Hello! I'm new here.
For clarity, I'll use "Dream" (capital D) for The Art of Dreaming practices and "dream" (lowercase d) for regular dreams. English isn't my first language, so there will probably be some errors or unclear parts, let me know so I can clarify if needed!
So, I'm a man and new to Castaneda's work. I've been practicing for about 8 months. Most of this time, I've been practicing not-doings and gazing, such as "the right way of walking"(since I have to walk anyway, why not use it as practice?), gazing at shadows and the sun, and contemplating the distance. My intent is to fill my entire day with practice to achieve inner silence.
During this time, I've had 4 Dreams. They were very short (less than a minute each) and set in places near my house.
The first one was a normal dream until I became sober and remembered to "look at my hands." I did, but I forgot the next step and just stared at my hands until I woke up.
A month later, I had my second and third Dreams back-to-back. In the second one, I was sober right away and proceeded to look at my hands and then at other objects. This was very difficult because everything looked as if I were looking through a kaleidoscope. I kept doing the exercise until I got fascinated by a detail on a pipe, at which point everything turned to noise and I woke up.
I closed my eyes again and immediately entered another Dream. At first, I wasn't sober; two figures were talking to me and laughing. I had the impression they would attack me as soon as I became sober. When I did become sober, the closest figure grabbed me by the neck, and I woke up for good. This was 2 months ago.
Then, 2 days ago, I was practicing darkroom (I'm new to dark room, just for days of pratice). I saw the purple puffs and went to bed. I had a regular dream and woke up in the morning, had breakfast, and went back to bed. This time, I had the most unique Dream so far. I was conscious but had my eyes closed and couldn't move. I remembered a tip to intent rolling out, so I did, and I stood up in a very unnatural way, like a puppet on strings. I couldn't see anything, as if my eyes were still closed. I tried to open them and instantly snapped back to bed, with my eyes still closed. I repeated this process 5 times until my tonal woke up.
6 Comments
Looks like it is indeed possible to do both. Waking dreaming, and sleeping dreaming.
Just keep in mind, men claimed to be practicing sleeping dreaming for 55 years since the books came out, and not a single one was able to make it to the second gate.
Most didn't really make it far at all at the first gate. At the least, you should become a master of changing dreams, and "zooming" over to distant objects.
If you want to make it to the second gate, it's much easier when awake.
You’re buying this? I’ve been practising DR for close to 2yrs. My regular dreams are more vivid, finding my hands happens maybe once a year. In between I’m somewhat irrationally lucid in regular dreams, but there’s no real awareness.
It’s prob only a matter of time before some dude shows up who can actually advance via dreaming, as the women do. I’d maybe buy-in, if he started from darkroom and had control over internal dialogue; the part takes months and years…..
The posts on the Sub seem somehow different lately. Maybe it’s just?
Not really. But all you can do is try to steer people away from it.
And hope that if they keep thinking that's going to work, at the very least they try to make it to the second gate.
Since I found this sub and read about the darkroom, I've been practicing for 4 days. I saw the purple puffs twice, but on the other days, nothing.
Still, I'll continue the practice because it just seems much easier than Dreaming while sleeping. My sleeping Dreams just happened spontaneously, since I've been waiting until I get to The Art of Dreaming book.
My focus was on achieving inner silence. Some days I can get 3 or 4 seconds, but it's very hard, and some days I just can't.
As long as you realize it's only 3 or 4 seconds, you've avoided the #1 problem new people have.
Once in a while you'll read a new person say, "It's easy for me to stop my internal dialogue."
Those are the people who never even got close! And are likely making up their experiences.
But they don't realize how difficult it is, to actually stop your internal dialogue.
I've NEVER fully stopped mine.
Not once.
I know, because the results of completely stopping it are DRASTIC.
Mind blowing...
Fortunately you only have to stop it somewhat, to get to the green zone.
Then you can use the puffs, to stop it a bit more, but still not fully.
And you'll get to the red zone.
It's like that the whole way, where instead of believing you are getting close to stopping it, you realize you never did at all.
You just reduced it enough to let magic bleed through.
I should add that "once in a long while", you'll wake up from being fully asleep, with your assemblage point shifted very far. As a result of darkroom practice.
That's a situation where it's possible you can fully stop it.
And what you see on waking up, is beyond anything you achieved with hard work.
That's one reason the old seers discovered a lot of our magic, by noticing they woke up with their assemblage point in a favorable location.
So they began to exploit that and learn more about why it happened.
Ho praticato i passi magici, e mi sono allenato a fermare il dialogo interiore , è molto difficile fermarlo ma sono riuscito anch'io per qualche minuto. Dopo questi esercizi ho fatto sogni premonitori che si sono avverati il giorno dopo, il silenzio interiore mi ha fatto ottenere la telepatia un paio di volte.