Wow. I haven’t posted in a really long time.

I had a fun little session the other night. The target was a nuclear warhead poised in it’s chamber. It came out of my Taskerbot pool of about 400 targets. Incidentally, it’s the same photo that is on the cover of Joe McMoneagle’s book, “The Stargate Chronicles.”

Most of the session was pretty well on target. I had an impression of an old-style, archetypal bomb (a black sphere with a fuse coming out of it.) It was somehow mounted in some kind of bracket. Recognizing it as symbolic data, I interpreted it as a “coming explosion” or “potential explosion.” The latter ended up being the more appropriate. I wish I’d payed more attention to the impression of it also being ‘mounted.’ What I find interesting is the amount of information I could have extrapolated from that single symbol if I’d been paying more attention. Instead of just “potential explosion,” in theory I could have come up with “An as of yet unexploded ordinance mounted on/in some kind of holding receptacle,” and that would have just about wrapped it up. Maybe that’s looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Another neat impression I got was that of a flying, missile shaped object. What the quick sketch of it doesn’t show (and what I didn’t log in the session) is that the pictogram was accompanied by a sense of ‘attitude’ that I’d describe as confident and almost predatory.

Eventually it became a matter of thinking it was complete AOL-drive and being completely off target, or on target and pointless to continue to describe what I already thought it was, just for the sake of looking amazing (drives me nuts when I see that.) So I declared my last AOL of a nuclear weapons facility and ended it. It’s so fun when it works well. You can see the whole session, albeit a short one, here.

Most of this is just copied from something I posted over at TKR yesterday but I wanted to have it here too. I’ve been experimenting with a couple new things. New to me at least. One of them is called “Aspect RV.” It was invented by Palyne Gaenir back in the day, based on some interesting experiences she had in session which she describes briefly here.

Kind of difficult to define, the short, inadequate and possibly inaccurate version of it is something like this:

“We become what we need to become in order to best meet the challenge of the situation.” Each of us has different aspects that make up our person. Aspect RV works on the idea of purposely bringing a certain aspect of yourself to the front to deal with different kinds of data or get different aspect’s ’slant’ or perspective on a target or a point of interest within a target. The aspect can be any kind of human- abstract or a specific personality (fireman, mailman, mother, painter, Thomas Jefferson, Humphrey Bogart, etc etc etc)

-*-

I’ve been mixing it with a couple different techniques and switching between them, getting data through a few different means in the same session. Here’s what I’ve been toying with:

I start with something that has nothing to do with Aspect RV. I’ll come up with a spontaneous cue and implement it immediately. Meaning the first thing I think of to do (something new every time) I do it as fast as possible. I don’t sit there and think about it. Usually something aggressive. Like “Throw a bucket of water on the target!” or “Bite the target!” or “Run in a circle around the target as fast as you can!”

The idea is to do it fast and kind of catch myself off-guard so I’m not expecting whatever happens in response- I don’t have a chance to imagine how the target might interface with my action. I feel like it has the direct contact quality of an ideogram but with more physical data information transfer (for me, at least).

Like when I threw water on the target, I watched the way it ’splashed off’ the target and dripped down and got the basic shape of part of the target. In this example below, I actually saw the same curving, pointed bow shape of the ship as the ‘water’ splashed off it.

Data logged in session: pointed tip

It seems to be working well for me so far and it’s just fun. I feel like I ‘get’ the target better initially than I do with a cold ideogram on paper or something like that. It’s initial contact that I can really feel and sometimes see.

In another example I just flailed my hands all over the target all of the sudden and it felt like touching a person. Turns out it was. Earlier this evening I bit a target. It felt like biting metal and rubber. The primary target was all metal and there was a rubber tire in the foreground in front of it. Neato.

-*-

Anyway, I’ll open with something like that and then do some Aspect work

For my aspect work on last weeks TKR Mission session (the contortionist). First I asked for my Policeman aspect. That is, the aspect of myself that is a cop. I asked him what he could tell me about the target. He didn’t say anything but he kind of just looked around. I got the distinct feeling that he was fairly uninterested, but watching the sidelines. It struck me very much as somebody working security for an entertainment event. Kind of glancing at the main event, but eying the whole room not really expecting anything exciting to happen.

From there I started getting a really strong sense that the target was entertainment oriented, or like a show. So I asked for another aspect that might be more suited to something like that. My art critic aspect.

I asked him what he could tell me about the target. He seemed unimpressed at it. He said, “Well, it’s not completely amateurish but it’s certainly not professional.” He was totally dripping with that smug, snobbish art critic attitude too lol.

Sometimes I’ll just see myself in front of a big crowd and ask if there’s any volunteers. If someone (an aspect) raises their hand or comes forward I’ll listen. Sometimes they don’t.

At times it’s like I’m standing next to the aspect in person, other times it’s like I’m looking through their eyes and I am them. Sometimes I talk to them and they talk to me in words, other times I can just ‘feel’ how they feel.

In between interaction with aspects I might just focus on the target, feel it out ‘on my own’ (lol) for a minute, and get some impressions like that.

-*-

One of the many interesting things I’ve found so far with this, is the different perspective and different data you get from different aspects on the same target.

For instance, I had a target of an old windmill. I started with a Spontaneous Aggressive Movement Cue (a new acronym! Yuck!), “Run at super speed around the target!” and got the sense of a large monolithic thing in an open area. I had an AOL of a big tree so I asked for my gardener aspect. He told me the target was “low maintenance, didn’t need water, and was ______” (that last bit was more of a feeling, the closest I could come to putting a word to it was “stoic.”) Then he showed me something like a root system. A large central piece with several smaller pieces branching outward into the ground at the bottom.

Then I asked for my aspect of Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous architect. He told me that it was “beautiful” and that he “would definitely build around it.” He showed me a vertical line with many lines slanting down from each side (like the pattern on the front of the mill) and also told me there were circles on the ground.

I haven’t written about remote viewing here in a while.
The simple reason is this: I totally suck at it right now.

I’ve been having such a tough time lately. I do sessions that either have minor contact or none at all. One after the other they’re just weak-sauce sessions. Sometimes I get the feeling that I’m devolving haha.

This has happened before. A bit over a year ago I was cruising along, viewing daily with half-decent results when all of the sudden it was like I hit a pit of quick sand. The harder I tried to break out of it, the deeper I sunk. For nearly a month and a half strait - every. session. sucked. every. day. Not to say I didn’t have observable target contact here and there but accurate data was minimal and low-level at best. As where before I was getting used to the feeling of progress, learning new things all the time and having some good results on paper.

The angst became so great that the episode earned it’s own moniker:
“The Dark Night of Psi” (cue scary organ music).

I couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn with a bowling ball. But, I powered through it and eventually the streak broke with one of the cooler session experiences I’ve ever had, and a string of decency thereafter. Not a second too soon either. I didn’t fancy going prematurely bald for tearing all my hair out. It’s just so frustrating because you know you can do better. You’ve the past sessions to prove it. So why the hell isn’t it working any more? Racking your brain over anything and everything that might be the culprit does little good.

Some viewers say that when you start to have trouble it’s a good time to take a break. That’s awesome if it works for them but personally I always seem to come back from a break feeling twice as incompetent as I did before it. Am I alone on this one? Maybe.

It appears the Dark Night of Psi (scary music) has returned. Shrouding my soul in blackness. Smiting me from the shadows! Destroying Hope and all that is sacred! Chewing a path of destruction through eternity and…….

Ahem… Sorry about that. You can tell it’s a sore subject. Anyway, my viewing has been consistently pitiful for a nearly two months. I hate to whine but it’s hard as hell to keep the right frame of mind when every session starts to feel like an exercise in futility before you even start. I know, poor me. I pick one of the most mentally challenging pursuits a person can, and then I bitch because it’s hard. Heh.

Not sure what causes these long ‘dry spells.’ I think it’s probably just an exaggerated bell of the learning curve. A valley canyon that precedes the next higher peak. Maybe it’s worse for some than others. I’m not sure it’s any easier the second time around and it probably won’t be on the third either. C’est la vi. All there is is to keep at it. At least I’m lucky enough to have a girlfriend who pretends to never tire of listening to me belly-ache about it.

The last time I hit this wall, a friend of mine (and a more experienced viewer than I) gave me this advice:

“… hang in there. This too will pass, as they say. No matter what the cause is, you were doing great before so you know that you can do great again, right? The cause or source of your recent missing WILL pass. But YOU WON’T PASS. …Even if you take no steps to try to correct the problem, the problem will STILL eventually either go away or will solve itself (possibly from your subconscious figuring out a way around it while, from your conscious perspective, you have just kept plugging away).”

Leave it to good friends to make the night seem a little less dark.

Here’s an example of a simple symbol. It’s not going to knock any socks off but I think it’s a good example of how basic information about a target might be conveyed. A clip from a session I did about 15 minutes ago:

Right. Not much to look at, is it?

Notice though, eight marks situated in a circle.
Eight soldiers kneeling in a circle.

This is typical of the language of the mind. I think it’s things like this that if I can learn to analyze properly and consistently, can eventually contribute to some very effective remote viewing.

I’ve been thinking about some other things that seem to stifle viewing efforts.

Fear appears to be a given aspect aspect of psi-blocks. Another, not unconnected from it is belief systems. This was something else that was suggested to me by a viewer friend of mine which I dismissed out of hand as having anything to do with standing between myself and high-level psi functioning.

“There is nothing in my beliefs that could be preventing better psi in me. I’ve had psychic experiences throughout my life! I’ve always believed this is how it’s supposed to work!” I said. Heh. Closer examination of myself revealed some surprising insights…

I’m not just speaking of large-scale religious and philosophical beliefs, but of course those are paramount also. I’m talking about beliefs on a micro scale as well as macro. It’s a big subject. One I’m not qualified to tackle here. I will say that Jane Roberts’ Seth book, “The Nature of Personal Reality” has opened up some awesome perspective for me in regards to beliefs and how they directly affect experience. I highly recommend it.

-*-

One thing that didn’t dawn on me for quite some time (yeah, I’m a little slow haha), is the factor of a natural barrier. Built in as just part of how we work.

Ingo Swann writes in “Everybody’s Guide to Natural ESP”:

“It seems that, somehow, the human is constructed so that there are natural barriers between consciousness and an overwhelming influx of second-reality information. Otherwise, our consciousness would be inundated, as if listening to a thousand radio and TV channels simultaneously. We cannot imagine how we would be able to function without these natural barriers.”

Makes sense. It’s for our own good, so our fragile psyche doesn’t get fried like sending 21.1 gigawatts through a 60 watt light bulb. It’s inherent and aside from obvious exceptions, generally only lets though information that affects personally important things like survival or the well being of a loved one. At this point we can probably imagine how this natural barrier construct, fear and belief systems are all interconnected and interactive.

Maybe the fear is deeply rooted in self preservation like a natural reflex. Granted there is a good deal of learned fear at work there too but it stands to reason that the idea of being mentally destroyed by over exposure to a level of psychic data beyond comprehension would contribute to an automatic subconscious fear as well. Kind of like pain-response, natural and built-in to prevent damage.

Who knows. Maybe I’m off the mark here. Just some stuff I’ve been thinking about. To me though, it begs attention to the “un-learning” that Yoda and McMoneagle refer to.

Yes, I just referenced the teachings of a muppet. I’ll quote the truth wherever I find it, thank you.

-*-

All these ‘blocks’ and ‘barriers’ pretty much boil down to one thing.

Psychology.

In the same interview with Mr. McMoneagle referenced in part 1, he was asked:

Q: “How much of ‘psi talent’ do you think is really a matter of psychology allowing/accepting psi?”

A: “All of it.”

Ponder that as you will. It’s past my bedtime. And may the force be with you.

-serious

I’m pretty good about regular practice. For me, it has to be every day, several times a day. It’s awesome. I can sit and view for literally hours without a break except to take care of nature. One session to the next, I can’t seem to get enough of the experience. It’s a rush when a sketch matches the target. The feeling of accomplishment when I learn something new or get an idea about how this or that might work. It’s addictive. It’s satisfying. I can maintain this momentum for months on end. No sweat.

Then it happens.

Resistance. Pointed avoidance. It’s time to sit down and practice and I conveniently come up with a billion and one things that I “need to do real quick first.” My level of interest hasn’t changed. I still think about it all day. I’m still passionate about it while I sit there clipping my toenails when I should be viewing. The worst part (or it could be the best part, I’m still not sure) is I’m fully aware of what’s happening. I know perfectly well that I’m giving in to some little part of me that’s pouting in the corner with his arms crossed saying “I don’t wanna!”

But I do wanna. That’s why it doesn’t seem to make any sense.

This occasional inner conflict struck me as quite odd until I heard other viewers mention it too, and began to get more of an idea more about what might be going on internally with consistent RV practice.

“I think it has a lot to do with fear of psi…” one of my viewer friends told me.

I wasn’t buying it. My response went something like: “Pwah! Fear?! That’s ridiculous! Why would I spend most of my free time doing something that I’m afraid of? My entire life is peppered with paranormal experiences. The idea that I’m afraid of being really good at RV is the silliest thing I’ve heard!”

Not long after that I had a dream.

A voice asked me if I was ready to be a world class remote viewer. I said, “I’m ready!” I felt it coming. Like my awareness was about to be blown wiiiide open. Hard to put into words, but I can tell you it felt BIG. Like minding your own business surfing 6 foot waves and then seeing a 70 foot wall of water coming towards you at 50 mph. Confident me from two seconds ago was now saying “Wait-”

Okay. Point taken. Jeez.

Acknowledging it in myself and being more aware of it may not make it go away, but helps with understanding myself more. Pinpointing areas that may need more attention. Recognizing it when symptoms show goes a good ways towards handling it better. Any twelve step program will tell you the first step is admitting you have a problem. Haha.

From a 2002 interview with Joseph McMoneagle:

Q: “There’s been talk about subconscious ‘fear of psi’ relating to the common decline-effect and contributing to why so few end up ‘world-class’ remote viewers like yourself. What do you think? Is there really such a culture-wide fear of psi? Do you think people realize they’ve got it? (Many viewers discussing it online say it’s not a problem for them.) If you think this is an issue, how would you suggest viewers address dealing with this?”

A: “If someone says this is not a problem for them - I would say they have never communicated with their unconscious mind. It’s a major issue, and one that never goes away. It’s a fear that is not just culture wide, it’s pervasive in all cultures. It speaks to the dark side for most. It’s an uncomfortable window to ‘things we shouldn’t have access to.’ There are no suggestions for dealing with it - since there is no way of truly conquering it. It’s one more battle that is constantly waged in doing RV - a battle you sometimes win and sometimes don’t.”

If you look at modern psychology, one of the first suggested methods of dealing with a fear is desensitization. Gradually exposing a person more and more to what they’re afraid of. In remote viewing, that equates to -you guessed it- constant practice. Even with that, as Mr. McMoneagle stated it’s a never-ending battle.

Usually my avoidance/resistance to viewing hits hard in two predictable places. I can almost set my clock by it.

1) When I go a couple days without viewing.

Due to the nature of my job, once in a while I’ll have a couple days of 16-18 hour shifts. I come home lucky to make it to my bed before I’m asleep. If I do manage to sit down and try to view, it quickly becomes an exercise in ZzzRV. Almost always when I take a break from viewing (usually involuntarily) it’s so hard to get back to the level of practice I want and need. The moment I give it an inch, I’m a mile behind. The door is slammed shut and has to be pried back open with a crowbar. Half the time it feels like starting all over again from square one to get back where I was. Some viewers say taking a break helps them. Heh. Lucky them. I don’t seem to be wired like that.

2) When I have a knock-my-own-socks-off session.

If I do a session that is fairly amazing to me, I can almost be sure the next one I do will suck rocks. I’m not the only one who’s noticed this about their viewing. I’ve heard the same thing from several others. Appears to be a fear response. I think this is another reason why Ingo and McM stress “quitting on a high.” In addition to the benefits as known in learning-theory, it gives the unconscious a chance to deal with the initial shock response of a high-level psi experience and appears to lessen the related defense mechanisms.

When this avoidance starts to kick in, there’s nothing that will help short of grabbing myself by the scruff, sitting down and making myself view. Then doing it some more, and some more, and… Until finally I’m back to my normal addictive self who can’t imagine avoiding anything so fun, challenging and intriguing.

Charles Tart has an interesting article on the subject.
You can check it out here.

Fear seems to be only one aspect of the larger entity of psi-barrier though.

Part 2 - ahem…crowbar please

This is taken from something I just posted over at TKR. Been thinking about it quite a bit lately though so figured I’d paste it here too.

-*-

One of the things that seems to really catch my attention about how I view is symbology.

For the longest time it was the most maddening thing I could imagine. I’d get feedback and it would suddenly become perfectly obvious what I was trying to tell myself with a given symbol, but it was so cryptic I was sure there was no way I could ever manage to interpret these in session so that they might do anything except frustrate and confuse me.

Palyne about summed it up when she said, “From all appearances, the subconscious speaks Etruscan in 4-D, translates it through geometry, encrypts it in some long-dead fish language, and then feeds you that information in code. Of course, it’s always perfectly obvious in retrospect.”

Haha.
Over time though, it seems to have begun coming together for me. Slowly, to be sure, but a few breakthroughs here and there. I started getting symbols in session and (gasp!) interpreting them correctly. When this happens, it amazes me the level of data that a single symbol can convey. More often than not, it seems to be higher-level, conceptually heavy data.

For example, I did a session in the dojo a while back. The target turned out to be a Selective Services draft card from the Vietnam era. Basically a post card from Uncle Sam saying you’re going to Nam whether you like it or not.

In session, I got a visual image of a bird’s foot. Recognized it as a symbol and took a moment to think about what that little birdies foot meant to me, what it made me feel, what representations it seemed to evoke in my conscious mind at that moment.

First I noted that I inherently felt that it belonged to an eagle. The obvious association (for me at the moment anyway) being American government. It wasn’t a dainty little foot either, it was a sharp talon and seemed to be gripping something tightly. My translation was American government “digging their claws” into someone.

I then got an image of something like a tornado that was comprised completely of paper. A big swirling mass of official feeling documents that were surrounding something. I translated that fairly simply as being surrounded/trapped by paperwork/red tape/bureaucracy.

I thought all of this fit quite well with the target (not to mention the visual of having a gun pointed at my face) and was really pleased with the data.

Yes, at no point did I describe a piece of paper (flat, yellow, writing on surface etc), but I feel like if I’d spent longer in session and gotten some more good data, I could have come pretty close to nailing down what the target was.

***

Another example is a session I did on a line of police, decked out in riot gear, standing guard on point against a crowd of people.

I got an image of the inside of a lock, like a doorknob lock mechanism. Since I’m a trained lock pick, this doesn’t have any major meaning of being locked out to me lol. I then got the same symbol again, but the inner mechanism was surrounded by a black barrier. Like it was saying “You can’t even get to the lock to pick it.” I interpreted this as “access denied/unobtainable access” which is exactly what the row of police were doing - denying access to an area. This alone didn’t crack the target, but combined with other data in the session, it went along way towards figuring out exactly what was going on at the target.

***

Interpreting symbols is an art form all it’s own. It involves one’s personal reaction to the symbol, thinking about what certain elements of it mean you personally - removed from other data you’ve gotten in session already.

It’s hard as hell. But it also seems like it begins to work more naturally after a while with a bit of effort, attention and thought.

I think this kind of data is invaluable when it’s done accurately.

Joe McMoneagle has a great blog post that touches on the subject. Check it out here.

***

It doesn’t always have to be a massive translation effort either. Sometimes I’ll get a visual that just has a heavy ‘feel’ to it and it’s just a matter of identifying it as a symbol (which can be a whole can of worms in it’s own, but I’m getting much better at it and believe it to merely be a matter of practice, attention, experience, more practice, more practice, more…).

For instance, I once had a session not long after I first started viewing where the target turned out to be Evita Peron standing on a balcony in Buenos Aires, giving a speach. I got a momentary image of a jungle but had a strong feeling that it was a South American jungle - (which is strange because I’ve never been to South America. I live in Hawaii, and never got the feeling that any of the jungles here are South American, but I digress…) Anyway, it was apparent the data was “South American / Latin,” (which is what I wrote down) not ‘green, leafy, vegetation…’ and for that I nailed the region where the target was located.
Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not close to actually having a handle on this, but I’m confident that I can. At least partially…eventually.
And that’s a start.

-serious

Had kind of a neat little session last night. Misinterpreted some of the symbology but was not unpleased with the soldier sketch. You can see the whole session here (requires login).

So here we are nearly a month later. I haven’t had a single lucid dream since the one mentioned below. Until this morning. Frustrated, after more than three weeks of fruitless effort to be awake in my dreams, yesterday I did an archetype meditation on lucid dreaming. The very next night I have an LD. Go figure. But that’s a different story.

-*-

I woke up early for a standard lucid dream induction method called M.I.L.D. (Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams), invented by the good Dr. LaBerge. With dream mask in tow, I went back to sleep. Eventually I found myself in a dream and realized my disposition not from a dream mask cue, but by recognizing a ‘dream sign’ (an element of dreams that indicates you are dreaming).

I was in my living room (that wasn’t my living room. You know how that goes) with my roommate Tony and his ex-girlfriend. I tell them I’m dreaming and they said, “Hey, that’s cool.”

With a big smile on my face I say, “You know what that means right? You guys are just a figment of my imagination. You don’t really exist.”

It didn’t seem to bother them much. Tony made some joke about it and we all sat around laughing about them not being real.

It was time to get down to business. Ready to view the new target pinned above my bed back in the world of the awake. I decided I’d close my eyes, clap my hands, and when I opened them I’d be at the target site.

I closed, I clapped, I opened my eyes and… nothing. I was still sitting on the couch with my figment friends giving me a blank look. I think, “Hmmn. Okay. In Joe McM’s account of his lucid dream remote viewing experiments, I remember he clicked his heels, opened his eyes and was at the target site. I’ll try clicking my heels then.” Like it would make any difference if I clapped my hands, clicked my heels or wiggled my damn nose! Hilarious.

I closed, I clicked, I opened my eyes and was still sitting on the couch, now being laughed at by imaginary people and feeling rather silly.

Then it dawned on me. I’m at my house in the dream so the target must be pinned to the wall in my dream as well. I’ll just open the envelope and look at the feedback in the dream! Too easy! Feeling like I was cheating and completely blowing protocol by opening the envelope before my session was on paper, I went over to the wall where it was pinned and opened it up. Inside was three tiny little astrology booklets. Like little novelty things. I tell Tony (who makes my paper target pool for me), “Dude. This target sucks.” He just laughs. The thought wasn’t lost on me that this may actually just be symbology or some representation of the actual target though, so I made a mental note of it.

I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but at about this point I had a false awakening (dreamed that I woke up). I see another dream sign and suspect I’m still dreaming. I found my dream mask on the sofa and pressed the ‘reality check button’ (a little button on the mask for testing whether you are dreaming or awake. Trust me, this can be an issue. When you press it, it activates the light/sound cue on the mask. Since electronics generally don’t work right in dreams, if the cue isn’t activated when the button is pressed, chances are you’re still dreaming). Proud of myself for recognizing the false awakening, I hold the up the malfunctioning mask to my roommate and say “Ha! See? I’m still dreaming!” like the joke was on him. He didn’t seem very impressed.

Back to business. I decide that this time I’ll just try and get information about the target the way I normally do in the waking world - sitting quietly with my eyes closed and opening myself to the target. I go outside on the back porch and sit on a swing. Closed eyes, opened to target… nothing. Concentrating really hard on wanting to make target contact I look in front of me and see a row of large trees. The uniformity of their branches strikes me. I wonder if the shape is target related and make a mental note of it. I see two trees close together that are wrapped in vines. Then out of nowhere baskets full of flowers hanging from the sky are all over the place. A hundred of them maybe, all hanging at different lengths off the ground. I start laughing, swinging in the swing and yell out, “It’s so beautiful!” And it was.

Then I’m in an office building sitting at a conference table looking over session notes in my lab book. I think maybe the data in my dream book are target related so I make not of them. Indoor columns that arch out at the top like in certain midevil architecture and a line of text: “A quiet place, a place of study.”

There are other people sitting at the table. They are there for a job interview. Two executives, a middle aged man and an elderly woman, walk into the room. One of the women there for an interview starts telling the elderly executive how she tried to take some courses from her in college, but the old lady wouldn’t let her in the class. A no-nonsense old lady, she starts lecturing the girl on making it happen for herself and not relying on classes.

Then I woke up.

-*-

Wrote down what I thought was important from the dream in my lab book, put the pen down and ripped the sealed envelope off it’s tack from above my bed. Inside, the feedback was a photo of some sort of protest. You can see the session and feedback photo here.

Now personally, from a learning perspective I can see certain elements of my session in the target photo. Mainly the noted shape of the tree branches as corresponds to the hippie’s arms holding up the signs. I feel there was target contact, be it so vague that it’s nearly unrecognizable. I’m not one to stretch data and would of course classify this a miss, but in the end, I’m not in a lab or a scientific study. Just a guy practicing and experimenting at home. So ultimately I’m classifying it as a learning experience. Just like every other session.

-*-

All this heel clicking has got me thinking. The only time I feel like I really made any target contact in the dream was when I sat down and really concentrated my focus, intensely wanting to make contact. Then I just looked up and there it was. No amount of clapping and doing the hokey pokey seems to be worth a crap if there isn’t strong focus behind it. I suppose I could’ve seen that one coming. Maybe just passive expecting isn’t enough to shift the scenery to the desired state even in a dream. Of course this is only after two trials, hardly enough to start drawing conclusions. Probably lots of variables, but next time I’m going to work on focusing my the intensity of my intent… or something like that.

Keep the olives chilled folks. No martinis this morning.

When I was about 15 I read an article in an old OMNI magazine about Dr. Stephen LaBerge and his work with lucid dreaming. I promptly went out and stole a copy of his book, “Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming.” I had this idea when I was a teenager that if it was a book for self improvement, it was ok to steal it. (I’ve since bought numerous copies of the book for other people who were interested in the subject and I tell myself that semi-atones for my crime, heh). Anyway, it’s a wonderful book which is a must for anyone who is seriously interested in lucid dreaming. Since then, I’ve done some lucidity practice on and off over the years and while never having gotten to the point where I can have them at will, had at least had them more frequently and been able to try out cool new stuff in them.

So. One of my New Years resolutions (which I take rather seriously) was to teach myself to have lucid dreams more or less at will within 6 months.

A couple weeks ago I bought a knock off of the NovaDreamer. A brilliant stroke of genius this device, invented by Dr. LaBerge to aid in lucid dream induction. I’ve wanted one since I first stole the good doctor’s book years ago. It’s a mask that goes over your eyes which you wear while you sleep. It has a microprocesser built into it with a tiny ifrared sensor that sits just above your eye and senses when you enter REM (because the eyes move under the lids when one is dreaming). When this little robot senses that you’re dreaming, it flashes lights at your closed lids at an intensity just strong enough to enter into your dream without waking you up. The idea is: see the flashing in your dreamscape, recognize this light flash pattern as a signal from your dream mask, recognize that you are dreaming and become lucid.Unfortunately, Dr. LaBerge and the Lucidity Institute stopped production of the NovaDreamer a few years ago. You can find them used on ebay once in a while but usually for no less than three to four hundred big ones. (They have a new one in the works but it’s not available yet. No telling when it will be on the market.) Following the laws of supply, demand and capitalism, luckily somebody else started making one. They call it the DreamMaker, which is the one I purchased. I got it in the mail about a week ago.

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One of the things that really interests me about lucid dreaming this time around is it’s possible application to RV. After reading some of Joe McMoneagle’s accounts in “The Stargate Chronicles” of his LD/RV experiments with Dr. LaBerge in the sleep lab at SRI, how could any viewer not be intrigued? Of course it’s not at all practical for regular RV use. First you have to fall asleep, then recognize that you are dreaming, then remember that you have a job to do, then try to view the target in the dream. But it still sounds like some far out stuff and I theorize that with sufficient LD practice, while it might not be practical for everyday RV, it may have it’s uses. We shall see.

For the past couple weeks I’ve had a blind target in a security envelope pinned on the wall above my bed so when I did become lucid, that would be the target I was going to try to view in the dream. (While completely unnecessary to have it pinned up there of course, it was more of a goal-reminder.)

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After a few weeks of exercises from the Dr’s “Exploring…” book and 3 or four trial runs with the dream mask, I had my first lucid dream last night since I made the resolution a month ago. I’ll spare you all the bizarre details of the dream (I joke that if anyone ever read my dream journal they’d find out just how crazy I REALLY am lol), but the short of it is this:

I saw the flashing light pattern and recognized it as the signal from my dream mask. It was so strong it nearly woke me up (which has happened a couple times before). I struggled to stay in the dream for a few seconds and managed it this time. I interacted with a small group of dream characters for a moment (one of which was J.F.K. -don’t ask me. I don’t know where he came from.) and then decided to try and view the target that was pinned above my bed.

I go outside and spin around in a circle while focusing my intent that when I stopped spinning I would be at the target site. (Spinning is a basic technique in LD practice used to change the scenery or stay in a dream when you feel yourself waking up). When I stopped spinning it didn’t look like I had gone anywhere. I was still standing on the street outside except now there was a tree and a large black bull next to me that was looking rather agitated. The bull started coming towards me so I decided to fly out of there. Flew strait up into the air and kept on going until I could see the curvature of the earth and it started to get dark. Kept going. Passed a layer of stars until I was just flying in pitch black space. Decided to come back down and just let myself free fall back to earth. Pass the star blanket again, blue sky again. It was truly beautiful. Came back to the ground with a soft landing and after a few other trifles, decided to spin to the target again. This time, when I stopped spinning I was in a bedroom of some sort with uneven brick walls and a bed with an odd headboard. I looked around for a few trying to soak in some details in case this was the target and decided that was enough and it was time to wake up, and wake up I did.

I wish I could tell you guys that the target turned out to be a big black bull in a bedroom with uneven brick walls and a strange headboard. Unfortunately though, it had nothing to do with any of that. It was the famous Terracotta Soldiers in China. I know, a bit anti-climactic after the build up.

I remain excited though and will continue until I have a fifty martini session in a lucid dream (or until I’m convinced it’s useless, whichever one comes first).

-serious