I don't see why if the topic is on the same subject, whats the harm in resurrecting it. There will be new people who haven't seen the info as its an old post. Just because its old doesn't invalidate it. Might save new people asking things that answers were already given for. Also keeps all the info in one thread for easy finding, seeing as how there aren't many threads on this topic.
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Make a practice of recording your dreams. Whatever it may be, even just a color or a feeling. Anything. Each night go to bed with the intention set you will remember. Try setting your alarm 5 minutes early than normal. Might interrupt you in a dream and help recall. This effort to train yourself to remember exercises a kind of 'muscle'.
I found the best way to begin was to literally keep a notebook under the pillow and a pen. Upon waking move as little as possible. Keep eyes shut and reach for the notebook and pen and still laying down, start scribbling everything you can remember down. I say this because movement (when new at this) is enough to blow the fragile dream fragment right out of your head. I used to write with my eyes shut, sometimes! Of course, sometimes it was kind of hard to read later. Lol. After you get as much as you can down, go ahead and shower, eat etc. And then sit down at the computer with the notebook and transcribe it into a document. You'll find doing this will jolt forth more details. Put them in too. Like for instance you'll have in your notebook: “He wore a shirt and pants”. You might find as you write it in the computer that: “He wore a red shirt, black pants, and was holding a book in his hand. OH, and there was a bouquet of roses on the table!” NICE. You just managed to pull out more detail.
Don't censor what you write. Even if it sounds silly. Write it down. Its really interesting to look over later. Because you'll totally forget it by the end of the day unless it was a strong dream and so going back to it weeks or months later is like: Oh, WOW. Its like having a peek into a whole other life you never knew you had. Many times I've found some odd detail that at the time I wrote it seemed nonsensical, in fact held great significance, though I didn't apprehend this till much later.
And this leads me to comment it's also good to keep a brief day journal as well. Because you'll start to see relationships between the waking and the dreaming.
Many times a dream will give you info you need to know in the waking world. But it doesn't give that to you in language, as in spoken words, at least, not very often is it literal. It will more often come to you in the language of symbols. This is where the re-occurring dream comes in. This happens because there is a message for you but you aren't getting it. So the dream re-occurs, like a friend calling you repeatedly on the phone...till you pick up. Until you finally get the message.
I personally find a lot of the dream books with their dream symbolism interpretations, you have to realize that while many images have seminal meanings, many other images or symbols, do NOT and are specific to you. They will mean something to you that to another not. You have to learn to de-code your own dreams, to an extent. This comes with practice. Like for example. It was a moonlit night. OK. How was the weather? Was there weather? Were you inside looking out a window? In a city? In the country? Were you outside in a wood? If so, was it stormy or calm? Was it summer or winter? Snow or flowers? Was it brilliantly lit, or overcast? How did it FEEL? Feelings are important. Did it fill you with calm, or apprehension? And what else was seen in the context of it? In other words, its not just a series of disjointed symbols. The way everything fits together draws a picture for you, information to decode. Its like reading the tarot. Its not just one individual card and that cards meaning, but how they all come together, how one relates to and flows into another, that tells a narrative, a story. And therein is the message.
You do this (journal) for a reason. It helps you to set the intention in your mind you will remember, to practice awareness, to observe detail and to remember it. This is going to be very useful later.
So...there you are. You are happily journaling away. And this can take months. But the time will come when, while still in the dream you'll go: Oh, I have to remember that!
And THEN you'll go: OMG, I'm dreaming! And viola! You're aware while in the astral! In the dream! Lucid!! This moment will be so exciting it'll probably blow you right out of the dream and wide awake.
Not to worry. Keep trying. You just had a major breakthrough
Next time, try to focus on some detail in the 'dream'. To keep your attention focussed and your awareness centred. It acts as a kind of anchor. So the dream doesn't sweep you away again. Because it will, if you aren't ready. I've heard it said to look at your hands, for example. This is another thing you can do. While awake, try very hard to be 'present'. To be aware of your surroundings, observant. If its looking at your hands, take a minute here and there in the day to stop and look at them. When in the astral, do the same. It will help you focus.
The 'natural' state (I don't actually think it IS natural but rather the result of the enemy dumbing people down, spiritually blinding them) for most people is to relax into the dream, let it carry them away back into the deep water of unknowingness once again. To essentially be sleepwalking in the dream, just as they do in their waking hours. To be unconscious. Like the person who drives the same route home everyday. They're on autopilot. They aren't really fully consciously present. I've observed that most of the dreamers in the astral I've seen, are sleepwalking. They can't see me. I've become the ghost in the machine. If I get right up in their face, then they'll suddenly 'see' me.
And that is one way to tell who is a regular average dreamer and who might be more. Because that said there are others in the astral that WILL see you. But that would take a whole other big ass post to go into that. Don't worry about that just yet.
The other thing I would do is: get myself nice and comfy on my back. And lie still, like in corpse pose, savassanah. And just...try to maintain my inner eye focus, to maintain that point of awareness...how to explain? Like a diamond in my head. A bright diamond of light in my head, I visualized this point of awareness as a bright diamond in my head, and focussed on it while my body was falling asleep.
For a long time I just, you know...fell asleep. I didn't really understand why I did this.
But eventually, this led to the sensation of rippling. As though the bed was somehow no longer substantial under me. I'd hear a buzzing like of bees. And at that point I could WILL myself to leave my body. But that came after the lucid's were fairly regular. It was a natural progression. lucid dreaming, astral projection....are in essence the same thing. its just that conscious projection is a little stronger and there is no break in consciousness. You leave and remember leaving. Once you're lucid in a dream, its the same thing, you're aware, and in the astral.
I found the way things work over there is: what you believe to be true, or do-able, the dream or the projection shapes itself according to those 'rules'. This was easier to observe there because in the astral things change with the speed of thought. Took me a lot longer to realize its the same here in the waking/physical. The difference being it seems to take longer to materialize.
However that said, I suspect real mastery is when you can affect the physical as quickly and simply as you can the astral. I personally think this is the kind of level of Mastery the Gods have.
the main rules in the astral are Desire, Expectation and Belief or WILL. We desire something, Expect a result and through the Will, it shapes itself accordingly. Like how we're told here when you're doing a spell, you have to completely believe and KNOW it is working. Same principle.
But anyhow. I don't want to overwhelm with a massive post....though you guys know me and my propensity to making big ass posts! (shrugs) sorry. I love to write.
Keep journalling for a while. Be consistent. When you start getting lucid moments, resurrect this thread again and we can talk about more, if you wish
