Arnold Mindell - Dreaming While Awake: Techniques for 24-Hour Lucid Dreaming

Other books by Arnold Mindell

Quantum Mind: The Edge between Physics and Psychology

Sitting in the Fire: Large Group Transformation Using Conflict and Diversity

The Shaman's Body: A New) Shamanism for Transforming Health, Relationships, and Community

The Leader as Martial Artist: An Introduction to Deep Democracy

The Year I: Global Process Work with Planetary Tensions

Inner Dreambodywork: Working on Yourself Alone

Riding the Horse Backwards: Process Work in Theory and Practice

Coma, Key to Awakening: Working with the Dreambody near Death

City Shadows: Psychological Interventions in Psychiatry

The Dreambody in Relationships

River's Way, The Process Science of the Dreambody

Working with the Dreaming Body

Dreambody: The Body's Role in Revealing the Self

The Dreammaker's Apprentice: Using Heightened Awareness to Interpret the Waking Dream of Life

The Deep Democracy of Open Forums: Practical Steps to Conflict Prevention and Resolution for the Family, Workplace, and World

Quantum Mind and Healing: How to Listen and Respond to Your Body's Symptoms

Dreaming
While Awake:

Techniques for 24-Hour
Lucid Dreaming

Arnold Mindell, Ph.D.

Copyright 2000
by Arnold Mindell

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work in any form whatsoever, without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief passages in connection with a review.

Cover design by Grace Pedalino
Cover photo PhotoDisc
Interior art by Rebecca Whitney

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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-68253

ISBN 1-57174-359-6

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Printed on acid-free paper in the United States

Dreaming is the Mystical Source of Reality

Contents

Foreword and
Acknowledgments

This book appears in its present form because of my friends. I am indebted to Uncle Lewis (Lewis Obrien) for awakening me to the concept of the Dreaming.

Dear reader, please note, my use of the term Dreaming is based on my own work as a therapist and is not meant to explain or pretend to understand the deep and mysterious meaning of Dreaming as it is used in the various Australian Aboriginal traditions. My references to Dreaming in connection with those traditions are intended to honor and give credit to the significance of those who know and once knew Dreaming as the basis of life. (A percentage of the royalties from this book are donated directly to Australian Aboriginal sources.)

I am grateful to the Process Work Centers of Portland, Oregon; Zurich, Switzerland; London, England; Tokyo, Japan; and Brisbane, Australia for supporting the research and educational procedures found in this book.

I am thankful to Lily Vassiliou of Athens for transcribing the original lectures from which this manuscript has arisen. Leslie Heizer gave wonderful structural advice and was kind enough to help clean up the final copy. Julie Diamond, Jan Dworkin, Sara Halprin, Lee Jones, Herb Long, Dawn Menken, Max Schupbach and Jytte Vickelsoe were very helpful with the first drafts. Thanks to Nova Development Corporation for permission to use their clipart images.

Jim Chamberlin and Pearl and Carl Mindell awakened me to the connections between this book and the foundations of Eastern and Buddhist thinking, but they are not responsible for my misunderstandings of that ancient subject. What a surprise it was for me to discover that my explorations of physics and psychology had expanded some of the ancient Buddhist themes! I am also indebted to John and Gladys Johnson, who pointed me in the direction Mbiti's African concepts of time, supporting my interpretation of time in physics and experiments in stepping out of time.

Amy Mindell, my friend and partner in all matters, debated, clarified, and co-taught every idea of this book with me. This could easily be called her book as well.

I. Not-Working on Yourself

ONE

24-Hour Lucid Dreaming

It was a hot, dry morning in Adelaide, Australia, as Amy and I walked quickly along the river near the university to a conflict resolution meeting we were about to facilitate. We were nervous about that meeting, hoping the Aboriginal people would successfully regain the rights to their land, which had been taken from them by the government.

Uncle Lewis Obrien, an Aboriginal elder with whom we were walking, gently put his hand on my shoulder and quietly said, Arny, look over there, in the direction of the center of the city. What do you see? I told him that I saw Victoria Square, the noisy bustling business center of the city. Hundreds of people were shopping; cars honked and buses moved slowly through the traffic. Looks like a busy city, I said.

Uncle Lewis suggested that I take another look. When I looked again, all I saw was the same noisy city. Well, your sight is good, but you don't see the Dreaming. White fellas don't see the Dreaming. But they sense it anyhow. White fellas built the center of the city there. We Aboriginal people used to camp where the center is now; that's where the Dreaming is strongest. Victoria Square is a wonderful place;

My environmental consciousness was shocked and enlightened. I realized how my view of the city was filtered through the lens of my U.S. background and education. Until meeting this elder, given the choice, I tended to avoid cities, preferring the countryside. Uncle Lewis made me realize that the miracle of nature I was looking for in the countryside was right in front of me, in the midst of the bustling city. The Dreaming is always present, like an aura shimmering around the objects and events you call everyday life.

Some Aboriginal peoples describe the Dreaming in terms of the dark side of the moon. When the moon is not quite full, you see its bright, illuminated side. You might call it a half moon. But if you look closely on a clear evening, you can see the dark side, silently shimmering next to the more apparent bright side. Like me, most people focus only the bright side and miss the moon's dark face, that is, the Dreaming reality.

The bright side is only that portion of the whole moon that is illuminated. Focusing only on the bright side of the moon and ignoring the dark side might easily make you think that the dark side does not exist, while in fact we need the dark side to represent the whole moon.

Light and Dark Sides of the Moon as
Metaphors for Reality and Dreaming

The same is true for everything you see. If you only focus on everyday reality, you neglect the Dreaming. According to Aboriginal thinking, the Dreaming is the basic substance of the material world. The Dreaming gives objects the energy that attracts and repels your attention. If you neglect the Dreaming, you devalue the material environment because you ignore its basis and thus miss half of life.

The power of the Dreaming is right here, behind the everyday world, as part of every object, the part you sometimes forget to notice. From the Aboriginal perspective, everyday reality is the bright side of the moon pointing to the power of Dreaming, the moon's dark side.