Dreaming and Meditation Continued..

As I mentioned earlier, meditation was one of the main focuses of my studies in Thailand. Before my time there, I had not researched on *how* to meditate, I just had a broad idea of what the term meant and found ways to practice it on my own. Some forms of meditation I found effective included lying down concentration before bed to assist lucid dreaming, and sound therapy meditation through music for relaxation and anxiety reduction. The traditional Buddhist practices were similar in ways, but overall very different in terms of techniques and goals than I had learned on my own.

Thai Buddhists exercise meditation as a pathway to enlightenment and nirvana, but also aim to develop tranquility, insight, and mindfulness. There are many, many different ways of meditating this way. Lying down, sitting, standing, walking, and eating meditation are a handful that we focused on. While studying these techniques, it quickly came to my understanding that non-Buddhists could also benefit from these practices. Meditation in Buddhism is not a prayer. It is finding serenity to suppress outer hindrances such as pain, anxiety, stress, fear, and contempt through which one will gain wisdom and a pure awareness of self. Once the mindfulness is achieved, one can think clearly and gain insight about the hindrances without egoism or bad intentions. I have found this to be the case in my own experiences with meditation, but I have also discovered that what meditation can offer is more extensive than what I have outlined here.

While in Thailand, my group and I participated in a 24 hour meditation retreat. We didn't speak to each other and ate, walked, and slept mindfully for the duration of the retreat. This was the first time I had practiced traditional Thai meditation for longer than 30 minutes. Our experiences there were quite interesting.

Many of us recounted that after meditating for a few hours, we entered a strange state that can be described as on the fence of dreaming and being awake. For me, this experience was entirely different from "dozing off" because while in this state, I was still consciously listening to the sounds around me and could focus on the sensations of my body without being snapped out of it. It is difficult to recount the things I observed while approaching this state because I believe my mind went entirely blank before I became aware again in this bizarre condition. While sitting in the half lotus, I started focusing on the soft colors I could see behind my eye-lids. The discomfort I felt in my legs from sitting so long started to dissipate.  I saw fuzzy shades of purple and turquoise start to move and dance and then shape themselves until I could see imagery. What I observed was predominantly bursting mandalas and geometry, but I also saw colorful silhouettes of people, faces, and random objects such as leaves and flowers. I found these visions to be extremely beautiful. I then felt a soft wave-like sensation wash over me from my legs to head. When the wave reached the top of my head, my eyes started twitching and jutting around very quickly. Perhaps this was because I had fixated too hard on the imagery and I had strained my eyes, however I felt no discomfort and I believe I had somehow induced rapid eye movement similar to what you would observe in the REM sleep cycle. While my eyes were racing around, a large eye appeared that took up the entire span of my sight. Its colors were still cool shades of green, purple, and blue against the black background of my eyelids. It started blinking slowly, and with each blink I felt a pulse that started between my eyes and radiated through my body and even through my fingertips. My sensations started to distort, and I felt as though I was floating inside the walls of my body. It was at this point that I felt entranced and extremely blissful. I felt that I had entered something other-worldly. I was snapped out of the state by the voice of our monk instructor. I believe the whole experience lasted about 8 minutes and I was utterly perplexed by it. This was an experience I believed could only be achieved in sleep or in a substance assisted high.

I found it hard to meditate after this point because I was severely distracted by the strange episode I just had. "How could my eyes have been in REM? Was I really just asleep? No, couldn't be. You can't sense your eyes moving when your asleep. Maybe I was just focusing too hard?" Although this part of the episode is still a mystery to me, it engaged the idea that perhaps I had slipped into a level of consciousness related to lucid dreaming. What I envisioned during the experience was nothing like I have seen in my waking life. And while this was happening, I was still observing the environment around me. It was if I had just muted it.For this essay, I would like to explore different views on the dream-like state in meditation.

The research I have done suggests that I entered hypnagogic state, which is the stage between being awake and being asleep. I was led to something called transcendent meditation. The TM technique is designed to explore the reservoir of energy, creativity, and intelligence of the brain and induces a state of restful alertness. Dr. Steven Rector describes the TM experience, "scientists call what happens during TM practice a fourth state of consciousness, a state of restful alertness, unlike waking, sleeping or dreaming. This fourth state, called Transcendental Consciousness, has it's own physiological style of functioning-slower breath rate, reduced stress hormones, more orderly brainwaves." Advocates of TM say that during this fourth state of consciousness that you are not in a hypnotic state, you are in a heightened state of awareness.

Harry T. Hunt of Brock University, Canada, describes the relationship between lucid dreams and meditation. "Lucid dreams share...especially with meditation, a special sense of clarity, exhilaration, and freedom that comes with emergence of a detached receptive attitude in the midst of our more narrow everyday involvements—whether dreamt or real. Lucid dreams are a spontaneous form of the state of mind sought within the so called "insight" or "mindful-ness" meditative traditions. They transform dreams in the same way that meditation transforms wakefulness." Tibetan Buddhism have recognized lucid dreaming as a form of meditation available in sleep, and have developed its practice. They believe that studying the content in dreams leads to direct insight of the ongoings in waking life. 

Hunt and his colleagues at Brock have found correlations between experienced lucid dreamers and the intensity of response in meditative practices. They also found that experienced waking meditators often experience major alterations of consciousness such as out-of-body experiences. They also found significant correlations between experienced meditators and the degree of lucidity in dreams and the content of psychedelic nature rarely seen in normal dreamers, such as geometric and mandala patterns. They believe that dream lucidity and control develop automatically with practicing long term meditation. 

Based on the studies of hunt and his colleagues, I believe that I achieved a heightened sense of awareness in my experience with dreaming because I have practiced lucid dreaming in the past. Figuring out the direct relationship between the two is something I would like to research further.

"Now there is no getting around the fact that lucidity has to be defined as knowing you dream, but I would still suggest that this is not why we study lucid dreams. We study them be-cause of the valued subjective effects usually (but not always) released by lucidity control. A common underlying cognition between lucid dreams and meditation is implied by the way that meditation gradually extends itself into dreaming as lucidity and by the way that developed lucid dreams become more and more visionary and oriented toward a spiritual interpretation of life." -Harry T. Hunt

Image from Google

Image from Google

Sources:

http://doctorsontm.org/questions-and-answers-on-tm
http://www.sawka.com/spiritwatch/lucidmed.htm

Dreaming and Meditation

Last week, I mentioned that I had an interesting conversation with Pra Chiyan (the monk from WTK) about a dream of mine. I'd like to discuss that in this entry.

When I was fifteen, I became inspired by the work of Stephen LaBerge on sleep and lucid dreaming. I discovered the Lucidity Institute after a google search. My interest was mainly using dream control as a creative outlet, to paint pictures in my own head. I have been practicing techniques for vivid dreams and studying the depths of my own subconscious ever since. Some of these techniques included keeping a journal, sketching imagery seen in the dream, and meditating before I go to bed.

In recent years, I have greatly increased my capability of command in dreams and dream recollection. I have achieved my initial goal of being able to create fantastic imagery in many ways and I am able to recall the visions quite frequently. In addition though, something starting developing that I did not expect. I began to observe a connection between what was going on in my life at the time and the content of the dreams. My desires and fears became more apparent, and I started remembering significant events in my life that I had forgotten. I believed that it gave me a heightened awareness of self. Because of this, I developed a strong spiritual connection with the content of my subconscious mind.  In recent months, I have experienced very strange phenomenon in my dreams that has given me insight on things I could not have known otherwise. I am reluctant to use the word premonitions, but I believe I have perceived things in my sleep that were unusually coincidental with things that later had great significance in my life. Studying depths and limitations of the mind have now become a main focus and goal of mine.

So where does this fit with my studies in Thailand? I wanted a perspective of dreaming from a culture and location completely different from my own. While at Wat Thom Krabok, I was curious if Pra Chiyan had any insight to give me. One dream in particular struck me as very cohesive with the experience I was having in Thailand.

Here is the journal entry which I typed the morning after the dream. I removed some content to protect the anonymity of people that appeared in the dream and excluded things that were irrelevant to the overall theme of this blog entry. I kept the messy composition because it reflects the nature of the dream. I ensure that I maintained its authenticity.


"
October 17th, 2012: THE DEITY

I am somewhere in the ancient middle east or asia inside of a palace. I am in the king's room watching as an army of people are pounding at the palace door trying to break in and overthrow their leader. I realize I am an important figure to this man and that he trusts me. The man in his white gown says "Find the strongest men we have to guard the door." The kings runs down the stairwell into a secret exit I assume. I run down a marble stairwell to the front door. The guards are REMOVING the locks from the door to allow the army to enter and then running down the stairwell after the king. I realize then that everyone inside the palace is also trying to capture and kill the king. I don't know if I am supposed to be protecting him or killing him? I sensed kindness from him and that he trusted me, I feel wrong siding with his enemy. 

Pondering this, I realize the people are about to break in and that since I have decided not to side with the enemy, they will kill me. I hear someone running on the marble floor toward me, so I start running down the flight of stairs, midway the power goes out and it is completely dark. I am at the base of the first flight of stairs and I cannot see anything but I know someone was behind me. I can hear him breathing and standing  in the stairwell with me. I hold my breathe and quietly back into a corner. It takes everything in me not to run. I can tell he is unsure if I am here. He starts feeling the walls trying to find me and an exit. He is getting closer and closer to me. I accept that I am going to die when suddenly something strange lifts me out of the room. It was a pair of arms but not human arms. I am floating in the darkness in the pair of arms and I pass out. 

When I wake up, I am sitting in the marble courtyard after the whole ordeal was over. Many people have gathered here. I feel completely at peace and think that I have woken up from the dream at this point. I have a memory that I wandered back into the now lit stairwell after explaining my story to some people. Someone points to the corner I was standing in before I was lifted from the room and says "Did you even realize where you were??" I look up and see that the room I was hiding in had a giant golden shrine of a deity, and I stood directly underneath it when the attacker came after me. I am completely blown away by this. I then understand that he (the deity) was what lifted me out of the room. I flash back to the courtyard.  I am staring at a rock and am creating reflections and fractal images of purples and oranges on it. My attention gets very distracted by this. Something causes me to turn around. All the people have vanished and I look up to see HIM. The deity didn't look like this crazy gold statue of him, he looked like a humble little monk. The deity was floating there. He was very still, esoteric, and a translucent, shining, flowing blue color. I understood him to be made of an ether-like matter. He was sitting in a meditative position. I am in complete awe as I sit about 25 feet away facing him. He is looking down at his folded hands. He opens his hands and a glowing blue lotus flower blooms from it. The lotus lifts from his hands, and at the same time I lift up and am floating there with him.  I look around as thousands of blue lotus flowers bloom around us and rise into the sky like lanterns. The last thing I remember is lying on my back in the floating air and watching the lotuses drift further away. 

"

While explaining this dream to Pra Chiyan, I left out everything about the king and the details about the war surrounding  the dream. I was more curious about which deity had visited me, (Hindi, Buddhist, Tibetan?) and the significance of the lotus and blue colors. He listened very intently, and when I finished my recount he thought for a moment and then said "this is something you have experienced in a previous life." I was extremely taken back by this first statement. He then said, "I believe that you were a strong warrior in a past life and perhaps a man, I think you have killed many people." How could he have possibly picked up on the war aspect of the dream from the little information about a floating blue man I had given him? I listened very intently as I noticed and studied how other-worldly and wise his eyes were. He explained that the dream was a calling, telling me that I needed to help many people in this life and that I need to recenter myself through meditation and practicing controlling myself and my impulses so that I can achieve this. He said many other things that I'm afraid didn't translate totally, which inhibited my understanding of his interpretation. I asked him what the significance of the blue lotus was, and he responded that blue signifies courage and fighting. Again, I did not reveal to him that there was a central theme of war in the dream, so it struck me as very odd that he perceived this theme of the dream.

Pra Chiyan was so fluid and experienced in his dream interpretation that it begged the question, "how important is the dream experience to you and to Buddhist monks?" He shook his head and said that he sometimes believes his dreams are of significance, but that meditating was the most important outlet to self enlightenment. Although this wasn't the answer that I had hoped for, it has brought up many more questions that I had not weighed previously.

I can attest through my experiences with lucid dreaming that one can achieve a waking connection with the subconscious mind to evaluate and "take notes" on what is happening throughout the experience. I also believe that someone can achieve a greater understanding of themselves this way.
Although Pra Chiyan didn't believe dreaming had as much impact in this aspect as meditation, I believe there is a gray area and that in meditation a similar connection between the conscious and the subconscious can be acquired. This is something that I would like to investigate more in my days left in Thailand and that I will hopefully carry with me when I return to the United States.


Link to Stephen LaBerg's website: www.lucidity.com

Week One

To reiterate what the purpose of this trip is for friends and family reading this, I am taking a 3 week course on the psychology of addiction, Buddhism, and the Golden Triangle. We are here in Thailand because of the history of the drug trade in the area, particularly opium and meth. We are interested in how Buddhism has played a role in the trafficking, treatment, and prohibition of the drugs. The course also includes learning about Buddhism and meditation itself which I enjoy very much. 

The last 8 days abroad have been an exhausting continuum of time separated by departure and arrival rather than night and day.The two day travel period to Bangkok included a 12 hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany. The waiters were mean, the shopping was expensive, and the beer was great. 

Our introduction to Thailand could not have been more chaotic. I was still in my MSP clothes when we got off the plane and were dropped off right in the city by shuttle. My body was shocked in the best way by the tropical heat. The city was very condensed and active getting ready for New Year's Eve the following day. We spent the day in Bangkok on the river and in a beautiful Buddhist temple. We had one wild night in the red light district knocking back shots of Thai whiskey and taking photos with prostitutes and ladyboy strippers. To censor this blog for my family, I won't say anymore about this except that the late night and booze had serious consequences on my body the next morning.

That day we left Bangkok to start our studies and took a bus to a treatment center ran by Buddhist monks. I had little knowledge of Wat Thom Krabok and was expecting something very similar to a religious treatment center in the United States. I wasn't very thrilled in the midst of my extreme hangover about seeing patients locked up in a grey-walled facility with strict schedules and required visits to temples. What I had expected could not have been more wrong! The facility was spread in nature and the patients enjoyed beautiful, intricate temples and enormous buddha statues everywhere along the view of the mountains and endless color of the tropical trees and flowers. They lived a simple and sustainable life by spending a lot of their time outdoors with the monks in what I consider tribal paradise. I was especially in awe of the labor that had gone into creating the statues and temples for this place that can be described better with the photos I took. 

We received an outdoor temple lecture from a monk about self control and the importance of meditation in the path of recovery and life in general. As a very spiritual person, I focused on soaking in the ambiance and raw energy of this enchanted place as he spoke. It made me breathe easier even though I still felt like shit from my night in Bangkok.

He then told us that we were going to watch "the show." We walked over to a courtyard where all the patients were standing waiting for the monks in front of a trench where buckets of water were aligned. I had no idea what was going on, and then another student informed me that we were about to watch them vomit. I knew that part of the detox process here was to vomit once a day for the first 5 days of treatment. I did not realize that they puke right next to each other and I sure as hell didn't think this was something we were going to witness. I felt like the students and I were lining up to watch a freak-show and I thought there was no way that all of the patients were comfortable with this. 

One of the monks then asked in a sarcastic tone if anyone wanted to join them. Even though he was probably joking, two male students from my group stepped up without hesitation. I'm not sure if any outsider has ever participated in this before. I don't know what compelled me to join in with them but a moment later I also walked up to the line of patients kneeling over the trench. Maybe it was because I wanted the patients to know I supported them and appreciated their willingness to do this, or maybe it was because I knew that I was far too nauseated already to watch this without puking myself anyway. I held on to one of my traveling stones for comfort. Someone started pounding on drums and bystanders clapped and chanted. I felt like I was in some kind of crazy tribal ceremony and it gave me a rush of adrenaline. The monks brought us shots of an herbal concoction made up by a woman decades ago that only two people now know the recipe for. I was last and seeing the almost immediate projectile vomit reaction people had from it made me hesitate for a minute before I finally took the "medicine." The stuff looked like swamp mud and tasted like earthy liquid chalk. I was then told to drink water from the bucket until I couldn't anymore. A woman with a soothing voice and english accent could see I was struggling a lot and came up to me to coach me through it. While still clutching my stone, I chugged water until I felt my stomach turn inside out. The puke came in waves and I purged for probably 10 minutes straight with a breath and chug of water in between each one. When I say purge, I mean that vomit sprayed out of my mouth and nose periodically in front of 40-some people until it ran clear. When I felt like I was finished I realized I was the last one. I was really shaky and patients giggled at me when I tried to stand up.

Afterward we gathered around the courtyard and talked with the patients from all over the globe. Several of them came up to me to ask how I was feeling and gave me their support. It took me awhile to recover but when I did I realized that I had nearly rid myself of my hangover. I can now say first hand that I have experience the benefit of this style of treatment. I wondered if the patients feel dramatically better after each vomiting ceremony as well. Either way, the ceremony was one of the most disgusting, ballsy, and coolest things I have ever done. I am communicating with my professor about inquiring on visiting Wat Thom Krabok again. I would love to stay and volunteer my time there to learn more about these people and their way of life. 

I had a talk with the same monk that gave us the lecture earlier that day about a really crazy dream I had about a deity. His interpretation was very interesting and the background and explanation on this is very lengthly, so I will post more on this later.

I haven't even skidded the surface of all the amazing things I have discovered here. I am currently in Chiang Mai which is my favorite city we have seen so far. We have seen several *amazing* temples and have meditated at temple ruins. I am thinking about tattooing some of the art I have seen on me from these temples. The food is incredible and I have been in shopping heaven. I still cannot describe my obsession with nature here. I have been observing the veins and leaves of every flower and fruit I have the chance to take a closer look at. 

We still have 2 weeks abroad and I will be updating this hopefully more frequently.

Until then,

-T

Vomiting Ceremony (From Google)

Wat Thom Krabok. Photo by me

Wat Thom Krabok. Photo by me

Myself, photo by Mia Muscatell