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Why I Haven’t Posted In The Last 2 Week: Confession Time…

Life has been rough lately.

Making that time for Dreaming Life between an increasingly demanding job, my role as a husband, and just dealing with my life is partly to blame, but it goes deeper than this.

To be honest, I’ve been struggling with personal issues that have taken up much of my time and emotional energy.

I think I’m experiencing some growing pains of adulthood. This is a rough transition, ya know? In the last few years I’ve gone to school, gotten married, bought a place, and started a real career. It’s a lot to take in, and somewhere in between it all, I struggle to find personal fulfillment and just plain happiness.

I know writing helps keep me sane - I’ve kept journals all my life, and this blog is an extension of that need to write. The best part of doing it here though is that I don’t just write but I converse, connect, listen, and learn. So I know through it all Dreaming Life will stay up because I need this outlet to keep me sane.

I’m revving up to publish some cool things soon - like an interview with the founder of the Aether Lucid Dreaming Retreat (the first one of which is happening right now in Mexico this week!), a review of the film Waking Life, and a discussion panel with some of my favorite bloggers and thinkers on lucid dreaming. (I can’t wait for this last feature to go public!)

So stick around for what’s coming. Dreaming Life isn’t going to fade away, it’s just going through growing pains along with me.

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Attention Fellow Bloggers!

The second edition of Dreaming Life’s carnival is coming out Novembe 28, 2007.

If you’ve got a blog post about dreams, lucid dreaming, OBE, NDE, brain science, and even posts from a skeptic viewpoint on the aforementioned subjects, please submit something to be featured.

Click here for the general info on the carnival.

Click here to go directly to the submission form.

I am happy to say that with the first edition I was able to promote some wonderful blogs and blog posts. Click here to check it out.

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Aliens, Demons, and Sleep Paralysis : What a Way to Wake Up!

I’m in bed, lying on my side. I can see myself in the mirror, but I cannot move.

My body feels like absolute dead weight. I struggle to move at all.

I move my hands and arms around; I can feel it happening, but am puzzled because they are completely invisible, 100%. I don’t see them at all!

I hit my hand against the bed. Nothing.

I throw myself to the floor, and struggle to move bit by bit. Only I’ve not moved at all, now I’m again on the bed, lying on my side.

There are others in the room. I can’t see them, but they are there.

It’s 2 females. They are behind me. They are simply there, as “presences.” They are somehow controlling the situation. I understand that they can do whatever they want to me, including a “re-do” of this entire situation, erasing my memory of it, and replacing it with a new one of their choosing.

Iryna is there, although I don’t actually see her. She is resisting. Only one of the female presences ever speaks, and at this time she says for me to tell Iryna to do whatever they want. She doesn’t say it in these words, or even close to these words, but I understand.

The entire time, I’m still frozen on the bed. I don’t say anything. The same woman speaks again, repeating something 2 or 3 times. It’s directed at me, and it’s a threat. I fear I will feel pain coming at me from behind at any moment if I do not cooperate.

I then say in a dreary voice, “Do whatever Elisa wants. Do whatever Elisa wants.”

I am frightened. On my dresser I see the outlines of a small woman’s body lying there. Behind me, by looking in the mirror, I am able to see the outline of a man’s body through the blinds. His shadow stands there, watching.

Then I hear my cat make a small sound, and the whole dream / paralysis unlocks without hesitation.

I lay in bed for a second, baffled, and realized I am actually awake. I get up. I see there’s a pile of clothes on the dresser that without my glasses on does create the image of a woman’s body. I turn around and see that there is a shadowed outlined of a man’s body on the window, created by the trees and the sun. However, my wife is not here, and those 2 invisible entities in the room? They are gone, too.

My cat however is nearby, still playing and making noise.

…

This just happened 45 minutes ago. I’m still dazed by it.

I believe I’ve experienced sleep paralysis in combination with an open-eyed dream.

What I find fascinating with my experience is its parallels with UFO abduction stories, old-fashioned tales of demon-visits and possession, and even similarities to the reported effects of DMT.

Consider the following:

I am unable to move.
I have no control over the situation.
There are beings with god-like presences in the room with me.
These beings lack of physical presence, but I know how many, their gender, and can hear one of their voices.
They are making this situation what it is and can do whatever they want with me.
They can erase and replace my memory of this situation with whatever they choose.
They threaten my wife by making me tell her to do whatever they want.
I see 2 other people. It’s unclear if they are threats to me or who they are, but there presence is frightening.

In other words:

Invisible entities with god-like powers who have 100% control over me, paralyzing my body, who can do whatever they want to me and then erase my memory of it!

If I were living just a few hundred years ago, this dream would easily be interpreted as demons giving me a little visit in the night. The elements of the bed, the paralysis, and the understanding that they can do whatever they want to me and erase my memory of it, creates a sexual backdrop to the story. That being said, many people claimed to be raped by demons and even Satan himself in the night back just a few hundred years ago.

In modern times, a story like this fits in nicely with UFO stories, where aliens come in the night, paralyze you, and do whatever they want with you, and then erase your memory of it.

So…

Was it demons or aliens?

Or maybe…

Maybe many experiences with demons, aliens, gods, and angels are based on a combination of sleep paralysis and an on-going dream, projected into the physical reality around the dreamer, watching with open eyes yet still dreaming?

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Announcing the Opening of Aether Lucid Dreaming Retreats in Tulum, Mexico!

It is with great excitement that I share with you the opening of a lucid dreaming retreat in Tulum, Mexico!

The first official retreat comes up quick on November 1-8, 2007. After reviewing the itinerary of the week-long retreat, this is quite possibly the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life.

Seriously.

Don’t believe me?

Here’s a sample of the included activities:

Classes on:
Dream Yoga
Mnemonic Lucid Dreaming
Sensory Reduction via the onsite Dry-Flotation Tank
Sound and Light Machines
Plant Teachers

Local Trips to:
The Mayan Ruins
Go Swimming with Dolphins (!!!)

Sessions in the Dry Flotation Tank, optionally with the addition of:
Calea Z
Salvia Divinorum
Sound and Light Machines

The retreat is located inside breach-front eco-village in the jungle.

Onsite there is also a spa, yoga/meditation center, and a restaurant. Amazingly, there is even wi-fi access in your cabaña and all over the resort, so you can, say for example, update your blog on dreams & altered states from an ocean-front hut in the jungle after a day of meditation, dream practice, and total relaxation.

Pretty sweet, eh?

Come back to Dreaming Life soon to find an interview with founder of the retreat, where we will discuss his goals in opening up a lucid dreaming resort and what people can expect from visiting.

Check out the official website for all the details, including rates, registration, itinerary details, class descriptions, and more:

Aether Lucid Dreaming Retreats
http://www.aether.org/

P.S. I am tentatively planning a visit in the Spring of 2008.

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Chad’s DXM Report # 2 : “I realized that tripping is a beautiful process of mind revealing itself to mind…”

This last Sunday I made another trip / experiment with DXM. This time I purchased four bottles of the Robitussin Cough Gels for a grand total of 1200 mg of DXM. I made a few mistakes. I always make sure that I’m doing well both physically and mentally before I trip. The truth was that my stomach was upset and I was feeling a little stressed out. But I was impatient to do my experiment so I went ahead. I had some ideas of things I wanted to do but did not set anything out beforehand, thinking that I would be able to do so later on.I swallowed all four bottles around 9:30 Sunday night. My wife and little girl were asleep and I was ready to plunge in. I put in a movie while waiting for the stuff to take effect. Watched ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ - a great movie that was even better with the first rising vibes of euphoria setting in.

About the time that Duke and Gonzo made it to Circus Circus my euphoria suddenly vanished and was replaced by a sick feeling deep in my stomach. It felt as though somebody had punched me in the gut. I immediately realized what was going on. My stomach cramps from earlier in the evening had returned and were now heightened by the onset of the trip. I berated myself for not waiting a little longer.

The stuff really started hitting hard about an hour and a half after I took the pills. I had to stumble into the bathroom. I will spare you the gruesome details. Suffice it to say that upset stomach and tripping do not go well together. I went through a seeming eternity of what turned out to be, in actual time, just a few minutes. I was weak after my ordeal. I grabbed some soda from the fridge and sat down in the living room.

I felt purged after the terrible bathroom incident. I started feeling better after a few minutes. I sat down in front of the air conditioner and let the cool air wash over me. But the drama was not over. Next I got a terrible itching sensation all over my body. O shit, I thought, it’s the robo-itches! It felt like I had hives or something. Realizing I could easily scratch myself raw I made it back to the bathroom and took a couple of Benadryl. These took effect quickly and I was saved from the hell of robo-itch.

I was thinking to myself what a rotten way this all was to start a trip. I was right. After my body started feeling better my mind decided it was time to get sick. I was confronted by all sorts of negative thoughts and emotions. Fortunately I realized this for what it was – the irritability I felt before the trip was now becoming magnified. This is why I don’t trip if I’m not feeling well physically or mentally – the trip can easily turn nasty. But the surest cure for such a trip ailment is to recognize it for what it is, label it, and let it pass. This I did and was feeling better both in body and mind in just a few minutes. The nasty part of the trip was over. By now it was going on 11:30 at night.

I was feeling really good now. The euphoria was back but it was a calming sensation, not a hyperactive type of euphoria. I turned off the tv and all the lights in the house. I was anxious to see what kind of visual effects I would get in the total dark. I remembered one of the things I wanted to do was to listen to music, so I got my cd player and headphones. I put in ‘Sacred Ritual Music of Tibet’ and sat down in the recliner. The music was full and rich and seemed to send vibrations through my body. I got lost in the music – losing all sense of time and place and self. There was only the music. The passage of time continued to slow down throughout the evening.

After listening to most of the cd I decided it was time to get up and have a stretch. By this time the robo-walk had set in and I had to slowly stumble my way back into the kitchen. I had a smoke and watched the full moon. Afterwards I grabbed my tape player and tapes and headed back to the living room. This was the part of the trip I was really looking forward to. When I bought my NovaDreamer over a decade ago, it came with two cassette tapes by Dr. LaBerge. One was a general tape dealing with lucidity topics and relaxation exercises. The second tape was a trance induction program for lucid dreaming. I put the trance tape in. I wanted to lay down in bed but I knew that in my current state I probably wouldn’t make it that far and would end up waking my family. I went back into the living room and ended up falling on the floor. My depth perception was totally screwed.

I laid down on the floor and pressed play. Soothing, ambient music enfolded me, relaxing me as I listened. I was taken through a visualization – each word from the instructor blossomed in my mind as a shimmering, bright image. A spiral staircase came into being, glowing blue, and I saw myself walking down the steps. My mind was in another place and I found it hard to concentrate on the instructions coming from the tape. I could not grasp sentences. Each word caused a brief, powerful image to appear behind my eyes. I felt as if my head were as big as an ocean and each word was like a drop of water that caused the whole to resonate with gentle waves.

I couldn’t grasp what I was supposed to do but realized the main goal of the project. I remembered that this was an attempt at auto-hypnosis and could just hope that my brain was picking up the message. The words seemed to come from deep inside my head -
‘you’ ‘will’ ‘awaken’ ‘you’ ‘will’ ‘see’. Yes, I said to myself. I lost track of where I was. I could not remember if I was awake or dreaming. I didn’t know if I was in bed or in another room. The lines that separated waking, sleeping, and dreaming all fell away. I felt as though I had always been in this lucid state. During brief periods of clear-headedness, I realized that the increase in dosage from my last trip was having a major effect on me. This was a much more intense trip than my last one. I remember thinking that I had initially scoffed at DXM, seeing it as a poor substitute for the ‘real’ hallucinogens. I realized that assumption was wrong and DXM was indeed a powerful hallucinogen in its own right.

The tape ended and I had a lot of trouble switching it to the next side. I kept attempting to stick the tape in my forehead, after all that’s where the sound seemed to be coming from. I gave up and put the tape down. I held the walkman in my hands but could not remember for the life of me what the damn thing was for and what I was doing holding it. I put it down as well and went back to the safety of the living room.

I was talking to myself, trying to get oriented. I began listing things off “It is Sunday. I am in my living room. I have taken a drug. I am tripping”. I sat and did some breath meditation for a few minutes. I have always found this very helpful while tripping –it’s easy to do and easy to remember, even while being ‘far out’ on a trip and it’s an excellent tool to ground one’s self and drive away negative energies.

The breath meditation gave me a clear head and seemed to increase the trip ten-fold. I wondered what to do next. What would Ben suggest? I laughed at the thought and tried to conjure him up before my mind’s eye. I found myself flying through the darkness and seeing bright spheres of light ahead – these spheres were the astral projections of the Dreaming Life website. I floated through these, marveling at the intricate patterns of light that played between the glowing spheres. The text was in a foreign, alien looking script. I pushed on one sphere that had Ben’s picture on it. A glowing outline of a male figure emerged from the globe. The Ben figure put his hand into another globe. He drew it out and his hand was followed by a trail of glowing symbols. He folded these on top of one another and shaped them as if they were clay. He made various figures of the mystic script and finally passed them to me. I caught the ball of glowing symbols and began to reconfigure them. We passed several of these ‘knowledge balls’ back and forth. Each time I caught one of these glowing spheres I had an insight, dealing with the trip itself and the nature of mind. I realized that we are primarily minds – entities that perceive, think, and feel. I realized that tripping, like other means to enlightenment, is a beautiful process of mind revealing itself to mind – a constant unfolding. Before long, everything, including myself, seemed to evaporate into the darkness.

Several hours passed as my mind went out further and further. I lost all sense of self. I wandered through beautiful astral landscapes. I was in awe at the nature and beauty of the human mind.

I played the trance tape several more times and finally started coming down at around 5 in the morning. I fell down twice while trying to get back into bed. I fell asleep in no time. The trip took a lot out of me. My wife was very kind and took care of the little one while I slept all day Monday. I was off of work Tuesday and slept half of it as well.

An amazing experience. There’s so much more that I want to tell but simply cannot find the words for. Tripping is a sacred experience.

…

Note: This guest post was written by Chad, who was interviewed previously on Dreaming Life at Exploring the Oneiroverse with Chad Watts: On Lucid Dreams, Entheogens, and the Spiritual Experience.

You can also check out this post describing his first DXM experience.

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Chad’s DXM Report # 1 : “My mind felt as if it were floating away from my body”

First the basics of a good DXM trip. Found this out by a mixture of web research and personal experimentation.

1. Check your local drug store for Robitussin Cough Gels. These are ideal for tripping purposes. You don’t have to worry about getting sick by having to drink a lot of nasty cough medicine and you know the exact amount of DXM you are consuming. The downside is they are a bit pricey. Here they go for about 4 dollars a bottle and you need three to five bottles for a good trip.

2. Whatever route you take, pills or liquid, be absolutely sure that dextromethorphan is the only active ingredient. Many medications include Aspirin, Guaifenesin, Phenylephrine or other active chemicals that become toxic when taken in high dosages.

3. DXM is a psychedelic but it is also a dissociative. It is therefore grouped with drugs such as PCP and ketamine more often than drugs like LSD or psylocibin. Some people do not like dissociatives and end up having a bad trip. Personally I enjoy the effects. Consciousness seems to extract itself from the body.

4. The two classic side effects of robotripping are the robo-walk and robo-itches. I have not had the itching happen to me but it does happen to a lot of people – a nasty itching sensation covers the body. I’ve heard that an allergy medication like Benadryl can stop this side effect. Robo-walking comes with the territory. Your depth perception gets really screwed and the ground seems far away or really close. You stumble around like a drunk on a sailboat. From experience I suggest just taking it slow and sitting down to pee.

5. Dosage mainly depends on what type of experience you want. Below I quote some excellent guideline from Erowid:

“The chart below shows approximate recreational dosages for pure dextromethorphan, measured in milligrams (mg).

Oral DXM Dosages

Threshold

unknown

Light

100 - 200 mg

Common

200 - 400 mg

Strong

300 - 600 mg

Heavy

600 - 1500 mg

Risk of Death

2,500 - 20,000 mg

Duration : 4 - 8 hours
Some users report that DXM dosages are affected significantly by bodyweight and lighter users should start with lower dosages. Because everyone reacts differently, it is a better idea to start at lower dosages and slowly work up rather than jumping in at a higher dose. Some people are very sensitive to the effects and may be overwhelmed by dosages that are minimal for others.”

For my trip I purchased three bottles of Robitussin Cough Gels. At 15mg dxm per cap and 20 caps per bottle I got 300mg per bottle for a grand total of 900 mg. I took them all at 10 o’clock Saturday night. It took 45 minutes to an hour before any noticeable effects occurred. Caps take a while to dissolve and so the trip doesn’t hit as fast as a liquid induced one would. I read on one web page that you can chew the caps for faster onset but the user is warned this is a revolting process. I just swallowed the caps.

Got the cosmic laughter when the stuff first started kicking in. Waves of euphoria washed over me making me feel good both physically and emotionally. The robo-walk set in quickly and I stumbled around the living room for a while trying to get my bearings. I went outside for a bit and watched the stars. Beautiful.

I was in a heightened emotional state, similar to the kind induced by Ecstasy, and made my way slowly to the bedroom where my wife and little girl were asleep. My wife woke up when I stumbled into the dresser. I gushed out all kinds of love talk. She was happy I was feeling good and returned the sentiments but was happy when I left her alone to go back to sleep. I did my best to kiss my little girl but misjudged the distance and ended up smooching my pillow. I then went out for a smoke.

The euphoria continued and I was anxious to explore more of the trip. I drank some juice and laid down in the dark bedroom. Visuals are not a big part of robo-tripping but you can get them in higher dosages in dark surroundings. I pulled out my cd player and headphones and put on an album I always wanted to listed to while tripping – The Magnificent Void by Steve Roach. The experience was fantastic.

I looked up and saw clouds floating by on the ceiling. This was followed by swirling stars and geometrical shapes – much like hypnogogic imagery. Time seemed to slow as my body became increasingly numb as the dissociative effects set in. I had to move my body around several times to make sure it was still there. My mind felt as if it were floating away from my body. My breathing became deep and still. This phase of the trip lasted several hours. Any trip, especially the peak, is difficult to put into words. My mind soared into unknown realms while my body seemed far beneath me. I received a ‘gem’ (one of my own terms again – a gem is an insight that you have while tripping that you remember and can use once sober again.)

I leveled out for a few hours and finally started coming down about 5 in the morning. Had a bit of a hangover the next day but nothing serious – just tired. My wife was very kind and let me take a nap.

I had a great experience and am looking forward to doing it again. Next time I’m going to try a 1200 mg dose and, if that goes well, make another attempt at 1500 mg. Below are some good websites relating to dxm tripping. If you decide to try it tell me how it goes. I also would really like to buy that book you mentioned. I found it on Amazon and plan to purchase it soon.

…

Good Links on DXM:

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/dxm/dxm.shtml

http://www.dextroverse.org/index2.shtml

http://www.third-plateau.org/

…

Note: This guest article was written by Chad. Thanks buddy! You can learn more about Chad and how his brain works be reading Dreaming Life’s fascinating interview with him in Exploring the Oneiroverse with Chad Watts: On Lucid Dreams, Entheogens, and the Spiritual Experience.

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