9 Keys To Dreaming.

[Nagual LoneWolf]

1. Trust Your Feelings
Always pay attention to how you feel when you wake from a dream. Your feelings and bodily sensations may be your best guide to the relative urgency and importance of a dream, and its positive or negative implications.
2. First Associations
In keeping a dream journal, you will want to get into the habit of jotting down your first associations with the dreams you record. What floats to the surface of your consciousness in the first minutes after waking may come from layers of the dream that have eluded, or from deeper levels of dreaming.
3. Reality Check
Though dreams are inner experiences, they often contain accurate information about external realities. In both subtle and unsubtle ways, dreams incorporate signals/omens from the outside environments and other worlds.
4. Dream Re-Entry
Dreams are real experiences, and a fully remembered dream is its own interpretation. The meaning of a dream is inside the dream itself. By learning how to re-enter dreams, you will develop the ability to clarify messages about future events, resume contact with inner teachers, and resolve unfinished business. When you re-enter a dream you have moved your assemblage point back to that place whether it be your own or others.
5. Dialogue with Dream Characters
One of the best ways to work out what your dream characters are telling you is to ask them. Dream characters are creations of your own intent or actual other dreamers or of course inorganics.
6. Tracking Your Dream Self
Who are you in your dreams? Are you the protagonist or simply an observer? Are you younger or older? Male or female? The character who appears in all of your dreams, even if only as a witness is you. This you is the what we are trying to understand and its relationship with the nagual.
7. Symbol Exploration
Although the dream source tries to communicate with us as clearly as possible, it must often speak in symbols in order to carry us beyond the limitations of the everyday mind.
8. "What Part of Me?"
Dreams make us whole. They show us the many aspects of ourselves and help us to bring them under one rood. This is why it is often useful to ask "what part of me" different characters and elements in a dream might represent. By specific exercises in the wakening life we can lower the barrier that separates the dreamer and the dream you.
9. Dream Enactment
Write a dream motto: See if you can come up with a one-line statement that summarizes what the dream is telling you.
Confirm your dream messages: Especially if you dream seems to contain a warning about a situation looming up in external reality, you may want to take steps to check the information.
Dream fulfillment or avoidance: If your dream seems to promise good things, you will want to figure out practical ways you can help to bring them to pass. If your dont like a future event you have glimpsed in a dream, you will want to consider how to get off the path that is leading you toward it.
Personal Rituals: Making a poem out of a dream report, drawing or painting the images you have seen, or constructing a personal shield or dream talisman are all excellent ways to honor the powers that speak to you through dreams.

[Nagual LoneWolf]

Shutting off the internal dialogue:

Treat your thoughts as if they were the wind; something you can hear, but dont get involved with.

You cannot allow yourself to associate with your thoughts in an energetic or bodily sense.

When giving yourself commands, you must focus your intent, and think your command very quietly and without a voice. In this way, your commands almost become subliminal.

You cant stop thinking by thinking about it, but you can give yourself a subliminal command.

You can also try to focus your attention on anything other than your thoughts, such as the wind, a repetitive type of music, your breathing, your mid-point, or just anything that doesnt entail thinking. The trick is to give yourself the silent and intentful command of actually being that particular thing.

In shutting off the internal dialogue, you will find that it is easy to change at will what you are thinking. You can actually hear the quietest of thoughts when in total silence.

Death as advisor:

Realize that youre headed towards death.

We only get a moment in this world; our lives are a moment.

Ask yourself this, where was my awareness before I was born, and where is this awareness headed?

Expect the worse: this is the only life you will ever get.

Take a moment to realize everyone elses deaths, while still taking into account your own.

You could most definitely die at any part of your moment.

Thinking is not so much the key, since it is impossible to know what happens when and after we die. Vanquish your ideas and thoughts of death, as they are useless (this includes thoughts and thought images).

It is also useless to wonder what it will be like, since that will also count as thinking about it. Feel it; feel it waiting, feel it breathing, imagine it right next to you wherever you go.

Take death seriously; death is not nothing.

Death is unavoidable.

Subliminally command yourself this: I only have two minutes to live.

Self-importance:

Do not blame your self-importance on anyone else (parents, Flyers, people, or society). It is your responsibility to combat it.

Realizing your unavoidable death is a sure way to collapse self-importance.

Self-importance is the biggest waste of energy that exists in the human psyche. If you want to be impeccable, you should be aware of this at all times.

Flyers, or Mind Parasites, feed off of your self-importance. These parasites exist in everyone, and speak very, very quietly to their host. To combat these creatures, you must have a positive purpose.

Self-importance can also be described as the clinging of yourself to your old thoughts and habits, or everything that you subliminally think about yourself, or say about yourself. This can be combated by not-doing and stalking.

Stalking:

Stalking is not necessarily acting, but more like becoming. It is a transformation (mentally and even physically) into something or someone else.

Stalking requires total concentration. You must silence your thoughts and replace them with new ones. In other words you must change your internal dialogue.

There must not be an inkling of your old self when stalking, or else it wont be stalking, it will only be acting.

Intent/will is once again the key ingredient. Without intent/will, you will only be acting.

Observation is also a key ingredient. Observe people, animals, plants, objects, etc.etc. in total silence, concentration, and without judgment. This way you will be able to capture the feelings of what you are observing without the intervention of interpretation.

Being inwardly convincing to yourself will usually ensure that you are outwardly convincing to others.

You may intend to be a wolf, and actually feel as though you have transformed into one. This happens when you start to dream while awake, or when you shift your assemblage point to the actual position of a wolf. People usually will not see you as what you transformed into, but in rare cases their assemblage points will be shifted if your conviction and energy are great enough.

Is it real? Yes; anything felt is real. Thoughts are not real.

Once you have succeeded in shifting or moving your assemblage point, it will be easier to go to that new position at will, just by remembering what it felt like. Shifting your a.p. means that you have switched your perception from your original or fixed position to a new position. You cannot think about where the position is physically, you must feel it.



Vocabulary:

Personal power: your own personal energy, as opposed to the energy of the world.

Impeccability: proper use of your energy.

Intent/will: the applied use of the Spirit. Silent wishing. Cannot even be felt. It is experienced, not thought about. Used by concentrating on mid-point of body.





The Flyers:

The Flyers feed off of your energy, especially your negative energy (such as self-importance).

They speak quietly in your mind in a voice you believe to be yours. They use this advantage to make you commit self destructive acts, and then tell you that you were justified in doing them, and you will usually believe it.

Like I said, It is not wise to blame them for everything that is wrong with you, since that will only make think that nothing is your fault, and that will be the biggest mistake.

You must have a purpose when combating them.

Their trick is that they make you believe in what they tell you.

The best way to become aware of them is by shutting off your internal dialogue. Since you can hear your thoughts without associating with them, you will hear thoughts that arent yours. These thoughts can be disturbing, and at times scary. This is another one of their weapons: fear. It is usually irrational fear, so the trick is to not associate at all with it. The best way to combat this fear is to remember your death. The fears become meaningless in light of your death.



Dreaming:

Intent is key that opens the gates.

Intending Dreaming entails a single subliminal thought with intent focused on it, I want to do Dreaming or I want to find my hands while in a dream.

The first stage of setting up Dreaming is the restful vigil, where you are asleep but also aware. From there you can enter the phantom zone or static vigil, where you can see phantom images of a dream. This state is a crucial step in Dreaming. You are in between two worlds at this point: the world of reason, and the world of dreams. The trick is bring the two together. You must focus on something in the phantom image, so as to bring yourself totally into Dreaming. That is dynamic vigil.

You must remain thoughtless in Dreaming, so that you keep your Dreaming attention under complete control.

When a person or thing approaches you, it may be wise to ask if it is a Scout. The trick is to not be afraid, because your fear can potentially make them dangerous. Some will want your energy, yet some will even tell you things, although their advice is usually self evident.

[Nu Lang]

I really love this thread Wolf. I have read it several times and intend to read it some more.



For shutting off the internal dialog and focusing awareness on the now...here is not-doing. Its simple but effective.



Simply either blindfold yourself or else just close your eyes. Try to go an hour like this or more. Do tasks in your house like you normally would except give yourself more time...and it takes ALOT of patience. Things you would never think of or think twice about can frustrate you. But on the other hand, the house comes alive with smells, feeling, tastes and hearing...just as they say, the other senses come alive. And one thing is for certain is you won't have your usual typical thoughts while doing your tasks, you will be required to 'think' differently like you never had to before. Just wait till you go to reach for an object and its not where you expect it to be, lol, then the frustration and adventure begins

[Dreamlyn]

This is well expressed!

[Guest]

Nu Lang wrote:I really love this thread Wolf. I have read it several times and intend to read it some more.



For shutting off the internal dialog and focusing awareness on the now...here is not-doing. Its simple but effective.



Simply either blindfold yourself or else just close your eyes. Try to go an hour like this or more. Do tasks in your house like you normally would except give yourself more time...and it takes ALOT of patience. Things you would never think of or think twice about can frustrate you. But on the other hand, the house comes alive with smells, feeling, tastes and hearing...just as they say, the other senses come alive. And one thing is for certain is you won't have your usual typical thoughts while doing your tasks, you will be required to 'think' differently like you never had to before. Just wait till you go to reach for an object and its not where you expect it to be, lol, then the frustration and adventure begins Oh! That sounds like a great exercise...I will try it as soon as I have the bit of extra time to devote to chores...currently I am behind! But gaining.
I find that the best way I personally have found for shutting down my internal dialogue is music - I have a photographic memory although not one of the most superb quality - it does however extend to my hearing and it seems when I listen to songs in my head it almost sounds as good as through my Ipod and earphones sometimes!
Also, about the dream journal aspect of this...if possible, lay VERY quietly, without moving a muscle, upon waking...for a few minutes in order to cement more of the dream details in memory. Just open your eyes but remain in the thoughts and feelings of where you just were, dreaming. Then sit up and write it down if you want! If you write it down later, it will still be more clear because of cementing it.

[Nu Lang]

Yes, cementing, I do that too but I had not thought about it till you mention it. Dreams are so slippery that if I don't take a few minutes to process, I can forget dream details once I start moving in the waking. So first I just lay still and recap my dreams.



Glad you liked that exercise. It has an extended benefit I found out yesterday. What happens is, as you wear the blindfold you get accustomed to shutting off one of your sense, sight of course, which you then realize is the dominant sense, which we all know but you realize HOW much its used. So then you acquire awareness at a deeper level of your others especially touch I noticed...just having to use my hands to as I walk so I don't run into things, and then I remember that experience, in gets cemented too. Later in the day yesterday I was at the mall, going up an escalator and I became aware of my hands and their perception, and I then realized my eyes take precedence normally but I can consciously switch to my other senses, its like giving the quieter kids in class an opportunity to speak, they are always there and they just go unnoticed but if you call on them they can participate. On top of this, since the eyes are dominant, guess what, our ordinary perception and internal dialog is linked to the eyes. We all knew that right? But its getting to experience it and HOW OFTEN it occurs, how jelled it is and then seeing we can undo it, through not-doings. We can come up with many not-doings to combat ordinary perception. Its exciting, like discovering new worlds! I'm planning to post a not-doing thread in Inner Landscape and so when anyone comes up with one they find effective we can share it.

[Nu Lang]

I find that the best way I personally have found for shutting down my internal dialogue is music - I have a photographic memory although not one of the most superb quality - it does however extend to my hearing and it seems when I listen to songs in my head it almost sounds as good as through my Ipod and earphones sometimes!that's very cool. I really like this thread because it opened doors to possibilities for me to consider and practical means to get there. Basically...exploring the senses, and primarily those other then sight. Sight is great I love sight, but to bring the senses into balance. And to bring mind into awareness of whats occurring. Seeing how our thoughts link up too.

[Guest]

I play games on facebook...I think that might qualify as not-doing?
I'm not sure on what not-doing is, the nature of not-doing I understand, I think, but the practice of same I have not learned to recognized yet, I don't think.
When I do something with my hands, like say, start a screw threading, especially if I cannot see it with my eyes, I close my eyes to do it! I can't think of any more examples but I'm thinking along the lines of things that your visual sight does not dominate just by virtue of the task...threading a screw out of sight cannot be dominated by sight. I noticed that long ago and it's always puzzled me. I think it is because of what you are describing, the principle of visual domination.
I am eager to try the exercise! I will let you know what comes of it!

[Nu Lang]

Oh ok, thanks for mentioning. Actually as I was reading your reply...I came up with a good definition of not-doing. It goes like this...you said: "I'm thinking along the lines of things that your visual sight does not dominate just by virtue of the task...threading a screw out of sight cannot be dominated by sight."



Right, so a not-doing, in example, is taking a task that IS dominated by sight and then removing sight, just one example. So a not-doing is doing something that normally would not be done. Of course there are other ways to define it that would still be correct. But what I get out of not-doing is it changes behavior and perception of the action and thus enhances awareness with new insight. So a not-doing must entail unusual activity, not the norm, to let in the new. Because its the norm that keeps attention stable, our doings, which then become habits. Logic is the glue that binds them, logic being the unwanted kind in this case, unquestioned logic, or generic logic.



Like we often drive the same way home from work. A not-doing is driving a different way, even if its a longer direction, because our intuition guides us to. Not-doing can be illogical and yet at the same time, practical if done for sorcery purposes. So the logic is sorcery based and thus will not make sense to the ordinary mindset many have and reinforce.



So say you take a different route home, and your friend who is not familiar with sorcery or extra perception may ask you "why do you go this way? The other way is quicker and I want to get home I'm starved." You will feel the pressure of their logical thinking pressing on you. If you give in to their logic you will take the ordinary way home even though an inner voice says don't. But lets say you decide to ignore your friend's logic and follow your inner guidance. Then you later learn there was a big traffic pile up on your normal route home and then you see why you were guided to take another way. THAT is also why logic is not safe, it fails us becasue it makes us turn off our inner perception. Thats the somber perspective on it anyway, and good to keep in mind becasue not-doings are ways to open up our perceptional abilities too and this does factor into survival circumstances. Logic really is a flimsy method, and unfortunately we are taught it in school and at home when we are very little so it gets set in pretty good. And such logic is vast and encompassing, pre-prescribed notions about things that are not always the case. Being a sorcerer means operating outside the confines of this.

[watergaze]

LoneWolf wrote: Shifting your a.p. means that you have switched your perception from your original or fixed position to a new position. You cannot think about where the position is physically, you must feel it.


You must feel it and this feeling will get you there again, if you decide to go back afterwards. Feelings are what the body remembers. We have something like a feeling map . Through feelings you can get the best memory recall as well. This goes for real life as well as dream life.



Also there is something like a key in the dream. When you have the key you can get to that spot in the dream and dream from there again. Sometimes I got into the same dream like this even 3 times, or more – for example during times when I was waking up at night and wanted to continue with my dream (one can usually or often just fall asleep again and continue where one left off, but sometimes this is how I do it). This key can be anything. Can be a green ball, a person’s face, but usually it is something that gives you a specific feeling. And that is how this works. It is something special for you in the dream (it got your attention). I think these kinds of keys exist in real life as well. We just need to see them, but I do not yet know what function they could serve (or if they have another function) apart from also remembering the past, of course. For example we could have had a little toy as kids and once we remember how it made us feel we will start remembering other things connected to it. Or we can remember a bag somebody was holding on the street and while focusing on it we start to see the moment, we see the buildings the position of people that we did not even know that we took this all in. It is similar in the dream. If you are good at remembering these keys and their feelings, and have a good memory of the feeling, then you can even go into dreams that are older. This key as I call it can also be called a footprint.

Footprint is also a good name for this because it is as if we retraced our steps if we go to a point in the dream that we have actually passed already. As with the waking up example. I am at point E in some kind of chronology/plot of my dream, having passed A, B, C and D. This is not to say dreams are linear, I am just giving this as an example to show what I mean. So at this point E I wake up. I go to the toilet or whatever, fall back asleep using a key that I had at point D. I dream from point D and get to point G when something wakes me up. I look around and get back to my dream using the same key that worked for me before (because it is strongest or because I have not found another one further up the dream) and find myself again at point D. And again i go through points E, F although they might be slightly or significantly different, we might call them Ea and Fa. And if I wake up again I can fall back asleep again starting from the point D and again I can go with the previous plot or the plot shifts and is different and becomes Eb and Fb. I also used a further point at least in one case that I remember . But often I am just going for the strongest key I feel. Sometimes I even feel the parallel plots so to speak . I feel two actions going on at the same time I feel E,F and Ea, Fa happening parallel, like on two levels/dimensions. (You can imagine this is very hard to note in a dream diary, I usually don't bother ). I can decide to plunge myself into one of these lines more fully and keep the other just like a shadow, or I can just focus on one. Depends how much control of the dream state I have, but I often just go with what is more natural (more effortless), unless something specifically gets my attention and I want to focus on it. These dreams are usually not lucid dreams, I let the plot evolve as it will, but I kind of stalk the dreams anyway and often have a certain form of overlooking consciousness, taking notes and memos .



We can have footprints/keys like this for states that we know, have already experienced and this is how we can get back to them. In order to do this one needs to get pulled by the feeling (key) to that spot.

This is why it easier to get to recent dreams, to dreams that one has a more living feeling for.



Actually the example of the bag is real. I was dreaming and this bag got my attention. I was thinking why would I dream of a bag and then I realized this was a bag somebody was holding as they were passing me on the street in real waking life. I did not really put attention to that bag at that moment, but I remembered it because of the feeling, and it connected stuff. But why would I dream of a bag (was not special in any way, just a plastic bag of some brighter color) , well maybe to help learn this lesson. At one point incidents like this come together and one understands something. This is one thing I started to first do in dreaming and only later realized it applies to real life as well. The bag example is special in this way, I am generally talking about pure dream keys, just found in the dream. The bag was a key but not to get into the dream where I noticed it (or might have been I just was overwhelmed with the real life connection to try any other dreaming then), but to get to my memory of the real bag and the info in general. It was a lesson .



I do not know if this can help anyone really, I think it is the intent of wanting to continue the specific dream that got me to use the keys in the first place and after doing it a couple of times I realized the mechanics behind it. So the intent is surely most important, but sometimes when it is hard to get to the dream this helps. It acts a bit like a gate to that dream.





---(edit)---

some additional thoughts, specifications:

I say intent of wanting to continue helped me, and that is true. But even prior to that the thing that was helping me most to continue dreaming was the fact that I did not loose the dream feeling. I had this feeling from the dream/ of the dream itself (or the dream world) and it could easily pull me back to it (and then continue with other dreams after that). I could sleep forever. Not because I was tired, but because I could dream like this till I wanted. These dream feelings were pretty strong. It had downsides too. I might get to that in a more personal dream thread of mine. Do not want to clog the intent of this thread or lead it astray.

[Nagual LoneWolf]

I love this post Watergaze...excellent ideas, I like the key part especially. One thing I can add, is to intend your dream direction and do it every night for a week. For example: I want to dream of saber tooth tigers. Intend for a week before falling asleep to dream with the big cats. I have dreamed with them before and they are amazing to dream with. They are teachers and will make you a better warrior.

[watergaze]

Nagual LoneWolf wrote:I love this post Watergaze...excellent ideas, I like the key part especially. One thing I can add, is to intend your dream direction and do it every night for a week. For example: I want to dream of saber tooth tigers. Intend for a week before falling asleep to dream with the big cats. I have dreamed with them before and they are amazing to dream with. They are teachers and will make you a better warrior.
I'm glad. It is always good to know that such a long post was not written in vain . That it can find a quiet listener.

Saber tooth tigers you say, hm, like the idea. will try to focus on something like this after I connect to you Ravenfielders (cause that is basically my dreaming intent now) .

I did not try dreaming with a specific animal type before, although I did have tigers maybe three times in my dreams. Two times they were very strong presences, one a learning dream, the other a dream in an alien world and the tiger was my guide/help (this one gave me its name and I went to see it later as well, but I forgot how that went already). I do not that often dream with animals, I mean if I take it in relation to how many dreams I have in general. And I really like the dreams that have animals in them. So this would be something for me to try .

[watergaze]

On a continuing note..



The time in between dream and waking up (but also later) can be used not only to sort and memorize our dreams but, like I said, to re-enter them if we wish. But to take that further... If something was going badly in the dream it is possible to go back and change the dream result. This is a healing practice. You can try it out.



I can give an examples. Somebody is blaming you for something that you did not do and you do not speak up for yourself. You wake up with a bad feeling from not having done anything and just taken the blame. You go back into the dream and change the way you reacted. - this is good for healing the tonal, the way we are programmed to react in certain situations.

Or you may be injured in a dream, so you can go back and un-do it, make it not happen or just heal yourself there. Or you just do not like the ending of the dream, makes you feel bad/sad whatever. You can go in and dream a better ending.



This is connected to using dreaming for what we ultimately want to use it in real life - to (be able to) create our own reality. To create a magical reality. To manifest what we want in real life. So basically in the time before we go into the daily life we can decide to reject a dream. Not consolidate it. Not finalize it in the way that is harmful for us, or not beneficial for us. If you try this you will see the difference, that the feeling of the dream actually changes. And we know that what we feel is reality, in some form at least.

[Mornings Son]

Found this and like to post it to remind myself about this
Don Juan:
 

The sorcerers' explanation of how to select a topic for
dreaming , is that a warrior chooses the topic by
deliberately holding an image in his mind while he shuts off his
internal dialogue. If he is capable of not talking to himself for a
moment and then holds the image or the thought of what he wants in
dreaming , even if only for an instant, then the desired
topic will come to him.

[watergaze]

Mornings Son wrote:Found this and like to post it to remind myself about this
good for us you need to remind yourself, otherwise you'd not have posted it... seems like


Don Juan wrote:The sorcerers' explanation of how to select a topic for

dreaming , is that a warrior chooses the topic by

deliberately holding an image in his mind while he shuts off his

internal dialogue. If he is capable of not talking to himself for a

moment and then holds the image or the thought of what he wants in

dreaming , even if only for an instant, then the desired

topic will come to him.


This is basically what one does with the keys too. Because you hold the image of the key and you are silent, because that is the state of mind naturally when one is close to dreaming. If one wakes up and goes to sleep again the mind is generally more quiet, so if you have this key you just shoot right to it.

I actually found it hard in the morning to talk when I was younger . So dreaming does quiet you down.



Of course the way DJ says it is is great in general, for all sorts of dreaming cases (not just re-entering the dream), I just wanted to point out how it connects to the key stuff I was talking about...

[CRI]

I am planning to try this.I want to be able to keep dreaming the same dream.Everytime I wake up from a dream I have and I want to continue...when I do fall asleep again I just drift away.

[Guest]