Ask the Therapist

Lucid Dreaming

hi thanks for this. i used to have lucid dreaming where i became aware i was dreaming. then i had lots of stress and had hallucinations and heard voices and had terror so was this just my unconscious coming out into my consciousness?

i also went to the doctors and the spiritual church at the same time so the docs say i am bipolar and the spiritual church gave me a message from the other side which said that the spirit was sorry he had scared me and really i just do not know what to believe. i know it is up to me but it seems to me that you can think anything feel anything and that its all just made up anyway. sort of mental illness is like everyone trying to heal themselves of bad feelings so they can feel good.

i do want to believe in god cause it was the only time when i felt better but now i seem to think its made up to make you feel safe. i wish i had never started this thinking malarkey! how can i feel safe and be brave and happy? is everyone mental really and full of fears? fear of dying and of nihilism and fear of being alive and stuff? fear of rejection and abandonment and of pain and of insanity is it there in all of us seeping out in those less strong and being mental ilness. isnt mental illness the norm? is being happy the real insanity?

can you get to a certain stage where you have to stop thinking? when you know yourself you realise you cant know yourself not really a lot of you is hidden and of course you change and there are all different levels of you in there all different ages and stuff.so if you know wot your feelings are and you know that your thoughts are just made up then where do you go from there?

This is more of a metaphysical question than a psychological one. Lucid dreaming is really just a state of deep meditation. It is not a sleep state, although many people consider it such. The technique has been around for centuries and is part of the Tantric Yoga practices and higher Taoist mystic practices. You can even find mention of it Jewish and Christian mystic writings.

All of the questions you are asking are very complicated and pertain to higher meditation practice, as much as they do states of mind and consciousness. There are a few books you should read and see if you might find some answers there. One is How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali by Swami Prabhavananda (Translator), Christopher Isherwood and he talks a lot about how Christian teachings relate to meditation and Dream Yoga (what you are calling lucid dreaming). The other is "Creative Use of Emotion". It's written by Sri Swami Rama (my teacher) and Swami Arjya -- a psychologist.

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