Yes I have heard of it before as being a good excersize; the maintainance of awareness into and thru the relaxed states right before sleep...
Perhaps these writings may help.
Dreams
Much instruction can be gained via dreaming. Prospective shamans
may even be identified by virtue of the content of their dreams,
and it is not unusual for people to meet their guides in dreams. We
tend to think of dreams as a very personal aspect of our experience,
so it is sometimes disconcerting when someone that we know
appears in our dreams. In dreams, historical time is abolished,
and distance is no object. We may witness events from the past,
35
future, or alternative presents. Despite appearances, much of our
dream content is controlled by external agencies. If you study
Jung for long enough, you will have “Jungian” dreams. It can be far
more rewarding to develop a personal dream-language, or avoid
any rigid system of interpretation. I tend to find that prolonged
magical activity of any sort will mold the contents of your dreams
accordingly.
During the Shamanic Development Course run by Sheila Broun
and myself in 1987, I had a dream which illustrates this process.
we were preparing for a session on musical improvisation, and I
had spent the afternoon making a set of claves. In the evening, I
sallied forth to the pub and got hideously drunk. I was suprised to
have a very clear dream in which I was approached by two
spirits who said “we are the spirits of your claves, these (below) are
our names which you will burn onto the wood with a hot wire and
give us butter to eat.” Which of course, I did. This made the claves
a bit ‘more’ than just two bits of cut down broom handle.
Dreams are a useful starting point for entering the innerworlds.
It can be useful to induce prophetic dreams, or meetings with
spirits so that you can discuss a particular problem. A friend of
mine who makes incense and perfumes reports that she occasionally
dreams of a unique smell, which on waking, she can then analyse
and manufacture. The magical artist Austin Osman Spare wrote
that he would sometimes awake to find himself standing in front
of a finished picture, having drawn it in his sleep.
If you’re going to get into dream-life seriously then it’s essential
to keep a dream diary. Writing down your dreams helps you
remember them, and is indispensable when you start to evolve
your own dream-language. Here’s some practical exercises:
1) Dream Control
The easiest way to begin this is to choose something that you want
to dream about, and visualise it until you fall asleep. A mantric
sigil is also useful, for example:
36
I WANT TO DREAM OF THE MONKEY SPIRIT
Knock out all repeating letters & compress
I WAN ODREM FHK SPIR
rearrange
NAWI REMOD SPHRIK
Constant repetition of this ‘mantra’ before sleep will eventually
empty the mind of the associated intent, and it will stimulate the
Deep Mind (i.e. the subconscious) to throw up the appropriate
images in dream.
2) Group Dreams
Here, a group of people can attempt to dream of being present,
in each others’ company in a real or imaginary place that all
concerned are familiar with. Again, visualisation and mantra are
useful in attempting this. The first step is to achieve a common
perception of the dream, and then, later on, the group can perform
willed acts. A group of us once attempted this using the M.C.
Escher print, “Relativity”.
3) Lucid Dreams
Lucid dreams are characterised by the fact that in a lucid dream,
you are aware that you are dreaming! Lucid dreams are also much
easier to remember, and you are more able to act with
intentionality, rather than just being a passive participant in the
dreams’ events. One way of inducing lucid dreams is to strive to
see your hands in your dreams, the ‘shock’ of which will allow you
to enter the lucid state. I was once dreaming of my home town, with
everything as it was about 10 years ago; until that is, I looked
down at my feet & realised that I was wearing my goth boots - the
incongruity of which allowed me to enter the lucid state, and, by
projecting a symbol upon a nearby house doorway, I was able to
enter one of the Innerworlds.
It can be rewarding to try and approach dreaming from a nonwestern
point of view, such as that of the Aborigines or the Senoi of
Malaysia. Some anthropologists believe that the Senoi dream
37
psychology is the source of the tranquility of their lives.When first
contacted by Westerners in the 1930’s, the Senoi had had no violent
crime or conflicts within their community for between 200300 years
-Phil Hine; Techniques of Modern Shamanism Volume 1
....
In the great (sort-of)animated movie "Waking Life" these subjects are explored; and it may have mentioned the trials/noticing of light switches and clocks not working as keys/entrances to dream world lucidity.
All readable matter in the above post is ficticious.
Any similarities to real life are purely coincidental.
Without prejudice.
