Is there benefit to lucid dreaming?

[11jono11]

About a year ago I attended a lecture on lucid dreaming, this was before I was fully re-immersed in a daily spiritual practice (though still open to everything) and on my transition period back into daily sadhana. The lecturer provided all of the techniques to lucid dream (within 2 weeks) and also techniques for outer body experiences (OBE) / astral projection . At the time I found it very interesting, but either intuitively or through reason I decided against it. If there was reasoning behind it I think it was that if I was lucid dreaming then this would be counter productive to my yearning for God/sadhana, away from worldly things. As in, I think if at the time I had started LD that I would just be living out worldly fantasies of a sexual or just overall indulgent nature (as well as just flying, which would be so cool ).  

Any hew, I still have the instructions and am now quite centered in AYP  (I practice, Asanas, 10mins SBP, YM, and 20 DM twice a day) so was wondering if now there would be / is benefit in it? I know this is not mentioned in AYP, but was just wondering.

I always wake up tense / grind my teeth at night and always want to sleep for 9/10/11 hours (though when working get about 7), so am wondering if LD would create more relaxed sleep/+ possibly better quality.

Also I was thinking that I could explore spiritual things in my dreams, possibly meditate throughout a dream (+get into Asanas that I am way to inflexible to do in this physical world[]), try and contact various masters and so on.

I don't know where I have got this idea from, is the dream world the Astral plane? In this case then much could be done in dreams?

Thank you in advance for your replies.

Love . x

[Jo-self]

11jono11:

I think some of the lessons in AYP mention LD and other related things.  Try the Search link.

I have experienced Lucid Dreaming and other types too, no biggie.  If it happens and it is not a symptom of some medical condition, its just some normalization going on.  I would not attempt any of techniques to encourage them.  The state of yoga is precipitated by a very precise spiritual-physiological acculturation that can take many years and lifetimes.  Why take a chance and mess with it?  It would be like spending years doing yoga then doing drugs.  Sure, some traditions, I think in Tibetan schools, make use of various dream yogas, so I guess you can go to Tibet and learn them.  But, I doubt they will make anything go faster.  Why have more of the waking state?  Better is Silence.

[alwayson2]

It is very good to practice rigpa while lucid dreaming.

To answer your other question, Robert Bruce says that lucid dreaming occurs on the mental level, not the astral.  And of course the real time zone is something else entirely.

[11jono11]

quote:Why have more of the waking state? Better is Silence.

Yes, good point, was just wondering you know, but yes, the union of deep sleep is beautiful.

What is the real time zone?

I don't know what Rigpa is either, a quick search produced many wordy results what do you mean by this?

[alwayson2]

Real time zone OBEs are where you can spy on your neighbors, fly around your town, walk through walls etc.  

Rigpa is a Dzogchen concept.