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THE DREAM-CONSCIOUS STATE:  A PERSONAL JOURNAL OF INNER EXPLORATION
Bruce G. Marcot

New 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.
 
     --------------------
 
     Toil, feel, think, hope; you will be sure to dream enough before you die, without arranging for it.
                    --John Sterling

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