Papers and Work of Beverly D'Urso

PROPOSAL

My paper will refer to a chart which describes levels of consciousness, including lucidity. I’ll start with what I call contracted, or low level of consciousness. At this level, I do not reflect upon what I do. When I act in the waking state or the dream state at this level, I may blame, suffer, have fun, or just plain not pay attention. In the sleep state, I may have dreams, but I do not recall them. However, when I notice in life, after the fact, that I have acted, for example, in hurtful ways, I fall into the level I call reflection. I do not have enough consciousness to notice or change my actions in the moment, but I can recall life issues or dreams from my past and begin to learn from them.

When I question my reality and my assumptions, my consciousness expands.  I call this level semi-lucid. In the sleep state, this corresponds to questioning if I am dreaming. The next level I call lucid. In the waking state, I really know my unpleasant thoughts as untrue assumptions. When I know I am dreaming in the sleep state my fear decreases and my mind clears. If I question my assumptions, especially when I do not feel positive about what I am experiencing, it can help me respond in more appropriate and creative ways, and I become what I call  more lucid. At a very lucid level, I can co-create interesting dramas in my life and dreams in my sleep. In my final level of lucidity, I would still experience a dualist world, but really know all parts as One. I call this the level of most lucidity. In some sleeping dreams, I feel that I go beyond lucidity. I no longer have a body nor an environment. For now, I aspire to come from an expanded level of consciousness, or lucidity, in every moment, whether awake or asleep.

WAKING                                SLEEPING

Non-lucidity

Contracted
No reflection                            No dream recall

Reflecting
Recall past issues of life            Recall non-lucid dreams
Study your life                            Study your dreams

Lucidity

Semi lucid                    Question thoughts                    Question if dreaming

Lucid                            See thoughts  as untrue            See dream world  as untrue

More lucid                    Change responses in life           Change responses in dream

Very lucid                     Change life                                Change dream
and potentially change life

Most lucid                    View all in life  as ONE            View all in dream  as ONE

Beyond lucidity
Unity                                         Non-Duality

REFERENCES

1. “Lucid Dreaming/Lucid Living,” D’Urso, Beverly (Kedzierski Heart), Online Publications, 1982-2009.

http://www.durso.org/beverly/Index_of_Papers.html

http://www.durso.org/beverly/My_Lucid_Life.html

BIOGRAPHY

I’d like you to participate in a consciousness expansion, or lucidity training, exercise as you continue to read, and report the results on my thread.  For now, notice your surroundings, feel your body, and become aware of any thoughts you might have. Are you having thoughts, such as:  “I love exercises!” or “I  have done consciousness exercises in the past.” or “I hope I do well on this exercise?”

Next, ask yourself if you could be dreaming right now. Do any beliefs arise? Are you making any assumptions? Finally, at the very start of my actual paper, where I define a dream, write down the current time. You don’t need a stop watch, just look as the closest clock.  Then, when you get to the part where I tell how ‘the water didn’t taste wet,’ about half way through my paper, write down the time once again.

When you finish the paper and my followup on exercises, just after the sentence following the phrase: “I wonder what will happen tomorrow?,” subtract the two numbers you wrote down. Post the time it took you to read the first half of my paper, which should equal the difference of the two numbers you wrote down. Don’t struggle to ‘get it right,’ just do your best. You merely want to remember to do the tasks: write, write, subtract, and post. I don’t care about accuracy of time or speed of reading.  You will learn from this exercise, even if you forget to do all or parts of it. I will include additional exercises in APPENDIX A, which you can also try in the days to come.

I define the term dream as an experience of an outer world made up of characters, actions, and environment that my expanded self, a collective mind of nonphysical form, has helped to create. I see life in the same way.

Lucid dreaming occurs when I know that I dream while I dream. When asleep and lucid dreaming, I see my whole environment including my dream body and others, as untrue, particularly in relationship to my waking state. When I call something ‘untrue,’ I mean that I let go of my assumptions and no longer see it as real or solid or true. By ‘untrue,’ I do not mean false, but rather ‘I  don’t know for sure.’

When awake and lucid, I also see my whole environment including my physical body and others, as ‘untrue’ in relationship to my expanded self.  In other words, I might say: “My expanded self is dreaming when Beverly seems ‘awake.’”

People have associated lucid dreaming with ego control and satisfaction. I will show how lucidity actually relates to expanded states of consciousness, and what it means to have lucidity in our dreams and in our lives.

I will refer to the chart in  APPENDIX B, which I have divided into columns for the waking state and the sleeping state. It describes three major levels of consciousness: non-lucidity, lucidity, and beyond lucidity. Note that in the non-lucid levels, I list actions that obviously do not happen in the sleep state, but merely relate to it.

I can act from any of these levels of consciousness at any moment, while awake or asleep. Also, at the higher levels, I still have access to the abilities of the lower states. For example, in a most lucid state, I can still change my responses. At different times in my life, I may have dreams that I don’t even recall, while in my waking state I seem very lucid. The opposite can occur as well. Also, I often lose and gain lucidity in a single dream.

The first two levels fall into non-lucidity. I will call the first, low-level of consciousness: contracted. At this level, I do not reflect upon what I do. When I act in the waking state or the dream state at this level, I may blame, suffer, have fun, or just plain not pay attention. In the sleep state, I may have dreams, but I do not recall them.

However, when I notice in life or in dreams, after the fact, that I have acted, for example, in hurtful ways, I fall into the level I call reflection. I do not have enough consciousness to notice or change my actions in the moment, but I can recall life issues, or dreams from my past, and learn from them. In this state, I remember dreams only after they happen and, therefore, they get called non-lucid dreams.

For example, to reduce my tendency to always blame others in the waking state, I may seek therapy.  To learn from my dreams, I may join a dream group.  In this reflecting level, I still may feel limited, especially when my experience seems uncomfortable or unloving.  I see my world as unchangeable.

At this level in the waking state, I might feel justified in feeling hurt that my husband often criticizes me, and therefore he must not care about me. I may go as far as assuming that if he does care about me, he will leave me, and I will perish. Without a higher level of consciousness, I could feel very depressed, and might act in an angry manner towards him and others. I could actually help make this scenario my experience.

In a sleeping dream, I might try to run away from some scary monsters that chase me while I focus on my dream body’s thought that they will devour me.  Afterwards, in the waking state, I might figure out ways in which I can deal with the monsters next time in these nightmares.

I will refer to the next levels of consciousness as lucidity. Whether awake or asleep and dreaming, when I really pay attention to my environment or my body, I have a greater sense  of aliveness or stillness. When I question my reality and my assumptions, my consciousness expands.  I call this level semi-lucid.

In the previous example about my husband, I might ask, “Is it absolutely true that my husband does not love me?” At this point, I could look for ways that he acts as if he does love me and for ways that I act as if I do not love him. I could also inquire about how I act and feel when I have the thought: “My husband does not love me,” and how I act and feel when I do not.

In the sleep state, I might to question if I am dreaming. Even if I do not believe that I am dreaming for sure, just the mere act of questioning brings me to this semi-lucid level. In a recent dream, I wondered if I was dreaming so I tried to float. I could not float, but I could tell that the water I was drinking did not taste ‘wet’ as it seems to in my waking state.

The next level, I call lucid. In the waking state, I really see my unpleasant thoughts as untrue assumptions. With even partial lucidity, I find that small frustrations disappear quickly, and I experience more fulfillment. I focus more on the present moment, and feelings of ambition or regret don’t come up. Time tends to disappear.

When I know I am dreaming in the sleep state, in other words when I see my dream world as untrue, my fear decreases and my mind clears. I do not have to do anything, but merely realize that I dream while I dream. At this lucid level, I often experience expanded potential and more awareness. I believe that most people are referring to this level when they use the term ‘lucid.’

If I question my assumptions, especially when I do not feel positive about what I am experiencing, it can help me respond in more appropriate and creative ways, and I become more lucid. My response to what happens comes from my expanded self. I can accept what is happening and easily surrender to, and fully face, painful or scary situations.

I have done this in my waking state when a doctor told me I needed a procedure. I insisted I would not go through it. Finally, my doctor said that, “It’s like I see you on a cliff about to fall, and I want to keep you from doing so.” I often recommend to my students not to jump off a cliff unless they really know they are dreaming, so I told him to proceed. However, seeing this common dream theme, I suddenly did become more lucid. Instead of focusing on my fears and thoughts of pain, I became calm and accepting, thereby making the whole process much easier. Then, like magic, I began to see  numerous sychronicities.

In my sleeping dreams, I have often become more lucid right before a head-on automobile collision. Right before impact, I realize I am dreaming, and I might instantly fly up into the sky or even wake myself up.

At this more lucid level while awake or asleep and dreaming,, I also notice that my view of how others act towards me may reflect how I act or have acted toward them, others, or myself.  So now, in my waking state, as well as in my sleeping dreams, I attempt to listen carefully to what others have to say to me. Even if I feel hurt, I may try to find ways to show I agree with them, instead of just defending myself.

At a very lucid level, I can co-create interesting dramas in my life and in my sleeping dreams. My expanded self has the awareness that what it expects seems to happen. If I do see or hear something that I don’t like, such as a broken tooth or a critical comment, I can attempt to heal my body or learn from the comment. I can fearlessly accept such ‘imperfections’ as a part of myself that can teach me what I need to learn.  Some lessons I have learned in my sleeping dreams also seem to enhance my waking life, and vice versa. Unrealistically, I believe that many people expect to get to this very high level of lucidity the first time they attempt lucid dreaming.

In my life, I feel that lucidity has helped me fulfill many lifelong goals, such as finishing my Ph.D., finding a mate, having a child, dealing with grief, and healing my body. I did these things with an attitude of presence, acceptance, and intention, and not with what gets called ‘will power.’ (See REFERENCE 2.)

At a very lucid level in my sleeping dreams, not only do I not experience fear when ‘attacked’ by ‘monsters,’ but I can do things, such as fly through walls. I can have these experiences because I don’t see the monsters or the walls as ‘true.’

Once, in a very lucid sleeping dream,  I thought: “I would love to be sitting in a boat on this lake in the distance.” Instantaneously, I found myself on such a boat in the lake. Others have talked about this process occurring in the waking state and call it ‘manifestation.’ However, in the waking state, with my time/space beliefs, I seem to experience a time delay not necessary in my sleeping dreams.

In my final level of lucidity, I still experience a dualist world, but really know all parts as ‘One.’ I call this the level of most lucidity. I believe that many spiritual teachers experience this state of no separation and a connection between everything in their waking life.

In my sleeping lucid dreams, I have often viewed everyone and everything, including my own dream body, as ‘One.’ Many years ago, in a sleeping dream, I was giving a presentation at a dream conference and suddenly stopped when I became most lucid. Losing some lucidity, I assumed that all the people in the audience existed only in my ‘head,’ so I felt I had no need to continue presenting. Now, I refer to ‘others,’ as well as my dream body, as all parts of an ‘expanded self,’ which  flourishes as all the parts develop.  When I experience the most lucidity, I see these ‘others’ experience lucidity as well.

In some sleeping dreams, I feel that I go beyond lucidity. I no longer have a body nor an environment. I merge into vibration, sound, and light, and then into nothingness, or what I also call everythingness. I could describe this as expansion into ‘Being,’ or ‘Source’ or ‘God.’ I prefer the term ‘Dreamer,’ with a capital ‘D.’ For now, I aspire to come from an expanded level of consciousness in every moment, whether awake or asleep.

In APPENDIX A, I have devised three additional exercises to expand your consciousness which you can attempt in the waking state and/or the sleeping dream state. I suggest that you do the first exercise during the next twenty-four hours, the second exercise during the twenty-four hours after the first, and the third exercise during the twenty-four hours after the second. Report on each one, even if you totally forget to do the exercises. Feel free to do only your favorite ones and/or continue doing any of them throughout the conference. See what happens and report your experiences on my thread.

Thanks for participating. How are you doing with the initial exercise? Did you come up with a time to post? Did you forget to write down the second number so that you can post the difference? In similar exercises, people have often forgotten the second number. However, the feeling you get when you remember to do so seems similar to getting lucid in a dream.  Have you forgotten the exercise completely or posted your results prematurely? Has the exercise made it easier or harder to read? Have you been worrying about missing a part of the exercise, or are you focusing on the present moment, instead of thinking about things, such as: “I wonder what will happen tomorrow?”  I welcome all comments about the exercises and my paper.

APPENDIX A

EXERCISE 1:
Every time you wash your hands in the next twenty-four hours, focus on the present moment. How does the water and/or soap feel? Do you notice any outer sensations, such as sounds or smells? What are you thinking about? Ask yourself if you could be dreaming. What assumptions are you making? Write up your experience, or just the answers to my questions, in the present tense. Does this sound like dream reporting? If you can’t write right away, come up with enough words so that you can do so later.

At the end of twenty-four hours, give a rough estimate of how many times you did remember to do this exercise, and how many times you did not. Write out one complete experience of the exercise in the present tense, if you did not do so earlier. You can also briefly mention a time when you washed your hands and forgot to do the exercise.  Notice how you feel right now about this exercise. You don’t need to have anxiety, guilt, or feelings of superiority. Post your results.

Example 1
At about 9 am, I go to my bathroom, pick up a rough bar of soap, and rub it onto my hands.  I feel the tiny bumps in the bar of soap. As I rinse my hands, I feel the cool water. I hear a machine revving up outside. I think that I am not taking enough time to wash, nor am I waiting for the hot water to flow. Then, I notice that I am judging myself and aspire to merely do my best at washing in the future.

I ask if I could be dreaming and say to myself, “Of course!” Although I do not notice anything odd about the room as I look around, I remember that things in dreams can seem to appear just as they do in the waking state. I look at myself in the mirror, and I notice that I have my shirt on inside out. I smile.  I do feel as though I am experiencing a dream. I go back to writing this example in my presentation and feel inspired.

I washed my hands over a dozen times in the last twenty-four hours. I remembered to do the exercise about three other times. I totally forgot the exercise the rest of the times. For example, after I smeared sun lotion on my legs, I must have washed my hands. I even washed my hands in a dream at about 5:00 am, and again, I did not focus on the exercise.

EXERCISE  2
This time, I suggest that you pay attention, for the next twenty-four hours, to every time you feel uncomfortable, such as when you feel frustrated, sad, or angry. Immediately notice what thought you are believing and ask, “In what ways am I judging myself or others?” Try not to defend yourself, but merely accept your feelings. If you can, write down your experience in the present tense, or at least a few words that will help you recall the incident later when you have time to describe it.

At the end of twenty-four hours, estimate how many times you did the exercise, and how many times you forgot to do it. Write out one complete experience of doing the exercise, if you did not do so earlier. Include how you act or have acted in some way that relates to your judgments. Also, note an example of when the person you judged acts the opposite of how you judged him or her. You can also briefly mention a time when you could have done the exercise, and yet forgot all about it. Post your experience on my thread.

Example 2
At about 4:00 pm my son comes home and tells me that he does not want to share his day with me, and he does not ask me about mine. I feel sad, and I believe that he does not care about me. I judge him as uncaring, but I say nothing.

I remembered this exercise one time and forgot it at least twice in the last twenty-four hours. I realized that I act uncaring when I don’t respect my son’s desires for privacy. Also, I often go overboard in sharing my feelings, or I ask too many questions, or not enough, and I don’t listen. I now feel uncomfortable judging myself. I remember how I often do well in communicating, and I vow to just do my best in the future. I also remember that my son often acts with love towards me, such as when he hugs me before he goes to sleep at night.

I forgot this exercise completely during the time that I felt angry after my husband criticized me in the car. I now reflect upon how I have done or do some of what he referred to. I remember how often I criticize him, and how he really listens when something else bothers me.

EXERCISE  3
Any time in the next twenty-four hours, notice anything ‘unusual’ or ‘odd’ about you or your environment, and ask yourself, “Am I dreaming?” Then do a ‘reality check,’ such as trying to float or repeatedly reading something to determine if it changes. Even if what you notice does not seem impossible, or if you cannot float nor read, can you imagine that you still might be dreaming?  Write up your experience in the present tense. If you can’t write right away, come up with enough words so that you can do so later.

At the end of twenty-four hours, give a rough estimate of how many times you did remember to do this exercise and how many times you did not. Write out one complete experience of the exercise, if you did not do so earlier. You can also briefly mention a time when something ‘strange’ happened, and you forgot to do the exercise. Post your results.

Example 3
At about 6:00 am, I ‘wake up’ and notice that the items on my dresser appear messed up. This seems strange, so rather than assume that someone else messed them up, I ask myself if I am dreaming. I doubt I am dreaming, but I try to float anyway. Nothing happens. I see a copy of my conference paper on the dresser, so I pick it up and read the first few sentences. When I read it over again from the start, the words change. The paper turns into a personal letter that, apparently, I had written to myself. This time, when I try to float, I rise to the ceiling. I go on having a wonderful lucid dream experience.

I remembered this exercise one time and forgot it at least twice in the last twenty-four hours. In another dream, my tooth fell out and I did not do the exercise. A few hours ago, I could not get through on my phone after trying many times. I blamed the phone service, and never asked if I could be dreaming.

APPENDIX B

WAKING                                SLEEPING

Non-lucidity

Contracted
No reflection                            No dream recall

Reflecting
Recall past issues of life            Recall non-lucid dreams
Study your life                            Study your dreams

Lucidity

Semi lucid                    Question thoughts                    Question if dreaming

Lucid                            See thoughts  as untrue            See dream world  as untrue

More lucid                    Change responses in life           Change responses in dream

Very lucid                     Change life                                Change dream
and potentially change life

Most lucid                    View all in life  as ONE            View all in dream  as ONE

Beyond lucidity
Unity                                         Non-Duality

REFERENCES

1. “Lucid Dreaming/Lucid Living,” D’Urso, Beverly (Kedzierski Heart), Online Publications, 1982-2009.

http://www.durso.org/beverly/Index_of_Papers.html

2.    “My Lucid Lucid Life,” D’Urso, Beverly (Kedzierski Heart), Appeared as “Dream Speak: An Interview with Beverly D’Urso: A Lucid Dreamer” – Part One, Two and Three, “The Lucid  Dream Exchange,” Numbers 29, 30, and 31, 2003 – 2004. Also appeared in the online publication: “Electric Dreams.”

http://www.durso.org/beverly/My_Lucid_Life.html

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Beverly (Kedzierski Heart) D’Urso, an “extraordinary” lucid dreamer all her life, has used her practical teaching called lucid living to give workshops and present at conferences for decades. She completed her Masters, involving Cognitive Psychology, and her Ph.D., focusing on Artificial Intelligence at Stanford University, where she also did lucid dreaming research. She has also created several startup companies, worked as a researcher, consultant, and a college professor, and has over sixty publications and several awards, including many IASD dream contests.

SUMMARY

Some people have associated lucid dreaming with ego control and satisfaction. I will show how lucidity relates to expanded states of consciousness, and compare it to the work of the contemporary spiritual teachers, Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle. My topics include: inquiry, the present moment, expansion of self, the connectiveness of all, facing pain, viewing death, and the interdependent illusions of space, time, and thought.

ABSTRACT

In my dreams, as in my waking state, I can act with various levels of consciousness. By the term dream, I mean an experience of an outer world made up of characters and actions that my expanded self has helped to create. In this sense, I view the waking state as a kind of a dream. I aspire to come from an expanded level of consciousness, or lucidity, in every moment, whether awake or asleep. In sleeping dreams, time and space may appear to differ from the waking state. Events can happen almost instantly, so I can quickly see the results of my thoughts, desires, or fears.

When I act in my dreams, or in the waking state, with a contracted level of consciousness, I may judge, attack, suffer, stressfully pursue ego gratification, or just plain not pay attention. However, when I question if I am dreaming, in other words, question my reality and my assumptions, and notice them in some way as ‘not true,’ my consciousness expands. This inquiry process seems similar to the techniques of Byron Katie, the author of Loving What Is. She helps people end their suffering by asking them to question any stressful thought and see if they absolutely know it as true.

If I believe that I am not dreaming, I may feel limited. When I know I am dreaming, my fear decreases, my mind clears, and I respond in more appropriate and creative ways. I often experience expanded potential. Eckhart Tolle, the author of The Power of Now, calls this state ‘Presence.’ With even partial lucidity, small frustrations disappear quickly, and I experience more fulfillment. When I know I am dreaming, I focus more on the present moment, usually realizing that I will wake up soon. Concerns, such as ambition or regrets, don’t come up, and  I can co-create interesting dramas, which sometimes seem to enhance my waking state as well. When I have increased lucidity, I easily surrender to, and fully face seemingly painful or scary situations, a process that both Tolle and Katie recommend.

The more lucid I become, the more I notice that my view of how others act towards me may reflect how I act or have acted toward them, others, or myself. I listen carefully to what others have to say to me and sometimes change my actions instead of defending myself. My response comes from an expanded self.  In her work, Katie calls this the ‘turnaround.’ In my extreme levels of lucidity, I experience no separation, but rather a connection, with everything. Eventually, I no longer have a body nor an environment. Tolle calls this expansion into ‘Being.’ Others use the word ‘Source’ or ‘God.’ I like the term ‘Dreamer.’

Lucid dreaming also gave me a spiritual perspective on death. In non-lucid dreams, I used to think of my ‘dream body’ as my ‘self.’ Because I did not have awareness of my expanded self, I believed that if my dream body died, I died. I continued to feel this way until I woke up out of the dream. Then, as a child, when I knew I was dreaming while I was dreaming, I experienced myself as more than just my body before I woke up out of my sleeping dream. Eventually, while very lucid in a sleeping dream, I let my sleeping dream body die, and yet woke up whole. As an adult, I now see that I can similarly “wake up” in my life before my physical body ‘dies’ and really enjoy the experience of my expanded, lucid self.

In Tolle’s recent book, The New Earth, he says, “To awaken within the dream is our purpose now. When we are awake within the dream, the ego-created earth-drama comes to an end, and a more benign and wondrous dream arises. This is the new earth.”

REFERENCES

1. “Lucid Dreaming/Lucid Living,” Online Publications, D’Urso, Beverly (Kedzierski Heart), 1982-2008.

http://www.durso.org/beverly/index.html

2. Lucid Dreaming: A Bridge to Lucid Living, D’Urso,
Beverly (Kedzierski Heart), Ph.D., Workshop Before the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD)  Conference 2007, Sonoma, California, June, 2007.

http://www.durso.org/beverly/IASD_Workshop_2007.html

3. “Loving What Is: Four Questions that can Change your Life,” Katie, Byron, and Mitchell, Stephen, Harmony Books, New York, New York,  2002.

http://www.thework.com

4. “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment,” Tolle, Eckhart, New World Library, Novato, California, 2004.

http://www.eckharttolle.com/eckharttolle

5. “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose,” Tolle, Eckhart, Penguin Books, London, England, 2005.

http://www.eckharttolle.com/eckharttolle

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Beverly (Kedzierski Heart) D’Urso (USA), an ‘extraordinary’ lucid dreamer all her life, has used her practical teaching called lucid living to give workshops and present at conferences for decades. She completed her Masters, involving Cognitive Psychology, and her Ph.D., focusing on Artificial Intelligence, at Stanford University, where she also did lucid dreaming research. Dr. D’Urso has over fifty publications and has won several IASD dream contests.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES AND QUESTIONS

L1    Discuss some aspects of lucidity that demonstrate an expanded level of consciousness.

L2    Compare Byron Katie’s inquiry and turnaround processes to getting lucid and learning from dream characters.

L3    Explain Eckhart Tolle’s terms ‘Presence’ and ‘Being,’ and how they relate to lucid dreaming.

Q1    Describe three aspects of lucidity that demonstrate an expanded level of consciousness?

Q2    How does Byron Katie’s inquiry process relate to getting lucid?

Q3    Give two ways that lucid dreaming relates to Eckhart Tolle’s term ‘Presence.’

TITLE NAME EMAIL

LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

15:00 (Time left)

I’d like to speak today about various levels of consciousness in the waking state and in the sleeping dream state. I’ll start with some background.

Dreaming

I define the term dream as an experience of an outer world made up of characters, actions, and environment that my expanded self has helped to create. People have viewed this expanded self as the brain of the sleeping body.

I don’t agree. I view my expanded self as a higher, collective mind of nonphysical form. I talk about this more in some of the fifty other papers I have on my web site: www.durso.org/beverly. I also plan to put this presentation and the chart I will create on my web site soon.

Also, in this talk, when I call something “untrue,” I mean that I let go of my assumption, and no longer see it as “real or absolute or true. By “untrue,” I do not mean “false,” but rather “I  don’t know for sure.”

So, as you have heard, lucid dreaming occurs when I know that I dream while I dream. When asleep and lucid dreaming, I see my whole environment including my dream body and others, as untrue, particularly in relationship to my waking state.

By my definition, I view the waking state as a kind of a dream. I believe that I can NOT know with absolutely certainty that I am NOT dreaming at any time. The spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle, the author of The Power of Now, made this exact point as well. Therefore, I assume that I am always dreaming and apply the positive lessons from lucid dreaming to my life, which I call lucid living.

Teachers

I have heard people associate lucid dreaming with only ego control and satisfaction. So today, I will attempt to show how lucidity actually relates to expanded states of consciousness, and compare it to the work of the contemporary spiritual teachers, Eckhart Tolle and Byron Katie.

12:40

I discovered these teachers last year after setting a goal, with strong intention, to have greater lucidity or consciousness in my waking life. I use their techniques of expanding consciousness, as well as my own lucidity techniques, which I see as similar.

You can find links to their sites as references that follow my online abstract for this presentation. Their sites list their books and recorded workshops, which I actually prefer and mostly got from my local library.

To summarize my techniques for lucidity, I constantly ask myself if I am dreaming and question my world and my assumptions in the moment. I look for clues that I am dreaming, such as strange, impossible, or uncomfortable changes in my environment, my feelings or my body.

For example, I have suggested that students ask if they are dreaming whenever they wash their hands. Coincidentally, Tolle gave the exact same exercise asking people to focus on “being in the moment” every time they wash their hands.

Chart

As I speak, I will refer to a chart that I will create which describes levels of consciousness, including lucidity. I need to point out that I can act from any of these levels of consciousness at any moment, while awake or asleep.

Also note, that at the higher levels, I still have access to the abilities of the previous states. For example, someone in an enlightened state, can still change his or her responses.

At different times in my life, I may have dreams that I don’t even recall, while in my waking state I seem very lucid. The opposite can occur as well. Also, I often lose and gain lucidity in a single dream.

After my presentation, I plan to allow time when we can comment, discuss the chart, and ask questions.

So, I will begin.

WAKE  SLEEP STATE

I divided the chart into columns for the waking state and the sleeping state. Note that the non-lucid levels have actions that obviously do not happen in the sleep state, but merely relate to it.

10:20

CONTRACTED  -   No reflection nor dream recall

I think of the term “unconscious” to mean alive, but unresponsive, and others have many different definitions, so I’ll start with what I call contracted, or low level of consciousness. At this level, I do not reflect upon what I do.

When I act in the waking state or the dream state at this level, I may blame,  suffer, have fun, or just plain not pay attention. In the sleep state, I may have dreams, but I do not recall them.

REFLECTING  -  Recall past life issues and dreams

However, when I notice in life, after the fact, that I have acted, for example, in hurtful ways, I fall into the level I call reflection. I do not have enough consciousness to notice or change my actions in the moment, but I can recall life issues or dreams from my past and begin to learn from them.

STUDY LIFE AND DREAMS

For example, to reduce my tendency to always blame others, I may seek therapy.  To learn from my dreams, I may join a dream group. At this level, notice that I remember dreams only after they happen and, therefore, they get called non-lucid dreams.

In this reflecting level, I still may feel limited, especially when my experience seems uncomfortable or unloving.  I see my world as unchangeable. For example, in the waking state, I might feel justified in feeling hurt that my husband always seems to arrive later than he promised, and therefore he must not love me.

I may go as far as assuming that if he does not love me he will leave me, and I will perish. Without a higher level of consciousness, I could then feel very depressed and might act in an angry manner. I could actually help make this scenario my experience.

In a sleeping dream, I might try to run away from some scary witches that chase me while I focus on the dream body’s thought that they will devour me.  Afterwards, in the waking state, I might figure out ways I can deal with the witches next time in these nightmares.

8:00

PRESENCE

I feel that Eckhart Tolle refers to these next levels of consciousness as ‘Presence.’ He talks about how we can really pay attention to our environment or our body and sense a greater aliveness or stillness. For him, presence involves having no thoughts.

SEMI-LUCID  Question

When I question my reality and my assumptions, my consciousness expands.  I call level semi-lucid.

This inquiry process in the waking state seems similar to the techniques of Byron Katie, the author of Loving What Is. She helps people end their suffering by asking them to question any stressful thought and see if they absolutely know it as true.

In the previous example about my husband, I could ask, “Is it absolutely true that my husband does not love me?” At this point, I could look for ways that he acts as if he does love me. More questions of Katie’s involve asking how I feel when I have the thought: “My husband does not love me,” and how I feel when I do not.

In the sleep state, this corresponds to questioning if I am dreaming. Even if I do not believe that I am dreaming for sure, just the mere act of questioning brings me to this semi-lucid level.

LUCID   -  See thoughts and world as untrue

I call this next level lucid. In the waking state, I really know my unpleasant thoughts as untrue assumptions. With even partial lucidity, I find that small frustrations disappear quickly, and I experience more fulfillment. I focus more on the present moment, and feelings of ambition or regret don’t come up. Time tends to disappear.

5:00

When I know I am dreaming in the sleep state, in other words when I see my dream world as untrue, my fear decreases and my mind clears. I do not have to do anything, but merely realize that I dream while I dream. At this lucid level, I often experience expanded potential and more awareness.

MORE LUCID    -   Change Responses

If I question my assumptions, especially when I do not feel positive about what I am experiencing, it can help me respond in more appropriate and creative ways and I become more lucid. My response to what happens comes from my expanded, or inner, self and not my thoughts.

I can accept what is happening and easily surrender to, and fully face, painful or scary situations, a process that both Tolle and Katie recommend.

I have done this in my waking state when a doctor told me I needed a procedure. I insisted I would not go through it. Finally, my doctor said that, “it is like I see you on a cliff about to fall and I want to stop you.” I often recommend to my students not to jump off a cliff unless they really know they are dreaming, so I told him okay.

However, seeing this common dream theme, I suddenly did become lucid. Instead of focussing on my fears and thoughts of pain, I became calm and accepting, thereby making the whole process much easier. Then, like magic, I began to see  numerous sychronicities.

In my sleeping dreams, I have often become more lucid right before a head-on automobile collision. Right before impact, I realize I am dreaming, and I might instantly fly up into the sky or even wake myself up.

At this more lucid level, I also notice that my view of how others act towards me may reflect how I act or have acted toward them, others, or myself.  In her work, Katie calls this the ‘turnaround.’

So now, in my waking state, as well as in my sleeping dreams, I attempt to listen carefully to what others have to say to me. Even if I feel hurt, I may find ways to show I agree with them, instead of just defending myself. Katie also discusses this approach.

VERY LUCID – Change life and dreams

At this very lucid level, I can co-create interesting dramas in my life and dreams in my sleep. My expanded self has the awareness that what it expects seems to happen. If I do see or hear something that I don’t like, I can attempt to heal the situation, or pay attention to it and fearlessly accept it as a part of myself that can teach me what I need to learn.

When I really “get” the lesson, my world seems to change, showing me on the “outside” what somehow exists on the “inside.”  Some lessons I have learned in my sleeping dreams also seem to enhance my waking life, and vice versa.

LUCIDITY ENHANCING LIFE

3:20

In my life, I feel that lucidity has helped me fulfill many lifelong goals, such as finishing my Ph.D., finding a mate, having a child, dealing with grief, and healing my body. I did these things with an attitude of presence and acceptance, and not what I call “will power.”

At this very lucid level in my sleeping dreams, not only do I not experience fear when “attacked” by “monsters,” but I can do things such as fly through walls. I can have these experiences because I don’t see the monsters or the walls as “true.”

3:00

Once, in a very lucid sleeping dream, as my expanded, lucid self I felt, “I would love to be sitting in a boat on this lake in the distance.” Instantaneously, it happened. Others have talked about this process occurring in the waking state and call it “manifestation.” However, in the waking state, I seem to experience a time delay, not necessary in my sleeping dreams.

MOST LUCID

In my final level of lucidity, I would still experience a dualist world, but really know all parts as One, I’ll call this “enlightenment,” or the level of most lucidity. I believe that spiritual teachers, such as Katie and Tolle, experience this state of no separation and a connection between everything in their waking life.

In my sleeping lucid dreams, I have often viewed everyone and everything, including my own dream body, as One. Many years ago, in a sleeping dream, I was giving a presentation at a dream conference and suddenly stopped when I became most lucid. I  assumed that all the people in the audience existed only in my “head on the pillow,”so I felt I had no need to continue.

Now, as I said earlier, I refer to “others,” as well as my dream body, as all parts of a “higher self,” which expands as all the parts grow. Therefore, I won’t quite stop talking now. I must add that when I experience the most lucidity, I see these “others” experience lucidity as well.

THE HAPPY DREAM  or the NEW EARTH

In Tolle’s recent book, The New Earth, he says, [quote]“To awaken within the dream [referring to life] is our purpose now. When we are awake within the dream, the ego-created earth-drama comes to an end, and a more benign and wondrous dream arises. This is the new earth.”[end quote]

1:00

Also in this level of most lucidity, The Course in Miracles, another spiritual teaching, says we can merely enjoy the [quote] “happy dream [of life][end quote],” and God will take the last step. I call this last step the level of Unity.

UNITY    BEYOND LUCID

In some sleeping dreams, I feel that I go beyond lucidity. I no longer have a body nor an environment.  I have a sense of “nirvana” that I can’t explain in words. I have felt myself merge into vibration, sound, and light, and then into nothingness, or what I can also call everythingness.

We could describe this as expansion into ‘Being,’ as Tolle does. Others use the word ‘Source’ or ‘God.’ I like the term ‘Dreamer.’ For now, I aspire to come from an expanded level of consciousness, or lucidity, in every moment, whether awake or asleep.

1. “Lucid Dreaming/Lucid Living,” Online Publications, D’Urso, Beverly (Kedzierski Heart), 1982-2008.

http://www.durso.org/beverly/index.html

2. “Dream Speak: An Interview with Beverly (Kedzierski Heart) D’Urso: A Lucid Dreamer – Part One, Two and Three”, The Lucid Dream Exchange, Numbers 29, 30, and 31, 2003 – 2004. [Also in E.l.e.c.t.r.i.c  D.r.e.a.m.s, Volume #11,  Issue #7, 8, 9,  2004.]

http://www.durso.org/beverly/LDE_interview.html

3. Lucid Dreaming: A Bridge to Lucid Living, D’Urso,
Beverly (Kedzierski Heart), Ph.D., Workshop Before the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD)  Conference 2007, Sonoma, California, June, 2007.

http://www.durso.org/beverly/IASD_Workshop_2007.html

4. “I learned to use my dreams to improve my life”, about  D’Urso, Beverly (Kedzierski Heart), First for Women Magazine, Volume 8, Issue 26, June 24, 1996.

5. “Loving What Is: Four Questions that can Change your Life,” Katie, Byron, and Mitchell, Stephen, Harmony Books, New York, New York,  2002.

http://www.thework.com

7. “A Course in Miracles,” Foundation for Inner Peace, Tiburon, California, 1976.

http://www.acim.org/

8. “The Nature of Personal Reality,” Roberts, Jane, Bantam Books, New York, New York, 1974.

http://www.sethlearningcenter.org/

__________________________________________________

Dr. Beverly (Kedzierski Heart) D’Urso, an “extraordinary” lucid dreamer all her life, originally worked with Dr. Stephen LaBerge at Stanford. Numerous major magazines, such as LIFE, Smithsonian, and OMNI, television specials, books, and radio talk shows have featured her life and her dreams. Using her practical philosophy called lucid living, she has taught her own workshops and presented at conferences for decades. Working with Stanford University Professors, she completed her Masters degree in 1980, involving Cognitive Psychology, and her Ph.D. in 1983, focussing on Artificial Intelligence. Prior to working as a researcher, consultant, and a college professor, she created several startup companies. Dr. D’Urso has over fifty publications and has won several awards, often placing well in IASD dream contests.

INTRODUCTION

Good Afternoon.

Today, I’d like to tell you about ways that I often attempt physical and emotional healing for myself and others in my dreams. I believe it can have a valuable effect on us in waking physical reality. Although difficult to measure, the results of my healings have usually seemed positive.

I will give you some examples and techniques of interactive dream healing, as well as discuss a number of important related issues and questions.  For example, do we also heal ourselves when we try to heal “others” in our dreams? Should dream healers follow an ethical code? Can dream healing have negative effects?

MY BACKGROUND

I’ll begin talking a few minutes about my own background.

Before I do, by a show of hands, how many people have heard me present before today? How many attended the preconference workshop on Friday? Who heard my presentation on healing last year in Bridgewater at IASD2006? Did anyone here participate in my workshop on healing at the IASD PDC conference in 2005?

Although I do not feel it necessary to use lucid dreams for dream healing, many of my healing attempts have occurred when I felt lucid, so let me clarify what I mean by lucidity.

To me, lucid dreaming does not mean merely “clear” dreaming, or even “controlled” dreaming. It only means that I feel aware at some level that I am dreaming while I am dreaming. However, I believe that the more lucid I get, the more a dream healing may affect me.

In a lucid dream, I feel more present than in a non-lucid dream, bringing my whole self into the experience. I know myself as more than my dream body and that the source of myself exists outside of the dream or inside the mind of the dreamer, or what I call our greater self.  When lucid, I connect to this dreamer, let go of any fear, and see endless possibilities.

Starting in the late 1970’s, I helped do research on lucid dreaming at the Stanford Sleep Laboratory. I would signal from the dream to the physical lab while being definitely asleep and dreaming. Our experiments of monitoring my physical conditions and seeing them change as I attempted various tasks with my dream body, proved to me that what I dream can affect my waking life. This led me to try healing from the dream world.

As I have said, most of my dream healings have occurred in lucid dream reality, when I remembered my healing goal. Many times I did not a need a goal, but merely went along with the dream, with more power, such as lack of fear, because of my lucidity, and I got a healing result.

I do, however, feel that even without lucidity, we can use other methods for healing such as, dream induction, visualization, or acting-out while in waking physical reality. Without ever getting lucid, one can ask for help with a problem in a dream before going to sleep and then accept what the dream offers. Setting a goal for a lucid dream actually serves as a type of dream induction.

When I led groups and workshops on the topic of lucid dreaming/lucid living, I usually ended each session with a guided visualization. After getting everyone still and relaxed, with their eyes closed, I would describe an imagined scene and activity that usually included a healing. This helps non-lucid dreamers get a sense for what can happen in a lucid dream.

Such non-dreaming techniques prove useful to lucid dreamers as well, because it helps to practice in waking physical reality what one would like to do in a dream. Many people actually believe that dream reality, in general, provides us with additional power because we seem more connected to our essence.

Before I discuss healing issues in general, I’d like to give you an example of a healing dream that I had the summer before last. A friend asked me to try to help her son, whom I’ll call Erin. Erin has Perthes disease, which does not allow blood to flow to his hip properly causing discomfort and difficulty participating in sports. I spoke to Erin and he agreed to my doing a dream healing for him in the near future.

First, using a suggestion from Ed Kellogg, I formulated a goal that I would attempt when I knew I was dreaming. I decided to chant a Harry Potter spell called “scourgify,” which roughly means, “clean up,” while pointing my index and middle fingers at Erin’s body.

I had the following dream on July 26, 2005. In this dream, I find myself standing in an open structure, which looks like a barn. I remember that I am dreaming. However, because Erin does not appear near me in the dream, I decide to do the healing actions as if he stands invisible in front of me, making this a practice session.

I point my index and middle fingers straight out in front of me and say “scourgify.” I look at my fingers and see that a sticky, thick yellow liquid emanates from the pads of my fingers. I then put my fingers to my mouth in order to taste the yellow liquid. As I do this, the liquid turns green. Its consistency stays the same, and I do not notice any flavor. I have had several experiences in the past year where objects or substances turn green after a healing, almost as a sign of completion.

Next, in the dream, I see a group of children playing outside, and I decide to find Erin. I look around and call out his name. I find him in the middle of the group, who soon separate.

I say to him, “It’s Beverly. I am here to do the dream healing we talked about.” He acknowledges me, so I point my fingers toward his leg and say “scourgify.” I have a clear intention for the best possible outcome. To make sure I have reached his hip, I repeat the process up and down his whole body.

At this point, I see that he has about a half dozen small holes all over his body. A dark-purple, watery, liquid squirts out of them. Thinking that this shows his blood flowing, I ask, “Why are you bleeding?” He says he’ll have to consult the Ouija board. I feel surprised that he knows of Ouija boards. He says he used it at birth.

I return to waking physical reality and have a series of false awakenings of both trying to record the dream and of calling Erin’s Mom.

When I do call his Mom in the morning, I discover that her family had planned to leave town the next day for a month. I had been trying to attempt my healing goal for about a week. I describe my dream to Erin’s Mom, and she tells me that she has wondered if his disease might relate to blood problems he had at birth. Erin also mentioned his birth in my dream.

Erin’s Mom then asks him if he had any dreams. He reports that he dreamed he “was in a video game, got hurt, and was instantly healed.” One of the characters in the video game has the name “Luigi”, which sounds almost exactly like “Ouija,” the board mentioned in my dream.

Erin seemed to feel better after the healing because he did not ask for pain medicine during the next month, as he did in the months before the healing. Since then, his condition has improved and his doctors finally let him get back into regular sports last Fall.

Did my healing attempt have an affect on Erin’s condition? Would he have improved at the same rate without it? I cannot say one way nor another, but I still feel pleased that I tried to help him.

To offer you more examples to consider, at the end of this presentation, I will briefly mention some of my other explorations in the healing potential of dreams. For now, I’d like to discuss some general issues concerning dream healing.

HOW DO WE DEFINE HEALING?

The dictionary has many definitions for the word “heal:” To make sound or whole; to restore to health; and to cause an undesirable condition, which I will call a “problem,” that we can try to overcome.

CAN WE AFFECT OUR PHYSICAL BODIES BY WHAT WE DO IN DREAMS?

I believe that what we dream or imagine can affect us physically. At the Stanford Sleep Laboratory, when I dreamed of moving my dream body’s eyes in a particular manner, electrodes picked up similar movement from my physical eyes. Many other people have also showed positive physical effects from active visualization. I, personally, have many examples where my life seemed positively affected by my dreams.

DOES HEALING ALWAYS SEEM APPROPRIATE?

In certain cases, it might not best serve the subject of the healing to eliminate a problem. As an example, a doctor may not want to resuscitate a patient who asked ahead of time not to do so in certain situations, such as when they would only exist in a vegetative state.

Also, some problems exist as symptoms of other problems, which should, perhaps, get addressed first. For example, one may first want to learn to eat and exercise better before getting a “tummy tuck.”

Therefore, when attempting a healing, we should always ask for the “best possible outcome.” Many problems have several layers of complexity and may involve different aspects of our mind, body, and spirit.

WHAT CAN WE ATTEMPT TO HEAL?

We may want to heal an internal physical problem of ourselves or others, involving our organs, bones, muscles, nerves, or other functions, as in the example of Erin. However, we may want begin with simpler problems, such as a cut, burn, or wound. We can also consider emotional, mental, or spiritual problems, such as the pain of grief, depression, or of not seeming able to complete our goals, and thus not feeling whole.

DO WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO TRY TO HEAL OTHERS?

We need to consider the ethics and rights of others during the healing process. Do we need another’s request or permission to try to heal them in our dreams, or for that matter in waking physical reality? While in a dream, do we ask the dream character for permission, or do we need to wait to ask the person represented after we wake up?

By the term dream “character,” I mean a type of dream “body” or “entity” that may or may not have a connection to a physical person. For example, I usually connect to the dream “character” that looks and acts like me.

What do we do if we’d like to heal our pet, a person who has died, or a more general situation, such as our country? With these cases we cannot easily ask the subject represented and necessarily expect an answer.

I feel that a healing may help, but only if the subject desires it. Therefore, I make sure the dream character, whom I attempt to heal, agrees to the healing.

When helping heal another person from my waking life, I usually ask permission of the person in the waking state before I decide to dream of the person. Discussing the healing with the person ahead of time also means that I can share my results with the person and determine any potential benefits from the healing. A dream character that I work with may or may not look exactly like the physical person I wish to heal, but I can usually recognize something about the character that seems the best match to the physical person in my dream.

For people concerned about possible ethical issues of mutual dreaming, I will try to explain what seems to happen for me. I sometimes ask others to come into my dream by having them take on the role of a character in my dream. This seems similar to how a director might ask actors to take on a role of a character in her play. The actors must accept responsibility for any extreme emotions or harm that their characters may experience in the play, which could have lingering effects on them after the play finishes.

I also may search for characters that I feel best represent the people I want to heal while dreaming.  When I look for specific dream characters, it feels as if I am attempting to take on the role of a character in someone else’s dream. I feel that the other person, serving as the director of their own dream, has the right to not accept me. In this case, I would probably not succeed in finding them. I would never try to force myself into another’s dream.

WHAT HEALING TECHNIQUES CAN WE USE AND WHO CAN ASSIST US?

In dream healing, we can use various activities or props, including energy forms, such as sparks shooting from our fingertips at the subject of the healing, hands-on manipulation, chants, affirmations, potions, experts, or even alternative selves. Basically, we can use whatever we can imagine! However, some people feel that we should not make up techniques, such as chants, but use only historically proven or accepted techniques.

Other healing methods include asking to see the subject in perfect form in a dream, or just willing the problem away. Many times, merely having the subject face a scary situation or go directly into the pain in a dream can result in a fabulous healing. I will share a few of these examples toward the end of my presentation.

Sometimes, we may want to ask pertinent questions before going to sleep or in a lucid dream, about how the subject can best deal with his or her problem. In the dream, we may hear an answer spoken directly, or see it written on something, such as a book or a wall. Answers can also come indirectly through symbols, scenes, or activities.

For example, we could discover foods which we should or should not eat. We might find our dream body in a pool of warm water, which could mean that some form of heat or water therapy may help in physical reality.

We may want to ask an expert, or even a random person, in our dreams to assist in the healing. I feel that all dream characters represent, in part, aspects of our greater self, so anyone can have healing abilities in dreams.

WHAT EFFECTIVENESS CAN WE EXPECT?

Of course, a dream healing, as any kind of treatment, may only have a minor role in the healing process, or none at all. How we measure the effect of a healing becomes another area of investigation. The results may vary depending upon: the receptiveness of the subject; the ability, intent, and focus of the healer; the condition to heal; the appropriateness of the techniques; and many other variables.

CAN ATTEMPTING TO HEAL OTHER DREAM CHARACTERS HELP US?

When I assist others to heal in my dreams, I feel that I also heal, or experience more wholeness, myself because I view all my dream characters as representing aspects of my greater self. At the same time, I feel that the characters in my dreams can, potentially, have a connection to other people and therefore help these people as well.

One time, while in the sleep lab, I asked another dream character to move his eyes. The results on the polygraph showed movement in my physical eyes. This made me wonder if characters other than the one we seem to take on also have a connection to our physical bodies.

CAN WE ALSO CAUSE HARM?

I realize that the possibility exists where one may adversely affect dream characters, and hence their possible physical counterparts, while attempting a dream healing. However, I  think that this can happen only if the subject allows it.

I also believe that, potentially, anyone can tap into positive energy, or what we might call “love” or “God,” when attempting a dream healing. Therefore, I see interactive dream healing as a form of “prayer.”

I see “evil,” not as a separate force, but merely as the absence of love. Therefore, someone might not have the ability to heal, but this does not mean that they can tap into evil in order to intentionally cause harm.

MORE EXAMPLES

As I said at the start of this presentation, I have used my dreams to better myself, as well as others, in many ways all my life, without formally calling it dream healing. I will now summarize some other dreams that you may or may not have heard me speak about in the past.

As a child, I helped end the suffering that came from my nightmares by facing up to “the witches” in my first lucid dream. The witches still looked terrifying while I said, “Let’s get this over with,” without fear because I knew I was dreaming. After this dream, my witch nightmares ceased.

As an adolescent, I felt less inhibited by trying out frightening or embarrassing situations initially in my dreams. When my best friend died, I dealt with my grief by talking to her in my dreams.

I started doing formal lucid dream healings almost twenty-five years ago. Dr. Stephen LaBerge, from the Stanford Sleep Laboratory, suggested that I try rubbing my hands together and shooting out healing energy from my fingers to my neck when I complained of a stiff neck one night in the lab.

At the time, we were doing an experiment for Smithsonian Magazine. I remember that sparks shot out from my fingers in my dream, but then my hair caught on fire. I spent the dream trying to put out the fire. The reporters got a good example of losing lucidity in a dream!

I later asked others in my dreams to work on my neck. One time, I asked a janitor, the first person I saw in an elevator, to rub my neck. This action seemed to help my neck afterwards in waking physical reality.

I often shot healing sparks at my dog in dreams to avoid any old-age problems she might encounter. She lived a very long and happy life for her breed. I did the same for my Mom while she lived and after she died, when she appeared to me in a dream as needing some healing.  Recently, I added more techniques to my healing repertoire, such as chants.

In my twenties, I solved a writer’s block in a dream by letting myself get sucked into the “pit from hell.” Afterwards, I felt able to complete my Ph.D. in waking physical reality.

To help me with the frustration of finding a mate in my thirties, I found my alternative selves in a dream and listened to their advice.

In my forties, when I felt devastated about not getting pregnant in waking physical reality, I worked on the issue in my dreams by pulling my creative force, the witches of my childhood dreams, into my body. Soon afterwards, I had my son, now a healthy twelve-year-old boy.

In the year 2000, my mother had a sudden, massive stroke, and I became faced with taking her off life support. I dealt with my extreme grief in my dreams, in part, by surrendering to my now familiar “witches.”

With minor injuries, I try to get optimum healing through actions in my dreams. My dreams told me that a second degree burn I received last summer needed to heal slowly. To assist the healing in my dreams, I chanted a “Harry Potter” spell, similar to the one from my dream for Erin, and spontaneously shot yellow liquid at my burn site. The area appeared to get much better afterwards in physical reality.

I will give one last detailed example of an interactive healing dream. In waking physical reality, on Monday, March 7, 2005, I went in for a routine, annual gynecological exam. During the exam, my doctor found that I had an “expanded uterus.” He immediately did an ultrasound test and determined that I had: “both a large cyst and a mass that looked like it might be a tumor.” He told me to return when I got my period to do another ultrasound test to see if my condition changed.

I decided that I would try to have a lucid dream about my condition. This time, instead of just zapping my uterus, I wanted to understand more about why the situation occurred.

As a goal for my next lucid dream, I chose to ask some questions. I wanted to know precisely: “What message does this condition want me to know?” and “What can I do about it?” I also felt open to any healing that would occur naturally in my dreams. I finally had some lucid dreams on Monday morning March 14th.

I got answers to some of my questions in my earliest dreams. In my dream of 6:45 am,  I experienced a very direct healing.

In this dream, my nine-year-old son and I find ourselves in a camp-like setting. We look for a bathroom and can only find an odd one.

Standing outside, we notice these huge geometric figures in five different colors hovering and circling over us in the sky. They seem as large as ocean liners. A turquoise colored one comes closest to me. It has the shape of two candy dishes pressed together. They all seemed to shoot a kind of energy on me which I experience as a healing. I become very relaxed and open to taking in this invisible energy. I would describe it best as a type of heat.

My son seems scared, but I tell him not to worry. I explain, “They came to heal me!” Afterwards, we go back to the strange bathroom, which apparently now works.

In the last dream of this night, I find my childhood home getting rebuilt. Later, I discover that it did get rebuilt in waking physical reality around the time of the dream.

At 2:45 pm that same day, I went back to see my doctor. He did another ultrasound test searching for the cyst and the mass, but they did not exist anymore. He found my uterus “no longer expanded, but completely normal and healthy.” Two years later, my uterus still remains normal.

Although these dreams had a powerful effect on me emotionally and physically, I can not say for certain what part they played objectively in my healing. Even so, I believe that they played a large part in my healing experience, and I feel very grateful that I had them.

You can find the details of these examples and more on my website: http://beverly.durso.org

I now welcome any questions that you may have.

Thank you.

Link to Questions
Link to Exercises

Good Morning.
I’ll start with an
OVERVIEW***

I’d like to start with a show of hands:
How many people have heard me speak before???
Who heard me in Copenhagen at IASD2004???

I will start with an overview. As we discussed, lucid dreaming occurs when while asleep, you have awareness, at some level, that you are dreaming.

Who would you call the “dreamer” in your nighttime dreams???

I typically call the person asleep the “dreamer.” To get more precise, I think of the “dreamer” as one’s physical body’s mind, although  I would not say that one’s “brain” contains  one’s “mind.” As an analogy, I see our mind more as a radio broadcast than a physical radio and its parts. Our brain may tune us into certain stations, but it does not act independently.

Once we understand, and hopefully have experienced, lucid dreaming and related topics, such as levels of lucidity and techniques for becoming and staying lucid, we can discuss what I call lucid living. I need to first give you a little background on myself and my views of lucid dreaming, so you can see how I came up with the idea of lucid living.

Throughout my life, I have discovered many uses for lucid dreaming. Some of these include: psychological development, exploring new behaviors, healing, and much more. I’ve found that all of these can apply, whether we find ourselves asleep or what we call “awake.”

Who thinks they know what I mean by lucid living???

Next, I need to cover a little
BACKGROUND***

I remember having had lucid dreams since about the age of seven. I faced up to scary witches in a recurring nightmare. You can see my web site: http://beverly.durso.org  for several detailed descriptions of this dream and other places where it got published. I will also put this presentation on my website soon after the conference.

Basically, I recognized recurring dream scenes where I begged these scary witches, who hovered over me, to  “Spare me tonight and take me in tomorrow night’s dream.” Because they only came when I was dreaming, one time, while they hovered over me, I faced up to them and they flew away ending these nightmares.

Years later, I helped do research on lucid dreaming at the Stanford Sleep Laboratory. I signaled, using electrodes near my eyes, from the dream to the physical lab while definitely asleep and dreaming.  I also led workshops and taught others how to have lucid dreams, and I have given presentations on the topic at IASD conferences for over 20 years.

I have remembered, on average, six dreams per night, for most my of life. I’d call between 2 and 20 dreams per week lucid, to various degrees.  So, I estimate that I have had over 20,000 lucid sleeping dreams in my life so far. As you can tell, I have had many more non-lucid dreams than lucid dreams.

How many lucid dreams would you say you have???
One per week?
One per month?
One per year?
A few in your life?
None?
All the time?

My dreams usually seem like what we could call waking physical reality until I become lucid, although I often know that I am dreaming from the start of the dream.  I believe in levels of lucidity, on a spectrum from slightly to extremely lucid. Sometimes my non-lucid dreams seem very bizarre, and yet I ignore this sign of dreaming and rationalize the experience.

For the next four or five minutes, I will cover some basic issues and terminology. These apply to both lucid dreaming and lucid living.

First,
SPONTANEITY VERSUS CONTROL***

How many people think you need to control your dream to call it lucid???

In my lucid dreams, I feel free to go wherever my imagination takes me, and I take care to balance spontaneity and control.

Keep in mind that, you can have a lucid dream without having control of the dream. Unfortunately, the media often stresses control as the main benefit of lucid dreaming.

The ability to control your own reactions, or to control the action, characters, or environment in your dreams can help indicate your level of lucidity, but you can definitely have a lucid dream without control. However, at times, I feel that it helps to take control of the action in the dream, for example, when you want to carry out goals.

Once, when working on my Ph.D. dissertation and experience a case of writer’s block, I used control in my dream to get me to my desk and surrender to get myself to sit.

I often find it best to “surrender” to the lucid dream. I don’t use the word “surrender” to mean “give up,” but rather to mean “go with the flow.” In this case, I still have control, but of my own reactions and not of what happens to me. I do not automatically feel fearful, for example, when something scary happens. I now often what I call “surrender flying” to get places in my lucid dreams, where I get pulled from my heart area, by an invisible force.

I only need to remain conscious that I am dreaming. When conscious that I am dreaming, I think of my “physical body self” as safe in bed, so I have less fear, see more possibilities, and view my true “self” as one with the whole dream environment. With lucidity, I also have more choices. In other words, I don’t need to change a monster. I can look it in the eye without fear and find out what it wants.

Although I focus on awareness rather than control in my lucid dreams, I do not call my lucid dreaming witnessing. I can experience myself fully in the dream, yet not of it, meaning that I know while dreaming that my part of my self exists outside of the dimension of the dream.

To me witnessing seems like watching a movie or a play. Dreaming seems more like acting in a play. In a lucid dream, I act in a play in perfect character, have all the character’s feelings and consequences, yet still see myself as essentially the actor, and possibly the producer and director as well.

Next, I’d like to discuss the concept of:
DREAM CHARACTERS***

Who do think the characters represent???
Aspects of yourself?
People from your waking physical reality?
Illusional or “made-up” beings?

With lucid dreaming, I feel as though I inhabit a character in my dream.  This dream character seems to exist in another dimension from my physical body, albeit a three-dimensional world that seems real.

One dream character often looks and acts like me. I sometimes call this my dream-body or dream-self.  I may experience other dream characters that look like someone I know or someone that I don’t know.

I imagine that one or more of these other characters might get inhabited by a person from what we might call waking physical reality, or even by someone who has died. In a similar way, I can perhaps inhabit a character in another person’s dream. This concept allows for what we call “mutual dreaming” and “psychopompic dreaming.”

I once tried to meet a student in a lucid dream. I got lucid by noticing a woman who had died, but I tried to rush off and find my student before I listened to the woman. From this dream, I learned that I kept getting blocked until I first dealt with what I found in front of me.

As for dream characters, I still believe that, at some level, the characters in my dream represent aspects of my mind, even if inhabited by others who, in a sense, serve as actors taking on the roles of characters in a scene.

When lucid, I realize that my dream-body does not reside in what we might call “waking physical reality,” but in what I might call my physical self’s mind, not necessarily in my brain. When I wake up, I merely change dimensions or perspectives. We can say that I take on the role of a new character, or inhabit my physical body once again.

When I find myself in a lucid dream, the dream character that I inhabit, or my dream-self, sometimes tells other dream characters that they are dreaming. Other times, a different dream character may say this to my dream-self.

Has anyone here had another character tell you that you were dreaming???

When I experience a high level of lucidity,  either all the dream characters I encounter know that they currently exist in a dream, or I encounter no separate characters at all.

I consider myself “not completely lucid” when I encounter any characters in my dream that don’t believe they currently exist in a dream. I say this because I believe that if any aspects of my expanded mind do not have lucidity, then I cannot call myself  completely “lucid.”

I’d like to ask Robert Waggoner to take a couple of minutes to describe his view of dream characters or “entities,” which I believe he will speak on in depth during our panel on Sunday from 2 to 4 in Cooperage 2. On this panel, I will focus on Interactive “Dream Healing” and Ed Kellogg will delve into “Demons”!!!

The next topic asserts that we:
CAN’T PROVE WE ARE NOT DREAMING***

We can think of having lucidity as not getting fooled, or not having the “illusion” of existing in a physical reality.

If you remember any dreams, perhaps you have gotten fooled by a dream that seemed real while it took place.  You may have even said, “I can’t be dreaming, this seems too real.”  Maybe you find that you couldn’t fly as you could in other dreams. However, when you wake up, you realize that you got fooled and you really were dreaming.

We can say that lucid dreamers don’t get fooled. They know, at some level, that a dream does not have to follow physical laws. Non-lucid dreamers assume that the physical laws hold because they lack lucidity.

I believe, then, that you can not know with absolutely certainty that you are not dreaming at any time. As in the case where you got fooled, you may just not have enough lucidity to question or notice that you might be dreaming. Even after you wake up, you may not  remember that you dreamed.

Now a little about        CONNECTING TO THE DREAMER***

We can also say that, when lucid, your dream character’s mind connects with the mind of the dreamer, or that the mind of the dream character has expanded. The dream character can now remember and act upon the goals, memory, and thoughts of the dreamer.

For example, the dream character can remember goals that your mind, the dreamer, may have set up to do in the dream before you went to sleep.  The dream character and the dreamer can then co-create the dream, although the dreamer may still have intentions that the dream character does not have awareness of, even in lucidity.

Who here has become lucid in a dream and remembered and carried out a goal?

As a lucid dream character, I do not detach myself from the dream environment, but rather I see myself as equivalent to the environment, the other characters, and more. Also, detaching from the dreamer would mean that I forget, at some level, that I help create the dream scene. I would then lose some level of lucidity.

To summarize, in a lucid dream, I feel more present than in a non-lucid dream, bringing my whole self into the experience. I experience myself as more than just my dream body. I know  that the source of myself also exists outside the dimension of the dream, or inside the dreamer.

I have gotten a better sense of my “source,” or what we can call “God” or our “higher power,”  through lucid dreaming, than by my metaphysical or religious training. These often seemed to infer that God existed either inside my body, or somewhere out there, up in the sky.

With this background, I now feel that I can talk about looking at life as a dream or what I call:

LUCID LIVING***

When I view my waking life as a dream, a dream in which I know I am dreaming, to various degrees, of course, I call this lucid living. Waking life may feel ‘real’ and unlike a ‘dream,’ merely because I lack lucidity, just as non-lucid dreams can feel like physical reality, until I become lucid.

I try to view life as an “actual dream” and not to merely use lucid living as a therapy or philosophy. The assumptions that come from viewing life as a dream can give us power and can expand our possibilities in life.

If I look at waking life as a dream, then I can also use lucid dreaming techniques which I learned from my sleeping dream experiences, to more easily become lucid in my waking life. One of the most valuable techniques I use involves looking for unusual or recurring scenes in my life, as I do in my sleeping dreams.

When lucid in waking life, I  know  unlimited possibilities, feel safe and connected to everyone, and sometimes even experience magic in my waking life, as I have in my sleeping lucid dreams. Next, I want to tell you how I developed:
MY IDEAS***

I had the idea of lucid living many years ago. First, I had a long series of validated precognitive dreams in 1982 that made me question the solidness of time and space, or what we call physical reality. I described these in a talk at Bridgewater for IASD2006.

About the same time, I participated in many television specials on lucid dreaming.  In one, we filmed an experiment at the Stanford sleep laboratory, to determine which part of my brain seemed most active while I sang a song in a dream.

On a commercial for a national television special, which played over and over again for weeks, I appeared on the screen in my bathrobe, with electrodes all over my face, practicing the song, “Row, row, row your boat … life is but a dream.”  I watched myself and thought, “maybe life is a dream, and I do not have enough lucidity to know this for sure.”

This led me to teach the benefits of calling what some call “waking physical reality” a dream. I wanted to help myself and others to become more lucid in life, which I called lucid living.

At first, I  had a lot of trouble convincing others, and myself at times that while awake, we can still exist in a dream. False awakening dreams helped me practice questioning if I was dreaming, even when I thought I had woken up.

In false awakenings, you think you wake up from a sleeping dream, for example, in your bedroom. You keep thinking this until either, you become lucid and know that you are still dreaming, or you wake up to what you might call waking physical reality.

Because I have remembered an average of six dreams almost every night of my life, I have gotten tricked many times by mistaking a dream for my waking life, or what we might call waking physical reality.

I finally convinced myself that I can easily tell when I do not exist in waking physical reality. This might occur when I can float, fly or interact with someone whom I know has died. I say that I am dreaming.  Of course, not everyone would find these tasks easy. Some may even say that we can fly or interact with the dead in other realities besides dreaming.

For purposes of this talk however, I will discuss and assume only two different realities, namely, dreaming and waking physical reality. Then, I will try to convince you that both of these may have the same properties, in other words, we can think of them as them as a single reality and say that their differences stem from our own level of consciousness, or lucidity.

I believe that we cannot prove that we are not dreaming. Therefore, why not assume that we are always dreaming,  look at what that implies, and use lucid dreaming techniques to become the more lucid in our waking lives.

If you prefer to consider many realities with different laws, so to speak, then you could still say that all these realities make up one single “experiential” reality. I don’t like to think this way, however, because I like to view life as having the powerful and beneficial “magic” that I find in my own dreams, and use dream analogies to explain how life may work. I suppose you can consider my views similar to traditional Buddhist or Hindu beliefs, which may call life a type of dream, but in their case, they see life as “unreal” as a mere “dream,” and they promote yet another different “true reality.

I’d like to ask Ed Kellogg to take a couple of minutes to describe his view of “realities.” !!!

We now need to ask an important question. If we view life as a dream, then who serves as the the dreamer?  In other words, if we become “dream characters” in the dream of life, who do we connect to when lucid?  My answer:

THE DREAMER OF LIFE***

In my view, there exists, outside of the dimension of life, or what we sometimes call “waking physical reality,” an all-encompassing mind is dreaming the dream we call life. I call this mind the Dreamer of Life. In one sense, we can think of this Dreamer of Life as our combined and expanded mind.

We could also use terms such as our Higher Self, God, or Source in place of the term “Dreamer of Life.” I feel that we can break down this Dreamer of Life into many levels, as well, forming a type of “Tree of Life.

Sometimes, I really do feel as though I am dreaming while awake and in what some call waking physical reality.  At these times, I feel connected to the Dreamer of Life. I even notice many synchronicities in my life occurring during these times.

However, I often get caught up in my life and forget that I might be dreaming. Because of my experience in sleeping lucid dreams, I try to never assume that I am not dreaming.

We can compare the process of connecting to the Dreamer of Life in lucid living with traditional forms of prayer or meditation.  In practicing lucid living, I first stop my train of thought and imagine that I am dreaming.  I try to come from the perspective of this Dreamer of Life, or our expanded self. I see others as aspects of it, trust it, and surrender to its wishes.

With lucid living I feel that we can deal with our fears,  see unlimited possibilities, and experience the connectedness of everything, So, I will go into each point in more detail.

First,
EXPERIENCING EMOTIONS AND FACING FEARS***

In my sleeping dreams, I have found power in surrendering and fully experiencing my emotions.  For example, I have brought the scary witches into my body, and I have gone with them to the place where they originate.

When I find situations in my sleeping lucid dreams that seem impossible or terrifying, such as jumping into fire or merging with a black void, I challenge myself to tackle them head on. Sometimes, in my sleeping lucid dreams,  I find myself falling faster and faster down an endless slide.  I have learned to surrender to this sensation of increasing speed.

Has anyone here taken such “risks without risk” in a lucid dream???

I see a parallel to surrendering and facing our emotions in life. When I practice facing my fears in life and surrender, as I do in my sleeping lucid dreams,  I usually have positive results.

When I have strong feelings, such as sadness, grief, or fear, I do not necessarily have to express them outwardly in reaction. I can surrender to them deep within myself, and try not to push aside or hold back my feelings.

By calling life a dream, I do not mean to imply that in my life, I take what one might call “unreasonable risks” or necessarily expect instant magic, as I often do in sleeping lucid dreams.  I never take dangerous actions unless I feel positive that I am dreaming, and I have evidence that normal physical laws won’t apply.

In a sleeping dream, I usually figure that if I can fly, then I can jump off a cliff.  I realize, however, that I could lose lucidity, and dream that I have broken all my bones.

In any case, when I have even a small amount of lucidity in my life, I feel safer because I believe that I am more than just my individual body and personality.

In waking life we may have the habit of thinking of our “body” as our “self.”  Similarly, in non-lucid dreams we might think of our dream-body as our “self.” Of course, we wouldn’t use term “dream body” because we wouldn’t recognize that we were dreaming.

In a non-lucid dream, we believe that if the body we currently inhabit dies, we die, because we do not have awareness of our expanded self, or the dreamer. We continue to feel this way until we wake up out of the dream.

We might think, after the fact, that we could have responded differently had we realized sooner that we were dreaming. We could have become lucid and experience ourselves as more than just our body before we “wake up” out of our dreams or in the case of lucid living, out of our lives! In lucid dreams, I have often let myself die, knowing that I exist as more that just a dream-body.

Has anyone here let their dream-body “die” in a lucid dream???

I also know that in sleeping dreams, when I dream that someone dies, I don’t necessarily expect that they have died in what we might call waking physical reality. From the perspective of the dreamer they could still be living.

I imagine that even non-lucid dreamers feel this way after they wake up.  So, I have to assume that when someone dies in my life, that they haven’t necessarily died from the perspective of the Dreamer of Life.

Second,
UNLIMITED POSSIBILITIES IN LIFE***

I also believe that I co-create my reality with the Dreamer of Life. As in sleeping dreams, I recognize that the Dreamer of Life may have intentions that I do not know about even in lucidity.

Whenever I feel myself in a dream, I believe that anything can happen, in mysterious, or even magical ways. I can experience the joy of helping make things happen more often in my life, by learning to become lucid in waking life and set upon accomplishing tasks with a new outlook, believing in unlimited possibilities.

At the very least, I can probably gain an understanding of how I may block myself and try again, knowing I have endless possibilities.

An example, from an early stage of my sleeping lucid dream development, illustrates this point. In my dream, I could not fly to my destination because I  kept hitting telephone poles.

When I eventually determined one time that I was dreaming, I could fly right through the poles. I also realized that my mind may have created the telephone poles to begin with!

A therapist once told me about a patient who could not get through a block in his life, which the therapist related to his dream block of not feeling able to fly through walls. After he suceeded in flying through a wall in a lucid dream, his “related” block in life actually disappeared.

Third,
CONNECTEDNESS OF ALL IN LIFE***

With lucid living, I experience everyone in my life as equal characters in one dream. I see us all as aspects of the Dreamer of Life.

When I have lucidity in my life, I want to understand the Dreamer of Life. I listen to others and try to see where there opinions come from, and what they can teach me, without judging them.

Now I will focus upon:
LUCIDITY TECHNIQUES AND RECURRING SCENARIOS IN LIFE***

As I have mentioned, I have developed techniques for becoming lucid in my sleeping dreams, that I can also use in my waking life. In my main technique, I look for unusual or impossible situations or recurring scenarios.

Has anyone here let their dream-body “die” in a lucid dream???

A great example of using a lucidity technique in my waking life occurred when I noticed recurring scenarios  during my love relationships before I got married.  With many different partners, I often found myself in an argument in a similar physical position and location.

My partner would be hovering over me looking scary and not unlike the witches from my childhood dreams.   During these arguments, many times my partner and I actually stood in the same place in my living room at the intersection of the couches that formed an L-shape.

The last time this scenario ever happened, right in the middle of the argument, I suddenly thought, “This seems like a recurring theme. What if I am dreaming?”

I immediately decided to see my partner as an aspect our expanded self, or the Dreamer of Life.  I thought about his point of view and what he had to teach me. I had less fear.  Internally, my reaction changed.  With trust and surrender, I stayed in the moment. You could say that I faced up to my partner.

Exactly as the witches did when I faced up to them, my partner froze, stopped yelling, and then turned and walked away.  It seemed as though I no longer needed to play out this drama.  I  had solved it, as I did my childhood nightmares. In my next relationship, my marriage of almost fourteen years, this scenario has not occurred.

By the way, my childhood nightmares took place in the same physical location each time also, at the bottom of the back porch stairs of my childhood home.

I used this method that I just described in many other situations. Once, during a heated discussion with my cousin in the waking state, I suddenly stopped to think, “If I look at this as a dream right now, then my cousin actually expresses a part of our expanded self, or the Dreamer of Life, which I want to understand.” At the exact moment I had this thought,  she actually started to explain how our points of view seemed related instead of opposed.

Another time, while in a hospital, a doctor merely said something that reminded me of a dream, and I immediately let go of my fear and accepted the situation, which seemed so scary only moments before.

SETTING GOALS***

to accomplish in my lucid dreams serves as a wonderful technique to motivate me to become lucid in a dream.

Sometimes after getting lucid in my nighttime dreams, I decide not to change the direction of the dream, in order to carry out a goal. In this case, I go with the flow of the dream. When I do have an interesting goal, and feel that the situation calls for it, I get motivated to become and remain lucid so that I can accomplish the goal.

In my lucid dreaming classes, I suggest that my students start with a simple goal to accomplish in their lucid dream. I ask them to decide the first steps of the goal ahead of time, while awake. They also must think about how they can perform the steps from wherever they might find themselves in the dream. I have discovered  that a goal of “becoming lucid” does not work as well as a goal of doing something fun in the limitless world of dreams. We must remember this in life!

I’d like everyone to think of a goal that they would like to try in a lucid dream which they can practice in waking life???

Now let’s move on to:
GOALS FOR LUCID LIVING***

In my waking life, I often “go with the flow,”  but I still form goals. When I determine my goals, I strive for them to conform with the goals of the Dreamer of Life. This usually happens when I experience great passion.  In my life, I have gotten through many potential blocks, while getting my Ph.D., enjoying an exciting and prosperous career, and having an excellent family life.

———–

I took this approach when I had a goal of having a family. A series of dreams helped me see that my life was proceeding appropriately, whenever I seemed to let go of hope. I dreamed of going into my past and several possible futures to communicate with myself at various ages. I also dreamed of my future child and took actions in my sleeping lucid dreams to try to help the process.

Most importantly, I also had a belief while awake that things would work out, even if they took longer or didn’t proceed as I imagined. This belief came from trusting my concept of lucid living, or seeing life as a dream.

I acted with lucidity in my waking life when I met my husband. I noticed him across the room at a party, went up to him, and talked to him. Although much younger than me, I recognized him in some kind of deeper sense, and I felt him playing a part in my future. I would call this moment the most lucid in my life so far.

I felt that I completely surrendered to the Dreamer of Life, or our expanded self.  I stayed in the present moment continuously, without fear, and with total trust. I remained with him and totally focussed on him, while part of me observed our interaction.

I believed in magic and totally accepted whatever happened.  I listened to him, as if he truly formed part of my higher self. Married for almost fourteen years, I still view him as my perfect mate.

I also used lucid dreaming and lucid living to overcome the tremendous odds we had against bearing a child, as well. We now have a son who just turned twelve years old.

————

Now, I would like to share a few
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS***

I believe lucid living can have a profound effect on all our lives. Of course, as in our sleeping dreams, we can easily go on automatic and lose lucidity.

However, the more we practice lucid dreaming skills, whether while asleep, or during our waking life, the more lucid we will likely become at all times. In this way, we can live the most illuminating, clear, and conscious  life as possible.

I usually suggest that you ask your self if you are dreaming everytime you do some regular daily activity, such as walking up or down stairs. Look around and perhaps even practice carrying out our goal, if you can. Eventually, you’ll do this in a dream!???

If every person viewed life as a dream in this way, I believe that the world could heal.  Even if people simply opened up to the possibility to seeing life may as a dream, the Dreamer of Life would become more lucid.

Also I feel that, if any one person consistently believed they are dreaming in life, then amazing healing of the world could take place. I have this as a goal and it motivates me to make the effort to write and present my ideas.

The Dreamer of Life needs to have more lucidity in order  for us to experience magic. We need to remain open to lucid living and look for evidence that we are dreaming for this to happen. Then, when we see the magic, our beliefs would strengthen, and we would see ourselves as co-creators of our reality.

—————-

Like puppets, who think they act separate from the puppeteer, we often feel disconnected. Using the puppet analogy, we can begin to identify more with the puppeteer, or the Dreamer of life.

As in sleeping dreams, the dreamer can only speak through a dream character. When a dream character connects to the dreamer in lucidity, and the dream character doesn’t get in the way, the dreamer’s goals and thoughts can get manifested.

The Dreamer of Life, our Higher Self, or our Source needs us, its dream characters, to connect to it so it can speak through us and get heard.

One can say that while we exist in life, because life seems real, we can only call it a dream from an outside perspective, or after we die.  However, since we can know that we are dreaming while in a sleeping dream, and remain in the dream, then why can’t we also know that we are dreaming in the waking state while remaining in it.

As a sleeping lucid dreamer, I learned how to remain in a  dream, to wake up out of it, to change it, to go back into it, and to become more lucid and accomplish intricate goals while in the dream. I would like to do this, and more, in my waking dream as well.

So remember, I say we are dreaming now. View every situation in your life as a dream, experience and let go of your fears, see unlimited possibilities, including the connectedness of everything, and make your own dreams come true.

In conclusion, I will present a list of

OTHER VIEWS***

I have discovered that ancient traditions and religions, as well as modern best-selling authors, movies, and songs talk about concepts similar to lucid living.  Some of these include: the Hindus and Maya; the Buddhists and Connectedness; the Christians and Resurrection; The Course of Miracles and the Happy Dream; plus Jane Roberts and SETH;

I would also add: Deepak Chopra; Wayne Dyer; Don Miguel Ruiz; The Wizard of Oz; Star Trek; The Matrix… The list goes on and on.

Let me share my favorite: “Row, Row, Row, your boat, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream!”

Thank you.

For more information or a copy of this presentation see my website:  http://www.durso.org/beverly

For the first time in public, I plan to share my very personal experiences with psi dreaming. This includes my precognitive dreams, my experiences with dream telepathy, and my attempts at mutual dreaming and dream healing.

I will discuss relevant examples and talk, in particular, about my feelings in the middle of such dreams, when I wake up from them, and during their manifestations in waking physical reality. I also plan to speak about the value of using and sharing these dreams, as well as what occurred when I tried to avoid a manifestation.

Although I have had various psi experiences since childhood, I will go into the details of an extremely intense, documented, and verified precognitive dream that I had in 1982. This dream occurred during the time when I was researching Lucid Dreaming at the Stanford Sleep Laboratory, and when I found myself at a crossroads in my Ph.D. work. The experience turned my view of the world upside down. My scientific training did not prepare me for this ability to personally know a future event in amazingly rich detail. I had precognitive dreams and waking experiences almost every day following this dream, until I finally ignored them to focus on completing my Ph.D.

I still have precognitive dreams when I pay attention to them. After high placement in many psi dreaming contests at the annual online IASD PsiberDreaming conferences, I decided to focus on how to record all of my dreams so that I could best capture psi information. I record only what comes easily out of my mouth as I describe certain dreams in the middle of the night into a digital recorder. I try not to add words and descriptions to my dream reports after I feel fully awake because I have noticed how my mind tends to change images and phrases that may have unrecognized meaning.

At the last three regular IASD conferences, I participated in the dream telepathy contests with great results. I dreamed an excellent match to a non-target picture in 2003. In 2004, I served as the telepathy sender, and we got an amazing, exact hit of the picture I focussed on. Last year, I won the contest. I paid close attention to my physical reactions when first seeing the target picture. I felt a rapid tapping sensation in the center of my chest just above my heart. This seems similar to how I feel whenever I have a precognitive experience.

Finally, I will share more about how psi dreaming works for me, and how I use lucid dreaming to attempt mutual dreaming and dream healing. I go into detail on this last topic in my other paper at this conference.

INTRODUCTION

Good afternoon.

Today, for the first time in public, I plan to share my very personal experiences with psi dreaming. After some brief background information, I will focus on an important and verified precognitive dream that I had in 1982, which changed my view of the world upside down.

I will also share what happened when I once tried to avoid a manifestation of a precognitive dream, as well as a case where sharing my dream and trusting my guidance seemed to benefit another person.

I will talk about my feelings in the middle of such dreams, when I wake up from them, and during their manifestations in waking physical reality. Finally, I will share some of my success with dream telepathy, and how I learned to best record and share psi dreams.

I will not have time to get into dream healing, which I presented in a symposium yesterday. However, you can find this material on my website: beverly.durso.org.

MY BACKGROUND

I will begin with a brief description of my background.

People know me as mainly as a lucid dreamer. I define a lucid dream as one where I know, at some level, that I am dreaming while I am dreaming.

Starting in the late 1970’s, I helped do research on lucid dreaming at the Stanford Sleep Laboratory. These experiences of monitoring my physical conditions and later seeing how they changed, as I attempted various tasks with my dream body, proved to me that what I dream can affect my waking life. Most of my precognitive dreams, however, occurred in non-lucid dreams.

BEACH DREAM

Although I have had various psi experiences since childhood, I will go into the details of an extremely intense, documented, and verified precognitive dream that I had in 1982. It occurred during a time that I felt at a crossroads in my personal life and in my Ph.D. work in Artificial Intelligence.

The experience turned my view of the world upside down. My scientific training did not prepare me for this ability to personally know a future event in amazingly rich detail.

In the interest of their privacy, I’ve changed the names of the characters in the following dream. One night, in the summer of 1982, while living in Palo Alto, CA, I woke up from a dream screaming. In the dream, I find myself going to a house where a girl, named Darcy, from my high school years, supposedly now lived. I went to high school over ten years earlier in the Chicago area.

I enter the house from the left. I talk with Darcy in her kitchen area under an archway. I ask her if she knows the whereabouts of my high school boyfriend, Geoff. She tells me he now lives in the mountains of New Mexico. At this point, she reveals something else that affects me very deeply. After awhile, I leave the house on my own. On my way, some people ask me for directions. Then the dream ends.

This dream had such a different feeling to it, as if I just had to pay attention to it. It seemed both shiny and loud.  I couldn’t get back to sleep after having it. I spent a long time recording the dream and drawing sketches of the dreamscape.

Whenever I thought about the part of the dream where Darcy talks about Geoff, my brain seems to freeze in pain and I can’t remember what she told me. The pain seems so severe that I focus on it for days, not even going in to work.

When a coworker acts concerned, I insist on telling him the details of this dream. I do so over and over again, showing him the sketches I made. In response to my overreaction, he invites me to come with him on Saturday to a beach in Santa Cruz which I had never been to, so I can relax.

Therefore, four days after the dream, in physical reality, I go to an unknown beach with my coworker. He brings along a friend, a dark haired guy I do not know, but who eventually plays a larger role in my life. The guys play some frisbee, while I sit on a blanket about thirty feet in front of the ocean waves. They eventually sit down, on both sides of me, exhausted.

At this point, I barely notice a woman walk in front of me, holding the hand of a child. As she passes me, I look down and then up again. I see her looking backwards toward me. In total shock, I say, “Darcy?” She responds with, “Beverly?”

My coworker looks at me confused, wondering why I am saying the name of the girl from my dream. I say, “It’s her!” and get up to greet her. She seems amazed to see me in California after all these years. I feel even more flabbergasted that I am seeing her now right after the dream I just had of her.

I want to talk to her more and try to get her phone number, but I don’t have a pencil. I begin to scream out to everyone around us, “Anyone have a pencil?” No one does. Darcy then says “I have rented a place near here for the summer. Why don’t you come with us?”

Our walk seems very surreal. In a manner of minutes, I recognize the street and the house from my dream, and although I know I am in waking physical reality, it feels very dreamlike. We enter the house on the left, as we do in the dream, and go into her kitchen.

As she talks, I look up and see the archway above us, exactly as in the dream. I can hardly focus on the present, but I find myself asking the question, “Do you know what happened to Geoff?” She tells me he’s living in the mountains of New Mexico, just as she did in the dream.

Then she continues with the part that my mind could not bring to waking physical reality. She says that she just got his number from a private investigator she hired to serve him papers so that he would give up rights to their child. Geoff was the father of her five year old girl. He had left her before her baby was born.

I feel as if I am exploding. Not only do I have to face the fact that Darcy had Geoff’s child, which I did not seem able to remember after the dream, but I also must face the fact that I dreamed all this four days earlier.

Darcy writes down Geoff’s number on a small slip of green paper that I take with me as proof that this experience really happened. When I finally leave her house, still in shock, I walk back towards our spot on the beach. Some people ask me for directions, just as in the dream.

When I get back to the guys on the beach, I desperately want to talk about my experience, especially to my coworker who had heard all about the dream before it manifested. I expect him to feel as amazed as I do. However, both guys seem preoccupied with leaving in order to get back in time for a party.

I realize that the physical experience of my visit with Darcy may not have happened if I had not had such as “upsetting” dream and needed to go to the beach to “relax.”

I will share only a few of the many interesting side notes concerning this adventure.  First of all, I have since figured out that Geoff must have gotten Darcy pregnant a few months after he and I met up again after finishing college. I once again refused to “be intimate” with him, as I did in high school,  and he took off quite upset.

Secondly, as I started preparing this presentation a few months ago, twenty-four years after the 1982 dream, I surprisingly got an email from someone who found me on the internet and sent me Geoff’s current phone number. I still have not called him because I don’t know what I’d say to him.

Amazingly, just a week ago Sunday, I went to a party that started on a “Beach in Santa Cruz!” The dark haired guy from the 1982 precognitive dream turned up. We talked about that day, and I told him that I would present my dream at this conference, but once again, he didn’t seem very amazed.  He took off to talk to other people.

Finally, I discovered, over a decade after I’d last seen him, that my coworker has a son in my son’s school classroom.

Well, after this intense and verified precognitive dream, I started having precognitive dreams almost every night. Their manifestations occurred within days.  After having these intensely personal psi experiences, anything psi related now seemed possible. I started reading books, such as Jane Robert’s Seth material, and other channeled works which earlier made no sense to me.

Around this time, I also formulated my philosophy called “lucid living” in which I truly believe that “life is but a dream!”

Eventually, I felt compelled to pay less attention to my psi experiences so I could focus on completing my Ph.D., and afterwards on having a family. However, I would like to share a few other psi dreams from this time period which I felt I had to act upon.

ACCIDENT DREAM

In this next precognitive dream, I got involved in an accident. I felt confused and upset about the way I handled the situation in the dream. I woke up feeling awful. I wanted to avoid the accident, which I decided would probably happen on the way to work. Therefore, I went out of my way to take a very indirect route to work that day.

On this route, which I never took before, I, indeed, got involved in an accident. In the flurry of activity, I still felt unsure how to handle it. Afterwards, I realized that I may have handled it just as badly as I did in the dream. In fact, that seems one of the reasons why it felt so similar to the accident in my dream. The dream and the manifestation had many elements in common, especially emotional ones.

I often wonder if the accident needed to happen in physical reality no matter what I did to try and avoid it. Would it not have happened if I didn’t try to avoid it, which I tried to do because of the dream? Surely, the particular event could not have occurred had I not driven the new route. Why didn’t I act differently having the knowledge that I seemed to handle it badly in the dream?

The event caused more questions than answers. It did, however, teach me that sometimes we can  not solve problems just because we have “inside” information. At times, we might make matters worse by trying to avoid disasters. Perhaps we even help bring them into existence. In this case, I especially regret acting out of fear.

AUNT DREAM

I’ll share another case where I think I did a better job of handling a precognitive dream. This dream essentially told me that my aunt should not have a procedure done that would change her from being a woman. I didn’t get the meaning of the dream until my mother told me, later that day, that my aunt’s doctor told her she should get a hysterectomy. I casually told my mother my dream and she took me seriously because she knew that I had other verified precognitive dreams.

My mother decided, on her own, to call my aunt and suggested that my aunt get a second opinion. My aunt did so, and ultimately she did not have the surgery.

Twenty-four years later, my aunt, unlike almost everyone else in my extended family, still lives and has relatively good health at the age of ninety.

Many other women in my family had problems due to hormonal imbalance.  Keep in mind that these days, the decision not to have an unnecessary hysterectomy seems more common sense than it did years ago.

My dream information may or may not have played a major role in my aunt’s life. Still, it seems to me, a good example of how to share precognitive information in a guided and gentle manner. The conversation seemed natural and quite easy. In contrast, my actions concerning the accident seemed based upon fear and uncertainty.

PARTY DREAM

I’ll share one more thing I notice about precognitive dreams. Other people who get involved don’t seem as shocked as I’d expect about the detailed information that comes from my dreams.

One time I dreamed I went to a party at someone’s house I didn’t know. In the dream, I went up to the attic and looked at the owner’s artwork. I tripped on the second to the last step going up.

A few days later, in physical reality, I unexpectedly went to a party. I recognized the house, only from my dream, and asked the owner if I could see her artwork. Not knowing me, she didn’t seem surprised that I knew about the attic. I followed her up the stairs and asked her if she had fixed the broken step. She merely answered without any apparent suspicion, “Not yet. Be careful.”

I won’t get into them today, but I also began having waking state precognition in physical reality as well. Usually, this involved a type of “hearing” or “knowing” something before it happened, such as the name of a person I would encounter.

PSI CONTESTS

I still have psi dreams when I pay attention to them. Recently, after some success in several psi dreaming contests at the annual IASD online PsiberDreaming conferences, I decided to focus on how to record all of my dreams so that I could best capture psi information.

I record only what comes easily out of my mouth as I describe certain dreams in the middle of the night into a digital recorder. I try not to add words and descriptions to my dream reports after I feel fully awake because I have noticed how my mind tends to change images and phrases that may have unrecognized meaning.

At the last three regular IASD conferences, I participated in the dream telepathy contests with great results. I dreamed an excellent match to a non-target picture in 2003. In 2004, I served as the telepathy sender, and we got an amazing, exact hit of the picture I focused on. Last year, I won the contest.

I paid close attention to my physical reactions when first seeing the target picture. I felt a rapid tapping sensation in the center of my chest just above my heart. This seems similar to how I usually feel waking up from precognitive dreams and during their manifestations.

MANIFESTATIONS

I will offer one suggestion to help you understand what the manifestation of a precognitive experience feels like. When you find yourself away from home, clearly visualize your bedroom. Imagine that you are lying down in your bed looking around at the room.

Later, when you really do lie in your bed at home, focus on what it felt like to have had a similar experience in your mind while away from home doing the visualization. The visualization acts as the precognitive dream and remembering it while actually in bed acts as the manifestation. To have a precognitive experience we must remember both of these aspects.

A similar process can occur with lucid dreams, where the manifestation occurs in our dream. While in waking physical reality we can visualize what we’d like to do in a dream. When we later remember to act out in our dream what we merely visualized earlier, we often create a lucid dream. This lucid dream now serves as a type of manifestation of the original visualization.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, my psi experiences often have  highly charged emotional content. I often wake up from them with a rapid tapping sensation above my heart.  I feel that it definitely helps to learn to recognize the difference between dreams that have a precognitive element and those that represent something else.

Psi dreams usually feel different from regular dreams. To illustrate this difference, use the analogy of how a regular sentence looks very different from the same sentence in an unusual font and with boldface or italics style.

I have also learned, from the examples I described earlier,  that I need to pay very strict attention as to when and how I record and share these dreams. Finally, I especially feel that I need to pay attention and trust a guidance that I believe follows such psi dreams.  I think we are guided to do things with our psi dreams when our actions come easily, naturally, and without stress, or at the very least we feel compelled to share them.

Thank you.

Submitted to the International Association for the Study of Dreams Conference in Bridgewater, MA, June 2006.

SUMMARY

I often attempt physical and emotional healing for myself and others in my dreams, where, potentially, it could have the most effect on us. The results often seem positive. Besides giving examples and techniques, I will present a number of important issues.  For example, do we also heal ourselves when we try to heal “others” in our dreams? Should dream healers follow an ethical code? Can dream healing have negative effects?

ABSTRACT

I often attempt physical and emotional healing for myself and others in my dreams, where, potentially, it could have the most effect on us. My experiences at the Stanford Sleep Laboratory of monitoring my physical conditions and seeing them change as I attempted various tasks with my dream body, which I also refer to as one of my dream “characters,” proved to me that what I dream can affect my waking life. This led me to try healing from the dream world. I have developed interactive techniques, such as: asking for advice, using “experts,” sending energy, often through my hands, and reciting chants or affirmations to attempt healing. I set goals, practice, and use induction methods before I go to sleep. Although my dreams often involve lucidity, my techniques and methods have also proven themselves valuable for non-lucid dreams or visualizations, as well.

When I assist others to heal in my dreams, I feel that I also heal, or experience more wholeness, myself. I view all my dream characters as representing aspects of my higher self, while at the same time, I feel that they can, potentially, have a connection to other people. I might ask others to come into my dream by connecting to my dream characters, or I might go looking for dream characters that I feel best represent them. By the term dream “character,” I mean a type of dream “body” or “entity” that may have a connection to a physical person, but not necessarily. For example, I usually “connect” to the dream character that looks and acts like myself in my own dreams.

I recognize that a healing attempt may not always best serve myself or others, and will not always get at the source of the problem. However, I feel that a healing may help, but only if the subject desires it. Therefore, I make sure the dream character, whom I attempt to heal, agrees to the healing. When helping heal another person from my waking life, I usually ask permission of the person in the waking state before I decide to dream of the person. Discussing the healing with the person ahead of time also means that I can share my results with the person and determine any benefits. The dream character that I work with may or may not appear exactly as the physical person does, but usually I can still recognize the character as the person.

As I explore other issues involved in interactive dream healing, I realize that the possibility exists where one might adversely affect dream characters, and hence their possible physical counterparts, while attempting a dream healing. However, I  think that this can happen only if the subject allows it. I also believe that, potentially, anyone can tap into positive energy, or what we might call “love” or “God,” when attempting a dream healing. Because of this, I see interactive dream healing as a form of “prayer.”

INTRODUCTION

Good Afternoon.

Today, I’d like to tell you about ways that I often attempt physical and emotional healing for myself and others in my dreams. I believe it can have a valuable effect on us in waking physical reality. Although difficult to measure, the results of my healings have usually seemed positive.

I will give you some examples and techniques of interactive dream healing, as well as discuss a number of important related issues and questions.  For example, do we also heal ourselves when we try to heal “others” in our dreams? Should dream healers follow an ethical code? Can dream healing have negative effects?

MY BACKGROUND

I’ll begin talking a few minutes about my own background.

Although I do not feel it necessary to use lucid dreams for dream healing, many of my healing attempts have occurred when I felt lucid, so let me clarify what I mean by lucidity.

To me, lucid dreaming does not mean merely “clear” dreaming, or even “controlled” dreaming. It only means that I feel aware at some level that I am dreaming while I am dreaming. However, I believe that the more lucid I get, the more a dream healing may affect me.

In a lucid dream, I feel more present than in a non-lucid dream, bringing my whole self into the experience. I know myself as more than my dream body and that the source of myself exists outside of the dream or inside the mind of the dreamer, or what I call our greater self.  When lucid, I connect to this dreamer, let go of any fear, and see endless possibilities.

Starting in the late 1970’s, I helped do research on lucid dreaming at the Stanford Sleep Laboratory. I would signal from the dream to the physical lab while being definitely asleep and dreaming. Our experiments of monitoring my physical conditions and seeing them change as I attempted various tasks with my dream body, proved to me that what I dream can affect my waking life. This led me to try healing from the dream world.

As I have said, most of my dream healings have occurred in lucid dream reality, when I remembered my healing goal. Many times I did not a need a goal, but merely went along with the dream, with more power, such as lack of fear, because of my lucidity, and I got a healing result.

I do, however, feel that even without lucidity, we can use other methods for healing such as, dream induction, visualization, or acting-out while in waking physical reality. Without ever getting lucid, one can ask for help with a problem in a dream before going to sleep and then accept what the dream offers. Setting a goal for a lucid dream actually serves as a type of dream induction.

When I led groups and workshops on the topic of lucid dreaming/lucid living, I usually ended each session with a guided visualization. After getting everyone still and relaxed, with their eyes closed, I would describe an imagined scene and activity that usually included a healing. This helps non-lucid dreamers get a sense for what can happen in a lucid dream.

Such non-dreaming techniques prove useful to lucid dreamers as well, because it helps to practice in waking physical reality what one would like to do in a dream. Many people actually believe that dream reality, in general, provides us with additional power because we seem more connected to our essence.

Before I discuss healing issues in general, I’d like to give you an example of a healing dream that I had last summer. A friend asked me to try to help her son, whom I’ll call Erin. Erin has Perthes disease, which does not allow blood to flow to his hip properly causing discomfort and difficulty participating in sports. I spoke to Erin and he agreed to my doing a dream healing for him in the near future.

First, using a suggestion from Ed Kellogg, I formulated a goal that I would attempt when I knew I was dreaming. I decided to chant a Harry Potter spell called “scourgify,” which roughly means, “clean up,” while pointing my index and middle fingers at Erin’s body.

I had the following dream on July 26, 2005. In this dream, I find myself standing in an open structure, which looks like a barn. I remember that I am dreaming. However, because Erin does not appear near me in the dream, I decide to do the healing actions as if he stands invisible in front of me, making this a practice session.

I point my index and middle fingers straight out in front of me and say “scourgify.” I look at my fingers and see that a sticky, thick yellow liquid emanates from the pads of my fingers. I then put my fingers to my mouth in order to taste the yellow liquid. As I do this, the liquid turns green. Its consistency stays the same, and I do not notice any flavor. I have had several experiences in the past year where objects or substances turn green after a healing, almost as a sign of completion.

Next, in the dream, I see a group of children playing outside, and I decide to find Erin. I look around and call out his name. I find him in the middle of the group, who soon separate.

I say to him, “It’s Beverly. I am here to do the dream healing we talked about.” He acknowledges me, so I point my fingers toward his leg and say “scourgify.” I have a clear intention for the best possible outcome. To make sure I have reached his hip, I repeat the process up and down his whole body.

At this point, I see that he has about a half dozen small holes all over his body. A dark-purple, watery, liquid squirts out of them. Thinking that this shows his blood flowing, I ask, “Why are you bleeding?” He says he’ll have to consult the Ouija board. I feel surprised that he knows of Ouija boards. He says he used it when he was born.

I return to waking physical reality and have a series of false awakenings of both trying to record the dream and of calling Erin’s Mom.

When I do call his Mom in the morning, I discover that her family had planned to leave town the next day for a month. I had been trying to attempt my healing goal for about a week. I describe my dream to Erin’s Mom, and she tells me that she has wondered if his disease might relate to blood problems he had at birth. Erin also mentioned his birth in my dream.

Erin’s Mom then asks him if he had any dreams. He reports that he dreamed he was in a video game, got hurt, and was instantly healed. One of the characters in the video game has the name “Luigi”, which sounds almost exactly like “Ouija,” the board mentioned in my dream.

Erin seemed to feel better after the healing because he did not ask for pain medicine during the next month, as he did in the months before the healing. Since then, his condition has improved and his doctors finally plan to let him get back into regular sports this Fall.

Did my healing attempt have an affect on Erin’s condition? Would he have improved at the same rate without it? I cannot say one way nor another, but I still feel pleased that I tried to help him.

To offer you more examples to consider, at the end of this presentation, I will briefly mention some of my other explorations in the healing potential of dreams. For now, I’d like to discuss some general issues concerning dream healing.

HOW DO WE DEFINE HEALING?

The dictionary has many definitions for the word “heal:” To make sound or whole; to restore to health; and to cause an undesirable condition, which I will call a “problem,” to be overcome.

CAN WE AFFECT OUR PHYSICAL BODIES BY WHAT WE DO IN DREAMS?

I believe that what we dream or imagine can affect us physically. At the Stanford Sleep Laboratory, when I dreamed of moving my dream body’s eyes in a particular manner, electrodes picked up similar movement from my physical eyes. Many other people have also showed positive physical effects from active visualization. I, personally, have many examples where my life seemed positively affected by my dreams.

DOES HEALING ALWAYS SEEM APPROPRIATE?

In certain cases, it might not best serve the subject of the healing to eliminate a problem. As an example, a doctor may not want to resuscitate a patient who asked ahead of time not to do so in certain situations, such as when they would only exist in a vegetative state.

Also, some problems exist as symptoms of other problems, which should, perhaps, get addressed first. For example, one may first want to learn to eat and exercise better before getting a “tummy tuck.”

Therefore, when attempting a healing, we should always ask for the “best possible outcome.” Many problems have several layers of complexity and may involve different aspects of our mind, body, and spirit.

WHAT CAN WE ATTEMPT TO HEAL?

We may want to heal an internal physical problem of ourselves or others, involving our organs, bones, muscles, nerves, or other functions, as in the example of Erin. However, we may want begin with simpler problems, such as a cut, burn, or wound. We can also consider emotional, mental, or spiritual problems, such as the pain of grief, depression, or of not seeming able to complete our goals, and thus not feeling whole.

DO WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO TRY TO HEAL OTHERS?

We need to consider the ethics and rights of others during the healing process. Do we need another’s request or permission to try to heal them in our dreams, or for that matter in waking physical reality? While in a dream, do we ask the dream character for permission, or do we need to wait to ask the person represented after we wake up?

By the term dream “character,” I mean a type of dream “body” or “entity” that may or may not have a connection to a physical person. For example, I usually connect to the dream “character” that looks and acts like me.

What do we do if we’d like to heal our pet, a person who has died, or a more general situation, such as our country? With these cases we cannot easily ask the subject represented and necessarily expect an answer.

I feel that a healing may help, but only if the subject desires it. Therefore, I make sure the dream character, whom I attempt to heal, agrees to the healing.

When helping heal another person from my waking life, I usually ask permission of the person in the waking state before I decide to dream of the person. Discussing the healing with the person ahead of time also means that I can share my results with the person and determine any potential benefits from the healing. A dream character that I work with may or may not look exactly like the physical person I wish to heal, but I can usually recognize something about the character that seems the best match to the physical person in my dream.

For people concerned about possible ethical issues of mutual dreaming, I will try to explain what seems to happen for me. I sometimes ask others to come into my dream by having them take on the role of a character in my dream. This seems similar to how a director might ask actors to take on a role of a character in her play. The actors must accept responsibility for any extreme emotions or harm that their characters may experience in the play, which could have lingering effects on them after the play finishes.

I also may search for characters that I feel best represent the people I want to heal while dreaming.  When I look for specific dream characters, it feels as if I am attempting to take on the role of a character in someone else’s dream. I feel that the other person, serving as the director of their own dream, has the right to not accept me. In this case, I would probably not succeed in finding them. I would never try to force myself into another’s dream.

WHAT HEALING TECHNIQUES CAN WE USE AND WHO CAN ASSIST US?

In dream healing, we can use various activities or props, including energy forms, such as sparks shooting from our fingertips at the subject of the healing, hands-on manipulation, chants, affirmations, potions, experts, or even alternative selves. Basically, we can use whatever we can imagine! However, some people feel that we should not make up techniques, such as chants, but use only historically proven or accepted techniques.

Other healing methods include asking to see the subject in perfect form in a dream, or just willing the problem away. Many times, merely having the subject face a scary situation or go directly into the pain in a dream can result in a fabulous healing. I will share a few of these examples toward the end of my presentation.

Sometimes, we may want to ask pertinent questions before going to sleep or in a lucid dream, about how the subject can best deal with his or her problem. In the dream, we may hear an answer spoken directly, or see it written on something, such as a book or a wall. Answers can also come indirectly through symbols, scenes, or activities.

For example, we could discover foods which we should or should not eat. We might find our dream body in a pool of warm water, which could mean that some form of heat or water therapy may help in physical reality.

We may want to ask an expert, or even a random person, in our dreams to assist in the healing. I feel that all dream characters represent, in part, aspects of our greater self, so anyone can have healing abilities in dreams.

WHAT EFFECTIVENESS CAN WE EXPECT?

Of course, a dream healing, as any kind of treatment, may only have a minor role in the healing process, or none at all. How we measure the effect of a healing becomes another area of investigation. The results may vary depending upon: the receptiveness of the subject; the ability, intent, and focus of the healer; the condition to heal; the appropriateness of the techniques; and many other variables.

CAN ATTEMPTING TO HEAL OTHER DREAM CHARACTERS HELP US?

When I assist others to heal in my dreams, I feel that I also heal, or experience more wholeness, myself because I view all my dream characters as representing aspects of my greater self. At the same time, I feel that the characters in my dreams can, potentially, have a connection to other people and therefore help these people as well.

One time, while in the sleep lab, I asked another dream character to move his eyes. The results on the polygraph showed movement in my physical eyes. This made me wonder if characters other than the one we seem to take on also have a connection to our physical bodies.

CAN WE ALSO CAUSE HARM?

I realize that the possibility exists where one may adversely affect dream characters, and hence their possible physical counterparts, while attempting a dream healing. However, I  think that this can happen only if the subject allows it.

I also believe that, potentially, anyone can tap into positive energy, or what we might call “love” or “God,” when attempting a dream healing. Therefore, I see interactive dream healing as a form of “prayer.”

I see “evil,” not as a separate force, but merely as the absence of love. Therefore, someone might not have the ability to heal, but this does not mean that they can tap into evil in order to intentionally cause harm.

MORE EXAMPLES

As I said at the start of this presentation, I have used my dreams to better myself, as well as others, in many ways all my life, without formally calling it dream healing. I will now summarize some other dreams that you may or may not have heard me speak about in the past.

As a child, I helped end the suffering that came from my nightmares by facing up to “the witches” in my first lucid dream. The witches still looked terrifying while I said, “Let’s get this over with,” without fear because I knew I was dreaming. After this dream, my witch nightmares ceased.

As an adolescent, I felt less inhibited by trying out frightening or embarrassing situations initially in my dreams. When my best friend died, I dealt with my grief by talking to her in my dreams.

I started doing formal lucid dream healings almost twenty-five years ago. Dr. Stephen LaBerge, from the Stanford Sleep Laboratory, suggested that I try rubbing my hands together and shooting out healing energy from my fingers to my neck when I complained of a stiff neck one night in the lab.

At the time, we were doing an experiment for Smithsonian Magazine. I remember that sparks shot out from my fingers in my dream, but then my hair caught on fire. I spent the dream trying to put out the fire. The reporters got a good example of losing lucidity in a dream!

I later asked others in my dreams to work on my neck. One time, I asked a janitor, the first person I saw in an elevator, to rub my neck. This action seemed to help my neck afterwards in waking physical reality.

I often shot healing sparks at my dog in dreams to avoid any old-age problems she might encounter. She lived a very long and happy life for her breed. I did the same for my Mom while she lived and after she died, when she appeared to me in a dream as needing some healing.  Recently, I added more techniques to my healing repertoire, such as chants.

In my twenties, I solved a writer’s block in a dream by letting myself get sucked into the “pit from hell.” Afterwards, I felt able to complete my Ph.D. in waking physical reality.

To help me with the frustration of finding a mate in my thirties, I found my alternative selves in a dream and listened to their advice.

In my forties, when I felt devastated about not getting pregnant in waking physical reality, I worked on the issue in my dreams by pulling my creative force, the witches of my childhood dreams, into my body. Soon afterwards, I had my son, now a healthy eleven-year-old boy, whose birthday is today! For the record, “Happy Birthday Adrian!”

In the year 2000, my mother had a sudden, massive stroke, and I became faced with taking her off life support. I dealt with my extreme grief in my dreams, in part, by surrendering to my now familiar “witches.”

With minor injuries, I try to get optimum healing through actions in my dreams. My dreams told me that a second degree burn I received last summer needed to heal slowly. To assist the healing in my dreams, I chanted a “Harry Potter” spell, similar to the one from my dream for Erin, and spontaneously shot yellow liquid at my burn site. The area appeared to get much better afterwards in physical reality.

I will give one last detailed example of an interactive healing dream. In waking physical reality, on Monday, March 7, 2005, I went in for a routine, annual gynecological exam. During the exam, my doctor found that I had an “expanded uterus.” He immediately did an ultrasound test and determined that I had: “both a large cyst and a mass that looked like it might be a tumor.” He told me to return when I got my period to do another ultrasound test to see if my condition changed.

I decided that I would try to have a lucid dream about my condition. This time, instead of just zapping my uterus, I wanted to understand more about why the situation occurred.

As a goal for my next lucid dream, I chose to ask some questions. I wanted to know precisely: “What message does this condition want me to know?” and “What can I do about it?” I also felt open to any healing that would occur naturally in my dreams. I finally had some lucid dreams on Monday morning March 14th.

I got answers to some of my questions in my earliest dreams. In my dream of 6:45 am,  I experienced a very direct healing.

In this dream, my nine-year-old son and I find ourselves in a camp-like setting. We look for a bathroom and can only find an odd one.

Standing outside, we notice these huge geometric figures in five different colors hovering and circling over us in the sky. They seem as large as ocean liners. A turquoise colored one comes closest to me. It has the shape of two candy dishes pressed together. They all seemed to shoot a kind of energy on me which I experience as a healing. I become very relaxed and open to taking in this invisible energy. I would describe it best as a type of heat.

My son seems scared, but I tell him not to worry. I explain, “They came to heal me!” Afterwards, we go back to the strange bathroom, which apparently now works.

In the last dream of this night, I find my childhood home getting rebuilt. Later, I discover that it did get rebuilt in waking physical reality around the time of the dream.

At 2:45 pm that same day, I went back to see my doctor. He did another ultrasound test searching for the cyst and the mass, but they did not exist anymore. He found my uterus “no longer expanded, but completely normal and healthy.” One year later, my uterus still remains normal.

Although these dreams had a powerful effect on me emotionally and physically, I can not say for certain what part they played objectively in my healing. Even so, I believe that they played a large part in my healing experience, and I feel very grateful that I had them.

You can find the details of these examples and more on my website: beverly.durso.org

I now welcome any questions that you may have. Keep in mind that I will also speak tomorrow on the PSI dreaming panel at 2:15 pm in the auditorium, where I will discuss, for the first time in public, some of my precognitive dreams, which I also consider very healing experiences.

Thank you.

The Art of Dream Healing

by Beverly (Kedzierski Heart) D’Urso, Ph.D.  ©2005

Presentation for the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) PsiberDreaming Conference, September 2005

What do we mean by “healing?” Who should do healing and how? What can we heal? Do you think it always seems best to heal a problem? Who do we heal? When, where, and why do we do it? What about special considerations for dream healing? Do healings have more effect when done in a very lucid dream? Would you like some examples of dream healing? We will address these questions in this workshop, as well as probe for more.

After considering many issues, I will ask you to format and perform a healing yourself. You could plan to do the healing in a dream and/or in waking physical reality (WPR), as a visualization or an acting-out process. By acting-out, I mean doing while awake what some people might plan to do in a dream. So, get ready to overcome some condition for yourself or someone you care for. The results may amaze you!

The dictionary has many definitions for “to heal.” These tell why we’d want to do a healing. A few of these include: to make sound or whole; to restore to health; and to cause an undesirable condition, which I will call a “problem,” to be overcome. Some words similar to the term “heal” include: cure, rehabilitate, treat, rejuvenate, alleviate, fix, relieve, or repair.

In deciding to do a healing, it helps to consider what the subject of the healing could now do as a result of a successful healing. For example, a person who has trouble even walking, due to a sprained ankle, could perhaps play a favorite sport again, if the ankle gets restored to health. Of course, a dream healing, as any kind of treatment, may only play a part of the healing process, or none at all. How we measure the effect of a healing becomes another area of investigation. The results may vary depending upon: the receptiveness of the subject; the ability, intent, and focus of the healer; the condition to heal; the appropriateness of the techniques; or other variables. Of course, healing can apply to problems other than physical ones.

What can we heal? Usually, we think of  healing our “problems,” or those of others. In certain cases, it might not best serve the subject of the healing to eliminate a problem. As an example, a doctor may not want to resuscitate a patient who asked ahead of time not to do so in certain situations. Also, some problems exist as symptoms of other problems, which should get fixed first. For example, one may first want to learn to eat and exercise better before getting a “tummy tuck.”

Therefore, when healing, perhaps we need to always ask for the “best possible outcome.” Many problems seem complex, and involve many aspects of our collective mind, bodies, and spirit. For purposes of examination, I will try to classify some problems that might need healing.

We can begin with problems of the physical body. We may want to heal an external problem, such as a cut, a burn, or other wound. We could also try to heal an internal problem involving our organs, bones, muscles, nerves, or other functions. Next, we need to consider emotional, mental, or spiritual problems, such as the pain of grief, depression, or of not seeming able to complete our goals or not feeling whole.

Who should do the healing and who should get healed? Perhaps only people who feel some connection to a higher-self should attempt to heal. We also need to consider the ethics and rights that come into play during the healing of those other than ourselves. Do we need another’s request or permission in order to try to heal them in WPR or in our dreams? If in a dream, do we ask the dream character, or do we need to wait and ask the WPR person represented? What if we’d like to heal our pet, a person who has died, or a more general situation, such as our country?

Who can we trust to assist in the healing? In dreams, for example, we may want to ask an expert to appear to help out, or even the subject’s alternate self or future self. What about asking a random character in a lucid dream to perform a healing? Perhaps anyone can heal in a dream.

How do we heal? Most people feel familiar with Western medicine, as well as other healing techniques, such as the use of herbs, acupuncture, chiropractics, or massage. In this workshop, I want to discuss healing techniques which get initiated from the mind or spirit, in particular “dream healing.” I have expanded this to include visualization and acting-out in WPR. These non-dreaming techniques prove useful to dream healers as well, because it helps to practice in WPR what one would like to do in a dream. Of course, many people believe that dream reality provides us with additional power or “connection to our essence.”

In “mind/spirit” healing, we can use all kinds of activities or props, including hands-on work, energy forms, such as sparks shooting from our fingertips at the subject of the healing, chants, affirmations, potions, experts, or alternative selves. Basically, we can use whatever we can imagine! Other techniques include seeing the subject in perfect form or just willing the problem away. Many times, merely facing the scary situation or going into the pain in a dream can result in a fabulous healing.

Sometimes, a healer may want to first ask questions, before going to sleep or in a lucid dream, about how the subject can best deal with the problem. The dreamer may hear the answer spoken directly or see it written on something, such as a book or a wall. Answers can also come indirectly through symbols, scenes, or activities. These can include, for example, discovering foods to eat or avoid, or finding one’s dream body sitting in a pool of warm water.

With dream healing, or other mind/spirit healing, come additional questions. Can what we imagine or dream actually affect our physical bodies or the bodies of others? If we heal another character from our dream, have we in some sense healed an aspect of our self? If we can heal in our dreams, does this mean we can also cause harm? Should healing come from our own dream body, other “expert” dream characters, or only the highest source, such as “God?” Should we make up techniques, such as chants, or use only historically proven techniques?

I speak from my own experience in saying that I believe that what we dream or imagine does affect WPR. At the Stanford Sleep Laboratory, when I dreamed of moving my dream body’s eyes in a particular manner, electrodes picked up same movement from my physical eyes. Also, when I went directly into my pain in my dreams, I got relief in WPR from various emotional issues, such as grief. My healing dreams also seemed to help remove WPR problems, such as neck pain, infertility, and uterine masses, to name a few. See the text, appendices, and references below for more details.

Most of the dream healing I have initiated occurred in lucid dream reality (LDR), or when I knew I was dreaming while I was dreaming and remembered my healing goal. Many times I did not a need a goal, but merely went along with the dream, without fear because of my lucidity, and I got a healing result.  However, I feel that even without lucidity, we can do the same with dream induction, visualization, or acting-out while in WPR.  Without ever getting lucid, one can ask for help with a problem in a dream before going to sleep and then accept what the dream offers. We can also consider a goal for a lucid dream as a type of dream induction. In my lucid dreaming/lucid living groups and workshops, I always ended each session with a guided visualization. After getting everyone still and relaxed, with their eyes closed, I would share an imagined scene and activity that usually included a healing. This helps non-lucid dreamers get a feeling for what can happen in a lucid dream.

I have used dream healing to help my own life, as well as others, in many ways. As a child, I helped end the suffering that came from nightmares by facing up to “the witches” in my first lucid dream. The witches remained terrifying while I said, “Let’s get this over with!” I said this without fear because I knew I was dreaming.

See: Reference 9

http://beverly.durso.org/Autobiography-Paper.html

As an adolescent, I felt less inhibited by trying out frightening or embarrassing situations in my dreams. When my best friend died, I dealt with my grief by talking to her in my dreams, even though I still felt uncomfortable talking to a “dead” person.

See: Reference 11

http://www.spiritwatch.ca/LL%204.2/The%20Representation%20of%20Death%20in%20My%20Dreams.htm

I started doing formal lucid dream healings almost twenty-five years ago. Stephen LaBerge, from the Stanford Sleep Laboratory, suggested that I try rubbing my hands together and shooting out healing energy from my fingers to my neck when I complained of a stiff neck one night in the lab. We had been doing an experiment for Smithsonian Magazine, I think. I remember that sparks shot out from my fingers, and my hair caught on fire. I spent the dream trying to put out the fire, and the reporters got a good example of losing lucidity in a dream! I later asked others in my dreams to work on my neck. One time, the first person I saw in an elevator, a janitor, rubbed my neck and it seemed to help me very much.

See: Reference 13

I have often used my hands and fingers to initiate dream healings on myself and others. Some time ago, I shot healing sparks at my dog in a dream to avoid any old-age problems. I feel pleased to say she turned fifteen this summer, a very old age for her breed. I did the same for my Mom while she lived and after she died, when she appeared to me in a dream as needing some healing. Lately, I have added more techniques to my healing repertoire, such as chants and questions.

When I felt needy and depressed, I used dreams to help me understand my problem and eventually solve it. Sometimes the problem got solved immediately in the dream. In my twenties,  I solved a writer’s block in a dream by letting myself get sucked into the “pit from hell.”  Afterwards, I felt able to complete my Ph.D. in WPR. To help me with the frustration of finding a mate in my thirties, I found my alternative selves in a dream and listened to their advice. In my forties, when I felt sad about not getting pregnant in WPR, I worked on the issue in my dreams by pulling my creative force, the witches of my childhood dreams, into my body. Soon afterwards, I had my son, now a healthy ten-year-old

See: Reference 4

http://beverly.durso.org/LDE_interview.html

In the year 2000, my mother had a sudden, massive stroke, and I became faced with taking her off life support. My life, as well as my dreams, became quite a struggle. I wrote a paper about how I dealt with my grief in my dreams, including surrendering to my now familiar “witches.”

See: Reference 5

http://beverly.durso.org/ASD2003_paper.html

This year, when my doctor discovered a uterine mass, I looked to my dreams to find out why it existed and what I could do to solve the problem. In one dream, colored, geometric figures came down from the sky shooting healing energy at me. That same day, my doctor found, through ultrasound, that the mass no longer existed.

See Appendix-5  (HEALING OF MY UTERINE MASS)

With minor injuries, I try to get optimum healing through actions in my dreams. My dreams told me that a second degree burn I received this summer needed to heal slowly. To assist, I chanted a “Harry Potter” spell and spontaneously shot yellow liquid at it in a dream. The burn appeared to get much better after the dream.

See Appendix-6 (HEALING OF LEG BURN)

Last month, a friend asked me to try to help her son, who has Perthes disease. I had a healing dream for him and he remembered getting a healing in his dream of the same night. He currently seems better than before the healing. I will use this dream for the pre-healing template and post-healing template examples in Appendices 2  and 4.

See Appendix-7 (HEALING FOR EN’S HIP)

To conclude this workshop, I’d like anyone interested to participate in a healing experiment as follows. Sometime during the next two days, decide upon a healing you would like to do. Consider all the issues that I have presented, as well as others that come up on this thread. I will include a pre-healing template for your goals to assist you.

If you’d like to share your goal, often an excellent way to help you succeed, you can post your completed pre-healing template on this thread. Although the conference attendees have agreed to confidentiality, do not share any information that you do not feel comfortable telling others. I have included an example of a completed pre-healing template, which shows that not all slots need to get filled in.

See:
Appendix-1 (PRE-HEALING TEMPLATE  and
Appendix-2 (PRE-HEALING TEMPLATE EXAMPLE)

Then, after you carry out the experiment, share how you felt doing it and any results you may have discovered. You can use the post-healing template to help you decide what to report. I have also included an example of a completed post-healing template.

See:
Appendix-3 (POST-HEALING TEMPLATE) and
Appendix-4 (POST-HEALING TEMPLATE EXAMPLE)

Continue the art of dream healing as often as you see fit and in whatever manner works best for you. Remember that sharing the process benefits us all!

___________________________________________________

APPENDICES

Appendix-1 PRE-HEALING TEMPLATE

Title:    _______________
WHO:
Healer(s):
Your Name (or initials)    _______
Additional Healers
Expert            _______
Alternative Self    _______
Source/Higher-Self    _______
Random Character    _______
Other            _______
Subject of Healing (Name or Initials)     __________
Permission?    ______
WHAT:
Part or System or Symptom
Physical
Internal    ________
External    ________
Emotional/Mental/Spiritual
Grief            __
Depression        __
Unfulfilled Desire    __
Other            __
WHEN:
Date:        _________
Time:        _________
Place (e.g. home in bed; city): _________
WHERE:
Reality of Healing
Induced Dream    ___
Lucid Dream        ___
Visualization        ___
Acting-out        ___
Other            ___
WHY:
Tell one positive action you hope the subject will feel able             to take as result of the healing:                                ______________________
______________________
HOW:
Planned Techniques
Question(s)    ___________________
___________________
Chant(s)
or Word(s)     _________________
Action(s)            _________________
Color(s)            _________________
Energy Form(s)    _________________
Other            _________________
___________________________________________________

Appendix-2 PRE-HEALING TEMPLATE  EXAMPLE

Title: Healing for EN’s Hip
WHO:
Healer: Beverly D’Urso or
Source  or
Whoever appears
Subject: EN
Permission: yes
WHAT:
Hip problem (Perthes’)
WHEN:
July 20, 2005
11 pm – 4am
Cabin bed; Arnold, CA
WHERE:
Induced and
Lucid dream and
Visualization and
Acting-out
WHY:
So, he can play his favorite sports
HOW:
Ask: “What can he, or his family, do to help his situation?”
Try: Energy shooting up and down his body from my fingertips
Chant: Scourgify
__________________________________________________

Appendix 3 (POST-HEALING TEMPLATE)

Title: ____________________
WHO:
Your Name (or initials)    __________
Who else appeared        __________
Subject of Healing         __________
Did the subject have any related dreams? ____
WHAT:
Summarize the dream or other process
or include your dream report
_____________________________________
_____________________________________
Did the subject appear as usual?    ___________
Scene: (inside, daytime, city, etc.)    ________________
Any symbols, energy forms, information, or unexpected         actions or objects?     ____________________________
____________________________
WHEN:
Did the timing occur as planned?      _________
Date:                    _________
Time:                    _________
Place (e.g., home in bed; city):    _________
WHERE:
Reality of Healing
If lucid dream, rate lucidity (Scale: 1- 5=highest)     ____
WHY:
Any reported change in the problem or the subject?                 ______________________
______________________
HOW:
What ended up happening as the healing?
_____________________________

___________________________________________________

Appendix 4 (POST-HEALING TEMPLATE  EXAMPLE)

Title: Healing for EN’s Hip
WHO:
Healer: Beverly D’Urso
No one else appeared to assist
Other children played nearby
Subject: EN
The subject dreamed he got healed in a video game with a character called Luigi. I dreamed of him saying “Ouija.”
WHAT:
See Appendix-7 (HEALING FOR EN’S HIP)
EN did not look exactly as he does in WPR, but he responded to his name
Outside, daytime, camp-like setting
Purple liquid looking like blood flowed out of tiny holes that appeared all over him
Thick yellow tasteless liquid comes out of my fingertips on a practice attempt
WHEN:
Six days after planned, just in time before a trip
7/26/2005
4am
Cabin bed; Arnold, CA
WHERE:
Acted-out during the week in WPR
Visualized every night
Lucid dream level 4
WHY:
EN did very well after the healing and did not ask for pain medicine during this past month, as he did before the healing
EN’s Mom says his problem could relate to blood problems at his birth, similar to something to he said in the dream
HOW:
I point my fingers toward his leg and say “scourgify.” I have the clear intention for the best possible outcome. To make sure I have reached his hip, I repeat the process up and down his whole body. I forgot to ask the planned question or anyone for help.

___________________________________________________

Appendix 5 (HEALING OF MY UTERINE MASS)

My Lucid Dream Geometric Healing Experience
by Beverly D’Urso

On Monday, March 7, 2005, I went in for a routine, annual gynecological  exam. During the exam, my doctor found that I had an “expanded uterus.” He immediately did an ultrasound test and determined that I had: “both a large cyst and a mass that looked like it might be a tumor.” He told me to return when I got my period to do another ultrasound test to see if my condition changed.

I decided that I would try to have a lucid dream about my condition. Often, I attempt “direct healing” in my lucid dreams. In this case, I might chant that I want the cyst and mass to disappear and zap my uterus with healing energy which usually comes from my fingertips. However, this time, I wanted to understand more about why the situation occurred after so many years of normal exams. I have had other uterine problems, but not for the last decade.

As a goal for my next lucid dream, I chose to ask some questions. I wanted to know precisely: “What message does this condition want me to know?” and “What can I do about it?” I also felt open to any healing that would occur naturally in my dreams. I practiced repeating these questions to myself during the day, when I first went to bed, and when I awoke in the middle of the night. However, I did not feel very well that week and did not even record my dreams for several nights. After recording dreams all my dreams on Sunday morning March 13th, I finally had some lucid dreams on Monday morning March 14th.

In an early dream, I ask dream characters, “What does my condition mean and what should I do about it?” They do not give me clear answers, so I decide to ask the “Source” to show me answers on the wall structure in front of us. I ask the two people to look at the wall as well. I immediately see these projected images.

The first image shows skeletons similar to the ones we had hanging on Halloween. I think they might represent death. Next, I see a  traffic scene. An ambulance and fire truck appear. Finally, an airplane comes smashing down from the sky onto a freeway. I ask the person next to me what she saw and she responds, “I saw the airplane crash in Chicago.” I tell her that I grew up near Chicago and ask her what she thinks it means. She says she feels too tired and that I need to ask her later. I respond that I need to wake up and write all this down.

The images  seem to represent: (1) my fear of a serious condition, (2) a sudden attempt at healing, and (3) a destruction of the unwanted condition. I continue to interpret these images in many ways.

In my dream of 6:45 am, my nine-year-old son, Adrian, and I find ourselves at a camp-like place. We have dinner and he spills some food or drink on me. I have on a levi skirt and a burnt orange sweater, both of which I would not wear these days in waking physical reality. We look for a bathroom and can only find an odd one.

Standing outside, we notice these huge geometric figures in five different colors hovering and circling over us in the sky. They seem as large as ocean liners. A turquoise colored one comes closest to me. It has the shape of two candy dishes pressed together. They all seemed to shoot a kind of energy on me which I experience as a healing. I become very relaxed and open to taking in this invisible energy. I would describe it best as a type of heat.

Adrian seems scared, but I tell him not to worry. I explain, “They came to heal me!” Afterwards, we go back to the strange bathroom, which apparently now works.

I obviously experienced a very direct healing. Notice that the bathroom, which often represents the area of my bladder and uterus, seemed “odd” at the start of this dream. By the end of the dream, the “bathroom worked.”

At 2:45 pm that same day, I went back to see my doctor. He did another ultrasound test searching for the cyst and the mass, but they did not exist any more. He found my uterus “no longer expanded, but completely normal and healthy.”

I later discovered an interesting connection between my “colored, geometric healing figures” and similar ones described in a book called: Through the Curtain by Viola Petitt Neal, Ph,D. and Shafica Karaguella, M.D. To summarize the book: Dr. Neal has lucid dreams where she attends classes that teach her about topics such as the “healing effects of geometric figures and different colors.”

See: Reference 12

Since this day, I have felt more relaxed and find that I can clear my mind more easily than before, especially when I visualize the turquoise figure or see images in my life that represent it. I have begun making a model of this figure. The day after the dream, I received two dinner containers that seem almost perfect for my model.

I have also taken much better care of myself physically after these dreams. I find it easier to exercise more and eat better. The message,  which I requested in my dreams, seems to have told me to “do what I can to remain as healthy as possible.”

Although these dreams had a powerful effect on me emotionally and physically, I can not say for certain what part they played objectively in the remarkable disappearance of the cyst and mass that the second ultrasound revealed.  Even so, I believe that they played a large part in my healing experience, and I feel very grateful that I had them.

See the original paper for more details, including the last dream of this night. In this dream, I find my childhood home getting rebuilt and later discover, unbeknown to me, it did get rebuilt in WPR at the time of the dream.

See: Reference 3

____________________________________________________

Appendix-6 (HEALING OF LEG BURN)

Lucid Healing Dream of my Leg Burn
by Beverly D’Urso

July 15, 2005 6:25 am PST

Task: To try to heal a second-degree burn on my right thigh that I got on June 27, 2005.

Plan: To use a “Harry Potter” chant that Ed Kellogg suggested: “Scourgify,” while pointing with the index and middle fingers of my right hand towards my burn.

I find myself at my childhood home at night. I go outside to explore, first at the side of the garage where I buried pets. Next, I go to the alley. When I decide to fly back inside, I realize I am dreaming.

Still in the back and side of the house, I quickly chant “scourgify” and point my index and middle finger of my right hand to my right knee. About a 3 inch diameter area raises up like a volcano about 2-3 inches high. The very tiny apex of the “bell-shaped” area appears red. An invisible force from my fingers  seems to pull the “volcano” up and out. Lemon-yellow, liquid-like substance surrounds the volcano, like a puddle of lava. (Later, I say it seemed the consistency of mustard or liquid soap.) I do not feel certain that the liquid came from my fingers, but it probably did. I call out “scourgify” several more times.

Soon, I realize that I have targeted my knee, somewhat below the burn on my thigh. I repeat the process pointing to my burn this time. The same volcano-like bump forms, with even more yellow “lava”. I add that I want “optimal” healing results.

I notice that I still feel very lucid and will remain in the dream. I fly into the backyard asking, “What should I be doing in my life?” I see a large screen with moving pictures of organisms, amoeba or bacteria. I don’t understand what this means, so I go inside the house to ask people.

I see many people milling about. I single out a old, short, Chinese man wearing a costume. He has a patch over his eye and acts like a philosopher. At this time, I am running my hand over my burn trying to and heal it again. The man begins to write out a list on a tablet, or large pad, of what I should do in my life. I look over to read it and say something like, “Oh, basically you want me to “wing it.”

Later, I read online that “wing it” means to do something with little preparation. It comes “from the theater, where impromptu performances were given by actors who received prompts from the wings.”

In WPR, my friend told me that she felt concerned that my burn looked awful and did not seem to get any better between July 2nd and July 8th. When she saw it again, four days after the Scourgify experiment on July 19th, she couldn’t believe how well it looked, like a “small pink heart.”

____________________________________________________

Appendix-7 (HEALING FOR EN’S HIP)

Lucid Healing Dream for EN
by Beverly D’Urso

July 26, 2005

Task: To try to heal EN, the seven-year-old son of a friend, who has Perthes’ disease. It affects his hip by not allowing blood to flow to his hip properly.

Plan: To chant “Scourgify” (a Harry Potter spell) while pointing my index and middle fingers at his body. I previously talked to him and his Mom about performing a lucid dream healing and they agreed to it.

In this dream, I find myself in a camp-like setting during the daytime. I am standing in an open structure, such as a barn. I remember that I am dreaming. Because EN does not appear near me in the dream, I decide to try the healing actions as if he stands invisible in front of me, making this a practice session. I point my index and middle fingers straight out in front of me and say “scourgify.” Not having an object, forces me to look at my fingers. I see that a sticky, thick yellow liquid emanates from the pads of my fingers. I decide to put my fingers to my mouth and discover the taste of the yellow stuff. As I do this, the stuff turns green. Its consistency stays the same, and I do not notice any flavor.

Next, I see a group of children outside and decide to find EN. I look around and call out his name. I find him in the middle of a group of other children, who soon separate. I say to him, “It’s Beverly. I am here to do the dream healing we talked about.” He recognizes me, so I point my fingers toward his leg and say “scourgify.” I have the clear intention for the best possible outcome. To make sure I have reached his hip, I repeat the process up and down his whole body.

At this point, I see he has about a half a dozen small holes all over his body. A dark-purple, watery, liquid squirts out of them. Thinking that this shows his blood flowing, I ask, “Why are you bleeding?” He says he’ll have to consult the Ouija board. I feel surprised that he knows of Ouija boards. He says he used it when he was born. I return to WPR and have a series of false awakenings of both trying to record the dream and of calling EN’s Mom.

When I do call his Mom in the morning, I find that they plan to leave town the next day for a month. I had been trying to attempt this goal for about a week. I tell EN’s Mom the dream and she tells me that she has wondered if his disease might relate to blood problems he had at birth.

She then asks EN if he had any dreams. He reports that he dreamed he was in a video game, got hurt, and was instantly healed. One of the characters in the video game he played has the name “Luigi”, which sounds almost exactly like “Ouija!” EN did very well after the healing and did not ask for pain medicine this past month, as he did before the healing

___________________________________________________

REFERENCES

1.    “Publications,” D’Urso, Beverly (Kedzierski Heart).

http://beverly.durso.org/Lucid_Dreaming_Publications.html

2.    “Lucid Dream Healings,”  A collection of   reports, Kellogg III, E.W.

http://www.asdreams.org/documents/1999_kellogg_lucid-healing.htm

3.    “My Lucid Dream Geometric Healing Experience,”  D’Urso, Beverly (Kedzierski Heart),  The Lucid Dream Exchange, Number 35, 2005.      [Also in E.l.e.c.t.r.i.c   D.r.e.a.m.s,     Volume #12,   Issue #8,  August 2005.]

4.    ”Dream Speak: An Interview with Beverly (Kedzierski Heart) D’Urso: A Lucid Dreamer – Part One, Two and Three”, The Lucid Dream Exchange, Numbers 29, 30, and 31, 2003 – 2004.
[Also in E.l.e.c.t.r.i.c   D.r.e.a.m.s, Volume #11,   Issue #7,8,9, 2004.]

http://beverly.durso.org/LDE_interview.html

5.  “Witches, the House, and Grief: Developing and Avoiding Lucid Dreaming”, D’Urso, Beverly (Kedzierski Heart,) Paper at the Association for the Study of Dreams (ASD)  Conference 2003, Berkeley, CA, June, 2003 (Available as an audio tape from ASD.)

http://beverly.durso.org/ASD2003_paper.html

6.    ”A Look at Lucid Dreams and Healing,” Waggoner, Robert, The Lucid Dream Exchange, Selected Articles on Lucid Dreaming, 2003.

http://www.dreaminglucid.com/articlehealing.html

7.    Healing Dreams: Exploring the Dreams that can Transform your Life, Barasch, Marc, Riverhead Books (Penguin Putnam Inc.), New York, 2000.

8.    ”I learned to use my dreams to improve my life”, about  D’Urso, Beverly (Kedzierski Heart), First for Women Magazine, Volume 8, Issue 26, June 24, 1996.

9.    ”Facing the Witches”,  Heart,  Beverly (Kedzierski D’Urso), Autobiography Paper, February, 1992.

http://beverly.durso.org/ASD2003_paper.html

10.    Dreams & Healing: Expanding the Inner Eye, Winsor, Joan, Dodd, Mead & Company, New York, 1987.

11.    ”The Representation of Death in my Dreams”, Kedzierski, Beverly (Heart D’Urso), Lucidity Letter,  Dream Lucidity and Death,  Volume 4  Number 2,  December, 1985.

http://www.spiritwatch.ca/LL%204.2/The%20Representation%20of%20Death%20in%20My%20Dreams.htm

12.    Through the Curtain, Neal, Viola Petitt  and Karaguella, Shafica, Devorss Publications, Marina del Rey, CA, 1983.

13.    ”You’re dreaming, but do you know it?”, (including Kedzierski,  Beverly (Heart D’Urso)), Smithsonian,  August, 1982.

14.    Dreams and Healing, Sanford, John A., Paulist Press, New York, 1978.

___________________________________________________

Dr. Beverly (Kedzierski Heart) D’Urso, an “extraordinary” lucid dreamer all her life, originally worked with Dr. Stephen LaBerge at Stanford. Numerous major magazines, such as LIFE, Smithsonian, and OMNI, television specials, books, and radio talk shows have featured her life and her dreams. Using her practical philosophy called lucid living, she has taught her own workshops and presented at conferences for decades. Working with Stanford University Professors, she completed her Masters degree in 1980, involving Cognitive Psychology, and her Ph.D. in 1983, focussing on Artificial Intelligence. Prior to working as a researcher, consultant, and a college professor, she created several startup companies. Dr. D’Urso has over fifty publications and has won several awards, including first place in this year’s IASD Dream Telepathy contest.

Welcome to the session on:

Extreme Dreaming: First Hand Reports from Lucid X-Dreamers

Today we have four long-term lucid dreamers discuss our decades of experience, insight, and perspective on lucid dreaming.

Besides some techniques, the panel intends to focus on interesting, unusual and thought-provoking examples. They hope to inspire and encourage beginners, as well as experienced lucid dreamers, to reach past their boundaries.

Ed Kellogg earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Duke University. A proficient lucid dreamer, he has a long-standing interest in the phenomenology of dreaming.

He has presented numerous papers and workshops on such topics as the lucidity continuum, lucid dream healing, and mutual dreaming. In 2002, 2003, and 2004 Ed organized and hosted  ASD’s online PsiberDreaming Conferences, and he plans another in September.

Robert Waggoner began lucid dreaming in 1975.  He co-edits and writes for The Lucid Dream Exchange, and other dream publications.  A member of IASD since 1995, he serves as Treasurer.

Lucy Gillis has been lucid dreaming for over 15 years. She co-edits, publishes, and writes for The Lucid Dream Exchange.

She has also written articles for other publications, a short book on dream interpretation, and has contributed to a book on sleep paralysis.

I call myself Beverly (Kedzierski Heart) D’Urso. A lucid dreamer most all my life, I did research on the topic in the late 1970’s and 1980’s with Dr. Stephen LaBerge at Stanford.  Numerous media specials have featured my work. I have led workshops, have over 30 dream publications, presented at ASD conferences since 1986, and have been writing a book on Lucid Dreaming/Lucid Living.

For today, we have all determined ten questions in which different panel members will speak briefly in different orders and amounts. We will then open up the session for questions, comments and discussion during the last 20 – 30 minutes.

1.  Discuss your favorite lucid dream

You can view my favorite lucid dream as a Saga that started with my First Lucid Dream called the Witches.  You can find out more about these dreams, and others, on my web site www.durso.org/beverly.

As a quick summary, when I was about five years old,  I found gruesome witches in my nightmares who would sneak out and come after me. Just as they were about to devour me,  I’d wake up.

After years of this same recurring dream, I’d find myself pleading, with the witches hovering over me, “Please, spare me tonight.  You can have me in tomorrow’s night’s dream!”  At that point, they’d stop their attack and I’d wake up.

I would often lie in bed and tell myself that the witches only came in my dreams, while I was safe in bed. I tried to get myself to remember this the next time they appeared.

In one dream, when I was about seven years old, those horrifying witches caught up to me. The instant before I started to plead with them, the thought flashed through my mind, “If I ask them to take me in tomorrow night’s dream, then this  must be a dream!”

I completely faced my fear, knowing it was a dream.  I looked the witches, who still looked very scary, straight in the eye and said, “What do you want?”  They gave me a disgusting look, but I knew I was safe in a dream.

I continued, “Take me now.  Let’s get this over with!”  I watched with amazement, as they quickly disappeared into the night.

I need to point out that some lucid dreamers may have turned the witches into something less scary.  I believe that my choice of surrendering to my fear and controlling only my reaction, served as an excellent choice for my first lucid dream.

I never had the witch nightmare in this form  again!  However, I would later have new episodes with the witches in my dreams and discover similar witch scenarios in my waking life, some of which I talked about in my workshop at the ASD conference in 1997.

In the 1970’s, I looked for the witches of my childhood in a dream, and they appeared as harmless, little old ladies. In the 1980’s, I noticed that a similar witch drama appeared in my waking life as well.

In 1994, doctors gave me terrible odds against having a child. So, I looked for the witches in a lucid dream, thinking of them as my “creative power,” and I brought them into my uterus. Within a year, I got pregnant with my son, Adrian who this week turned ten years old.

In 2002, right before I needed to sell my childhood home, I spontaneously dreamed that I found the witches in it. I surrendered to them again, and they pulled me under the closet door, where they came from.  I merged with the witches and the biggest fears of my childhood were resolved.

In my dreams, my fear was to go with the witches.  In life, my fear was my mother’s death which occurred on Christmas Day 2000.  At last, I felt I could sell the house, and I felt that I had healed quite a bit from my mother’s death when I finally went with the witches.

In the last dream I had of my childhood home, I flew out the picture window like a powerful witch. I discussed these dreams at the ASD conference in 2003.

My most recent attempt to work with the witches just occurred on March 7th of this year. I tried to find them in a lucid dream to help me heal a uterine mass my doctor found.

One of these dreams seems to have succeeded. and is written up in the latest issue of the LDE. I plan to demonstrate it at the Dream Ball on Tuesday night.

At this time, I also had a verified precognitive, or PSI dream, where I correctly determined the current state of my childhood home where the witches live!

If any of you remember, for my very first Dream Ball at the ASD conference in Charlottesville, VA. in 1986, I dressed as one of these witches.

So, the witches are still definitely a part of my life that I treasure, as I do all of my lucid dreams.

2.  Describe the levels of lucidity

I personally believe in levels of lucidity, as a spectrum. I would say I am partially lucid, if I just remember to question if I am dreaming.  I’d call myself definitely lucid, if I know I am dreaming for sure.

I consider myself very lucid, if I can control or change things in the dream, not that I always do. Finally, when I am most lucid, I often do not experience a body, nor any environment, but I have a very powerful, spiritual-like experience.

3.  Discuss false awakenings, remaining in the dream, changing dream scene, waking yourself up, etc.

With false awakenings, sometimes, I would ‘wake up’ ten or twenty times in a row, but usually the time it took me to realize that I was still dreaming shortened exponentially. For example, I would realize I was still dreaming when I left the house for the day in a dream.

The next time, in a similar dream, I would recognize I was still dreaming earlier, when I was in the shower, and so on. Finally, I would still be in bed, waking up, when I’d realize I was still in a dream. I have gotten better at recognizing false awakenings through the years.

In order to go into a dream scene as a child, I would lay in bed imagining myself doing backward summersaults and float right into my dream, without ever losing consciousness, as I fell asleep. I can change the dream scene, and even how to repeat the same dream, in a similar way. Sometimes, I would change the ending of a particular dream several times. I also figured out how to stay in a dream, if I felt I was waking up. I focus on the visuals or my own emotions.

As a child, I made up ways to wake myself up from dreams, such as staring at bright street lights in the dream, whenever I wanted to end a dream. I have also tried going to sleep in the dream, which can wake me up. If I have trouble waking up, I relax and meditate through any gray or black space.

4.  How have you challenged yourself in lucid dreams?

I gave myself challenges throughout my life, first with the witches I described, but also in most of the estimated 20,000 lucid dreams of my life so far!

I often dream of loved ones who died and I also occasionally try to find them. I travel to other places and time periods or try to heal myself and others. I like to attempt mutual dreams with my students and friends, especially Ed Kellogg here. For decades, I also tried many lucid dream tasks for experiments at the Stanford Sleep Laboratory.

A great example of this type of dreaming is when I was asked to do a lucid dreaming experiment at the lab for the television show 20/20. I consider this my favorite lab dream.

While being hooked up to electrodes used to verify my sleeping brain waves, I sat next to Hugh Downs, the host of the show. I had known him from television since I was a child. He wanted to try his luck at becoming lucid in his dreams that night.

I became lucid easily that night, finding myself in a bed that looked like the one in the lab where I had fallen asleep. Because I did not have a specific task that night other than signaling lucidity, I got the idea to head towards Oakland and maybe make it to a scheduled Grateful Dead concert. I got half way there, when I remembered that I was being filmed for a national television show. One of my goals was to bring Hugh Downs flying.

I turned around midair and quickly flew back to the Stanford Sleep Lab. I looked for what I thought would be the wall of Hugh’s room. I nudged him on the side and said, “Hugh, wake up! I have come to take you flying.” He seemed very sleepy, so I took his hand, and I gently pulled him out of bed.

We got to the coliseum just as the Grateful Dead were playing on stage. Because we were like ghosts, it was easy to merely float right over the band, in fact, directly over the lead guitar player, Jerry Garcia’s, head. We had the best location in the place, and the music sounded especially clear and vibrant.

The next morning, I asked Hugh if he remembered any dreams. Unfortunately, he didn’t, but he seemed very pleased when I told him mine. The reporters interviewed me, but as far as I know the segment was never shown.

I will speak about another interesting laboratory dream that demonstrated the world’s first recorded sexual orgasm during my session on Monday at 1:45 pm called the Ethics of Dream Sex.

5.  Do your lucid dreams ever seem more real that WPR?

I have had lucid dreams where they seem more real that WPR. This is difficult to explain in WPR. Sometimes, they include “seeing more,” such as simultaneously seeing the back and front side of an object. Of course, many of my lucid dreams have extremely vivid and clear visuals, sounds, and emotions.

I have also been known to do experiments in the lucid dream world, where I wake myself up, perform a task in WPR, and then go back into the same dream and ask technicians what they saw happening.

6.   Describe the unusual physics of lucid dreams

My flying dreams best illustrate the unusual physics of my dreams. I refer you to a description of these dreams in a LDE interview I did in 2003, which you can read on my web site.

Briefly, I learned to fly in different ways in my dreams. Usually, I would be lucid. I started out flying like a little bird, having to flap my wings to stay up. This could take much effort. As I grew up, I discovered that I could fly like superman, soaring effortlessly through the air, arms first.

At some point, I must have hit some telephone wires or some other barrier because I fell. I soon realized that because it was my dream, I could fly right through physical objects of any kind. I also realized that it was my mind that created the telephone wires to begin with!

After decades of flying, I noticed that the only thing that could stop me was if I ignored a character in order to hurry off flying somewhere else.

I had fun flying through walls and even deep into the earth. As I matured in my lucid dreaming skills, I could eliminate flying by merely imagining that where I wanted to go was right behind me. This soon got boring, and I went back to flying for the simple pleasure it brought me.

However, lately, I have been doing what I call “surrender flying.’” I lean back, and I let an invisible force pull me upwards from my heart area. This is a very ecstatic sensation, and it often leads me to places of great peace and power, which remain with me even after I wake up.

7.  Did you ever visit any possible parallel or probable realities in dreams?

When I was thirty-seven years old, I wanted to find a mate, get married, and have children. During the Christmas holidays, while visiting my parents, I had the following dream. I met up with myself at the age of twenty-one, who was sad because she was about to leave her college boyfriend, so she could travel and have a career.

I told my twenty-one year old self that I had done those things. I said that I now wanted a husband and children. She introduced me to my alternative self, who was also 37, and who had married my college boyfriend. They had three children, and now she wanted to divorce him. My twenty-one year old self and I decided that everything was as it should be.

Finally, I woke up. As I am writing down the dream, I hear an inner voice, as if from a future self, who says, “Everything is perfect as it is!” I finally believed it. I trusted that I would find my perfect mate, when the time was right. I didn’t need not worry about it. Eventually, I decided that if life is a dream, then my dreams would come true, and they did when I met and married my perfect mate. We have been married for almost twelve years.

8.  Talk about surrender vs control in lucid dreams or other spiritual aspects of lucid dreaming?)

Many people criticize lucid dreaming because they assume that lucid dreams must involve control. They fear losing what the dream was trying to show them.

In my lucid dreams, I feel free to go wherever my imagination takes me and I take care to balance surrender and control. By surrender, I do not mean “to give up”, but rather “to go with the flow.” I feel that I can have lucid dreams without control taking place.

Controlling my own reactions, or the action, characters, or environment in my dreams can indicate that I have reached a definite level of lucidity, but I can still have a lucid dream without control. At times, it helps to take some control of the action in the dream, for example, when I want to carry out goals.

I get power by surrendering to my lucid dreams. I may still have control of my own reactions, but not necessarily of what happens to me. For example, I am not automatically fearful when scary things happens. I can face up to them while they remain terrifying. I only need to remain conscious that I dream.

Being lucid, allows me to have less fear, to see more possibilities, and to see myself as one with the whole dream environment. With lucidity, I have more choices. In other words, I don’t need to change a monster. I can look it in the eye without fear and find out what it wants.

I like to surrender to my lucid dreams and totally experience my emotions. For example, I pass into and right through fear. I find this one of the most valuable lessons that lucid dreaming has taught me, which I can apply to my waking life, as well.

Here is an example of how, in graduate school, I solved a “writer’s block” in a lucid dream, where I used both control and surrender. In the dream, I found myself lying in bed, with my desk in the wrong place. I became lucid and headed for my computer to start writing. I found that I could not move and felt paralyzed.

Using control, I told myself, “This is my dream, and I can do what I want! ” I slowly made it to the desk. I looked down, and I saw that the chair seat had become “the pit to hell.” Flames swept up, and it sounded and smelled awful! However, I felt determined to succeed.

Holding my breath, I sat down, ready to get sucked into the pit. I did not change the scene, but surrendered to it. After I woke up, within a very short time, I finished writing my Ph.D. dissertation.

I have more examples of surrender and control in my 2004 Psiberdreaming Conference paper called: Over the Waterfall and Gently Down the Stream: Surrendering to the Lucid Dream also on my web site.

9.  Have you tried to fly as high or as deep as possible with unusual results?

I’ll begin with an dream of traveling deep down into the ocean. I had a lucid dream where I was flying over a river near my childhood home, when a cartoon figure of a dolphin floated in front of me. The dolphin danced around, and then asked me if I’d like to go on an adventure.

After putting out its fin for me to hold onto, it proceeded to pull me down into the ocean, which was now where the river had previously been. Something similar had happened to me with a whale shark, in the waking state, while I was scuba diving a few years before this.

The dolphin and I traveled deeper and deeper, faster and faster. I felt both ecstatic and somewhat dizzy, almost as though the experience were too intense. I woke up, however, feeling fantastic; very peaceful, yet energized.

Coincidentally, a year or so later, I ended up giving a lucid dreaming/lucid living workshop on board a sailboat in the Bahamas and a WPR dolphin actually rubbed against me while swimming.

Here’s an example of a lucid dream where I fly as high as possible. I appeared in a lucid dream with nothing physical around me, so I decided that I would fly in the direction that seemed up and merge with the sun.

I sped upwards like superman, accelerating rapidly until, about half way there, I heard a great sound. It was very intense, and yet blissful. I felt extremely lucid for the next several days in both my waking and sleeping states.

I had a similar  experience when I tried to fly to infinity and beyond in a lucid dreaming experiment for the LDE, which you can find in a recent issue.

10.  Have you learned how to act more lucidly in your waking life?

When I view my waking life as a dream, a dream in which I know I am dreaming (to various degrees, of course), I call this lucid living.  I feel that waking life may seem ‘real’ and unlike a ‘dream,’ merely because I lack lucidity, just as non-lucid dreams can feel like physical reality, until I become lucid.

I always try to view life as an “actual dream” and not to merely use lucid living as a therapy or philosophy. The assumptions that come from viewing life as a dream can be very powerful and I know can expand what we feel is possible in life.

If I look at waking life as a dream, then I can also use lucid dreaming techniques that I learned from my sleeping dream experiences, to more easily become lucid or “conscious” in my waking life.

So, when lucid in waking life, I can become more “free”, have fun, accomplish goals, feel connected, and maybe even experience magic in my waking life, as I have in my sleeping lucid dreams.

In lucid living, I think of our physical selves as dream selves in a dream called “waking life.” I also imagine a Dreamer who is dreaming our lives. Sometimes, I view this Dreamer as some “Being” asleep in a bed in another dimension.

Other times, I view the Dreamer as a nonphysical “God” or an all-encompassing, collective “Mind.” I guess there could be levels of Dreamers as well.

Either way, when I am lucid in waking life, I sense a connection to this Dreamer, whom I sometimes call our Higher-Self. I begin to respond to things from the perspective of this Dreamer.

As in a lucid sleeping dream, I feel “safe,” I believe in “limitless possibilities”, and I see everyone in waking life as “one” or “parts of a whole.”

Here are a few examples of how I have become lucid in my waking life. Once, during an argument with my cousin, I suddenly stopped to think, “If I look at this as a dream right now, then my cousin actually expresses a part of the Dreamer and I need to listen.

At that exact moment I acted from the perspective of the Dreamer,  she actually started to explain how our points of view seemed related instead of opposed.

Another time, a boy friend was yelling and hovering over me like the witches from my sleeping dreams. I noticed the similarities to the witch nightmares, and I saw this as a pattern in my life.

The situation actually happened in the same physical place in my house with different boyfriends. This time, I faced up to my friend, like I faced up to the witches, and my friend suddenly stopped, walked away, and the pattern in my life ended, in the same way my witch nightmares ceased.

You can read about these examples in my 2002 Psiberdreaming Conference paper called: From Lucid Dreaming to Lucid Living.

I believe that my marriage, my child, my degrees, my career, and my amazing adventures, too numerous to mention, are all examples of how lucid living has assisted me in having such an incredible and diverse life.

I could go on and on about lucid living and I hope to talk to many of you about it during the rest of this conference. I hope the everyone else will read my future book on Lucid Dreaming/Lucid Living currently called We Dream NOW.

We have to close now, but thank you from all of us for participating and pleasant X-dreaming!

INTRODUCTION (1 minute)
(Pass out cards)
Good morning. I will begin with a schedule for this session, starting with:

1. Ground rules
2. My dreaming background
3. My sexual dreaming experiences

4. Scenario: Consider your own ethics (the main part of this presentation)

5. My views on the scenario

6. A sample of opinions:
Against – For – Neutral

7. Audience opinions:
including discussion and cards
(about half of our time)

8. Final Questions

GROUND RULES (1 minute)

So, I’ll start with going over some ground-rules for this possibly sensitive topic of the ethics of dream sex.

During this session today, I definitely plan to be open-minded and respect each person’s rights, dignity, and integrity, as well as that of his or her opinions and dreams. I will ask and expect others to do the same.

I will forewarn the audience that unexpected issues or emotions may arise in our discussion and that mutual agreement about the degree of privacy and confidentiality are essential ingredients in creating a safe atmosphere.

By a show of hands, does everyone agree to privacy and confidentiality?

I also recognize that each person is the decision-maker as to whether or not to share his or her opinions or dreams out loud, or anonymously in writing on the cards I passed out. Does anyone need a card?

I plan to guide the audience to more fully experience, appreciate, and understand various viewpoints on this topic.

Last of all, as always, I will be honest and accurate in the communication of my own credentials and competencies.

Before we go on, I need to point out that you do not have to be a lucid dreamer or even care much about lucid dreaming to participate today. However, my main dream focus is on lucid dreaming and I will talk about it quite a bit.

MY BACKGROUND (5 minutes)

I will continue with a summary of my own background.

I remember having had lucid dreams since I was seven years old and I faced up to scary witches in a recurring nightmare.  You can see my web site: durso.org/beverly for a detailed description of my Lucid Dreaming and Lucid Living.

Starting in the late 1970’s, I helped do research on lucid dreaming at the Stanford Sleep Laboratory. I was able to signal from the dream to the physical lab while being definitely asleep and dreaming.  I also led workshops and taught others how to have lucid dreams, and I have given presentations on the topic at ASD conferences since 1986.

I have remembered, on average, six dreams per night, for most my of life. I’d say that between 2 and 10 dreams per week were lucid, to various degrees.  So, I’d estimate that I have had over 20,000 lucid sleeping dreams in my life so far.

My dreams usually seem like what we call waking physical reality  until I become lucid,  although I often know that I am dreaming from the start of the dream. Occasionally, my non-lucid dreams are bizarre, and yet I ignore this sign of being in a dream and I rationalize the experience, just as many people might do.

To me, lucid dreaming does not mean merely “clear” dreaming, or even “controlled” dreaming, necessarily,  if you were not aware that you were in a dream at the time.

Also, I personally believe in levels of lucidity, on a spectrum. I do not see lucid dreaming and non-lucid dreaming as binary states. In other words, one is not just lucid or non-lucid.

Finally, I’d say that in a lucid dream I am more present than in a non-lucid dream, bringing my whole self into the experience. I know that I am more than my dream body and that the source of myself is outside of the dream or inside the dreamer.

I can let go of fear and experience myself as more than just my body, know that anything is possible, and see everyone and everything in the dream as part of our expanded minds, our higher self, the Source, or what I call the Dreamer of life.

When lucid, I can become more “free”, have fun, accomplish goals, be “in the moment”, and maybe even experience magic!

HIGHLIGHTS OF MY SEX DREAMS (5 minutes)

GENERAL

But, now let’s get to today’s subject: Sex.

In my lucid dreams, I think of sex as a powerful bonding or integrating experience. I have had sex with dream characters who represent men, women, old people, young people, strangers, relatives, as well as people of various races and classes.

In dreams, I have been the woman, the man, half woman/half man, divided by upper and lower body, left and right sides, and with both a penis and a vagina. This made it possible to make love physically with myself in all combinations. I have also had sex as a man with a man, a woman with a woman, and with different groups  in my dreams.

In one lucid dream, I had sex with the earth, as I flew at its edge, one leg dragging into the dirt.  I can barely think of some sexual situation that I have not experienced. These dreams are all very enjoyable and everyone is always totally accepting.

Often, I perform some sexual advance or action as soon as I know I am dreaming, to prove in a way that I feel unrestricted in the dream.

STANFORD SEX DREAMS

In a groundbreaking experiment at the Stanford Sleep Lab, I was hooked up to electrodes and vaginal probes. My goal was to have sex in a dream and experience and record an orgasm. I would signal with different eye movements that would be picked up by a polygraph machine.

I dreamed that I flew across Stanford campus and saw a group of tourists walking down below. I swooped down and tapped one dream guy, wearing a blue suit, on the shoulder. He responded right there on the walkway.

We made love, and I signaled the onset of sex, the orgasm, and when I was about to wake up. We later published this experiment in the *Journal of Psychophysiology* as the first recorded female orgasm in a dream.

It is called “Physiological Responses to Dreamed Sexual Activity during Lucid  REM Sleep and was Presented at Asilomar Conference, Fall, 1983. This was also the time that I completed my Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence.

I should point out that when the experimenters asked me to have an orgasm, alone in a room in waking physical reality, in order to monitor my physiology and see if it matched that of the dream orgasm, I could not do so.

In WPR, I felt much too inhibited to do the simplest sex act all by myself. I need to point this out to demonstrate that I definitely do not act in WPR as I do in my dreams.

Also, Stephen LaBerge’s first book publisher for: Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, still would not use my real name in these dream accounts, because of their sexual nature. Instead, I used my dancing name, Miranda.

TODAY’S SCENARIO (5 minutes)

Okay. Let’s move on to today’s scenario.

The following scenario was adopted in part from a workshop that Ed Kellogg presented at IASD’s Third Online PsiberDreaming Conference, September 2004 called “The Ethics of Dream-Psi.”

Scenario: “In a dream, you meet a good friend, half undressed and very attractive. Although both of you feel happily married to other people in physical reality, and would not have sex with each other in waking life, both you and your friend feel quite turned on by each other in the dream.  Your friend wants to have sex with you, and even begins to caress and kiss you.”

Do you have dream sex with your friend? If not, why not? Consider the following situations I created, and think of others you might find interesting:

1.    You DO NOT know that you are dreaming and your situation matches that of waking life. For example, you know you are married in the dream.

2.    You DO NOT know that you are dreaming,  but neither character has gotten married yet in the time frame of this dream, or you take on a character different from your normal self.

3.    You DO know that you are dreaming. That is, you find yourself in a lucid dream. This is the case I find most interesting.

4.    You SUSPECT that you are having a mutual dream,  or a similar dream which both of you will remember having about each other during this night.

As I said in my abstract, some dreamers, if they did not know they were dreaming, would behave as they would in waking physical reality.

Others might feel things just “happen to them” in their dreams. In other words, they feel that they don’t have a choice.

In lucid dreams, where dreamers know they are dreaming and know they are not in waking physical reality, many dreamers find sex, in general, a positive way of bonding and feel more acceptable of any kind of sex the more lucid they become.

Others actually get more conscious of the effect of their actions on other dream characters and may more often choose not to have sex the more lucid they become.

Should having sex in dreams, especially in lucid dreams, where you know you are in a dream,  have the same associations or regulations that we place on it in waking physical reality?  To many people, lucid dream reality seems a place of less fear, inhibitions, and social rules.

However, coming back to waking physical reality from a dream, people tend to redefine what sex in the dream means.

Considering these issues, would YOU have, or not have, dream sex with your friend? Please think about your answers for the next two minutes before I describe my response and we open up the discussion to those who feel comfortable sharing.

You can write out your response anonymously on one of the cards I handed out and submit it to me, if you’d like, so that I can anonymously  incorporate your response into the discussion.

To make sure we get a well-rounded set of opinions prior to our discussion, I have created a broad range of generic responses that I will share after I describe my own views.

(Wait a few minutes.)

MY VIEWS ON THE SCENARIO (5 minutes)

I’ll now continue first with my views on the scenario.

First of all I have to say, if I did not know I was dreaming, I would most likely behave as I would in waking physical reality (WPR.) Typically, this would mean that I would not have sex with my friend because I would “believe” I had a husband.

However, if, in my dream, I had not yet married and therefore believed I did not have a husband, or,

I lived an alternative life in my dream, for example, I was a small black boy in Africa (which has happened), then I could not use my husband as a reason not to have sex.

I believe that in both WPR, or in any dream reality, I would not have sex with anyone who appeared unwilling.

First, I will exclude the issue of mutual dreaming and consider only my individual morals in lucid dreams. Keep in mind that being lucid and getting more lucid means different things to different people.

However, by common assumption or definition, “knowing I am in a dream” means “knowing I am NOT in WPR.”

For me, knowing that I am not in WPR makes me feel more “free” and less bound by morals than if I thought I was in WPR.

I consider myself not really “married” to my husband in lucid dream reality (LDR) in the same social way I do when awake. I find willing sex an acceptable way of bonding in LDR. In fact, I feel more acceptable of any kind of sex the more lucid I become. By he way, I have discussed this with my husband and he’s okay with it.

Also, when I am lucid, I realize that other characters seem to demonstrate my unconscious desires and fears. As in WPR, I believe that we always see people and events through our own filter.

So, from my perspective, I do not call myself  “very” lucid if someone else in my dream does not seem lucid. Therefore, I would need to decide if my friend seemed lucid in this dream as well.

Keep in mind that when I feel most lucid, sex, as we commonly think of it, becomes undefinable because I find no “separate” bodies in my dream.

I realize that what I am about to say can sound very complex as I consider other dream character’s lucidity and mutual dreaming. If you get lost, you can refer to my web site later, where I will post this presentation.

First, I understand that I can not be certain when I label someone else’s experience as “lucid.” I can only speculate.

To me a dream character acts lucid if they demonstrate that they do know we are in a dream. For example, they might tell me before I realize it that we are in a dream or they might initiate flying.

Therefore, if I felt that my friend seemed lucid in my dream, then, by association, I would feel very lucid myself, and I would not feel inhibited about sex.

However, if my friend seemed very lucid, if he felt that he should not have sex with me, then he would be unwilling at some level, and I would not have sex with him.

Now, I will address the issue of thinking I may be having a mutual dream. If the dream character that seemed to be my friend acted connected to my friend’s mind in WPR, as I feel connected to the dreamer I might call Beverly’s mind, then I might consider the dream a mutual one between my friend and I.

So, if I thought I was having a mutual dream, that is, I seemed to dream WITH my friend and not just OF him, my friend seemed lucid, I knew that my friend felt the way I do about LDR, in other words more “free,” less bound by morals, and he was willing, then I might have sex with him. However, I would need to consider at least one more issue.

Assume that my friend and I did have sex in a dream where we both knew we were dreaming, we both knew we had spouses in WPR, and we both felt that we dreamed WITH each other. We would now both have a shared memory of that experience in WPR.

This memory would most likely feel very intense, maybe even more intense than a memory of mutual sex in WPR.

The shared memory alone would probably affect our marriages. If I really wanted to protect my marriage, then I would refuse to have the experience in any mutual reality.

If, however, I wanted to take a risk and have sex with my friend in this way, it would probably end up as one of the most intense experiences of my life.

Just imagine: it would include: extreme sex, that seems forbidden, but is not against our morals, where we both have extreme lucidity and we both remember it afterwards in the same way. This would seem really amazing to me!

However, knowing how I am often not very lucid in WPR, the experience might make me yearn for my friend. What would this do to him, me, and our families?

Now that I think about it, on some level, just speaking all this somehow seems immoral in WPR. I feel much more inhibited as I speak about it now, than I would probably feel in my dream.

Finally, I need to say that I would like to enjoy my non-mutual dream experiences without going against my morals.

However, given that I can not have absolute certainty that my dream is not mutual, just as I can not have absolute certainty that another dream character is lucid or not, I may be going against my own morals at any time.

I think I can live with this level of possible immorality, especially if no one ever convinces me, to a very great degree, that they have mutual dreams with me.

If they do not, then for all practical purposes my experiences remain private, at least in WPR.

That’s it for my thoughts.

OTHER VIEWS ON THE SCENARIO (5 minutes)

Before we open the topic up for discussion, let’s listen to some other viewpoints.  I made up these quotes, after listening to people respond to this scenario.

People who WOULD NOT have dream sex might say the following:

I’d feel that I was cheating, and this could carry over into WPR.

What happens in the dream world affects our waking life.

Another person’s dreams, or even WPR, might be  affected by our dreams.

What we do in dreams, fantasy, and imagination can affect our collective unconscious.

Even if I felt fine having sex in the dream, I would feel repulsed when I woke up.

I would not do something against my ethics in a dream where I had conscious control.

I can practice behavior that fits with my personal ethics in my lucid dreams.

The more lucid I get, the more aware I become of the effects of my actions.

When lucid, I stop letting my sexual desires direct me.

I’d need to get permission from my WPR friend and my spouse.

If I had a way to tell that the dream character was a made-up image, then I might have sex.

I fear that dream characters may be disguised.

On the other hand, people who WOULD have dream sex might say the following:

Why should WPR ethics apply in the very different reality of dreams.

Everything should be experienced in dreams.

We already control our dreams too much.

I like to follow the script of all my dreams.

I don’t want to go against the flow of my dreams.

Having dream sex might help my marriage by showing a need for change.

I might discover something new or get to know myself better.

The dream could be helping me discover my limits or my styles of intimacy.

I am responsible for myself and must respect the choices of others.

By rejecting sex, we might be restricting the very purpose of imagination which we use for preparation.

My dream characters seem imaginary, so I don’t feel restricted.

Maybe the dream character really is my spouse in disguise.

(Something to think about)

Some people may feel undecided:

I might talk to the dream character first, or maybe even talk to my friend when awake.

I could wake up and ask my spouse if our our marriage vows applied to my dreams.

I would try to determine if the character was a made-up form that just looks like my friend.

Ethics may be cultural conditioning, not applicable to dreams.

I could wake up feeling a great bonding or great guilt.

Why assume marriage is monogamous?

I cannot judge level of the lucidity of others in my dreams.

I trust the actions of my non-lucid self most of all.

The actions of my lucid self matter to me the most.

I am never myself in my dreams.

Now that we have heard all these different views I’d like to hear what YOU would do and why. Remember to keep what you hear in this room confidential. Who would like to start?

Discussion (30 minutes?)

We could go on for a long time, but we must end for today.

Final questions (3 minutes?)

We have only a few minutes for any final questions or comments if anyone has any.

All right. Time’s up.

I have a few bibliographies that include the papers I have online and which include my email and web site for those who want them and who talk to me in person afterwards.

Thank you very much for a stimulating session.