Speaker 1 · 0:03Hi, everybody. I'm really fascinated by today's expert and topic. Our friend Andrew Holicek is here. Andrew Holicek is an author and a spiritual teacher. He offers talks, online courses, and workshops all over the US and abroad. He's a longtime student of Buddhism. He frequently presents this tradition from a contemporary perspective, blending the ancient wisdom of the East with modern knowledge from the West. Drawing on years of intensive study and practice, he teaches on the opportunities that exist in obstacles, helping people with hardship and pain, death and dying, and also problems in meditation. Known as an expert on lucid dreaming and the Tibetan yogas of sleep and dream, he's an experienced guide for students drawn to these powerful nocturnal practices. Andrew is the author of many books and offers seminars internationally on meditation, lucid dreaming, and dream yoga. He's the author of Dream Yoga, Illuminating Your Life Through Lucid Dreaming, and the Tibetan Yogas of Sleep, the Audio Learning Course, Dream Yoga, The Tibetan Path of Awakening Through Lucid Dreaming, Dreams of Light, The Profound Daytime Practice of Lucid Dreaming, and the Lucid Dreaming Workbook, A Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering Your Dream Life. He's also a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the author of several scientific papers on lucid dreaming.
Speaker 2 · 1:56Let's start a little bit more with this liminal dreaming. Liminal dreaming also doubles as a type of lucid sleep onset. The more you do liminal dreaming, which anybody can do, this is pretty easy, the more you're going to start to grease the skids for dream yoga, lucid dreaming, sleep yoga, and the like. So this is a fantastic segue into all the nocturnal practices. And as I've been engaging in these practices more and more, especially liminal dreaming, it has a host of kind of benefits and features that the other practices actually do not have. And so I'm a little bit more on the bandwagon now of introducing people to this practice because it has the capacity to show how the meditative mind, the mindful mind, can work in this kind of plasma dimension, right? You know, liminal states of consciousness are that kind of froth of perception, plasma of mind, right? When you're not quite awake, you're not quite asleep, you're not quite here, you're not quite there. Exactly what constitutes most of our experience when we're actually falling asleep. And so the more we can gain proficiency in this first practice, absolutely positively, the more it greases this gives for lucidity in the other practices. So liminality, literally, the word means threshold and in-between. You're not awake, you're not asleep, you're kind of playing in this surf of awareness. The idea of liminality itself, just very briefly as a principle, is very interesting because once you're sensitized to liminal phenomenologies, you start to realize that there are things like liminal spaces. These are like transit lounges, workplaces after dark, cemeteries, elevators, hallways, places that are that seem, again, not quite here, not quite there, transit locations. There's also liminal experiences. These are very interesting. Coming home after a long trip where you're not quite home, you're not quite in, you know, the trip has ended, but you still really haven't arrived, you're not quite here, you're not quite there. The uh experience of uh being fired, the experience of being dumped by a boyfriend or girlfriend, that's a liminal experience. Being in a waiting room is a luminal experience. Any kind of groundless, homeless or uncertain situation, any kind of malwhat experience is a luminal experience. And then, of course, there's a notion of liminal beings, artists, um, people who don't fit LGBTQ, people that don't fit the normal standard mode. These qualities of liminality are very interesting in terms of understanding the way phenomena itself operate, and they can expand our awareness and sense of appreciation for liminal principles altogether. And so here's a probably the most succinct set of definitions I've ever come across for the purposes of time to show you what this particular experience is. We all know it first person, but I found these particular definitions to be among the most compelling. From Jennifer Dunper, um, she wrote a book by this title, Liminal Dreaming, that's well worth reading. And this is what she says it's the ability to simultaneously inhabit the worlds of waking and sleep, and it will change how you locate yourself everywhere. Think of the conscious mind like the land, known and solid, and the unconscious mind like the ocean, deep and largely unknown. At the threshold where ocean and land meet, the waves become churning and wild. End quote. So this is like again, playing in the surf, the froth of perception. And then she continues, it's a swirling, kaleidoscopic, free associative experience on the edge of your mind. And the reason I toss this into the mix is you do not have to wait till you fall asleep to have these liminal experiences, right? You as meditators, if you've meditated for any extended period of time, especially you're doing sessions or 30-day practices, very often meditators will start to bob in and out of these liminal states of mind. And the usual instruction, which is legitimate, is you know, the way I was trained, tighten your posture, raise your gaze, open your awareness, take a couple few deep breaths. If that doesn't work, you know, if you're sitting by yourself, stand, do walking meditation. All wonderful kind of antidotes to the intrusion of liminality into the meditative space. But now, armed with the information about liminal practices, you can again transform obstacle into opportunity. Instead of resisting these liminal experiences on the cushion when you're drifting in and out, now you can engage with your heightened sense of mindfulness, you can engage in liminal practice on the meditation cushion. So it's yet another way to bring a skill set into the meditator's armamentarium so that when these experiences take place, you have another way to work with them. You don't always have to apply an antidote. Sometimes you can actually engage these obstacles and turn them into opportunities to explore the mind in this kind of intermediate dimension. So back to her swirling kaleidoscopic free associative experience on the edge of your mind. You'll find it in the space right between awake and asleep, where your meandering consciousness mixes memory and thought with visionary imagery. Liminal dreaming has taught me to manifest liminal mind. The ability to slip back and forth between this world of material reality and the otherworldly realm of dream and mythic space. Liminal dreaming is a remarkable mind state, one you can channel for creativity or problem solving, use as a form of metacognition to explore your thought processes or simply play with as a form of consciousness exploration. And so the other thing, end quote, so the other thing that takes place here is a kind of a synesthesia experience. This synesthesia is this really interesting state, and some people actually suffer from synesthesia as a kind of clinical disorder, where in the in the liminal space, senesthesia is when your senses start to kind of um interdigitate in a certain way. You can smell colors, you can see tastes. The senses seem to kind of amalgamate in the liminal space. The other thing is characteristic of liminality, and this is a back to the kind of medical arena, of what are called hypnic or myoclonic jerks. We've all had this experience, right? Sometimes even when we're driving, you're starting to dize off, and all of a sudden there's this big contraction, your body is just contracting. That myoconic jerk is indicative of the fact that you've entered in this deliminal space, usually phase one, phase two of the descent into sleep from a clinical perspective. But these are very interesting dimensions where we start to gap out. Usually, when we fall asleep, there's a continuous stream of consciousness, this kind of narrative of the discursive mind that's running. And as we start to fall asleep, you've noticed this. And this is just introducing perhaps a little bit of granularity to your experience. You'll notice that certain gaps start to appear between the previous bumper-to-bumper traffic jam of your um runaway discursive mind. If you didn't have those gaps between your thoughts, you would not fall between those gaps and fall into sleep. That's in fact what creates insomnia. So that's one of the classic characteristics of entering the liminal space is a mindfulness meditator. You start to notice the decoupling of thought. You start to notice that there's small gaps start to appear between thoughts, a little bit of space, you're starting to transition from the waking to the dreaming space. The other thing that happens is really interesting to explore is a state called thought image amalgamation. This one's pretty cool. And so what this means is that when you first fall asleep again, thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, thoughts. But then if again, if you're mindful, if you're aware, you start to notice that the thoughts slowly start to transform into images. They start to transform into pictures. That's called thought-image amalgamation. Eventually, what will happen is that image will then replace or supplant the thought. It's mostly image, image, image. Then the images actually start to pop up into these very short, lucid dreamlets. And this is a really interesting thing to explore. You can actually watch, you can trace a thought with your mindfulness, you can hold a thought with your mindfulness, you can see how that thought inflates into an image, thought, image amalgamation. Then you can actually watch that inflate even further into a very brief lucid dream, a dreamlet. And so this talks very briefly about further aspects of the spectrum of lucid dreaming itself, hyperlucidity, super lucid dreams. There's also these really short lucid dreamlets that can last four, five, six, seven, ten seconds. Very short little lucid dreams that are usually too short to do anything with, but you can engage in a type of what's called pelucidity or witnessing dream. You can actually watch the dream inflate. And if you get really good at this, it doesn't take long. This is how you can incubate a dream. So I'm, for instance, personal example. I'm I'm working with a particular issue now where I need, I'm trying to get some guidance around a particular health matter. And one of the things I'm doing is I'm working with this type of dream incubation. I go to sleep with a particular stream of intentionality involved, which kind of seeds, creates like seeding the cloud, is seeding the dream cloud. I go to sleep with a particular type of intentionality. And because I have so much homage to the powers of my unconscious mind and to the dream state altogether, it's a type of miniature dream incubation. It's like I would like to receive some guidance about this particular health issue. And so I'll watch these dreams transform into dream images. And if I can do it with some proficiency, the dream image itself will further inflate into an actual dream. And then quite, I wouldn't say often, but not terribly uncommon, I can have that dream unfold. And then within it, very often, because it's lucid, a type of message will be received. And dream interpretation is incredibly important, very valuable practice. But it is not part of the sequence of practices whatsoever. In the same way that when you're working with meditation, you're not interested in the contents of your mind. You're interested in changing your relationship to the contents of your mind. You're not doing therapy when you're meditating. Meditation is therapeutic, but it's not therapy. And in exactly the same way, when you're doing these types of practices, you're not interested in it in the content in terms of overt dream interpretation. You're working with transforming that content. But with that said, one of the collateral benefits of doing these practices, lucidity is a code word for awareness, you will notice your ability to have clearer, non-lucid dreams starts to arise. You will start to remember more dreams, irrespective of whether they're lucid or not. They'll be clearer, they're going to last longer. And therefore, if you are working with dream interpretation, which again is incredibly powerful, very valuable, I do it all the time. Your ability to work in that capacity of the dream spectrum is heightened as well. This is part of the collateral benefits of doing these practices. So, just a few things about the middle insight, and then I want to give you some tips for how to do this. So you can start to play with this a little bit. So, as I alluded to earlier, one of the really interesting things you can explore in this dimension are the creative impulses of the mind. Because very often creativity really swells up from within, from within these unconscious dimensions. And even Thomas Edison and Salvador Dali very famously cultivated these types of techniques where they're variations of the same sort of thing, where they would fall asleep in a chair. I think it was Dolly who did this. I can't remember. If it's either Dolly or Edison, but they're very similar techniques. He would hold a spoon in his right hand above a plate. And as he was lying down in his chair, he would just like lean back. He had a spoon here. And then as he was starting to doze off, well, of course, his grip would relax. The spoon would fall down, clang on the plate, and wake him up. And Dali claimed that this was part of the genesis of his surrealistic art, his dream-like art. He was actually trolling, farming this dimension of mind for creative insight. And allegedly, Thomas Edison did the same thing. So this is one of the things you can start to play with yourself, either in a more relaxed, uh less overt way than formal liminal dreaming, or with formal liminal dreaming, you can start to troll the unconscious mind as it's manifesting in this frothy dimension between consciousness and unconsciousness, and work with creative impulses. So here's a statement from a cognitive scientist. This guy's name is Roger Shepard. Many scientists and creative thinkers have noted that the mind's best work is sometimes done without conscious direction. During receptive states of reverie, idle meditation, dreaming, or transition between sleep and wakefulness. End quote. She wrote an entire book, I think it's called The Committee of Sleep, where she talks about throughout history, hundreds and hundreds, I'm sure thousands of undocumented creators who worked either overtly or serendipitously farming the unconscious mind as it expresses itself in this liminal space and the dreaming space. The literature is replete with all these kinds of stories. So, how do we actually engage in this meditation? Well, with you as uh meditators, mindfulness practitioners, you already have a head start on this because you're already developing a more nuanced relationship to the contents of your mind. And so when we first engage in these practices, like I mentioned at the outset, many people are they stumble and they fumble around in the dark because the territory is so unfamiliar, that's completely normal. So a sense of patience, a sense of levity, a sense of humor, and also a sense of playfulness is required because if we're too concerted, too tight, then our efforts to attain lucidity in these states can actually backfire. And so one of the delicate dances with all these nocturnal meditations is this kind of tightrope between not too tight, not too loose. This is in my training a classic meditative maxim: not too tight, not too loose. Because here, if you're too tight, you're just gonna stay awake. If you're too loose, you're just gonna capitulate to your usual non-lucid liminal spaces or liminal dreams. And so part of the practice is this developing this kind of balancing tightrope act where you'll be able to yourself determine when you're falling into one extreme or the other. And so, lucidity in any of these five practices is really about the training to find the balance between not too tight, not too loose, so that you don't fall into your previous habits of non-lucidity, but yet you're not too tight, which won't allow you to fall asleep. And so, my dear friend Evan Thompson, who wrote one of the most fascinating books on this battery of practices, um, called Waking, Dreaming, and Being, Self and Consciousness and Neuroscience Meditation and Philosophy, he's a brilliant philosopher. This is what he says about working your way into things like um liminal dreaming. First, establish your observational intent. And I'm gonna run a little commentary as we go through this. Intention in these practices is everything. In fact, I went to a dream yoga program um four years ago at this point, before COVID, with Sugna Rimichi, he's a great meditation master. He did a rare exposition on dream yoga. And the only induction method he gave, which now there are dozens, the only, number one, only induction method he gave was intention. Etymologically, the word is interesting. It literally means to stretch towards. And so the reason I'm gonna riff on this for a second is that intentionality allows you to stretch consciousness into previously unconscious domains. It's like a type of consciousness hacking, right? And so, one of the best things you can do, and it may seem patronizingly simple, is throughout the day start to set the intention that you ramp up as you're going to sleep. This is another thing you add to your good Eastern spiritual sleep hygiene protocol. You start to set a very heartfelt intention that, you know, tonight, and don't just flap your lips, you want to really mean it. Tonight, I'm going to experience liminal dreaming. Tonight I'm going to have a lucid dream, and you really mean it, and you really set your intention. It's absolutely critically important as a very foundational infrastructure technique for attaining lucidity awareness in any of these states. So establish your observational intent, which may be general. This is back to Evan. I'll observe whatever comes to mind, that's the pelucidity or witnessing dream. You just watch it without doing anything. Or specific. I'll observe only color features or fleeting images. Too much absorption diminishes the observant or witnessing aspect of awareness and leads directly into sleep. Too much sharp-eyed awareness compromises the vividness and liveliness of the images. Again, that's that not too tight, not too loose maxim. Back to him. You also need to poise between attention and passive reception. Getting the images to arise requires being open and receptive, while seeing them takes a certain kind of diffuse attentiveness. Scrutinizing them too directly makes them fall apart. End quote. Yes. The other thing you're doing, of course, is you're turning down the volume on your day. You're mindfully, volitionally observing the diminuendo, the decrescendo from loud waking consciousness into these more subtle, silent dimensions of mind. And so Evans has this to say about this. Sometimes in this borderland state, a peculiar kind of double consciousness ensues. We retain awareness of the outside world while watching the inner mental scene usurp its place. End quote. Evan, as a philosopher, he uses this big fancy word, quantum phenomenology. You know what phenomenology is, right? Basically the study of experience. He uses the term quantum phenomenology because what he's talking about is dreamers and meditators who develop the ability to perceive things. I mean, don't take this too literally at quanta level. The idea is a very sensitive, heightened, refined dimension of awareness that eventually allows you to see things you've never seen before. And so even the intentionality to lie down in bed tonight and say, you know what? I'm going to be a little bit more curious. I'm going to use my mindfulness. I'm going to follow my mind as it transitions from overt waking consciousness into this intermediate bandwidth. And then half the fun of doing this stuff is just simply seeing what happens. Even though there are classic patterns of descent or classic kind of markers, we're all individuals. This is a highly idiosyncratic practice. And part of the fun is just understanding the basic parameters of these meditations and then just exploring, just pecking for the good trip and then going out and seeing what happens. And eventually, armed with the proper kind of skill set, the joy comes from being what Stephen LeBerge talks about oniro nauts. Onirology is the study of dreams. Onyironauts are like astronauts who explore outer space. Oniro nauts are those who explore the inner space of the mind, the dreaming mind, the liminal mind. And so the idea is that even if we don't have overt lucidity at first, just bringing awareness, mindfulness into these previously mindless states. I mean, what is the definition of mindlessness? Crashing out. Going to sleep is really the archetype of mindlessness, which of course is why we have so many mindless dreams, non-lucid dreams, and mindless sleep. What we're trying to do, or what we could be invited to do, is use the skill set of our mindfulness, replace mindlessness with mindfulness, turn on the light, and start to see dimensions of our own minds and hearts that we've never seen before. So as we start to do that, we'll gain a little bit more facility, like I mentioned earlier. We start to see how the mind transitions from um thought to thought image to image to dream to dreamlit. And then we can start to work, as I mentioned earlier, just to recap a little bit, the ability to even work with mild forms of dream incubation, or what the researcher Stephen LeBerge talks about is a wake-initiated lucid dream. And so there are two ways to have a lucid dream. One way is to bring lucidity, awareness with you. In other words, you don't lose consciousness. You maintain a thread of mindfulness awareness as you go to sleep, as you enter this diminuendo decrescendo, you maintain that dimmer. You're able to maintain your awareness all the way into the dream state. That's called a wake-initiated lucid dream, the acronym of which is quite compelling, wild. And it is kind of wild to watch your mind transition from overt waking consciousness through the intermediate liminal space into the dream space. The other way to have a lucid dream is called the dream-initiated lucid dream, dial, D-I-L-D, which tends to be the more common one. And what this is is when you're dreaming, you're in a non-lucid dream. Most of my lucid dreams are triggered this way. You're in a non-lucid dream, and then something within the dream will clue you into the fact that you're dreaming. And so within the dream, then you bring consciousness, right? So one, wild, you bring consciousness with you. Two, dialed, you bring or insert consciousness within the dream. And so this is a very powerful way to work with a wake-initiated lucid dream process. So right off the bat, liminal dreaming is a fantastic process and practice of lucid sleep onset, heightening your awareness, maintaining your awareness that you then maintain throughout the entire sleep and dream state. Briefly on the back end, and this is also where it gets really fun. So you wake up in the morning. What the invitation here is now, instead of just immediately ejecting into your world and leaving your meditative mind or anything related to lucidity back on the bed, the invitation here, and I do this a ton almost every morning, you first wake up. The first thing you want to do here is number one, don't move. Because the minute you start to move, you're going to start to engage the waking world, waking consciousness, and that is going to yank you out of the dream state. So what you do, first thing is don't move, and then turn the lens of your mind in, bring your mindfulness into play, and then try and try literally to pick up the scent of whatever was last on your mind in that this case hypnopampic space. See if you can pick up a couple of fragments if you don't recall dreaming. See if you can pick up just a couple snippets of the dream you might have. Because most of our dreams take place in the last two hours of the night. That's when we're mostly in REM. My languaging, that's prime time dream time. That's why most people tend to remember their dreams just before they wake up, because they're mostly dreaming. In the first part of the night, you're mostly doing deep non-rem restorative sleep. Unless you're doing sleep yoga, you don't mess with that. Leave that alone. Later in the day, that's when you want to wrap up your effort. But the idea for liminal dreaming is you wake up, don't move, or here's a very interesting thing. If you already did turn over, return to the position you were in before you did turn over. Because very often memories are kind of um perfumed or lodged in the posture itself. Very often I've turned over, and actually returning to the original position will actually reinitiate the memory of a dream. And then if you can, you can do exactly what you did on the hypnagogic end, you can do it on the hypnopumpic end, work with your mind in that transitional space.
Speaker 1 · 27:48Thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate all your insights. I really appreciate your support today. Thank you very much.
