I would like to share with you all something I read in Stephen LaBerge’s book Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming. It is copyrighted, but I don’t think it will matter sharing it here. This idea has probably been shifted around from time to time, but I like the way he explains it best of all. It quotes…
"For beginning lucid dreamers the most relevant Tibetan technique is called ‘comprehending it by the power of resolution,’ which consists of ‘resolving to maintain unbroken continuity of consciousness’ throughout both the waking and dream states. It involves both a day and night practice.
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Day practice
During the day, ‘under all conditions’ think continuously that ‘all things are the substance of dreams’ (that is, that your experience is a construction of your mind) and resolve that you will realize their true nature. -
Night Practice
At night, when about to go to sleep, ‘firmly resolve’ that you will comprehend the dream state – that is, realize that it is not real, but a dream. (Optional excercise: Pray to your guru that you will be able to comprehend the dream state. This option will probably need to be modified for most people. If you have a guru, go ahead and pray. If you do not have a guru but do pray, then pray as usual. You can substitute a symbolic figure associated in your mind with lucid dreaming. If you neither pray nor have a guru, either skip the instruction or ask help from the wisest part of yourself.)
Commentary
Because we dream of things that have concerned us recently, it is likely that if you spend enough time thinking during the day ‘everything is of the substance of dreams,’ then eventually you will entertain that thought while you are dreaming."
I like this because it makes me think, we experience the world through our 5 senses, and they are very limited themselves. Just because we see an apple doesn’t mean that’s what it really is. And how do I know it will still be there if I turn my back around. How do I know it doesn’t just disappear, after all I can’t see it to prove it is there. It works on the same logic that everything we experience from the world around us is put together in the darkness of our heads. That is mind blowing! And that leaves me to another quote, though long, but I feel everyone must hear this. Too bad I can’t remember where I read it…
“The brain is biology’s greatest challenge. Perhaps in a sense it is the greatest challenge for science as a whole, beyond moon landings, the ultimate particles of the physicist and the depths of astronomical space. The engineering of a space shot or of a giant particle accelerator or radio telescope, the mathematics to analyze the results, the vision to design or ask the question in the first instance, are all the products of a human society ~ a society itself made possible only when humans had evolved to be humans ~ to possess that key feature that distinguishes them from animals, the human brain. There are 3,000,000,000 - odd human brains in the world today; each is two fistfuls of pink-grey tissue, wrinkled like a wal-nut and something of the consistency of porridge, and can store more information than all the computers and libraries of the world can hold.”
