Aware dream state during meditation

[MorgusHroud]

Good day shamanic people.

 

So I have this thing that keeps happening during my meditations (it became more of dreaming now than a meditation), where my body will go complete sleep mode with my hands becoming heavy as a stone, being unable to keep my head straight as my neck will also get sleepy, all that regular sleeping stuff. After my body shuts down, I will enter some sort of dream state where I will be very aware of my body being shut down, and keeping myself on conscious level. In this dream state I experience dreams that feels very different from my regular dreams. For example I will see through others eyes, it feels like I am in different body, cant take any action in that moment, but seeing things they see. Those dreams aren't very long, usually they are short like glimpses and some are blurry and others are pretty dark, like watching something in night time.

So I was wondering what this thing is. I read somewhere that this thing is similar to astral projection. I wouldn't call it lucid dreaming cause it feels very different from that.

I would appreciate if someone could explain this thing, or maybe someone have similar experience and have some thoughts on it.

Thank you and may the spirits be with you.

Edited July 31, 2016 by MorgusHroud

[Karl]

It sounds to me like a very deep meditative trance almost. Meditation is sort of a spectrum, more than a single thing. You can take it a lot of different places.

 

The question, as far as shamanism is concerned, is how useful it is - in some ways, with meditation you're exploring your consciousness. It's a bit like exploring more of a dream state, would be my interpretation, but without shifting into dreaming so much.

[KAF]

I have something similar happen to me at times while I am asleep and "dreaming " but fully conscious. I do not see things through other's eyes but what I do see is usually very vivid, and I sometimes bounce from one place to another as if I am traveling to see different things. I myself often refer to it as traveling while I do believe it to be a form of astral projection/ lucid dreaming. A few times I have had a person ask me the next day if I was dreaming the previous night because I had popped into their dreams for a brief moment. And when I tell them that I was dreaming they just respond with an " I thought so" but this is usually only people I know fairly well.

[MorgusHroud]

I think my experience is a little linked to astral projections. During those dreams I cant understand a word I am hearing even though I can hear voices clearly. The same thing happened during my unexpected astral projection where I could't understand a word my parents were saying in other room, even though I heard them very clearly. Aside that, I cant find any more links to astral projection in my dreams.
Different from KAF experiences, I don't feel like those people are from this lifetime i am experiencing now, I don't fell like i have ever met them or know them in this lifetime, but some of them feels somehow connected to me. There was one experience in particular where i felt close connection with the man I inhabited through the dream. After the dream It felt like I knew hes age and mood at that moment. He was very downtrodden or laden for some reason.

Could it be glimpses from my past lifetimes maybe?

[Moonshadow]

Hi KAF,

 

Here's a distinction that might help. When you are asleep, your awareness slips into your dreaming energy and dreaming body. For most people it is difficult to be fully conscious during this sleep dreaming, but extreme clarity and movement is possible for many who have fluid dreaming energy. One thing possible to learn is how to develop control over your dreaming energy, so that when you wake up in your dreams you can move on the dreaming side and create at will.

 

Mandy

[KAF]

I am able to do that now for many years, I taught myself how back when I had nightmares so that I could effect the outcome of the dream. Since I learned how to do this my nightmares seemed to end and now I have what I call fairly normal dreams with the exception of those that are more vivid and detailed then the others.

[Moonshadow]

Hi MorgusHroud,

 

You said "Could it be glimpses from my past lifetimes maybe?" It could be. It could also be your connection to other people from other times or in the world now. In the end we are all connected, to each other, in the now, across the span of time, and if you practice moving your awareness a lot and intend to move and see, you will see a lot, from this world, from other worlds. The question is, to what ends are your traveling? You can actually learn to do this consciously, by your own intent, to go specific places, journey to specific times, see specific things or people. Imagine you exercised more and more control over this, MorgusHroud, and could see for yourself who it is you're connecting with. A thread of another person you inherited from another life? Someone else entirely that you intended to go and look at?

 

It's a big universe out there, lots of adventures. In this tradition we practice something called awake dreaming, which isn't astral journeying, but a little more focused and deliberate. While awake we use our dreaming energy to move our awareness intentionally anywhere, to anyone, in place and time. It's a lot of fun, but we do it not just for kicks but to learn, to experience, to heal others.

 

 

Mandy

[Moonshadow]

Hi KAF,

 

Just pulled back to this thread to tell you, you know nightmares aren't necessarily a bad thing. They scare our minds, sure, but fear is a reaction our minds have to the unknown, in this case the dreaming landscape and dreaming energy. They are very very real, but threaten the mind because they are outside the realm of the mind's reason. Tell you a secret? Nightmares are usually a sign that that your energy is connecting dreaming energy with the energy of this world we are in. It can make the mind freak out and translate the experience as a nightmare, but shamans see this event as a very good thing

 

Next time you have a nightmare, when you are awake, try to look behind the fear and scary narrative. Remember the feelings you had in the dream: sometimes they hold a very personal message for you too about something you need to see about your life, so you can examine it and understand its significance.

 

Mandy