A hypnotherapist? sounds good!

"I have a computer that once I log onto the Internet, I can see a good sized live aquarium. I see different color fish swimming around in real time, it is cool. I share my computer with people in different shift. Technician are present to fix some cable....

I talk to a counselor about the program that I like to get involve, strange thing is the counselor speaks Chinese during the counseling, and I have difficulty understanding what he said. Even though my native tongue is Mandarin, but I am so removed from Chinese culture, now the language of my dreams and my thoughts are mostly in English. I tell the person counseling me that I like to get into a career of being able to help people. Well, that is quite vague! May be a hypnotherapist?....." a very fragmented dream recall!

More than twenty years ago, Dr. Weiss published a book called: Many lives, many masters. It is such a profound work, this work opened a vast uncharted water in human psychology. Could it be possible that everyone of us has many levels of consciousness? and we are able to tap into the super conscious by using the art of hypnosis? The most precious of this book is the wisdom it tells about how life works, why are we here, the purpose of reincarnation, the lessons we supposed to learn. Under hypnosis, Catherine possessed a vast store of knowledge that was not accessible during her waking life. I was and still fascinated with the power and potentiality of hypnosis.

Lately, I started to contemplate the possibility of getting professional hypnotherapy course and practice hypnotherapy. I am always interested in metaphysics. That is one of the main reasons that I am now walking this path. Then why not work on the field that I believe in and interested in, so that I fulfill my life's intention and purpose? The more I think of it, the more I believe this is my true calling. Yes, it's may be twenty years late, but hey, we are eternal, twenty-year is not even a drop in the ocean. it is perhaps a thousandth of a drop in the ocean of eternity.

Bedding store and creative painting - A Dream

We have a store in a mall, the store is operated by two different business, one side is jewelry exhibition, the other side is bedding supplies. We happen to manage the bedding side.

In a morning before taking care of business, I need to wash my face and put my make up on, but looking all over the bathroom shelf, I don't see any cleaning cream, and I start to blame my mother for having all kinds of moisturizers and creams but don't have any basic cleaners....

I see an artist sitting on the edge of a pond and dabbling a very creative water color work. He is very skillful, by mixing and matching, he painted a very beautiful mountain surrounded by a large lake....

I am sure these scenes are just fragmented parts of a larger, more complex dream work. Isn't it interesting that our dreams have little continuity and consistency from one moment to another? Or may be we just have faulty memory, like my case, I can only remember the tail end of my dreams.

The first episode is to remind me not to overly critical of others. I agree with the teaching of this dream. I sometimes criticize my mom on various things, but believe it or not, I also tolerate a lot of her repeated undesirable behavior. But one thing that I have learned is that I don't harbor any (ill) bad feeling. Since earth is a big school, and we all come here to learn, it is understandable we mess things up all the time. We simply need to learn whatever present to us at the moment and move on.

"Most of us today think of our dreams as odd episodes, as foreign as some ceremonial dance in Tibet. This results in the cutting off of an extremely great and significant portion of the self. We are then no longer able to use much of the wisdom and power of the unconscious."
- Rollo May

Lost in Las Vegas - A dream

My sister ( the one live in New Jersy) and I were in Las Vegas. The first day, everything was fine between us. Then the second day, we had an argument over something, then she left me alone. It was rainy, I was wondering around holding tight of my purse. After a while, I felt I needed to get back to the Casino/hotel to meet her. While walking on the street looking around I suddenly saw the man I used to know. I turned around and ran as fast as I can, but he pursued, he caught up with me fast, and said something that I didn't like to hear, and we walked along and I was devastated inside!

We were turning around a corner and when he was looking elsewhere, at that moment I decided to make an opposite directional run and finally I got rid of him. After a while, I lost my way back to hotel. I knew my sister did not have a cell phone, the only way to reach her is to get there. So, I asked a clerk in one of the shops how to get back to hotel, she pointed the direction and said it is only about 10 miles. 10 miles?! I was appalled, I can't walk 10 miles.... then I woke up!

The time is about 6:30 am. From my experience, if I sleep longer than necessary, I usually have unpleasant dreams ( not necessary nightmares). But I tend to do so on Saturday morning. "Lost" seems to be my recurring dream experiences. This is kind of dream that I don't feel good after waking up, and am glad it is just a dream.

Despite my fervent effort of practicing reality checking every hour during that day, Lucid dreaming is still elusive to me. According to dream research, we have on average of 100 minutes of dream time every night. Isn't it such a waste that we don't recall most of them? of course, ignorance let most to believe that dream is unimportant. So, we sleep through 20 years of our life unconscious. The jewel of our vast consciousness remains mysterious and hidden.

Our waking conscious is like the tip of the iceberg. It accounts for about 10% of our total consciousness, yet we pass the opportunity of knowing our deeper, truer self lifetime after lifetime. For me, this search to know myself is utmost important in this lifetime. Well, what more has to say other than " keep on, and keeping on!"

Floating on a European-style city - A Mind Projection

Floating on a European-style city!

While I was in Hypnagogic state of being, a state between sleep and awake, I felt a warm invisible force surrounding me, a blue blanket covering me and sending me on a floating voyage. I was floating over a beautiful city high on the sky and looking down, I saw the city under was buzzing with activities, people walking, singing, acrobate group performing, and interestingly I saw monkey group concert in full swing. The buildings of the city felt like European style of churches. The whole scenery are vivid and colorful. The time was 12:30am.

Then I woke up again at 4:45am from vibrational alarm. I knew that I dreamed but had no idea what was it. I have dry spell the past several days.

Practice continuous awareness!

The dream yoga of Naropa is founded on the core understanding that waking consciousness, dreaming and death are all illusory states that need to be transcended. This gives rise to three periods of practice:

1. during the days, remind yourself that you are dreaming;

2. at night, become conscious that you are dreaming and practice transforming and directing your dreams- for example, by traveling to one of the heavens and receiving instruction from a spiritual teacher, perhaps a Buddha;

3. control your reactions to what you see and experience in any of the bardo realms (or states of transition) so you can move beyond attachments and desires into the clear light of higher consciousness. The aim is continuous awareness.

Dad, It is ok to leave whenver you are ready!

Yesterday, all children living in the state of California went to see our dad. Mom and I got up real early, had a McDonald breakfast, shopped for the fortune (health) tree, and picked a beautiful picture, titled: The fields of lavendar provence, France. The picture is framed in a background of a clear blue sky, mountain range, and one and only stone house standing in a dreamy fields of lavendar flowers. Clean and simple. We believe dad will like it. My brother Albert brought home grown yellow, pink and white roses in a clear vase. The room where my dad stay seems to lighten up considerably, I wonder why we have not thought of doing that before.

This gathering is suggested by my sister Ming-Yea, and she got the idea from a book she read called " Invisible Power" a book I read sporadically at one time. The book suggested that for a peaceful transition of a dying person, they need to know that their family love them, forgive them and it is ok to leave whenever they are ready.

In light of this, Ming-Yea suggested of getting a greeting card, and Mom went and got a pretty one, and we put above thought on the card (and some more). We all signed the card and put on names of my two sisters who reside in the East Coast and read the card to my dad. I am sure he gets the message.

Keys to dreaming true

Since most of my books that I read are borrowed from local library, There is a time-frame limitation of 3-weeks and another 3-week renewal for my study. Some books can not be practiced and digested in only 3 or 6 weeks, so I like to copy down some good verses for future reference. "Dreaming True" from Robert Moss,

Several keys for Explorations on waking from dream

1. Trust your feelings, listen to what your body or feelings are telling you.

2. Reality check, Ask yourself whether it is remotely possible that you will encounter the scenes and events in your dream in waking life.

3. Write a personal one-liner, simply sum up the content of the dream as briefly as possible.

4. Ask the two vital questions, What do I need to know? and what do I need to do?

5. Go back inside the dream, The meaning of a dream lies inside the dream itself; that is to say, inside the full dream experience, as opposed to the memory of the dream, which is often fragmented and garbled. The best way to get at the meaning of the dream and determine if the message should be taken literally or symbolically is to reenter the dream. The best time to go back inside the dream is fairly soon after waking.

A quite, protected environment, the ability to relax, set clear intention, use vivid picture will enable one to do that.

6. Determine what action is required and do it.

These are the pointers that I like to remember to do upon waking from a dream.

Concentration Camp - A Dream

This is very difficult for me to write. I can only describe the experience as if I went to hell during my dream time. I was tortured, maimed and went through all kinds of psychological and physical abuses. Where I had been, felt like world war II's German's concentration camp. I was not alone in that experience, I sensed many people (strangers) have gone through the terrible treatments.

Strange thing is, when I woke up after the dream which was just 1:45 am, I was not feeling bad at all, all that I said to myself is "The ordeal is over", it is over in my dream since I have lived through it in my dream. I actually felt elated, as if I have repaid my Karmic debt.

According to some dream experts, it's not just the experience itself, but also how you feel after the awakening accounts for the quality of your dream. You could have gone through hell and encountered the most vicious beings and came back felt totally triumphant. In my case, that was how I felt when I was awakening. I felt pretty good despite the gruesome content that I had experienced.

A party without food -A Dream

A party is taking place at my new home. The design of new home is odd, especially the kitchen area. There are column type of structures from the entrance of the kitchen all the way near the stove. I can't quite reach the stove area, without moving stuff or to bumping into some things.

There is a little drinking fountain next to the sink. It is kind of funny when someone ask what is the drinking fountain for? Immediately, my brother Albert simply move the fountain over the wall above the stove and turn it on. Now it looks like a sprinkler and make the kitchen area all wet. On the other corner of the kitchen, I see some worms crawling all over some appliances, that have everyone's appetite completely turned off. But I can see James is making something in the frying pan. It is a party without much food. Albert and his wife are now ready to step out of the house to get some real food.......

Vibrating Alarm!

Since Sunday, I carry a vibrating alarm around me during the day. I set up hourly interval to remind myself to do a reality check. There are four steps for reality checking

1. Ask myself, Am I dreaming or am I awake? Look around, check any text or clock available, look at it, turn away and look at it again. Has the text or time changed for the second or third look?

2. Ground myself, Take a deep breath three times, relax and feel my body within

3. Then imagaine if I am dreaming, what would I do, how would it feel to be conscious and awake in my dream

4. Affirming " Next time I am dreaming, I am going to realize that I am dreaming", feel it, believe it

The vibrating alarm and reality check methods come from Lucid Sage http://lucidsage.com

The alarm is a wonderful tool. I used to do the reality check only when I remember doing it, now every hour, the vibrating alarm will remind me of doing reality checking. Due to the habit of checking and setting process, I become keenly aware of the passage of time. Now I realize what is that mean when we say "The time is ticking way".

Holy Spirit Strikes Again! ??? - A Dream

Stephen Laberge described the short dream as dreamlet. I happen to experience two dreamlets this morning.

"I am in a lockbox rental business. One day a man (look like a white boy with blond hair) come with his three kids (also look like boys, but they are black) to open their lockboxes. The man has a larger box so he uses a heavier key to open it, and kids use smaller key to open a smaller box. I am just observing their coming and make joke with the kids of their speedy opening of their smaller box, kids are smiling at me but the man remain serious and unaffected of my comment."

Holy Spirit strikes again! Holy Spirit strikes again! These were the words I repeated several times when I woke up, and I felt a little silly and chuckled to myself.

"I was in a place felt like a library or congregation of some kind, I saw a golden plate emitting golden letters on it. I read them and felt the words are priceless, they are Principles of Living. When I was ready to copy the words down, one of my coworker Eleanor was just sitting and ready to ask question to Librarian. So, I excused myself and just about to move to other location, the alarm sounded in such a terrible timing. I woke up, I knew the words are great inspiration, but don't remember what they are."

If I know how to re-entry to a dream scene, I might be able to retrieve the words on the golden plate. That would be wonderful.

Awareness - A secret to spiritual growth

From Asoka Selvarajah -Ezine

The whole spiritual life, when honestly examined, boils down to Awareness. As you study spiritual traditions the world over, this is the one common factor that occurs over and over again.

A famous dying Zen Master, was besought by her disciples for her final words of wise teaching to them. She replied “Awareness!". Those were the only words she would reply, despite repeated attempts to persuade her to say more. That word, awareness, was the summary of her entire teaching.

Hence, it is much easier to cut through all the confusion and contradictions, if you are willing to bear this simple point in mind. Awareness is at the heart of Enlightenment and ultimately leads to it. That is why the Buddha and others stressed the importance of mindfulness practices; being aware of your breathing, of your eating, of your walking, of everything that you do at all times.

We are a mystery unto ourselves. We act, and do not know why we acted as we did. We wish to improve ourselves, and yet cannot understand the seemingly infinite inertia that holds us firmly in our habitual places.

The secret to spiritual growth is Awareness - at all times and in all places. It is through the simplest practices of Awareness that you can advance; slowly and imperceptibly at times like an unfolding flower; rapidly and dramatically at others, like a crashing wave washing away seaweed and debris lying on the beachside.

The major problem that most of us face is balancing our urge for inner growth with the practical difficulties of living in modern society with its myriad demands on our time and energy. Here are a few ideas to ease that problem:

(1) Remember that there is no division between spiritual life and mundane existence; that EVERY practical occurrence can be used as an opportunity for spiritual and personal growth. Take it on yourself to see where the personal growth lessons lie in EVERY daily experience or problem you encounter.

(2) Schedule several brief but regular “time out” sessions in the day, where you can close your eyes, breath slowly and regularly, and just center yourself. If you can find a place of silence and solitude to do so, then so much the better.

(3) Learn to trust yourself and your insights more. Remember that outer teachers and spiritual traditions exist only to point you to the ultimate teacher: the Higher Self within. Cultivate Awareness of your inner prompting and be willing to follow them more.

(4) Keep a journal of your discoveries. This serves as a powerful feedback process. No lesson you learn is ever forgotten, and every lesson feeds back into your awareness.

(5) Remain persistent, determined and encouraged. It is very easy to become discouraged in personal work and feel you are getting nowhere. No work on inner growth is ever wasted. Make no comparisons with others, and have no expectations. Let your growth proceed as it must… at it’s own pace. Each person’s needs are individual, as is the rate of each person’s growth. All that is required is persistence and commitment to increased awareness.

Remember that you can cultivate Awareness, and increase self-understanding in so many situations. Contemplating the clouds. Watching two work colleagues interact. Inwardly observing your own emotions and reactions in situations and interactions. Through meditation. By using your journal.

Let your spiritual growth be light and playful; not heavy and “deep” to the point of being a weight around your neck. You don’t need bells and incense. You don’t need “channeled” teachings from someone else. And you don’t need tons of self-help tapes, books and seminars.
All you need is you, and your willingness to grow and develop. A teacher can help you greatly (and is even necessary at a certain stage), and a spiritual tradition can serve to ground you in established wisdom. However, don’t let all this get you down, or make the whole thing worrisome. There is so much you can do with the practice of simple Awareness and inner observation.

By simply doing this, you can make so much advancement on the path to enlightenment and freedom from suffering. Moreover, the good news is that you can remain in this world; centered and at peace in the midst of all circumstances, free of fear and inner suffering.

Awareness. Cultivate it - and let it cultivate you.

Copyright Asoka Selvarajah 2005. All Rights Reserved. _

Asoka Selvarajah is a writer on personal growth and spirituality, and the author of “The 7 Golden Secrets To Knowing Your Higher Self". His work helps people achieve their full potential, deepen their understanding of mystical truth, and discover their soul’s purpose. You can subscribe to his FREE ezine, and get his FREE ebook “Inner Light Outer Wealth” at: http://www.aksworld.com/AspireToWisdom.htm?imk=Blog_

Tapping into subconscious for problem solving

For over two months I had trouble reconciling Newmans Own account. I have gone over detail several times, and I thought there was no stone unturned, but January and February's account were still not reconciled! I started to feel stress and frustration.

Since I have read so many stories about dream incubation for problem solving, so I recited my intention and affirmation several nights hoping my dream can reveal the missing pieces. Night after night, I either dreamed something else or I simple did not rememeber my dream, the dream incubation method did not seem to work for me.

I did spent the last sunday afternoon go over another round of inspecting to make sure I did not miss any pieces, but with no close to solving the puzzle.

About two nights ago, after dinner, I thought it's about time for me to revisit the issue, and time was running out, I need to get this resolved before the year end of March 31's closing.

Once I settled, my gut feeling told me to go through a different approach to check the accuracy of my data, in less than 3 minutes, I found the discrepancy and problem for Janaury was immediately uncovered. I was elated! Then with this new found confidence, I then checked and adjusted the February's data, since some of the February's balance was carry over of January's reconciling items, therefore I knew immediately what should be there, and holy moly! I found the answer in less than another 3 minutes. The total time it took to reconciling was less than ten minutes. It was incredibly magical!

This isn't my first time using my subconscious for problem solving. Dream incubation may work, but in real life, I use what I called problem solving incubation. The only requirement for it to work is that I need to put enough effort and focus on the problem. Take the problem and think, calculate, manipulte the data, look at it in every angle, go through each minute detail, leave no stone unturn for a period of time and then let it go for a period of time. Without intensive and extensive information and focus, our subconscious will not have enough material to work on.

I have been using this method to solve this account many times. After I spent enough time on it, I will usually tell my friends that I will sleep on it. The answer usually come fairly quickly.

Face covered with mud - A Dream

We have a big family, live in a big house. We like to make fun of our neighbor. There is a old guy in our neightbor who can't walk. We decide to challenge him to get upstairs. The incentive for him to do that is that he gets to visit me. So, he finally gets upstair with a bunch of other people.

While they are up to where I stay, oh! no, I suddenly discover that my face is all covered with mud (kind of facial mask that ladies use to firm up the skin), and mud also inside of my mouth. I have a hard time to swallow, and now I am getting help from my mom to the sink to choke up the mud in my mouth, and then I find that the sink has plastic flat plate on the top, make it difficult to wash my face unless I dock down really low, an awkward position to be....then I woke up!

Leaking house and earth school

"My son and I are in the city of Santa Monia. We are visiting a house, there are several people in the house. The house is old and leaking on the roof. Especially the rainy season. It is not a pleasant place to be. My son feels very annoyed that house is leaking everywhere, and I am trying to explain to him that the reason the house is leaking is because this was their Grandma's home, it is old and built long ago. A new house will not leak......"

The first question is why did we visit that house?
The second question is why did I have to explain and almost to the point of justify the fact of leaking house to my son? May be this is just an ordinary dream that like ramdom firing of our nerve system that does not worth a dime to ask why. Or may be there really is a meaning?

In our waking life, we sometimes have to compromise our position with that of others. To walk the path of spiritual development, I know very well that even the commonly called failure is not truly failure. Everything has its own timing. We will struggle, we will blunder, we will forget, we will lose despite of our best intention and our mightiest effort. One thing that keep me looking at myself and others situation with compassion and empathy is that "We are gods", only now that we are immersed in the humanly experience and forget our true identity.

The other day, I visited my dad in convalescent home. I saw many elderly people in wheel chairs, lying on bed in pain, need almost all assistance in every day living, and my dad is now using artificial means of tubing to sustain his life. All those scenes look miserable.

But on the other end, this life is only a parenthesis in our forever lasting eternal life, a drop in the ocean, a grain of sand on the beach, a blink of an eye.

This life, like any other lives that we lived is a giant school, our curriculum were predetermined before we enroll. Our teachers are many and everywhere, they could be parents, teachers in mini school, our children and even strangers. We learn through series interactions with others. Everyone has different curriculum and since we are all unique in our spiritual position, therefore the lessons are vast and varied. If we are all like school childrean, does it make sense to say "To err is human"? Of cause, otherwise we won't be here.

Dream as the experience of the soul

In the East, the cultivation of lucid dreaming has always been woven as an esoteric element into the religious practice of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and the other various religious traditions that trace their roots back to these great sources. The Tibetan Buddhists (almost all of whom are in exile since the annexation of Tibet by China and the unsuccessful rebellion against Chinese rule in 1959, after which the Dalai Lama himself went into exile) have carried this tradition of lucid dream incubation to a state of great elaboration.

The Tibetan strain of Buddhist thought declares that the experience of the dream is one and the same as the experience of the soul after death. The Tibetans believe in successive reincarnation, and for them the soul is more often referred to as the entity-the continuity of personality and karma over successive lifetimes. It is this part of the total psychic being which experiences dreams while alive, and this part which goes right on dreaming after death.

For the Tibetans Buddhists, each time we sleep we experience the condition of the soul in our dream. If we were die in our sleep, we would simply continue the dreams we were having. Thus, for the Tibetans the ability to remain lucid and self-conscious in the dream state is a matter of the utmost religious importance and significance. Their belief is that in the great majority of cases people who have not meditated or developed themselves with some spiritual discipline die and are driven to reincarnate again out of terror, in a vain hope to escape from the increasing horrific dream-scape of the soul after death.

The Tibetan believe that through cultivating dream lucidity while alive, the entity can then perceive the Bardo Worlds for what they are. In doing so, the soul in the Bardo World dismisses the illusions of increasing horror as mere illusions-mere projections of unconscious energies into the illusions of dream. Having achieved this recognition and insight into the nature of life after death, such an enlightened soul can pass into total and complete union with the divine.

With such self-awareness, the discarnate soul can also choose to reincarnate and re-enter the world of human existence consciously as a "boddhisattva"- a being devoted to the enlightenment of all others and the consequent alleviation of all illusions of pain and misery. Some sects take the " Boddhisattva's Oath" to return until every sentient being is enlightened. Others to return until even the grass is enlightened, while still others swear to reincarnate with increasing clarity of consciousness and intent until even the stones are enlightened.

The Tibetan Buddhist exerceises for the acquisition of lucidity are many and varies. Almost all of them involve manipulating the environment of the dream in specific ways once lucidity has been achieved, and meditating on these activities while awake. In such a manner, over the course of a lifetime, the Tibetans believe that will and resolve are strengthened and the entity is prepared to reunite with God or reincarnate with equal consciousness.

---Dream Work from Jeremy Taylor

Viruses! - some fragmented dreams

Viruses!

" My family need to do some kind of planning. We now live in a different house. I downloaded some software program earlier and have introduced some viruses that are now invading our house. I take a broom going around the house to get rid of viruses. When I am ready to dump the viruses outside of my house, there are two men and two women forcing entry to my home. They corner me and my mom, and claim that they are my sisters and my brother-in-laws. I know that they are imposters but don't know how to get rid of them.

Somehow, I manage to sneak past them to upstairs where my son is sleeping. I tell him the problem and we start to plot a plan to take them out. My son seems confident that we will be able to do it. But, very strangely, at that very moment I suddenly realize that I need to get up and record my dream and I wake up from it.....don't know what happen next. "

The dream happened in the middle of the night of 2:00 am. After I recorded the sketches of my dream, I thought of re-entry to the dream just to know how the story ends, so I went back to sleep and started where I left off and drifted off to oblivion.

By the time I got up at 6:30 am, I have several fragmented dreams that I could not recall.

Why dream seems to always has no definite ending? We usually wake up in the middle of hot pursuit by a monster, a fall into the dark canyon, lost direction and don't know where to turn, in my last case, plot a plan to take out enemies. Yep, there are no closures in dreams. It is open for our exploration. Wherever you turn, you are experiencing one of the parallel universes, and according to some mystics, there are infinite number of parallel universes exist simultaneously at any moment. Wherever you are, whatever you do, you are fine. "Life is but a dream!".

A time for everything!

Such a beautiful Friday afternnon in Southern California, so, I skip my work this afternoon to run some errands, picking up books from library, getting maps from Triple A office, reading a dream work book, and getting a hair cut. I feel great of doing all these and have actually accomplished a great deal in a short 3 hours.

Life is too short to be tying up ourselves constantly in the dull office work. I am actually planning to do this often to getting into the habit of occasional relaxation.

The book that I am reading is called "Dream Work-Techniques for Discovering the Creative Power in Dreams" by Jeremy Taylor. Very helpful book indeed. The author has extensive experience in working with groups of people interested in exploring their dreams. He noticed people that are enthusiastic and very positive toward their dream exploration often stop remembering their dream right after joining the group session. What he discovered is that too much emotional attachment for dream exploration may work against us.

That may explain why I have stopped remembering my dream for last several nights. But no matter! Rome is not built in one night! so take heart and relax, there is time for everything!