Meditation and Lucid Dreaming

(From Integral Deep Listening and Meditation)

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Mark had just begun studying to become a Practitioner of Integral Deep Listening.  He shared the following life issues.  “No matter how much I work I break even every month!” “I’m going to be a father!”  “I’m going to be a single parent!”

These issues do not, on the surface, look like they have anything to do with meditation.  However, on closer examination, that conclusion seems to be more a result of limits in our understanding of meditation than it has to do with meditation itself.  Consider Mark’s dream:

I am sitting on a hard wood floor.  All around me in this room are cold stone walls going up about thirty feet.  There is no visible light source.  It’s dim.  I am sitting in a meditation posture, meditating.  I see the figure of a man, sinewy, dark face, with pointed, very defined features.  It’s not the face of a man; more the face of a monster!  It scares me!  Then all of a sudden he’s levitating in front of me and he communicates with me!  I instantly realize that this is my guru, my spiritual teacher!  I realize I have nothing to fear!  I realize this entity is going to take me to the ever-loving bliss of God! Slowly I start to levitate with him, but not with my body.  It’s almost as if my essence is coming up!  As it does, I feel this raw ecstatic joy, love, and bliss.  I can’t even describe how it felt!  A feeling of oneness with the universe!  I know I am stepping out of dualism and that my time is up in material creation and that I am starting to merge with the infinite!

Most meditators would like to have an experience like Mark had in this dream.  Many people would like to find the right spiritual teacher or Guru to teach them how to be one with the divine.  Why don’t they?  Well, the fact is, they probably already do; they just don’t know it.

I am referring to the community of self-aspects that are called internal Sangha members in Integral Deep Listening.  A “sangha” is a Pali Buddhist word that refers to a spiritual community.  In Integral Deep Listening, students learn to work with an internal sangha of self-aspects that are advisors in all areas of personal development.  As you learn to do so, you receive the guidance that you need to meditate effectively.

The very fact that this powerfully transformative experience came in a dream tells us that dreams can and do teach us about meditation.  If Mark had not remembered this dream he still would have had it.  That implies that you are most likely having dreams that can and do help you with your spiritual development every night that you do not remember.  How might your life be different if you not only remembered such dream experiences but used Integral Deep Listening to listen to them, understand them, heal your blockages, and identify with those aspects of yourself, like Mark’s Guru, that already are where you want to be in your development?

When Mark imagined that he was the Guru it said,  

I like my face.  I dislike that my face scares him, but he needs to see that which is beneath appearances.  I could have come as anything.  I chose this persona to teach.  I’m here to help Mark reconnect with the infinite.  Self-realization. Mark has desire in his heart and his soul to find the truth.  He has desire to escape limitations that he places on himself.  In his heart he called to me so I have come to him.  I go about levitating because I am one with the universe.  I can be anywhere, anything, at any time.  I can be a man floating in the air!

Notice that spirit was not afraid to scare Mark, if that is what it took to wake him up. Mark might have wanted to change this dream so that say, the Guru wouldn’t scare him or so that he became the Guru or so that all his waking problems were solved.  But this is not what the Guru said when asked.  Instead, he said,

If I could change this dream I would leave it as it is.

I most closely personify Mark’s higher self.  He needs to see his higher self as a monster because that’s how he wants to see me in the moment.  He’s still afraid of the future, he’s still afraid of letting go.  So in his fear he creates a monster!  My greatest strengths are my oneness with everything, my total realization and understanding of the universe.  The reason why I am in this dream is to show Mark that there is hope, that his spiritual development does not have to be done alone and that he is always loved, forever, and that connection is never broken.

Notice that this Guru, which says that it personifies Mark’s potential identity, does not tell Mark things that he does not already know.  Instead, he places emphasis on attitudes, perspectives, and behaviors that represent different priorities.  The shifts can be subtle, but they make all the difference in the world for the speed of Mark’s spiritual development and his future success learning to meditate.

If I were in charge of Mark’s life I wouldn’t change it. He’s doing what he needs to do right now.  He changed some things recently and it was exactly what he needed to do.   Regarding money, his faith in spirit is strong but his patience is weak.  He has little patience.  He is learning to experience and have patience and realize that what he desires will come to him when he needs it to.  He must continue to do what he is doing, having faith and being patient, not letting anxiety overcome his reason.  Let it out, let it go, and give it away! He is going to be a good father, but he knows that.  Regarding being a single father, this situation will take care of itself.  Nothing is needed to do, just to be and to go with it. Mark and Julia learned what they needed to learn.  Now they need to be separate to learn what they need to learn.  Mark already knows that the child is Indigo and that the most important thing he can do is show unconditional love.  He doesn’t yet know how to show it but he’s getting it.

You may be thinking, “But isn’t this just Mark imagining things?  Isn’t this just Mark just telling himself things that he already knows?  What’s so special about that?  Isn’t he just reassuring himself with comfortable expressions that validate who he already thinks that he is?”

Such skepticism is healthy, natural, and necessary.  It is to be encouraged.  That is because Integral Deep Listening as a psychospiritual methodology.  The statements of interviewed self-aspects must be put to the test within the test tube of your own life.  Integral Deep Listening is the catalyst; when the experiment is performed, healing, balancing, and transformation are likely to be the result.

Mark will benefit from identifying with me by realizing that I am always here, that he will grow into me, and we will be one. He just needs to keep smiling and laughing.  Play a little more!  His lower self has been neglected a little.  Follow his heart.   Regarding Integral Deep Listening, it’s a wonderful thing for him to learn.  He will learn higher forms of meditation and self-realization.  His desire to help others will lead him into teaching things that will help them know themselves.

This interview did not solve all of Mark’s problems.  It was not a magic cure.  He still had to do all the heavy lifting and to make the hard decisions of his life.  But it did powerfully influence Mark.  He went forward with his life knowing that he was not alone and that he had powerful sources of inner support and direction that he could access anytime that were natural meditators, even if he was not.  He now knew there were parts of himself that wanted to help him to learn to meditate and to bring spirit more fully into his everyday experience.

Integral Deep Listening teaches you to look at your life from the perspective of your innermost, most sacred potentials.  This is meditative consciousness, and it evolves as you learn to practice deep listening to aspects of yourself, particularly those which score high in six core qualities that personify our highest potentials as humans.  From this experience, Mark learned a number of truths that helped him to understand how to meditate more successfully.  He learned that the Guru he was seeking is within himself, that he avoids spiritual awakening because the seeming unattainability of that state intimidates him.  This is personified by the scary face of the Guru.  Part of Mark intuitively knows that to transform, he must die, and death scares the limited waking self whom we normally think that we are. Mark received a powerful message of love and support and understood better that he needs to look beneath the surface of how things seem to him.

Acceptance is another key message from the Guru: “Let it out, let it go, and give it away!”  Mark gained a deep inner sense that his life is on the right track, that he is headed in the right direction despite his worries about his impending parenthood and financial struggles.

Nov 24, 2009

• Posted by admin
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• Dream, Lucid Dreaming, Meditation

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