The Importance of a Meditative Attitude in the Out-of-Body State

Normally, I meditate every morning for 30-60 minutes, and then in the middle of the night every other day or so. But this past week, I had the flu and so I found it hard to meditate for several days. Not that I didn't try, but my physical condition kept interrupting my progress.

Finally, I felt good enough to get up at 4:00 and meditate for 30 minutes after taking galantamine. I hoped that I could resume my regular out of body adventures, which have often involved apparent journeys to other star systems. To make sure my excursions are not interrupted, I go down the hall to one of our spare bedrooms for the remainder of the night.

I have been able to have a lucid dream/OOBE just about every time if I do everything right--at least 30 minutes of meditation, a sufficiently positive state of mind, and 8 mg of galantamine taken about an hour before my first dream upon returning to bed. On many occasions, I experience a WILD--that is, a "wake-induced lucid dream" without a break in consciousness from waking to dream.

Sure enough I find myself with another man, and I point out to him that we are in a dream. He resists the idea at first, then realizes it is true. I take him by the arm and lift him off the ground to show him that we can fly, and proceed to explore the domain with him. After a while, I decide to leave him and set a course for the stars, which usually means dropping my arms to my side, and orienting myself to a certain part of the eastern sky.

But as I begin to fly upward, it becomes clear that I am losing buoyancy, and I become unable to fly or pass through barriers. Everything is becoming increasingly dense, and I am becoming heavy. The harder I try to counteract the effects of gravity, the heavier I become and the more trapped in form I feel. Suddenly, I know that I need to meditate. So I close my eyes and meditate. Immediately, a brightness fills my closed eyes, and I feel myself floating upward weightlessly. I open my eyes, and find myself with several people, including a woman whom I recognize from somewhere and from whom I feel a timeless, deep love. We continue to visit for a good while in a state of heightened awareness and luminous surroundings.

Meditation is like putting money in a bank. If your account is full, then your experience in the OOBE state will be luminous, refined, subtle and full of love and connection. But if you have been unable to keep your account "full" due to distractions or illness, then you'd be better off not leaving your body, because none of the ineffable properties available to you will manifest in your phenomenal experience. At least that's my experience.

I have heard many people talk about their own lucid dreams and OOBEs, and I've come away thinking that each of us encounters what we have built in our lives. A person who does not meditate will report rather pedestrian OOBEs that mirror the waking state with fair precision. Speaking of the after-death state, Edgar Cayce captured the self-fulfilling, self-mirroring nature of nonphysical reality by once saying, "A dead Presbyterian is a dead Presbyterian." He was saying, I believe, that death alone does not confer any particular release from what we believe, and have built in our lives. In my experience, neither does lucidity/OOBE awareness. I wrote back in the 70s that the so-called OOBE  simply mirrors the observer's own beliefs and paradigm about the world. If one tends to be a "realist," measuring life in empirical terms, then the OOBE state accommodates this believe system by mirroring the physical world, and is often identical (with some variations) to one's waking reality. Does that make the OOBE "true?" Not at all. It's just a mirror of one's paradigm, confirming it in most ways, but often revealing along the edges of the experience a reality that is far greater, and much less ego-centered. It takes meditation, or an attitude of surrender to take us beyond our own reflection in the mirror.

How to Work with Metaphors

My exploration of metaphor construction and analysis through the lens of cocreative dream theory is fairly new, but I have written a paper that I'd like to share with you, titled: Understanding and Working with Dream Metaphors from the Standpoint of Co-Creative Dream Theory. It can be found at my website:

http://dreamanalysistraining.com/offsite/offsite-9/styled-37/page87.html

Let me know what you think about it. I have a feeling that this line of inquiry will continue in my work.

Galantamine Study Results

Hi Friends,

We have just completed a pre-publication draft of our research study, titled "Exploring the Effects of Galantamine Paired with Meditation and Dream Reliving on Recalled Dreams: Toward an Integrated Protocol for Lucid Dream Induction and Nightmare Resolution." It is currently under review by a major journal, so this draft is for personal use only, and not be distributed. I think you will see that the study will probably make a big splash in the dream research community.

Check it out at http://dreamanalysistraining.com/offsite/offsite-11/styled-36/page74.html

A Dream Following a 4 am Meditation

This dream has stayed with me for a few days, and I thought it might stir something within you, too. Dreams are meant for sharing. We are one another, and the "quarries" of our lives are conjoined.

I am driving up or climbing a very steep road, and wonder how I can succeed, since it’s almost a vertical slope. As I reach the top, I’m in a large dark interior space, like a projection room above a theater. A latino man is there, and he shows me around. He feels like a wise man, a guru of sorts. He tells me that in order to help people in psychotherapy that I need to “explore the quarries.” Then I see against a far wall in the darkness, probably 100 feet away, a giant mandala that is lit up, and begins to pulse with light from the center. A woman stands beneath it, holding a white pod-like object, about three feet long, wide in the middle and pointed on both ends. I has a clear circular window in the middle through which I can see white light. She is singing a beautiful song as the light builds within the pod As the light reaches a certain intensity within the pod, she projects it outward. The only word I discern in her song is the word “river.” When I woke up, the tune was on my mind, and I thought to myself, “I’d better record this into my Iphone,” but thought I’d remember it later. Of course, I didn’t!

A Life Changing Discovery

I have studied dreams, and pursued lucid dreaming all of my life. But about 10 years ago, I began having lower back pain about 5 hours into the sleep cycle. Suddenly, I was uncomfortable and restless during the "prime time" for dreaming--from 4 hours until awakening. Consequently, my practice of early morning meditation as a catalyst for lucid dreaming suffered: It was hard to get out of bed, and it was hard to go back to sleep, as well. My lower back pain became chronic about a year ago, and I honestly thought I was going to need surgery before much longer. Then I discovered that the solution was already at hand.

Almost 40 years ago, I purchased a "Ma Roller," a back massage tool that you place on the floor and lie upon. I've used it almost nightly for years without realizing that it would become the breakthrough solution for my lower back. I don't have any commercial interest in this item, so please don't think I'm trying to sell you something. But I am so impressed with the total recovery I experienced using the roller that I thought it could work for others, too.

You might ask, why did it take me so long to realize that the Ma Roller would work? And why wasn't it working all along to prevent the lower back problem? Because I wasn't using it to its full advantage!  I got the clue about how to use it while talking to my brother-in-law, Jim Peabody, who had been to see a physical therapist, who had told him that he could treat his lower back pain by leaning backward against a kitchen table or a similar edge that would force his spine to bend backward rather than forward. I tried that, without much success, but then I thought, "Heck, the Ma Roller can do better than that." So I did what I'd been avoiding for years--lowering my lumbar area fully onto the roller, such that my hips and my shoulders were both touching the floor. It hurt like hell, and it felt like it was making it worse. That's why I'd never allowed my full weight to rest upon the roller. It just didn't feel right. But if you've ever been to a physical therapist, you'll know that they often ask you to do things that hurt, but that actually make the problem better. So I decided to suffer the pain, thinking that maybe it could make the difference.

The next day, there was a dramatic improvement! I didn't have any lower back pain through the day! So I did it again before bed (and it hurt like hell again!), and I went to bed. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN YEARS, I SLEPT FOR OVER 8 HOURS WITHOUT ANY BACK PAIN!

That was four months ago, and since then, I do the same exercise twice a day. My back pain during the day and at night has completely disappeared, and I literally feel ten years younger. Indeed, I'd thought of giving up guiding flyfishers, but now that I feel strong again, I'm planning to give it another couple of years.

If you or anyone you know has lower back pain, please share this with them.  The original Ma Roller is no longer made, but  a company called Earthlite and a few other vendors make the same design, and you can get one for $25-40 on Amazon. I bought a second one recently, just so I could loan it to family and friends. They will last 100 years, so it's the last one you'll need to buy. Of course, run this by your doctor if you have serious back problems, and everyone's different. But I am so thankful that I was willing to suffer the initial discomfort to discover a profoundly effective remedy.