Triangulating the Dream

Triangulation is a proven way of locating an unknown point. Therefore, it’s useful in spirituality, where not only is the point unknown, but can never be known with the mind.

The Hindu speak of the Ultimate as Sat-Chit-Ananda, or Being, Consciousness, Bliss. It’s not either of them, of course, nor is it just a combination of the three. But they are three pointers used to aim from different locations towards a position within their center.

In this way, I have attempted to define Conscious Dreaming for my own purposes. Many speak to the fact that life is an illusion, or a dream. When that is understood, life, or the dream, remains to be lived.

This involves Surrender, Attention, Guidance

The first pointer is Surrender. To this effect, Adyashanti calls spirituality a surrender game. To triangulate this point itself, I see three modes of surrender. There is surrendering belief in all thought. There is surrendering one’s own personality and ego, or the fact that there’s any doer. And then there is surrendering all doing itself.

The second pointer is Attention. First, listen to your intuition, your insights, your sixth sense (not your thoughts). Second, listen and look for external signs, influence, synchronicities. Lastly, be open to revelation.

The third pointer is Guidance. Some would call this action, but since there’s no doing and no doer, I prefer to use this expression. First, act as if you’re acting, while going with the flow. And second and third, to quote Van Morrison, don’t push the river, but don’t pull any punches.

The Art of Lucid Dreaming

There is an art to living that many point to. This summary is the result of months of query into the second dreaming that follows an initial waking, and to my mind, this is an important conclusion of sorts. Or rather a new beginning. The key elements are the following:

1. Surrender
After understanding that all is consciousness, surrender happens. Such surrender is the same as letting go the ego. But there are years and years of conditioning here, and the ego will still come and go, like a wayward thought arising in the mind. Simply not believing it is the active side of surrender.

2. Attention
Things happen in the manifest world in which we dream that invite our attention. Without, there are influences and signs (even synchronicities). Within, there are insights and intuitions (even clairvoyances). All of these are simply the foretellings of consciousness, ripples around the waves. Pay them attention. Or not.

3. Guidance
We appear to do within the dream. Like a canoe streaming in the rapids, we can attend to the insight and signs, guide our movement (this is where thought becomes our tool and not some mighty poor internal substitute for attention), and facilitate the journey. Or we can ignore them and suffer a rough ride. One way or the other, we are heading downstream the dream.

Surrender. Attention. Guidance. These are the three primary practices of lucid dreaming. Use them well when you find yourself outside the monastery, ashram, or cave.