Sweet Dreams Are Made of These

A bit over a week ago, at work, we somehow found ourselves in the middle of a debate about dreams. I’ll mention now that I’m actually quite good at interpreting dreams. To save my life, I still don’t know how we came to be talking about this, but we did and it left me with some uncomfortable feelings. That much, I’m still sorting out – at least until I decide I plain just don’t care. Details of parts of the conversation, though, I’d like to share – as well as my thoughts on suchery.

At some point in the chat, a coworker had mentioned that he read that most people dream in the third person. I’d say this is definitely true of my own experience with dreams. Mine have almost always been vivid, and almost invariably where the real me is more of an observer than anything – often watching myself play some role in the dream itself.

At another point, I mentioned that I almost never dream. Right away, people were quick to point out how wrong I am, since studies have shown that absolutely EVERYONE dreams EVERY night. When citing these studies, which these people actually knew almost nothing about, it was agreed upon by just about everyone – who had suddenly become sleep specialists – that I couldn’t possibly not dream. I tried explaining that I’m not saying I never dream. I tried explaining that my sleep is “different” and actually quite aware. I even went into some details about that, knowing already that my audience wouldn’t understand.

Here’s what’s bothersome about all of this: People don’t seem open to the idea that someone else’s experience might differ significantly from the bulk of everyone else’s.

At no time did I ever refute what “studies have shown.” (Well, maybe a little.) At no time did I ever say anyone was wrong. I did, however, indicate that I wasn’t a test subject with any of those studies (and so the results as they would apply to me might well vary) and that I’m fairly conscious while “asleep” and that this puts me in a different position from which I am (was) speaking. Responses I got literally ignored what I was saying. I received questions like, “Maybe you just don’t know that you’re dreaming” which I admitted could be the case except for the mostly-alert awareness I experience while I sleep.

It was actually quite frustrating – these people couldn’t see past what they had already digested in their minds. They really couldn’t. It’s like they were saying, “Apples, Apples, Apples” and I said, “What about Oranges?” and was met with, “No. Apples.” Although it wasn’t mentioned specifically, this factored, a bit, into a recent post wherein I self-jinxed. Things like this are making a change within me.

I can tell it.

Aum Shri Mahaganeshaya Namah
Aum Shanti

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I had a dream

My time spent asleep is … different. I’m not really sure how to describe it as it is most of the time. Typically, I “go to sleep” but I’m still, by far, mostly aware that my body is resting. Oddly enough, I’ve even – midsleep – found myself to be aware that my mind is resting, too. Dreams are not a common occurrence for me, unless you mean day dreaming. However, I do occasionally dream while I’m actually asleep. When this happens, I awake knowing the my mind dreamed, but almost always forget the details of that dream within hours of waking. Recently, though, this was not the case. The details follow.

I was at the gym… the usual happening Monday through Friday between around 5:30pm and 7:30pm. I was in a side area often used for stretching or doing body-based exercise, an area I’m never found in usually. I completed some random, nondescript stretches and then decided to strike a pose. A yoga pose, of course. A tree pose, to be specific. It was a modified tree pose that included a couple of additional mudras. Not long after assuming this pose, my hands found anjalimudra and things got weird.

Still in Vrikshasana, newly formed anjalimudra, I began to exhale. And exhale. And exhale. I exhaled for a REALLY long time. After this went on for some time, my face started becoming all veiny… but like vampire veiny where the veins are not only bulging but are like …black. Very dark. During this super exhale, I intoned a very subtle Aum, but solid enough that it felt almost concrete.

Shortly after noticing this (in my dream), everything began to quiver. I mean my body. I remained composed – eyes closed, even. But it was like this one monster I saw in the True Blood series that would get her mojo going to conjure up some evil and in the process would vibrate. I’m not sure how to describe this odd vibrating/shaking that my body did. It was throughout my entire body and if you were to see it, your vision of me would have been affected, like I became blurry or something. It was very intense, although I never fell out of pose or opened my eyes or anything.

And then it stopped. Just like that. Well, it retracted actually… into some place within me. Complete stillness pervaded everything. And further, in that complete stillness, it was like all the sound and air had suddenly been sucked out of the gym. Think of that weird super silence that happens during an electrical outage, only add to it a strange atmospheric pressure that makes you feel like something is about to transpire – because something was about to. It’s that pregnant silence that makes you hold your own breath for what might be about to surprise you.

After moving into the pose, and the subsequent vibratory “expansion,” which was followed by a vacuum sealed “implosion,” everything came apart. Everything except my body. If you’ve ever seen the X-Men movies from years ago, the best way I can describe the dissolution in my dream is to refer to the movie with the Jean Grey character who eventually becomes the Phoenix. At the end of that movie, she’s very pissed or hurt or something and so she sees fit to dissolve all of existence down to its molecular level. It happened in that movie… and in my gym, although I was neither hurt nor pissed.

By the end of my dream, I was all that remained – not just of the gym, but anywhere. And as I became enveloped by an expansive black void, surrounded by swirling “stuff dust,” I opened my eyes and grinned almost imperceptibly. The whole time my entire being was content. Quiet and still. An aura was just visible right around my head, and it was golden and purple and a little green right very close to my skin.

And then I awoke.

Dhrishti and the Divine Goose

I’m fond of being in the middle of reading about 9 books, and then purchasing 20 more for when I finish the first 9. I realize I have a problem. But I’ve also realized that bookcases are more handsome when they’re filled with books. Plus, I find myself with an ample supply ready for the sharing, should I encounter someone who needs or wants one of these gems. A recent purchase of mine, “Methods for Immortality, Death: Beginning or End?” has proven to be mostly yawn-provoking, but did center around a very simple meditation/mantra technique that virtually anyone can benefit from. I intend to share suchery presently.

The author of this book, Dr. John Mumford (aka Swami Anandakapila Saraswati) calls this meditation the “Gayatri Meditation,” or “Gayatri So Hum,” and insists (as may be implied by the book’s title) that its ultimate purpose is to help strengthen the meditator in such a way as to facilitate a very conscious end of one’s current human life, which he alternately refers to as death and transition. He admits that this technique is not the only way of dealing with the life/death intersection, but finds it to be a very valuable contribution and that many will find it suitable.

This Gayatri Technique is founded on the breath, about which Mumford says, “Breathing is, for the human, the most basic biological rhythm that consciousness can attach itself to, and this process of respiration goes on automatically, twenty-four hours a day, to the end of life.” Another word for death is expired, which seems to be connected to our word for breathing: respiration. When a person dies, he exhales (ex-spirates, as it were) and does not inhale (in-spirate) again. Since the beginning of human history, there has existed a perpetuated belief that the soul exits the body with the final breath. Romans actually attempted to catch the essence of the dying by inhaling his last breath.

Most people aren’t aware that one breath actually consists of four parts: Inhalation (caller puraka in yoga), retention/momentary pause (this phase is called kumbhaka), exhalation (called rechaka), and finally suspension/momentary pause (this time called sunyaka). For other 1,000 years Yoga has centered on either controlling or becoming aware of all four phases of a respiratory cycle as a means for transcending the physical body or experiencing altered states of consciousness.

Sometime around 1200 A.D., a yoga master named Goraksha authored a yoga text called Goraksha-Samhita, wherein he detailed observations that correlate with modern knowledge. He observed that a full respiratory cycle takes place every four seconds, or about fifteen times a minute. He then calculated that within one full rotation of the Earth we breathe automatically 21,600 times. Goraksha then noticed that the in-breath and out-breath make subtle subliminal sounds, which translate into a mantra, thus the name of this technique: Gayatri So Hum. Gayatri is attached to this because a Gayatri is a hymn or mantra that confers freedom from bondage, or liberation from the wheel or death and rebirth. This practice is alternately known as Ajapa Gayatra, on account of its mantra being voiceless. What Goraksha noticed, and what has been passed on through his lineage, is that the exhaled breath makes a subliminal sound “haa” and the inhaled breath makes the subliminal sound “saa.” This continuous unconscious mantric vibration, often written as “Hamsa,” or “Hansa,” beginning at birth and ceasing at death, has special qualities including piercing the veil between life and death. Although we’re starting with the in-breath (so/saa), when you string the two sounds (so/saa & hum/haa) together end-to-end, you end up with a “hansa” sound, the middle n being mostly nasal. “Hansa” is the divine goose (Anser Indicus), a beautiful white bird often eulogized in Hindu scripture as a symbol of the Soul and its ascent into heavenly places. The Gayatri So Hum is the Hansa, or divine bird, carrying us from beyond life and death into the center of the transcendental Self.

I’d like to point out here, briefly, that the goal of any Hindu is not to make it to Heaven. Heaven and Hell are seen to be temporary, at best. Each lasts only as long as an individual’s karmas warrant. The definition of salvation for Hindus is to step off of the wheel of Samsara -the wheel of death and rebirth.

The author sums up in four steps how to begin this Gayatri So Hum/Hansa Meditation technique.

1. Sit comfortably. Make sure all parts of the body are comfortable and supported, with the exception of the head. The head needs to be free so that you can notice if you nod off to sleep. Mumford says this isn’t a bad thing!
2. With your eyes closed, begin to consciously become aware of your breath. Do not interfere or try to control it, just watch it.
3. Proceed to synchronize your inhalation and exhalation with mental repetition of the Gayatri So Hum. Silently say “So” as your breath flows in, and similarly silently say “Hum” as your breath flows out.
4. Continue this for a minimum of 20-30 minutes. Anything less is useless.

Physical Signs and Symptoms of Successful Meditation

• Relaxed Wakefulness: Subjective contentment with warming of hands and feet, slowing of respiration, and lowering of blood pressure as well as raising of GSR (galvanic skin response) threshold.
• Dreaming: REM and sudden flaccidity of the neck muscles, producing head nodding.
• Deep Dreamless Sleep: Often accompanied by  snoring; it is possible to retain consciousness in this state -Yoga refers to it as Turiya.

In addition to the aforementioned four steps of this technique, one last factor comes into play.

1. Move the left ring finger toward the fleshy pad at the base of the thumb as the breath flows in, and move it away as the breath flows out.

Why the left hand? The left hand is used to ensure a “slight initial dominance,” or at least a direct contact, with the right hemisphere of the brain. The right hemisphere of the brain encourages holistic, nonverbal, spatial integrative experiences. Why the ring finger? When we focus on the ring finger, we tap into psychic and psychological inheritance that is both East and West. the ancient Egyptians believed a special cord or nerve ran from the ring finger directly to the heart, and many have attributed this to the custom of placing a wedding ring on the ring finger. Symbolically, the ring finger represents the Shiva Lingam and the wedding ring is the Yoni. since Roman times the ring finger has been identified as the healing finger or Digitus Medicus, and in contemporary India it is still the prefered finger for anointing the forehead with kumkum powder.

Mumford indicates that it may be useful for the student to utilize the Gnana Mudra, i.e. gently touching the tip of the left forefinger to the tip of the left thumb, forming a circle. This mudra carries profound significance and in itself signals the mind to prepare for meditation and accept absorption within universal consciousness. Mumford also says that as the meditation deepens, you may find that the movement of the left ring finger slackens or drops away entirely. This is acceptable. If you find yourself surfacing from the meditation prematurely, you can resort to the ring finger movements again. You’ll find this little addition taking up an amazing amount of slack and mental restlessness that people often experience.

… And there you have it. The Gayatri So Hum/Hansa pranayama (breath-centered) dhyan (meditation). It’s simple, but effective, and makes -if nothing else- a good foundation for additional meditation styles. If you try it, I want to hear about it.

Om Shanti