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By Ben, on March 19th, 2009%
I try not to be one of those blogs that does nothing but post quotes, cuz that’s usually kinda lame, but every once in awhile, a good quote is worth sharing…
With that in mind, I stumbled upon a lovely interview today with Jeff Warren, author of The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness, where on the topic of sleep, he marvels at the fact of dreaming, and how amazing this is, in and of itself, stating:
When you wake up in a dream and actually take a look around — it’s bananas. It’s the absolute craziest goddamn thing in all . . . → Read More: Colorful quote on dreaming from an interview with Jeff Warren
By Ben, on August 20th, 2008%
I’ve been fascinated with the thought of floating around in an isolation tank ever since I first saw the film Altered States ten years ago.
Um – what is an isolation tank, you ask?
“An isolation tank is a lightless, soundproof tank in which subjects float in salty water at skin temperature. They were first used by John C. Lilly in 1954 in order to test the effects of sensory deprivation. Such tanks are now also used for meditation and relaxation and in alternative medicine. Isolation tanks were originally called sensory deprivation tanks. Other synonyms for isolation tank include float tank, floating tank, . . . → Read More: Isolation Tanks and the Potential For Lucid, Trippy, Self Transformative Experiences
By Ben, on August 14th, 2008%
The Food of the Gods, by Terence McKenna, is the story of humanities relationship with different plants and how these relationships effect and reflect our cultural values.
By the last page, the book has taken a somewhat discontinuous step into a different territory, with McKenna penning a manifesto of sorts on the integration of psychoactives into our current culture. He calls our culture the Dominator culture, and sees the use of consciousness-expanding plants as part of the Archaic Revival, a reference to the return of a pre-monotheistic, integrated, “whole” way of living that we as a species once had with our environment and each other.
History buffs . . . → Read More: A Book Review of Food of the Gods by Terence McKenna
By Ben, on July 3rd, 2008%
This page will be updated regularly with links to FREE online books, journals, and newsletters related to dreams and lucid dreaming, entheogens/psychedelics, and brain/consciousness/mind stuff..
You’ll find entire books released in PDF format for download and viewing (and printing), or books published online that you can read over the web. I’ve also included links to journals and newsletters that you can read for free online.
If a link is broken or if you have something to suggest I add, please email me.
Enjoy!
-Ben
PS Recommended items are highlighted in bold.
Last Updated: July 3, 2008
Newsletters and Journals
LDE: The Lucid Dream Exchange Newsletter (requires free Yahoo . . . → Read More: Free Online Books, Journals, and Newsletters on Dreams, Lucid Dreaming, and Psychedelics
By Ben, on June 17th, 2008%
In discussing a new found ability to rememeber his dreams after writing them down, Richard Bach, author of Illusions and Jonathan Livingston Seagull, writes in A Gift of Wings:
It wasn’t much later that I noticed that my days were dreams themselves, and just as deeply forgotten. When I couldn’t remember what happened last Wednesday, or even last Saturday, I began keeping a journal of days as well as of nights, and for a long time I was afraid I had forgotten most of my life.”
We all know how easily our dreams slip away from us, but what about the memories of . . . → Read More: Interesting quote from Richard Bach
By Ben, on November 12th, 2007%
Control Your Dreams takes in a much wider scope than, say, the wonderful books on lucid dreaming written by Stephen LaBerge.
Authors Jayne Gackenbach and Jane Bosveld tackle lucid dreaming at many, many different angles. While they explore the basic concepts of dreaming, what dreams are, interpretation, and techniques for working with your dreams on up to controlling your dreams via lucid dreaming, they go far beyond this.
The authors talk extensively on the connection between dreams and lucid dreaming to positive visualization, the power of the mind to heal the body, the similarities between meditation and the dream state, near-death and out . . . → Read More: One of the Best Books On Lucid Dreaming… (that you’ve probably never heard of)
By Ben, on June 14th, 2007%
In A Psychonaut’s Guide to the Invisible Landscape: The Topography of the Psychedelic Experience, author Dan Carpenter makes many startling claims based on his experiences with the dissociative psychedelic DXM. (Yep, dextromethorphan – the stuff of cough syrup!)
He’s not simply having a subjective journey inside his mind; DXM actually takes him to an objective realm with other beings – some of which are the souls of recently departed friends and associates!
Yes – he’s talking about meeting the dead!
Along the way, he has out of body experiences, witnesses the seat of dreaming and memory, interacts with strange beings, lost souls, and other . . . → Read More: Part I: A Psychonaut’s Guide to the Invisible Landscape: Joining the Hive Mind, Seeing Your Dreams, Crushing the Ego and… Meeting the Dead?
By Ben, on June 14th, 2007%
All the questions brought up in this book answer to a bigger question, perhaps the biggest question of all:
Can we trust our own subjective experiences?
This innocent-sounding question is one of enormous implication.
At times when I read his words I thought to myself that if I accept what he says, than by the same standards, I should accept the words and experiences of those who profess many other subjective experience, many of which contradict each other. (For instance, the prophets of various religions all claiming that theirs is the only truth and everyone else is wrong.)
On the flipside, if we can’t trust . . . → Read More: Part II: A Psychonaut’s Guide to the Invisible Landscape: Can We Trust Our Own Experiences?
By Ben, on June 14th, 2007%
The book is at its best when, instead of merely being a log of his trips, the author expounds on their philosophical and spiritual implications. In other words, What does it all mean?
While he does get into this a bit, occasionally using quantum physics to help makes sense of the experience, unfortunately this book is more of a collection of trip reports, like those found on Erowid, rather than a full book about what he learned.
Near the end, he boldly writes that “exploration with psychedelics must be the exploration of death in the final outcome,” and tops it off by saying . . . → Read More: Part III: A Psychonaut’s Guide to the Invisible Landscape: Parting Words, Parting Sorrows
By Ben, on May 1st, 2007%
There’s a lot of buzz surrounding a new book out there called Imagining The 10th Dimension. Singer / songwriter, thinker, philosopher and amateur scientist (although he insists he’s not a scientist!) has pieced together a means of actually explaining a way to understand the idea of not just 4 or 5 dimensions, but 10. (10 dimensions is the magic number lately since String Theory posits there are 10 dimensions.) His animation explaining the 10 dimensions has been widely viewed on the internet and has propelled his book to the spotlight. His book was recently the subject of an article in What . . . → Read More: Rob Bryanton, author of Imagining the 10th Dimension, visits Dreaming Life!
By Ben, on May 1st, 2007%
This is part one of a 10 minute animation produced by Rob Bryanton that outlines how to Imagine the Tenth Dimension. This animation accompanies his book of the same name.
Click anywhere on the image below to start this clip.
Click here for Part Two of this clip.
Click here for interview . . . → Read More: Imagining the Tenth Dimension – Animation Part 1
By Ben, on May 1st, 2007%
This is part two of a 10 minute animation produced by Rob Bryanton that outlines how to Imagine the Tenth Dimension. This animation accompanies his book of the same name.
Click anywhere on the image below to start this clip.
Click here for Part One of this clip.
Click here for interview . . . → Read More: Imagining the Tenth Dimension – Animated Video Clip Part 2
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