(Part 3) Top products from r/LucidDreaming

> I am a Vaisnava Brahmin myself, everyone in my family is religious, except they don't really know what our religion talks about.

I can identify with this to some extent. My wife's family is Brahmin Hindu (albeit more followers of Ganesh) and despite having a large shrine, gathering for pujas and bhajans, and turning their noses up on "lower" castes, they are largely ignorant of the lessons and content of the Vedas and Bhagavad Gita. I've noticed that in today's world - at least among the diaspora Indian population in the U.S. - "Hinduism" is often more of a cultural identity, tradition, and way to unite a community for events. Many know a few folkloric tales, some procedures for ceremonies, basic conceptual framework of the religion - but few actually walk the path, few practice meditation, few have studied the Upanishads or Gita and appreciated the messages of mysticism contained therein. This is even more true for second generation Indian-Americans. That said, the same could be said for almost any religious group; you can't tell me that every Methodist Protestant can recite the book of Luke or Jesus's Sermon on the Mount.

>I wish I could actually understand sanskrit(the language the scripts are written) so I could have my own perception of the scripts rather than translations.

I recommend these translations of Sankaracharya's 6th-7th century commentary of the Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads. These do a rough breakdown of the words, gives an idea of how the Sanskrit breaks down, and gives a pretty true representation of one of the oldest translations from Sanskrit into vernacular tongues.

If interested, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Sri Swami Satchidananda are great as well. They give the original the Sanskrit, the direct transliteration, a translation into coherent English, and then a commentary. However, this book is more an instruction manual on yoga practice (unitive and meditative exercises and broader lifestyle, not American stretch class); though still a great read for someone looking for a practical approach to mysticism.

This is a very good video introduction to Stoicism.

The main ancient Stoic books that have survived are Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, Epictetus's Discourses and Enchiridion, which is basically a summary of the Discourses, and Seneca's Letters to Lucilius and Essays. All these editions are relatively new translations and, in Seneca's case, abridged, but they will give you an idea of what Stoicism is about. I suggest you first read the Enchiridion (it is no longer than 40 pages) and then the Meditations (around 150-200 pages), and then dig deeper if you get interested.

There are other ancient sources, and quite a lot of modern work is being done currently, but those are the ones I suggest you begin with.

Then there are very active modern Stoic communities, like /r/Stoicism, the Facebook group, and NewStoa, with its College of Stoic Philosophers, that lets you take a very good four month long course by email.

The great thing about Stoicism as a way of life is that it has neither the blind dogmatism of organized religion nor the ardent skepticism of atheism. It puts the soul back in the universe, in a way, and, on the personal level, empowers you to take responsibility for your actions and to take it easy with what you cannot control.

Hey, /u/OsakaWilson! Hope you are well.

The best approach you can find toward the subject is Carl Jung's writings. I am almost positive. It is analytical psychology, so it is a bit more of a stretch with the mind, but you will find what you are looking for, I bet. His works on dreams are compiled and fairly easy to find: Dreams by Carl Jung. I will dig up what I can on nightmares for you. He analyzed dreams of his patients and helped work them through it. Nightmares are discussed, but I'm not sure there's a step-by-step guide... rather a good method that he used to help rid others that you could learn from.

> We are not talking about a starting earth, but a starting universe.

Well, Universe Prime, Earth Prime, the idea behind my reflection is the same.


> "Could" - so none of them did


We don't know anything about that.


> 1+1=2 no matter how many times you try to redo it.


I beg to differ. There are way too many variables for us the reduce the universe to a flip of a coin. It's not a switch, it's not binary, it's beyound us. Hell, we don't even know how big our universe really is, how could we know for sure how it started and how everything would play out if we started all over again?


I'm sorry, but I just don't see how you can be so sure about this when everything is just speculation. Don't get me wrong, I respect your opinion, but it seems really too simplistic, too "black or white" to be practicable.


It reminds me of a book I've read a long time ago... Lemme remember... Improbable, by Adam Fawer. It's not about parallel universes, but about everyday probabilities. There're so many things happening everywhere, so many things that could change in the blink of an eye...


Anyway, let's agree to disagree ;-) And check this book out if you find its synopsis interesting, it's a good read! And now I better go to bed because it's already 1AM here... Dammit.


See you around!

Yes. Sounds like you are giving yourself a hard time about everything, and this is crossing over. Be compassionate and forgiving to yourself, firstly! :-) And, the magic: try to give up your thinking habit. Not, suppress all thoughts - passing thoughts are fine - just stop deliberately thinking. Whenever you find yourself doing that, go do something constructive instead.

Lucid dreams are a cool way to explore yourself and unfold things, but they also reflect your emotions back at you. Meditation and relaxation daily will work wonders.

I would imagine it to be possible. Though I think I would recommend using self-hypnosis and getting this book https://www.amazon.com/Coping-Trauma-Related-Dissociation-Interpersonal-Neurobiology/dp/039370646X
which has a lot of useful skills for managing things.

Edit: not a doctor/counselor, just a dude who lives with a multiple :)

Read the sidebar, journal, read all you can on dreaming. I personally recommend getting a copy of Conscious Dreaming by Robert Moss. This book changed my perception of dreaming. Its more than a guide on dreaming. Stay hydrated, and take life as it comes. Listen to lifes messages.
https://www.amazon.com/Conscious-Dreaming-Spiritual-Path-Everyday/dp/051788710X

..and for some reason I feel the need to tell you to check out the podcast "Welcome to Nightvale". Start with the Pilot.

Anyways, Deam Adventurously!

I would be happy to.

https://augtellez.wordpress.com/2016/10/22/the-nature-of-dreaming/

http://www.astralpulse.com/frankkepple.html

https://www.amazon.com/Far-Journeys-Robert-Monroe/dp/0385231822/

1. Everything is a dream
   
2. Everything is real
   
   The biggest mistake you can make is deciding one of these is truer than the other.

I have fond memories of this book - maybe it might help?

Stephen LaBerge touches on this subject in his 1990 book Lucid Dreaming. Here he talks about an experiment where two subjects, one male and one female, tried to orgasm in a lucid dream.
>One significant gender-related difference may be that while Miranda experienced vaginal muscle contractions during lucid dream orgasm, Randy apparently did not experience corresponding pelvic muscle contractions. Randy's failure to actually ejaculate in his dream, in spite of having vividly experienced the sensations of ejaculation, is consistent with my own experience in this regard. Among the nearly nine hundred lucid dream reports in my personal record are about a dozen instances in which I dreamed that I reached orgasm. In all of these cases, the sensation of ejaculation was convincingly vivid, so much so that these lucid dream orgasms were usually followed by false awakenings in which I dreamed that I had in fact had a wet dream. Yet as soon as I awoke in actuality, I always discovered that I was mistaken.

One experiment and an anecdote is hardly scientific though. I'm not sure if anyone has done any further research.

EDIT: Slightly misinterpreted the question. Orgasm: Yes, Ejaculation: Not necessarily

It might not be what you meant, but this is expanded upon a bit in the Very Short Introduction to Dreaming which I can only recommend!

I've read about a tribe in South America (I think, it's been a long time), who's dominate cultural theme involved dreaming. This book is amazing if you're interested in dreaming - what really makes this book great is the way antidotes and stories are used to give you a grasp on dream manipulation.

I'm going to imagine this is you.

As for the book, Missing Girls perhaps?

A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

Free pdf version

You can start with this.
https://www.amazon.com/Primer-Jungian-Psychology-Calvin-Hall/dp/0452011868/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1550253128&sr=8-1

I do this all the time. Its described in my yoga book for meditation.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0345388453

Check out r/yoga they might know.

This is not always true. Time perception is more often distorted in a dream. (As theoretically it is simply a reaction in the brain with nn,DMT. Outlined in the book DMT: the Spirit Molecule.)