The Second Oneironauticum is Saturday, March 1
In the second Oneironauticum session, we will explore Tibetan Buddhist Dream Yoga. Shakyamuni Buddha taught his followers to consider reality a dream. All phenomena, in waking and dreaming states alike, arises and dissolves around our own impermanent subjectivity. The pracitioner learns to lucid dream and thereby carries waking subjectivity into the dream world, the first step toward understanding that waking and dreaming worlds are merely different states of being in a world forged from thoughtform.
Namkhai Norbu, a Rinpoche in the Dzogchen school, introduced Dream Yoga to the West in the early nineties. We’ll work with a form of the practice taught by Norbu’s student, Tenzin Wangal Ripoche. The practice consists of contemplating experiences as dream phenomena. Throughout the day, consider the way in which you dream your existence. Apply this principle to actions, objects, perceptions: the screen you’re reading is a dream screen, the sounds you hear are dream sounds, you’re angry, but it’s a dream. When you lie down to go to sleep at night, review your day as if remembering a dream. Then, as you drift off, set the intention to become lucid. In the morning, review your dreams with the same sense of reality as you think about waking experiences.
Through this practice, we’ll investigate the nature of dreaming and the reality, or lack of reality, inherent in the relationship between subjective experience of objective phenomena.
We urge remote participation in the Oneironauticum. To participate remotely, follow the practice as described above throughout the day of Saturday March first. That night, when you set your intention to become lucid, add the intention to join us in the dream realm. All dream participants, those who attend the Oneironauticum and those who join remotely, are welcome to post to this blog. Contact us if you’re interested.
Sweet dreams!