2017-05-01
[Dream of the day:]
"Last of the Unchosen"
At an outdoor children's party at a farmhouse, bright sunny day, a large bush full of large flowers like zinnias of many colors appears as a gift to the celebrant and a game begins quickly and without warning in which all the children including me rush to pull a flower off and then stand still and wait for someone to want their flower and receive it from them, along with companionship apparently, as the children all disappear as quickly as they snatch flowers. Which happens literally all in speeded up motion complete with speeded up sound effects and then it all screeches to a halt and I'm standing there holding my PINK flower, all but the last of the unchosen.
Rather than prolong my torture, I dejectedly pitch my flower to the ground, making sure certain members of my nuclear family observe this gesture of mortifying self-pity and guilt tripping. This act plunges me into hopeless despair, the more so because I made sure it was witnessed.
A smallish, roundish black policewoman [the Dream Usher] is driving me to the DMV saying she's happy to do it, although my purpose actually, secretly involves a DESIRABLE PLACE I want to find. DMV was just a ruse on my part to get a ride. It's dark when she drops me off at DMV and I WONDER why she didn't NOTICE the place was closed. I head off on foot TRYING TO REMEMBER where I wanted to get to, with snatches of images of a SUNNY FARMHOUSE flitting through my mind.
[This Big Dream defines my current dry spell if not a main focus of my rotten ego identity. The rotten attitude and comparing myself to others causes me to overlook the unemotional fact that the PINK flower was put there to make me lucid. This is a graphic demonstration in living color of the notion that our self-importance steals our opportunities to get unworlded. The emotional outburst of the first scene sent me back into the Tunnel with memories of a sunny farmhouse but all is dark and the memory quickly fades of what it is I wanted: a place--the Urumara. Enthusiasm has to be built up by taking action and conserved for fulfilling the Intent Agenda, not wasted on frivolous stuff and not allowed to become obsession, which is just a gigantic energy leak. Waiting till nighttime to have unworlding experiences is a big part of what's been wrong with my practice lately.]
4:10-6:05 pm
[Daytime practice, finally doing it instead of just talking about it. Lying down to unworld in main bed. The bedroom is in the upstairs apartment which is one big room without walls, and I was soon joined upstairs by three children doing a project. I practiced one of my favorite techniques: listening to all the sounds around me and letting the sounds put me deeper into the desired state. "There is no such thing as a distraction." This is practice #V: Veraspect (I create my reality) and Vac-U-Move (not moving a muscle will cause the dream bodies to move) and #N: Nubberzuck (I want what I have.)]
[I practiced #1 and #9 from my core technique, the Nine Frawmbickly Acts or 1BCAVNMB9 by visualizing over and over the Dream of the Day (Practice #1) and by watching carefully for the illogical thoughts to start which would signal that I was "about to fall asleep, so Pay Attention". This worked once or twice. This technique (Practice #9) is called Denormopia because it is a new, Frawmbickly way of seeing instead of the Frumbessly way of ignoring anything out of the ordinary. The daytime practice usually involves #A: Awakenings; and there was a great one today, it got me a little too excited and after that I had a harder time with #B: Blaffinveigle, but when I did manage to stop the internal dialog, Noticings quickly appeared. I practiced #M: Metsuke in which I tried to hear, see, and feel at the same time instead of paying too much attention to any one thing, and in which I would feel several things at once, see a whole visual field instead of focusing on some small detail, etc.]
[Before and after the two-hour session I did Breathwalking sessions in which I practiced #B: Breath of Flight.]
[Due to an unusual amount of enthusiasm I was able to incorporate the noises in my environment--I live in a noisy rural village in the Philippines--including children playing in the same room, motorcycles, goats, dogs, etc. I just listen to all sounds and call that the Sound Current which creates the world, none of it is considered a distraction. I also have had a sore throat for four days and had to swallow more than usual, had to cough, etc. But I was able to ignore the Itchies and they easily went away twice. I do this not by resisting the Itchies--which for me turns them into the Ouchies, and I'm not exaggerating. To get rid of an itch without moving, just imagine a pretend itch somewhere else and put all your attention on it. This takes advantage of the human ability to forget important things quickly.]
[The single Awakening I recall was when I found myself...]
[AWK] ...more-or-less non-lucidly looking at something more or less beastlike outside the house, close to where I'm lying in bed. This beast is sitting on the ground pointing its toothy, droolish mouth up into the sky. I turn to look that direction and go WHOOSH, up into the Nowhere. It's a typical black void with dots of light and a cloudy, nebulous formation in the center of the screen [the Nowhere].
[This was a physical and real sensation and experience, not a "dream" and not a Noticing but what I used to call NLOBE (non-lucid OBE) but now call an Awakening. It would not qualify as what I used to call an LS (Little Sleep) since I did not transition into sleep as such, as I was not even vaguely sleepy, but fully alert. Technically I guess I did lapse into sleep for just a second, but not due to being sleepy. I was just able to shut off the internal dialog long enough while Continuously Paying Attention, such that I had a great experience which gives me confidence that more will be happening soon.]
[Let's hear it for Daytime Practices. To heck with working in my sleep. Maybe I'll keep having lucid dreams at night, I hope so, but my new focus is to loosen my obsessive grip on that hope and instead place hope in daytime efforts to consciously unworld one step at a time, like walking across the room without falling asleep. Exactly like that.]
8:45 pm
[Going to bed for another try at motionless meditation designed to induce motion of the dream bodies (Vac-U-Move). Will go to sleep in an hour or two probably.]
2017-05-02 1:45-3:10 am
[Meditated on upstairs terrace balcony. The whole time I woke myself up over and over, enjoying this instead of resisting sleep. This is what I wanted to be doing: hanging out near the Urumara. Finally at the end, I remembered a tiny snatch of dream from earlier in the night besides the odd feeling of a large shiny chrome surface, but I can't recall what that represented. I've been incubating a dream scene in which I pick up the pink flower that I pitched on the ground in last night's dream and hold it in my hand and turn it into my star rose quartz crystal ball.]
5:00 am
[Woke up too excited to go back to sleep. I had a lucid dream, plus Chained back into another awesome dream, and from both of these dreams I Chained back in. Actually became lucid in both dreams but the second time it woke me up. Also experienced CRACKS IN THE NOWHERE [the Urumara] in both dreams, as well as Chained the Dream Usher persona (kindly policewoman) from last night's dream. Also in both dreams a voice announced in exact words a title or theme for each dream as it ended. All this felt totally natural due to the fact that I had managed to enjoyfully return to daytime practices and performed Blaffinveigle sessions which were enjoyfully done as well. In other words, I was aware of being in the Magical Mindset spontaneously so it was only natural, not a bit surprising, that I had a lucid unworlding.]
"We'll be Buying CHAOS from John Broom"
I'm mentally [in the Tunnel] dealing with my money, and getting paid, when the dream materializes into visuals and starts flitting from scene to scene. I'm wearing a MAROON windbreaker and I'm SURPRISED to find my wallet floating loose in the open right pocket, and also surprised it didn't fall out. Then I remember I was supposed to get paid and then I experience receiving a paycheck in the mail some time back. Then I'm in the big GROCERY STORE [which I always ID as the chain Safeway since it was what I grew up with], standing at a stationary table that's been put there for customers to fill out paperwork, like what you'd see in a bank. The check, which I know will be for $195, is printed on thick WHITE AND GREEN paper and is long and narrow. I worry about putting my wallet down on the table, think about pinning it down with my arm, but don't want the other people at the table to think I DON'T TRUST THEM [typical fear of the Dream Usher a.k.a. the Nowhere].
I'm sitting on a NARROW WHITE DUSTY ROAD [Chained content from last scene re: paycheck's shape; also the large chalky whitish greenish areas both represent the Nowhere, the door to anywhere]. It's dark and I'm confused. I'm scared, because of the steep drop off on both sides of the narrow road, which is a high ridge only about six feet wide. I am surrounded by a blacker-than-black sky [the Nowhere]. I look along the edge of the narrow road [the Tunnel], and this is the last straw: from my black-and-white, cold, scary world, through a gap less than a foot wide running along the edges of the road, I can see down into a brightly-lit world which is absolutely somewhere else than the world where I am. I am afraid of sliding through the gap [the Urumara] and falling into the other world [the Unworld]. I cry out in a plaintive voice, "I DON'T KNOW HOW I GOT HERE!" [This will be at least the second time that a thought of this nature has triggered lucidity for me.]
I'm hurrying through a well-lit carpeted hallway, down short flights of carpeted STAIRS. [I'm going backwards through the Tunnel, trying to escape the Urumara. Carpeted areas represent the Nowhere.] The corridor turns LEFT or RIGHT after each flight of stairs and there are junctions also, so at each flight there are four choices of which way to go. I wind around and around, down the stairs [backward in the Tunnel] when suddenly I become brave and change my mind. I turn around and start running up the stairs, remembering each twist and turn of the way that I just came. I become more and more euphoric and excited with each flight of stairs.
I make a split decision to be bold and take a turn into an unknown corridor instead of taking more stairs. Then I'm on a straightaway, and hurrying with extreme excitement. I see on my right, out of my peripheral vision, a brightly-lit room which I know is the Library, and almost stop to go in, but end up bypassing it without breaking stride, deciding it's just something I've done before.
Upon making this decision, my excitement increases even more, as I become more and more aware of who I am and more and more aware that I am about to arrive at a long-awaited destination or long-coveted goal. [I never said to myself, "I'm dreaming," but I was lucid nonetheless. The lucidity came on gradually, STEP BY STEP, so no such striking realization was made. The building euphoria was incredible though.]
I pick up speed as I see my destination: a brightly-lit conference room which I can see through the OPEN DOOR ahead and to the right [the Urumara]. I know it's a conference room because I can see a long, WHITE conference table [the Nowhere]. I CAN'T WAIT TO FIND OUT WHAT'S IN THERE. Finally I reach the door and burst through the open doorway. The head of the table is finally visible, and she's the only person in the room: my mom! She smiles beatifically and stands up to meet me. I fly into the air and grab her by the head and go blind with delirium in a WHITE VOID, my mouth gaping open as I float over her, anchored to her. My mouth is frozen open with emotion [sleep paralysis.]
[Due to the excitement I woke up in bed but was aware that I was in the Nowhere, with "waking up in bed" being only an optional interpretation of being in the Nowhere. I had managed to remain motionless with eyes closed, so I quickly decided to Chain back into the dream, got my emotions under control, got my mouth closed since it was gaping open on the pillow, and imagined the Dream of the Day offshoot I'd been incubating. From seeing the star rose quartz bauble, I found myself back in a WHITE room, sitting on a STEP. Not lucid as such but this was still a vivid scene:]
I'm guzzling a good, bitter, cold beer and playing with the bottle. Another beer appears. [The shiny glass texture was the Chained quartz.] A radio is on somewhere, and I hear the voice of ART BELL [radio talk show host representing otherworldly stuff in general] say these exact words, "We'll be buying our CHAOS from John Broom." With a lot of woo-woo emphasis on the word "chaos".
[I wake up again, remain motionless, and Chain back in.]
"I Tried the Other Way and It's Bullshit"
I'm Limberluck [my 8ness dream body, the 7th overtone of awareness, the crown chakra] and I'm DOWNTOWN [the scene of a recent unworlding] and as usual I'm relaxed and enjoying myself. I'm working on one of my NOTEBOOKS at a TRANSPARENT OR WHITE table in a transparent open structure similar to a bus stop shelter on a very wide sidewalk close to the curb. A cute little WHITE paddy wagon has been loaded with criminals or vagrants and it's getting ready to drive away, when I WONDER whether I, being homeless, am in any danger of being carted away with the other vagrants. I'm not that worried about it, but as if in response to my little worry, the paddy wagon stops and a tall policewoman [the Dream Usher, Chained from last night's dream where he/she was also a policewoman] gets out and heads my way.
I happen to have a scholarly sociological journal right there on the table. It's smallish, WHITE with black letters, and in a TRANSPARENT plastic envelope that snaps shut. The article titles on the front cover of the journal are in big black bold letters that can easily be read from several feet away, and since one of the two titles is something about police brutality, I place the journal in clear sight so the policewoman will see it and be warned without having reason to feel that I'm being contrary or daring her to mess with me. She can get the message indirectly or at least not take it personally.
As she approaches, I consider whether I really want to sleep in this bus stop shelter or not, so in order to forestall any possible arrestings, I devise a plan quickly. It doesn't quite seem necessary because she is smiling and friendly, seems like she wants to be helpful. But I go ahead with my plan just in case she might be feeling me out as to whether I am the vagrant that, of course, I am. I ask her if she knows how to get to the Motel, and we both know which one I'm talking about--the one where homeless people go when they get a little money. [Limberluck always has a little money and never minds spending it.]
The tall policewoman is extremely friendly and helpful, and using one of my notebooks she draws a map to the Motel (see illustration). She draws five roads parallel to each other, connects four of them as two pairs [fourness] to indicate that these roads just lead in circles [the whirlpool of fourness where most of humanity is currently imprisoned]. She tells me that the fifth road [fiveness, the Dream Usher] circles around and then leads out of the area so that I can take it to get to the Motel. She hems and haws about the probable address, writing the number 9 on the map, then the number 5 [Chained from the paycheck amount $195 in above dream], then she corrects herself, saying the 5 is really a 4, and in front of my eyes the 5 CHANGES to a 4.
Having happily done her civic duty by helping me in a friendly way, she gets in the paddy wagon and leaves. As the scene fades, I say to an unseen companion [SC--my remote mind a.k.a. my various dream bodies], "I tried the other way, and it's bullshit." [The other way being resistance.]
[I wake up in the Nowhere, eyes closed in bed. I still haven't moved, thanks to all the Vac-U-Move practice I've been getting recently, so I decide to Chain back in again. Again I imagine the Dream of the Day, the pink flower which I pick up off the ground and change into a rose quartz globe.]
I'm back DOWNTOWN on a wide, relaxed sidewalk, and something under a bench has attracted my attention. I look carefully at close range and under the bench is another crack between the worlds [see above re: the white road] and I am jolted to lucidity as I realize that the lush foliage I am looking at, two feet from my face, is in another world entirely.
[I wake up in the Nowhere, eyes closed in bed. Too excited to focus again, I go over the details for about half an hour and get up at 5:30 to start my day. I should mention that conquering oversleep is another reason things started going my way. The tendency to sleep ten to twelve hours in an attempt to force lucid dreams to happen is a good way to generate a dry spell in waking as well as in sleeping.]
9:30 am
[I have some things to say about this unworlding, and this two-day sequence of Chainings will also be included as chapter 19 of my Milestone Journal. This dry spell seemed really long, but a lot has been going on including my 61st birthday, a trip to the mountains--a first for my 10-year-old son--and other things listed above. I had been getting forlorn about the end of the streak of frequent unworldings I had recently, but now I see that it's only been a 3-week dry spell, which isn't that bad, especially considering I had the longest flying dream of my life halfway through it, even though that dream wasn't lucid.]
[The reason that this dry spell ended today is obvious to me. I got my give-a-shitter re-engaged and put the practice back into high gear. I stopped ignoring the #A practice of the Nine Frawmbickly Acts or 1BCAVNMB9: Awakenings. I reinvigorated my interest in Vac-U-Move and middle-of-the-night Blaffinveigle sessions after seeing UTube videos by Shinzen Young in which he discusses motionless meditation and all night sitting. Both of which I have put into practice.]
[I have to reiterate that the Magical Mindset is no "Maybe I'll get unworlded tonight." You will get unworlded when you are in the Magical Mindset. But you can't assault the Magical Mindset directly by laying siege to it, so I won't jinx myself by saying what will happen in tonight's dreams later on. All I know is that I knew I needed to get back to daytime practices--Awakenings, which I've been avoiding for a long time--and I knew this would turn everything around.]
[Vac-U-Move, if undertaken with enthusiasm, is a huge benefit to the practice. It rubs off on the likelihood that I will remain still with my eyes closed upon waking in the Nowhere. It reminds me to do Noticing sessions which I'd also been avoiding, as well as Climbing the Beanstalk, all of which I did in my daytime and bedtime sessions yesterday.]
[Dream of the Day for tomorrow is the scene where the policewoman draws me a map to the Motel.]
[The Dream Usher has gone out of his/its/her/my way to appear to me two nights in a row as a kindly, overtly helpful policewoman. This means I am approaching the Urumara with less suspicion. Usually when I see the Dream Usher I go into fight-or-flight mode.]
[Chaining is a top priority topic. It boils down to threeness, associating one thing with another, which is how memory works. And becoming lucid in a dream is all about memory.]
[The fact that I spent so much time doing practices yesterday is not what broke my dry spell. The fact that I got in rhythm with myself in doing these practices, so that I effortlessly enjoyed doing them, so that I didn't want to stop doing them, that's what broke the dry spell. Not the doing but the feeling of doing.]