Although there is little modern research connecting the lucid-dreaming state to past-life recall, researchers agree that you can choose and direct virtually anything you wish to occur in a lucid dream, so past-life recall is not precluded. In my own past-life lucid dreams I have employed various techniques.
For example, in one, on finding myself awake and in the midst of a lucid dream, I merely willed myself to go back to a past-life scene and found myself whisked back through time on a vivid past-life memory experience.
In another, on awakening in the dream I found myself in the presence of another individual, an indistinct but human-shaped energy presence that emanated a feeling of great wisdom and compassion, and I asked this entity to show me one of my past lives. At this request the entity took me by the hand and literally flew me through the clouds and back through time. It then proceeded to explain to me what I was seeing and answered my questions as we visited a scene from one of my previous incarnations. (see pages 73-5 for moreabout the role of such "guides" or
"guardian figures" in past-life experiences in general.)
The key to turning a lucid dream into past-life lucid dream thus appears to be simply to will it to happen. How-ever, if you find yourself in a lucid state, it is very important that you keep your thoughts positive and focused. In one lucid dream experience, while I was flying over a beautiful mountain lake, I suddenly became frightened at the realization that all I had to do was imagine a sea serpent beneath the waters of the lake, and one would materialize. Sure enough, as soon as this thought passed through my mind, a sea serpent started to materialize in the depths of the sparkling clear waters, and like a dutiful Senoi child, I had to suppress my fear quickly and will the sea serpent to vanish before I could continue.
The lesson inherent in this is that during a past-life lucid dream you should always be on your guard to keep extraneous thoughts and
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impulses from steering the dream off in other directions. I feel that it is important to point out that the only time I have not encountered this danger during a past-life lucid dream is when I have been guided through the experience by the aforementioned guardian figures. Other researchers have also commented on the apparent importance of such dream guides.
For example, Garfield reports that, although it has not yet become a part of modern lucid dream research, the concept of conjuring up a protective guardian figure can be found in many older and culturally diverse schools of thought. Among the native Americans such "dream friends"
were essential before the seeker could undertake extensive journeys through the world of dreams. The Ojibwa referred to them as manidos ("guardian spirits").25 In Tibet they were referred to as viras ("heroes") and dakinis ("fairies"), and every adept was advised to make friends with one of several before traveling deeper into the varied planes of the dream state. The Senoi call them simply "father" or "child-friend," and although every Senoi dreamer cultivates at least one or two, those who are lucky enough to make the acquaintance of many such guardian figures are considered to be great shamans. It is intriguing to note that the Senoi believe that a guardian figure need not be human in appearance to provide such protection but can be equally effective even if it assumes the shape of a natural object such as a rock or flower.
Thus, once you have reached the point where you can induce your own past-life lucid dream, instead of venturing off on your own, you may always want to conjure up a guide or dream friend to assist you. The kinds of image you might visualize as a dream friend and what such guardian figures represent are both topics that will be discussed in the next chapter.
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ENDNOTES
1. D. Scott Rogo, The Search for Yesterday (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey; Prentice-Hall, 1985), pp. 27-28.
2. Hans Holzer, Life Beyond Life (West Nyack, New York: Parker Publishing, 1985), pp. 27-28.
3. Ibid, p. 31.
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4. Erlo van Waveren, Pilgrimage to the Rebirth (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1978), pp.
19-20.
5. Ibid, pp. 21-22.
6. Frederick Lenz, Ph.D., Lifetimes (New York: Fawcett, 1979), p. 33.
7. Clyde H. Reid, Dreams: Discovering Your Inner Teacher (Pennsylvania: Winston Press, 1983).
8. Clyde H. Reid, "Dreams and Past Lives," The Association for Past-Life Research and Therapy Newsletter 5, no. 2, Spring 1985): 4.
9. Marc Barasch. "A Hitchhiker's Guide to Dreamland," New Age (October 1983):
41.
10.Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw, Life Extension (New York: Warner Books, 1982), p. 195.
11.Kilton Stewart, "Dream Theory in Malaya," in Altered States of Consciousness, ed.
Charles T. Tart (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1969), pp. 159-68; see also Patricia Garfield, Ph.D., Creative Dreaming (New York: Ballantine, 1974), pp. 80-117.
12.Stewart, "Dream Theory," pp. 160-61.
13.Garfield, Creative Dreaming, p. 26; see also p. 20.
14.C. G. Jung, The Essential Jung, selected and introduced by Anthony Storr (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1983), p. 21.
15.Janet Dallett, "Active Imagination in Practice," in Jungian Analysis, ed. Murray Stein (Boulder, Colorado: Shambhala, 1982), p. 172.
16.John Blofeld, The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1977), p.
232.
17.Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D., Lucid Dreaming (Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher, 1985), pp. 70-71.
18.Ibid., p. 140.
19.Ibid., pp. 140-41.
20.Paul Tholey, "Techniques for Inducing and Maintaining Lucid Dreams,"
Perceptual and Motor Skills 57 (1983): 79-80, as quoted in LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming, p.
132.
21.Garma C. C. Chang, trans, and ed., Teachings of Tibetan Yoga (Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel, 1974), p. 88.
22.Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power (New York; Simon & Schuster, 1974), p. 18.
23.Garfield, Creative Dreaming, p. 149.
24.Chang, Tibetan Yoga, p. 67.
25.Garfield, Creative Dreaming, p. 67.
26.Ibid., p. 157.
27.Ibid., p. 91.
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