THE DREAM-CONSCIOUS STATE: A PERSONAL JOURNAL OF INNER EXPLORATION
Bruce G. MarcotNew Experiments To Try
As a means of focusing future dreaming experiences (now writing this in 1996), here I list several lucid dream experiments I want to pursue:
1. Continue the experiments of meditating in a dream, including focusing
thought and energy "inward" and away from the dream image, closing my eyes,
counting breaths, focusing on my own inward sensations. See how long I can
refute and abolish the dream image and remain lucid or conscious.
2. In a dream, recall what I have read in the Tibetan Book of the Dead,
particularly about the lucid dream condition being excellent practice for
"awakening" in the Bardo. See what happens. Or what appears (read the Book
for the incredible series of Bardo ghosts and ghouls that apparently attack you
there).
3. In a dream, concentrate on making my own body insubstantial. I have
done this more or less consistently with the dream setting, but only intermittently
and inconsistently with myself. In my lucid dreams, even if I can alter my own
appearance (as described above in one dream), I always remain substantial and
seemingly corporeal. I want to try to make myself fade away completely except
for mind and consciousness.
In some sense, I had already accomplished this with my previous experiments
of closing my eyes or meditating in a dream, but in those cases the entire dream
image including my own body all vanished into blackness. This is somewhat
different.
4. Foretell the future. Or at least give it a shot! Ask myself what unique
events will happen tomorrow. They must be unique or the experiment results may
not mean much, that is, cannot be interpreted.
Maybe also try to replicate my ESP card experiment. Maybe it only works half
the time!
5. Conjure the image of, and communicate with, deceased friends or
family (such as my sister Marilyn, my grandparents, and my old mentors and
friends Jack Kahl and Jim Koplin). Yes, this is a rather bizarre and unsettling
experiment, particularly considering that I do not subscribe to new age
philosophies. But there may be an outcome different from all of that, worth
knowing about here.
6. Try to recall a past life. As above, this is a rather outlandish objective.
Although I do not discount the possibility of reincarnation in some general sense
(it certainly occurs in cosmic events of celestial novae having providing the
heavier elements used in life forms on Earth; and of nutrient and substance cycles
in ecosystems), I also do not necessarily believe in "past life regressions" and other
such popular new age interpretations. But it can't hurt (I think!) to see what
happens.
Hinduism and the Tibetan Book of the Dead certainly embrace the concept of
reincarnation. The Book has very specific directions on how to break the
reincarnation cycle through lucid realization while in the Bardo by blocking
entrance into another womb; or, at worst, how to select a good continent,
condition, species, and womb for rebirth.
7. Determine the time. As with my waking time-sense, try to guess the
correct "external" time. See if my dream time-sense is cognate with my waking
time-sense.
8. Try to influence my wife's dream, as I dream and as she sleeps.I'll report here on results when I'm able to perform these experiments.
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Toil, feel, think, hope; you will be sure to dream enough before you die, without arranging for it.
--John Sterling