question the 'reality' of these things, and the nature of reality as a whole. So I look forward to reading more on this, whatever the 'truth' may turn out to be.

Secondly, in regards to the twin position technique...I could be wrong, but this sounds like something I've been doing for a long time, that I call, 'going back to body'. I often become lucid, but am disappointed with the 'solidness' of it, or with my sense of presence. So I deliberately feel myself leaving that dream environment and coming back into the position of my sleeping body. This then induces a type of false awakening/OBE, I get out of bed, usually now with both my sense of presence and the environment (i.e. my bedroom) being as good as whilst I'm awake. The only problem is I'm stuck wandering around an exact replica of my house, in the dark. Almost too real! If I leave by the front door, there's usually just my street outside, still in the dark of night. (as 'expected' I suppose) So I have tendency to jump out of the window, since I don't do this in waking life (honest), I tend to end up in some fantastic fantasy landscape, where the sun is usually shining!

Well whether this is the 'twin position' or not, it certainly works for me,

Good to back by the way,

Keep dreaming,

Caroline

Interesting! That sounds just like the twin postition technique. I know what you mean when you say almost too real. An effect of the twin positions seems to be a super solid dream state. I'm going to have to play around with this technique over the weekend.

Unfortunately, right now, I have to go to work.

See the Learning Lucid Dreaming - Prolonging thread for my comments on Stephen's posting of October 29.

Joy

Ryan:

I took a shot at the twin positions this weekend, with curious results:

Following a fairly typical morning dream filled with unknown players (mostly teens), a strange environment (outdoor street/shopping area under bright sunshine), and cool scenes (including one excellent moment in an empty exotic car store with a ballroom filled with models, rare toy cars, giant constructed Lego's and huge shadow boxes with living people inside), I became lucid.

When I casually noticed I was lucid, I typically decided it was time to leave the dream and flew straight up, to the astonished looks of the strangers on the bazaar I left. Once I passed through the thick ceiling and was in a sort of between-dream limbo, I remembered that I was supposed to try out a suggestion by someone on the L.I. I was to lay back down, in the position I held when I went to sleep, and sleep again. It took a second to remember that I was on my back, but when I did I easily reclined and waited to settle onto my sleeping self, or my bed.

Instead I lost all sensation, with two exceptions ' first, all was black except for a peripheral corner of light that I was sure was reality bleeding through my sleep mask; second, I hadn't stopped falling ' I was drifting slowly down through the empty darkness. The feeling didn't bother me, I had lucidly encountered voids before (that's one of my LD'ing goals, BTW), but the glimmer of light did. So I ignored the ethereal drop through nothing and decided that the light meant I was waking up. I frantically tried to prolong the dream by finding and looking at my hands. I did, bringing them both to my eyes. They were white, "negative" images initially. But when I flexed them a bit they acquired regular flesh tones. When I could feel my fingers and see the bottom of sheets about them, I furiously realized I had woken up.

What I didn't notice was that I had awoken in a strange room that I recognized, now non-lucidly, as the special attic room that I used for dreaming (in reality there is no special attic room). I sat upright in the small antique twin bed for a few minutes, contemplating my LD in the bright morning light. Then I was on the dark hardwood floor looking at an object that I thought I had pulled from my nose. At first it was a flat oval piece of thick (2mm) Teflon-like material that was about the length and shape of my thumb. I figured it was residue from the antihistamine I had taken that morning. When I looked again, it was a clear plastic pouch w/thick red plastic cord circling it like the orbits of a cartoon atom. The bag was folded in a manner that made it loosely cubic, and it surrounded the mass from my nose that was now much thicker and darker, but obscured by the plastic. While I considered the wonder of such an object coming from my nose, I noticed that it was bigger ' now a colorful wire sculpture with geometrically shaped plastic bits sprouting from it, but all still surrounding my original dark matter. For a moment my finger was caught in it, but I pulled it out. When I did, I noticed that it felt about the same as it had while being crushed within the object. Then, while I was looking at a stack of odd boxes by the bed I woke up for real. Still, even then it took a moment to realize the last "awakening" had been a dream.

So, when I lay down while lucid to fall asleep again I did so, and lucidity (or my current wakefulness in the dream) was replaced by a new dream. The new dream was extremely vivid, indeed lifelike even as a memory now, but the action of falling asleep seemed to do more to lock me out of continued lucidity than it did to maintain it, regardless of the bizarre imagery my mind presented.

Maybe something went wrong. I'll have to try again sometime.

Peter

P.S. And Joy, if you're reading this, I swear I never dreamed of snot before.

Cool, Peter thanks for participating. Weird dream. I meant to try the twin positions last weekend myself, but real life had me a little stressed out and I could not relax when I attempted to induce dreaming. I am really interested to see if I can get vivid lucid dreams from the twin positions.

In my last lucid dream I wanted to see what would happen if I engaged in no other activity but looking from item to item quickly and deliberately. The result was an extremely short dream.

At one point while lying down I had a false awakening, then found myself lying in bed again. I tried moving out and away from my body but couldn't seem to move away. It still seemed as if I was in bed, but I knew better. A picture of my living room couch popped into my head. I focused on it, then immediately tried looking around the room. Nothing was there. I took a quick deliberate look at the couch again then looked away. This time another couch appeared. I looked at it then back at the other, identical couch. I looked back and forth between these couches and my living room seemed to appear in the background of these two items. Unfortunately I woke up at this point.

Looking from item to item like this seemed to cause a dream scene to appear around the peripheral of my vision. It did nothing to keep me in the dream however. I guess I sort of forgot to move on and incorporate new items into the process. Oh well maybe next time.