This course is for both beginner, and intermediate dreamers.  The Course on Consciousness is devised to aid and assist you in achieving one thing…being awake and consciousness in areas where you exist in an unconscious state.  By learning to remain awake and conscious in these unconscious areas, enables you to utilize important elements of consciousness that allow you to explore/learn/understand and experience what exists when you are asleep in these unconscious states. 
        This course is structured in theory as a day-by-day routine.  Do not expect by reading this course and applying these techniques, you will achieve the desired experiences for each day.  You will progress based on your own learning curve Further more, your ability to re-produce these experiences through your own natural cognitive abilities.  This course covers in six weeks, what may take up to two years practice and experience in these sleep related areas.  Progress at a pace that is comfortable, and enjoyable for you. 

THE PURPOSE OF THIS COURSE 

        This course is designed to expand our waking state consciousness by incorporating it into areas of Non-Physical Reality through a process of self-willed, self-realized moments of wakefulness while in dream realities.  The primary focus is to connect waking state consciousness with sleeping state conscious to better assist your growth so that you will inevitably become your Total Conscious Self. 
        The simplified version of this course can be achieved in this paragraph.  By remaining awake while your body falls asleep, you can with some practice, remain fully awake, and consciously alert.  In doing so, you now have all the necessary tools of consciousness needed to be aware that you exist in areas that you normally existed but were unconscious of at that time. 
       This course offers a system, which will enable you to structure your sleeping routine, and direct you towards areas of unconscious whereby you will experience that state in a fully lucid, conscious awareness.  This system will help to make it easier for you because now you are better prepared through learning and knowledge what to expect, and how to direct your focus and attention. 
       We are implementing simple psychological tools, which will help focus and guide your waking-self into the dreamstate more efficiently.  This course is designed to work with your natural sleeping patterns.  During this course, I do not recommend any form of technologically aided devices, drugs or strange rituals, as these are not necessary to achieve the "mind-awake/body-asleep state."  The skills that you will develop here can be applied to many aspects of yourself.  The best things to do is take your time, read through the course, and prepare for a long, fun, and exciting journey through the mind in a safe, entertaining and natural way. 
       The psychological tools are just simple instructions that you can follow and use to make dreaming more structured and fun.  These tools are called, "Cognitive Technologies."  A tool that we can program into our consciousness that has a practical use and application, which provides desired results.  Meditation, hypnosis, lucid dreaming are all tools of consciousness.  Thinking, imagination, language, and memory are also examples of cognitive technologies. 
        I do not teach any hypnosis in this course, but your mind naturally wanders through states that are hypnotic in nature.  These states are known as "Hypnogogic Territories."  These Hypnogogic states alter your brain-wave activity and induce a trance like state we know as sleep.  Hypnogogic Territories will be explained later in this course. 
        You have the option to use some meditation techniques.  The meditation is a simple breathing and attention focusing technique, used to help you reduce stress, anxiety, and fear.  This will help you enter more tranquil and relaxed states.  I recommend utilizing all the tools you have available to you.  I also recommend daily exercise and a healthy diet to help maintain a strong physical body.  Exercise and diet helps to reduce stress, anxiety, and fears. 
        The course is intended for people who want more than just their waking physical life, and people who just love to dream.  My desire is to help people network together so we can share in our experiences in a professional manner with others who share similar experiences with dream and sleep related experiences. 
        The direction that you use with the skills is for your own personal discretion.  Any person of any religious faith can follow this course since we all dream.  This course confers with some of the more esoteric aspects of dreaming, because they are factors that turn up in everyday people, everywhere around the globe.  I will in no way teach any religious belief or concepts about God.  I leave that to your own personal search for the truth.  Treat any of my insights as purely speculative, unless you already experience similar insights in related areas. 
         It is important that you want to learn some, if not all of these skills.  If you are just interested in one aspect, then focus on that aspect.  I do not desire to change, alter or modify what you think/believe or understand yourself to be.  All I am doing is providing a new avenue that people can experience, so you may experience and explore these areas in a fully cognitive state for yourself. 
        What is the benefit of dreaming?  Dreams offer a new avenue of experiential existence, in a safe, natural controllable environment.  Dreams can be used for stress relief, problem solving, enhancing creativity, or just plain fun.  How you choose to be while in a dream is only limited by the limits of what you believe. 
        You have the option of spending an additional 2-4 hours in a virtual dream reality of your own design.  You can play virtual dream video games, go on epic adventures, problem solve, face fears, release stress, recall past memories, re-live old dreams and much more.  The only limits are yours, which you impose on yourself.  Dreaming is fun and easy.  Nightmares become gothic adventures because they cannot hurt you.  The worst that can happen is you wake up.  There are many dreams I have had which I regret waking up.  In addition, if you dream a lot, you can easily relate to loosing out on a good dream. 
       If you are an artist, actor, musician, writer or inventor; dreams can act as a creative channel for creative exploration.  With good dream control, you can visualize elaborate settings, act out exciting roles, create unearthly music, playwright elaborate plots and create an endless stream of technological devices because you are accessing more of your mind in a very controlled, natural way.  We all dream, so why not take advantage of this natural resource of the mind? 

REALITY AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

        The most important aspect of this course is having a very simple, basic understanding of what states we exist in, and what to expect from these states.  From having a very basic understanding of what we are as a system of consciousness, it is then easy to move more rapidly through the various stages of consciousness to achieve the necessary states of which this course is about. 

PHYSICAL AND NON-PHYSICAL REALITY 

       Reality, by definition is a state, which exists objectively and in fact.  Physical reality in this course will be re-defined as Waking Physical Reality to incorporate the fact that in order for you to experience this reality.  You have to first be awake, secondly aware that you do exist in a physical matter universe.  In order for this reality to exist for you, you have to have an awareness that permits this reality to be. 
       Non-Physical Reality incorporates anything that is not objectified in this physical universe but experienced in altered states.  For Non-Physical Reality to exist for you, you also have to have an awareness that you exist in these non-physical states.  The general awareness of a journey to a non-physical reality is commonly identified as dreams.  When any reference is made in regards to non-physical reality, you the reader must be clear that this means, a state by which you existed when your body is/was/will be fully, physically asleep. 
      Non-Physical Reality exists in a purely mind-generated state.  This means all the experiences you will have while in this state are generated by our natural sub-conscious ability to dream.  Dreams are composed of thoughts and ideas, which we express in a vivid medium that reflects and mimics both Waking Physical Reality, our imagination, fantasies and/or fears. 
       Non-Physical Reality is defined by your current belief system.  What you believe Non-Physical Reality to be, will by a process of self-fulfilling experience, convey those beliefs.  Your thoughts, ideas, emotions, knowledge and belief will all express in a vivid, personified way through dreaming. 
Non-Physical Reality is a thought-reactive reality, which is created by organized thinking patterns.  These dreams, which are created by this advanced sub-conscious thought process, always reflect your total belief system first, until you progress past these self-imposed laws of belief. 
       Beyond the laws of belief, Non-Physical Reality does exhibit more organized patterns of experience.  At deeper levels of sleep, we progress through these layers of experience, as our sleeping-state consciousness.  Memories of some such journeys through these areas can exhibit some of the phenomenological experiences of which some people experience.  If you have personally ever had a vivid dream in non-physical reality; and some time later in waking physical reality, this dreamed event comes true in accurate detail.  You have then managed to retain one such visit to one of the multiple layers of this deep state of sleep experience. 

WAKING AND SLEEPING STATE CONSCIOUSNESS 

       Anytime we are awake in waking physical reality; our state of consciousness will be referred to as, Waking State Consciousness.  Waking State Consciousness defines our current mental state as being one of full cognitive alertness.  That is, we have our normal logical, analytical, intellectual, imaginative, creative and self-aware cognitive faculties all functioning in a normal state for us in our routine daily lives.  Waking State Consciousness is what we identify ourselves to be.  It is the part of us, which we identify when we say; "I am." 
       When we progress towards a state of physical sleep.  (I.e. Our normal routine of going to bed, and falling asleep.)  Our Waking State Consciousness begins to transform, and change in composition to become us as Sleeping State Consciousness.  This Sleeping State Consciousness is best defined as our sub-conscious mind, where we as a sentient, conscious being; lacks a clear, vivid sense of ourselves and a clear knowing of the states that we are in.  This Sleeping State Consciousness contributes to many of the dreamless nights, the sudden jolts back into a Waking State Consciousness, as well as all the normal non-lucid dreams that occur if any at all. 
        When our waking state consciousness and our sleeping state consciousness merge, we are then open to everything that this course is about.  A specific condition of consciousness where by your ability to be self-realized and aware now exists fully intact in a non-physical reality.  This mind-awake/body-asleep state is crucial for personal exploration of sleep related experiences.  Most common terminology for such states of conscious being are:  Lucid dreams, out-of-body experiences, astral travel, waking dreams, and many more. 
       To add one more term to the list of conscious states, we will recognize that in being our Waking State Consciousness, we are but one part of a much larger, more elaborate system of consciousness.  This large gestalt of consciousness will be best defined as our Total Conscious Self.  This Total Conscious Self is who we are both here in Waking Physical Reality as existing in the past, present and future tense.  As well, it is how we are in Non-Physical Reality existing in dreams, energy systems, and many more altered states of being. 

INTRODUCTION TO DREAMING. 
 
       We all dream.  Dreams can be of many different varieties.  Their content can lend to beautiful dreamscapes with vivid colors, textures and sound.  Dreams can be black and white, super-real and sometimes frightening.  Dreams begin when we enter a state known as REM, or "Rapid Eye Movement."  These movements from the eye may indicate where you're visually looking in a dream.  They might also act as a metronome creating specific beat patterns, which create stages of brainwave activity to maintain certain states of consciousness needed for sleep and dreaming. 
 In this course, we will be introducing a series of techniques to develop a simple, easy-to-use routine, which will allow you to progressively dream.  These techniques will also aid you in dreaming with more clarity, vision, detail, and more regularly. 
 If you are not a person who does not dream, or barely remember dreaming; then this course is definitely for you.  If you do dream, then this course with help sharpen your skills and broaden the direction, you can explore while in a dreamstate.  My hope is that you find this course useful no matter what stage of dream development you experience. 

WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO START THIS COURSE. 

  A DREAM JOURNAL. 

         This is a free course.  My expectation is that you participate of your own free will, with an open mind, and a desire to learn new things.  I would like to ask for some feed back as to your progress.  I would like to know how you are developing and what suggestions you may have to make this course better for everyone.  Dream networking is also an interest of mine, where we have groups rather than just an individual working on dream exploration.  You may want to start a small dream group to work with if you have not already.  A group is sometimes necessary for the more enjoyable aspects of dreams. 
         The important thing that you must do (and this is the only real discipline that requires more than mental effort) is: record as clearly as you can, as much as you can, and in great detail every dream you have while sleeping at night during the time you participate in this course.  If you do not record your dreams, then you will loose vital clues, information, adventures and research that are vital to your growth.  Perhaps you are a doctor, and you dream a cure for cancer, because your mind was able to problem solve on a deeper more profound level?  You could loose vital insights and clues if you do not record your dreams.  Dreams are a wide open door of intellectual possibilities. 
         Why record dreams down?  This helps with dream recall; it tunes you into dreaming on a more regular schedule.  It helps you understand how your dreams work, what to expect, and how to progress further based on your recorded experiences.  Dream Journals are like your own personal bible, except your writing this one, not reading it.  If you can't take the time to record your dreams on paper, then record them on a tape.  No matter what, this course will be of no use to you if you do not record your efforts.  You will only benefit by writing them all down.  If you can't commit to this discipline, then this course is of no use to you. 

OPTIONAL 

A tape recorder. 

        You may find it easier to wake up and verbally record your dreams.  This helps if you are on a busy schedule and cannot commit the time in the morning to write the dream down. 
       You may want to record some of the lengthy affirmations in this course while you enter sleep to help remind you of your desired intent and focus.  Take the time to prepare a tape should this help you when we begin to explore dreams on a more conscious level. 

WHY DO WE DREAM? 

       Have you ever wondered why we dream?  Many mainstream psychologists believe we are just working out problems and anxieties.  They feel that dreams are just some subjective construction of our sub-conscious mind with little or no value to us as a whole.  Whether we remember them or not, we dream, animals dream.  Almost anything with a complex brain seems to enter a dreamstate when asleep.  As to how far, or how extensive this is, I do not know.  I do know this: dreams are a vital part of our consciousness whether we accept that or not.  Most importantly, you dream because you want to. 

WHY REMEMBER YOUR DREAMS? 

        What good is a dream if you can't remember it?  Dreams offer useful insights into ourselves.  Dreams connect us into more advanced, creative forms of problem solving, and expressive creativity.  With out memory of a dreamed event,  all of the usefulness that it may have in the future is lost to the veil of forgetfulness.  If you are a precognitive dreamer, this helps you track and study your precognitive patterns of experience.  It's your choice as to the value dreams have for you. 

TECHNIQUES FOR DREAMS AND DREAM RECALL. 

        The first step in dreaming is knowing, understanding and realizing that you dream when you sleep.  Confronting "dreamer's amnesia" is the first barrier we have to overcome.  In the following stages, we will have applicable techniques for overcoming this barrier and several others that get in the way of a good nights dream. 
        I have broken down the stages of dreams into four major groups.  Each group applies a certain technique that relates to every other aspect of this course from dreaming too more advanced stages of conscious exploration.  This is so we have a structure to follow.  This structure creates more stability, routine and gives us a clearer understanding of what we are experiencing when we sleep at night. 

FOUR STAGES OF DREAMING 

STAGE ONE 

        Stage One is the stage you are in right now.  It is you as "Waking State Consciousness."  You are the focused part of a much more elaborate system of consciousness.  What you are is the part of your self, which deals strictly with "Waking Physical Reality."  You are responsible for experiencing life, survival, creating, thinking, problem solving, and learning. 
Stage One will be used throughout this course for the initial pre-dream set up, and dream programming to achieve the states we desire.  The purpose of stage one is to invite, and encourage our logical left brain to participate fully in the dream experience.  This logical part of us is needed and is crucial in creating the lucid state of awareness we need. 
       Stage One begins at the edge of the bed; to the moment you lie down and close your eyes to physically fall asleep.  When the body starts to sleep, you start to enter Stage two. 

STAGE TWO 

        During the first week, the Introduction to Dreams begins to train you in understanding the importance of this vital stage of pre-dream sleep.  Stage Two is where our mind begins to form a variety of sleep inducing patterns which inhibit our consciousness and cause us to collapse into an unconscious sleep. 
        Stage Two also deals with the majority of the barriers we must face, and the shifts in consciousness, which cause Hypnogogia.  Hypnogogia will be extensively covered in this course, as our understanding of how it works will only benefit in our journey through this transformational stage of consciousness. 
        Pay close attention to the section on Hypnogogic Territories and Barriers.  The purpose of this is to bring to your attention how powerful these states can appear.  In addition, what to expect from these states.  This will help you in disarming the pitfalls and traps, which trick us into an unconscious sleep so that you will remain conscious for the Lucid Dreaming segments of this course. 

STAGE THREE 

        This is the actual dream.  After we exit Stage Two, we enter the dreamstate.  During this introduction, there will be no techniques other than the dream itself.  Later, this section will include specific techniques for maintaining a waking state consciousness while in a Lucid Dream environment. 
 
STAGE FOUR 

        Stage two is the moment when you wake up.  It is crucial for dream recall.  Everything that happens here can either record or loose vital dream data.  Stage four is the most important of all the stages.  This is where we apply dream recall techniques and write down the dream in our journals or tape recorders. 

THE HYPNOGOGIC TERRITORIES AND BARRIERS. 

        Hypnogogic territories and barriers are very important factors, which inhibit our waking conscious growth into the areas of sleeping consciousness.  By recognizing and understanding these barriers, one can disarm and remove them making a journey to sleep more productive and effective. 
 When you begin to fall asleep.  Your mind begins to change from a waking state pattern known as Beta, and begins to change in brain wave frequency into Theta, Alpha, and then Delta.  What occurs normally is before you realize what is happening, you are unconscious and asleep.  The hidden factors to this become apparent anytime we begin to remain self-aware and awake during this consciousness shift. 
       The first thing we encounter is what I call the "Inversion of Senses."  We are perception based and three-dimensionally structured, in our current pattern of consciousness.  Dreams reflect our physical senses.  While dreaming, we can hear audible sounds, see vivid colors, and feel tactile sensations. 
        When our physical senses invert from being focused 100% in the waking physical reality.  They begin to take on the same normal patterns of perception, but this time they replicate their function in a non-physical dream reality.  Staying awake for this inversion means you are going to pass through hypnogogic experiences as well as face a variety of psychological barriers. 
        This section deals strictly, with what you should expect from this conscious shift.  This is to help prepare you for this shift from waking state consciousness to sleeping state consciousness.  If you have ever fallen asleep with a song stuck in your head, and as you became more relaxed and more asleep, the song became more clear and loud.  Then you have experienced part of what happens when our senses invert. 

HYPNOGOGIC TERRITORIES 

Hypnogogic Imagery: - This imagery begins when your sense of sight begins to invert towards the dream realities, which we are learning to experience consciously.  This begins from the blackness of your closed eyes, and the void of empty space in your REM screen.  A visual stimulus is one of the first things to appear in your REM screen.  This visual stimulus can start as colored pin-sized dots.  Yellow is a very common color that these dots appear. 
       When we progress towards sleep, our mind begins to wander and think in elaborate visual patterns.  These images faint at first begin to take on super-clear, vivid realism as we enter a Theta state of consciousness.   If you watched TV, or played a long video game, images that relate to this stimuli might immediately form as soon as you close your eyes.  You might start seeing clips of the movie you watched, or characters from the video game running around.  All this visual stimuli is hypnogogic imagery. 
        Where this imagery becomes more real, and more apparent is when we are almost about to enter the dreamstate.  During the final phases, this imagery starts to take on depth and dimension forming space and fluid movements.  You might see ghost like people walking in front of you.  A street might form and in seconds, you find yourself in a dream on that very street. 
       It is important to know that this visual shift is normal, and these images are necessary for you to move through in order to have a visual lucid dream.  Do not be frightened if the shift is sudden and visual.  Knowing that you can see images and eventually 3-D settings in clear detail should not frighten you.  This is what you want when you fall asleep into a dream. 

Hypnogognic Sound: - In a slow, methodical way; our sense of hearing begins to invert towards the dream realities.  From the dead silence of our minds, to the stirring of our verbal thoughts to ourselves.  This faint audible inversion is a tuning process towards a lucid dream. 
        Sounds in this state can start as faint murmurs.  As we progress towards a deeper state of lucid, relaxed sleep, these sounds take on more energy, more reality and more clarity.  You are more likely to react and push away a loud sound than you would a hypnogogic image.  We react to sound and part of our early child hood fears is the fear of loud noises. 
        When you begin to hear a hypnogogic sound.  You will most likely force the sound back and wake up.  This is common for most people, as we are not used to having such a loud, clear sound resonate in our mind.  Dreams are very real in their appearance at a lucid level.  Knowing that you can hear sounds as loud as you hear them when you are physically awake prepares you for the shock of that realization when you first experience it. 
        Music, voices, popping sounds, explosions, banging, car's honking, and much more possible sounds come flowing from our dreamstate into our initial hypnogogic experiences in Stage Two.  You can use these sounds as a guide to a dream rather than forcing them away.  You may also notice that your thinking becomes these sounds.  That you can think in any sound you desire. 
        What ever the sounds are, know that it's a very safe, normal and natural thing to experience if you are entering sleep on a more lucid, conscious level.  Proper preparation and experience will help you become more comfortable with this shift as you progress further in this course. 
 
Tactile Sensations: - From the physical waking world, to the magical world of dreams; our sense of touch which encompasses our whole body also begins to invert.  Hypnogogic tactile experiences have a realism that I find just a little short of what we experience here.  They are seldom painful, rather, more electrical in sensation. 
       Vibrations, numbness, tickling patches are very common indicators of this stage of hypnogogia.  As we progress to towards the dreamstate, hypnogogic states begin to blend and form the lucid dream reality we are preparing to experience.  An example, which happened to me once that woke me up, was this: I was lying in bed, and I started to see a 3-D setting appear.  A red rubber ball flew from the window of my REM screen, and I automatically reacted by grabbing the ball with my dream hand. 
        The ball hit my hand with such force that I was startled back to a full state of wakefulness.  I could feel the weight of the ball, the texture and all things one would attribute to a real ball.  The shock of this kind of realism sent me back to Stage One.  All the effort it took to get me through Stage Two was lost, and I hat to continue my journey by starting all over again.  The emphasis on how real these experiences will feel is important to understand. 
        Vibrational energy can sometimes increase so violently that people have experienced intense surges of harmless, painless electrical vibration.  My earlier experiences with these vibrations felt like I was being electrocuted by 10000 volts of harmless electricity.  The experience actually felt pleasant and I enjoyed it for the time it lasted before I entered a lucid dream. 

Hypnogogic Taste and Smell: - Like all our senses, these two senses can invert into the dreamstate.  This inversion through Hypnogogic Territories is much rarer and less common then the other three senses listed above.  Taste and smell are the two least noticed senses of dreams.  This does not mean we cannot taste or smell in a dream, it just means we are not as likely to experience this much detail in one given dream. 
        During the initial stages of hypnogogic, taste and smell is usually linked to a strong hypnogogic image in the form of an object, which you are actively interacting.  One example is a hypnogogic cup of hot chocolate I was drinking.  At first, it was simple imagery constructed by my creative thoughts.  As I progressed towards the dream, the hot chocolate shifted into a fully tactile experience where I could taste/smell/see/touch and feel the heat of the beverage as if I was physically awake and drinking it. 
        My experiences with this depth of hypnogogia are rare.  I have very few recollections of taste and smell while in these initial stages.  However, my dreams can be super-real and reflect all the qualities of my waking physical life. 

THE BARRIERS 

Dreamer's Amnesia: - In the 10 years of my experience as a lucid dreamer; this barrier has been one of the most simple to overcome.  Many times I have achieved lucidity in a dream, only upon wakening to find that this state of dreamer's amnesia blocked the memory of the event, until something later triggered the memory. 
        Knowing that when a fully lucid dream can be lost to this barrier, it is no wonder that many people loose vital memory of dreams to forgetfulness.  All of this can be eradicated with a mild dedication to dreaming, and dream recall.  By just attempting to remember your dreams on a nightly basis will enhance dreaming and dream recall. 

Abstract Thoughts: - Our analytical mind is probably the most vital tool for lucid dreaming and dreams in general.  Yet, it is the most rejected and neglected aspect of dreaming.  When we begin to loose our battle to hypnogogic states, nothing makes this more evident than how our thoughts begin to loose their analytical sharpness. 
         If you begin to notice that you are thinking about totally illogical things as if they made total logic sense to you.  This is a good indicator of this barrier.  In addition, your thoughts begin to interact with hypnogogic stimuli, such as, you start to engage in conversation with the upcoming dream without realizing you are reacting to the stimuli.  You are about to loose total consciousness if you are not careful. 
        Abstract thoughts just imply that your natural pattern of sleep where your logical mind turns off and you enter sleep is still habitual.  This bad habit of shutting down this important tool of logic and reason because we are dreaming is the fundamental reason why we loose control and barely dream at all. 
       My technique for recognizing these is through experience after experience of realizing that I changed to accommodate Hypnogogia, rather than changing the Hypnogogia to accommodate me.  My mind would wander and become unfocused, I would begin to start to dream and not realize that I was dreaming.  Every intent and desire I had was soon lost, and the next thing I would know, I was waking up and 8 hours had gone by. 
        If you change the hypnogogia, as I will teach during this course, to accommodate you.  You can use it as a powerful vehicle to travel consciously into the dreamstate in a safe, efficient and fun manner.  If the hypnogogia changes you, you enter the dream unconsciously and become void of everything you desired, unless you re-awaken in the dream, which does happen if you practice dreaming techniques regularly. 

Ignorance Barrier: - The foremost dream destroying barrier we face.  This barrier is cause by a belief that we do not dream.  Beliefs like, "We cannot dream consciously," and dreams are not important;" all add to the strong barriers that we impose on our dreamlife activities.  Our logical mind can easily accommodates what ever you believe.  In addition, it acts as a powerful filter to block out, and deny certain natural functions of dreaming.  It also closes your mind to any possibility, which entails much of the more advanced stages of this course. 
        Over coming ignorance is something we all progress towards in our daily lives.  Experience, learning and understanding how something works, and how you can work with that knowledge soon removes this barrier.  Just knowing you dream is a major step in over-coming this barrier.  Experiencing for yourself what I explain in this course will also help replace ignorance, with a tangible, viable memory and experience. 

Belief Barrier: - A close relative to the ignorance barrier.  The belief barrier is a series of misconceived ideologies about dreams.  Belief lacks evidence and personal experience and tends to be adopted by people who share similar beliefs.  A belief can be the notion that only certain people dream.  Alternatively, a belief that if you die in your dream, you die in your sleep.  Beliefs also are accommodated by our logical mind, which will support and create as best it can, what we believe. 
        Personal experience and personal realization through dreaming will soon turn beliefs into a powerful system of truth through knowledge and experience in regards to dreaming.  You now have first hand experience where you explored some, if not all of your conscious potential in these sleep related states. 
 
Fear Barrier: - Fear is the one great barrier many people face.  Fears can be anything from reaction to over-stimulation from hypnogogia without preparation or knowledge of these states.  Fear triggers a fight or flight survival drive needed for physical survival, but not for dream experience.  Fear gets in the way of our dreams, and has to be resolved, transformed or eliminated when we go to sleep at night.  An encouraging thing I say to someone who is timid with the power of dreaming is this: 
        Have you ever been physically hurt by a dream?  Other than scaring you, has a dream ever really hurt you?  How many times have you fallen asleep and dreamed something frightening?  You always wake up no matter what.  Dreams cannot hurt or kill you.  Death while asleep is because of other physical health related issues and medical problems, not from dreaming. 
       The fear of death is another factor, which can stop people from dreaming.  I laugh every time someone who has no experience with dreaming claims the old myth that if you die in your dreams; you die in your sleep.  Let me tell you this, I have been shot, stabbed, poisoned, rendered by animals, mutilated by vehicle crashes, sliced by swords, eaten by dinosaurs, hit in the chest from artillery fire and the list goes on.  I have died so many times in dreams that I have lost count.  26 years later, I still live a normal life, and dream regularly at night.  Moreover, I stopped dying at the age of 16 when I learned to lucid dream.  That was the last of my nightmares as well. 
       The worst thing that a lucid dreamer experiences, once he is trained and proficient at dreaming is, waking up from a great dream.  We are now able to becoming more conscious of areas we already exist in unconsciously by being conscious.  By removing dream amnesia, we replace it with the full memory of our dream-life. 
        If you can control the dream, why not just change it?  Courage is a powerful tool in facing fear.  Think of how it felt the first time you stood at the edge of a high diving board, and your friends urged you on to take the plunge.  Your survival imprint screamed, "No!" but you knowingly observed the experience.  It appears harmless and fun, people survive the dive…so did you take the plunge?  If so, what encouraged you to take the plunge?  Why take such a exhilarating risk?  Because it's fun!  We are here to face fears and replace them with knowledge on how to react to certain situations effectively.  Being frightened because fear controls you will only stop you from the more enjoyable aspects of dreaming such as the beauty, the richness, the love, the joy, the freedom and the sharing which dreams can provide for us.  Fear can also control your physical life, and impose limits on the wonders that life itself offers. 
        Nightmares are the main reason why people block out dreams.  Early child hood experience with nightmares can end a lifetime of dream recall.  Nightmares end the moment you take control of your fears.  When you are the master of your dreams, nothing stands to challenge you.  Perhaps this newfound freedom can unlock many of the chains that fear binds us.  Dreams should be fun, not frightening. 

Sanity Barrier: - Next to dying, this is the second greatest fear many of us face.  The fear of loosing our sanity.  Sleeping, dreaming and enjoying the freedom to express in these natural mediums is not cause for any forms of insanity.  Mental Disorders are from other factors such as known diseases like: Schizophrenia.  We question our sanity when challenged by experiences we cannot explain or define.  Anytime something enters our awareness which we as a person cannot properly accept or process triggers this barrier. 
        An example is a person who catches something out of the corner of their eye.  Their first response is to look for the cause of the motion.  If that is not then seen, it is common to look for it, or ask the closes person to us if they had seen it.  If they say no, we commonly drop the perception all together.  Maybe we did see something, perhaps a cat running under a shrub.  The fact is; we tend to ignore and filter things outside our perception if we cannot recognize it as being something routine or familiar. 
        When we start to sleep at night.  We are not properly trained by our schools/religion/society to enter sleep consciously on a regular basis.  Not that lucid dreaming is a unnatural talent, just a socially deficient skill due a history of fears, superstition and a repressed consciousness.   Lucid dream enters a grey area where people start to question another person's sanity because they lack the experience of lucid dreaming on regular basis.  This preconceived judgment and ignorance can prevent that person from ever exploring this natural resource of consciousness. 
        Hypnogogia forces us to face a lot of corner of the eye perceptions.  Our thought process and mental makeup transforms!  Very real and powerful experiences cascade from who we are as a system of consciousness.  The sudden flashes of color, the exploding sounds, the vibrations all cause people to react differently, and most process it through this fear barrier by forcing it away and blocking it out because the experiences are so strong.  This is normal, and we all do it until we get comfortable.  Rushing too fast can cause fear if a person is not prepared for the reality of dreaming. 
        I have spared no hidden truths when I say that you will experience vivid tactile/auditory/visual changes when you lucid dream.  At first, you might push it away, and it might intimidate you.  On the other hand, you might do the best thing, which is embrace the experience, and learn to create with it.  What ever it is, these issues must be addressed.  Dreaming does not cause insanity.  Medical conditions that occur for medical reasons in people who have a form of mental illness, comes from many clinical reasons, not from dreaming.  Don't worry, if you have dreamt in the past, or lucid dreamt in the past and it caused you to question your grip on reality.  Relax and know that you are much more than these irrational fears. 

Frustration Barrier: - This barrier is for people who want something so bad, they block the experience.  Many people who are taking this course have heard or read something somewhere about dreams and lucid dreaming, but have little or no experience with it.  If you are one of these people then you know how it feels when you are working hard at every technique, read every book, and tried every tape relating to these areas not to experience a single damn thing.  You are not alone. 
        In this course, the approach is passive, not aggressive.  There is a real graceful art to dreaming which is much like wind passing through a wind-chime.  You have to learn to balance, and let go of too much control.  Key words such as allowing, desiring, and asking to experience will help in easing off too much intensity. 
        This can take time for some people, and practice.  Frustration and anger because of a lack of experience in these areas, and a lack of results can make it more challenging later on because now you have to face and remove the frustration and anger before you can enter a state of passive lucid dreaming.  You have to allow, not try.  Knowing the difference between trying something, and allowing yourself to experience something, is very different.  In addition, language makes it difficult to convey these differences.  Know that there is a difference between trying to hard, and allowing it to be.  Try, but don’t try too hard. 
        Stage Two is where hypnogogic experiences are first dealt with.  That is why Stage Two is such a vital part to understand. 

STRESS/ANXIETY/FEAR REDUCTION TECHNIQUES. 

        This course also offers simple easy-to-use techniques for helping you deal with stress, anxiety and fear to help loosen the load of excess baggage most of us are burdened with, and carry around.  There is an art to living, and an art to dreaming.  Both areas can be used effectively in stress reduction, and character building. 
        If you are burdened by stress/anxiety/fear, it is important to recognize the symptoms of these kind of toxic patterns in our lives.  Stress can be caused by a variety of things such as work-overload, finances, family, friends, crisis moments, and all of this just adds to a stress battery we all have.  It is important to drain the load on this battery and we can do that both with dreams, and while awake. 
        Anxiety and fear can also be factors of stress so we must learn to eliminate these as well in our life.  Fear is one area I like to focus heavily on since it seems to be the number one inhibitor in the expansion of consciousness.  Understanding that fear is a barrier, and a controlling one at that, allows us to knowingly disarm certain fears. 

WALKING MEDITATION WITH EYES OPEN 

       This meditation is designed to take something negative that exists as a stored emotion or thought, and replace it with something simple, beautiful, and positive.  It is designed to clear out the heavier negatively stored emotions by using a simple transformational process. 
If you live near a park, a flower garden, a hiking trail or a lake, this is a good opportunity to just get out and do a walking meditation with the intent to create balance and harmony with yourself.  There is a part of us, which exists in a state of pure peace and tranquility.  This part of us, is not affected in the same manner by the stress, anxiety and fears we have. 
       If you can walk, then do so.  Go out and absorb how perfect nature is.  Breath deep breaths of air and let in the peace and tranquility, breath out letting go all the stress, anxiety and fears.  Do not define them, just generalize and let them go.  Walk slowly, eyes open and replace the stress, anxiety and fear with the natural scenery you have before you.  As you breathe, focus on this eternal peace, and let it flow through you. 
        Let go of all your worries, anxieties, anything that bothers you with each breath. 
        This technique is relatively simple and effective if you really want to harmonize with beauty and peace.  Even thinking about peace, induces a new field in your physical system and causes you to relax.  Breathing is vital in moving oxygen through the body.  A slow, passive breathe while thinking about peace, tranquility and love creates these kinds of emotional energies which are the best for replacing undesired emotions and thoughts. 

SITTING MEDITATION WITH EYES CLOSED 

       If you do not have a nice place to walk, then we can do the same meditation but with eyes closed.  Sit in a quite comfortable chair, or lay down on a couch or bed.  Make sure that you are free from any disturbances.  Turn off any TV, stereo, telephone, etc.  Let people know you are taking a 20-minute breather from your regular routing and let them join in or respect your quite time. 
       Start by closing your eyes and take a deep breath.  Be intent on being focused.  Let the breath go slowly.  Feel your body calm down and relax.  Visualize a nice beautiful park, lake or scene.  This doesn't have to be clear; no images need to arise.  Just imagine how nice it would be to feel the air, the smell of flowers, the shape of trees, the color of the blue sky.  Each time you breath in, draw in peace, love and tranquility.  Breathe out letting go any stress or anxiety.  Replace it with calm, peaceful images and ideas. 
       If you are too agitated or hot headed, imagine a nice cool rain falling on you, each drop taking a piece of that anger, or irritation and cooling you off.  Make everything nice, fluid and peaceful.  Always replace the energy you release with something that heals you such as peacefully images, and love. 

INSTANT STRESS RELEASE 

        This is a technique for anyone who becomes stressed in a way where you start to react irrationally, lashing out at people/things.  It is important to control the emotions that control you.  We are heavily influenced by many things, which we cannot deal with all at once.  It is our own inability to choose a calm, peaceful approach to problem solving.  We blame the out-of-our-control elements that trigger the strong emotional response. 
        If you are at work, school or play, and something triggers a heavy emotional response.  Instead of screaming, acting out in anger, or repeating any old pattern for dealing with that charged emotion.  Stop yourself immediately.  Calm yourself in your mind.  Tell yourself to relax.  Take up to 20 deep breaths.  Sometimes you have to leave the place causing the stress and go for a walk.  Do so if it means you won't punch a wall or worse, a person. 
        When you see a person getting all fired up, telling them calmly to relax and go for a walk can help them calm down.  It's better to solve problems with a calm, rational mind, than making them worse with out-of-control emotions.  Breathing is a fundamental stress reliever.  The desire to remove stress is a powerful tool to also combat the stress.  It takes being responsible for your emotions and stress; there is some work in dealing with stress.  If you are willing to do the work, it's becomes quite easy.  The benefits are both for you and those around you. 

TECHNIQUES FOR REFINING DREAM QUALITY.  

COGNITIVE MAPPING  

       This technique is something you can do in the day.  With dreams in mind, look at how detailed everything is.  Take some time to dedicate yourself to refining dreams by observing how clear color is, how the wind feels against your skin, how an apple or a chocolate bar tastes.  When eating something like Ice Cream, take the time to really record all the tactile sensations, and tell yourself that you are mapping out the qualities that you like in this world, so you can revel in them 10 times over in dreams. 
       Being dream minded, compare how these things feel in a dream to how they feel in our waking physical reality.  Find the things you enjoy, and as you enjoy them, dedicate a mental thought that what you are doing is developing keen, clear, tactile dreaming skills.  Be observant to detail and feelings.  This technique is a form of cognitive mapping. 
       When you fall asleep, take a moment to try to remember in as much detail as you can something you did today.  My more favorite things to remember are things like ice cream and hot chocolate.  Focusing on the way this tastes/feels/smells/looks begins to shift my awareness until the thought becomes more tactile and vivid in my mind.  Try to get the temperature, taste and texture down to a 100% match.  This technique has worked for me many times over. 
       This cognitive mapping technique shows us that we can remember and re-create physical objects with clear, controlled attention focussing.  This is done with more than our verbal language.  We can remember ice cream as if we were eating it again.  Smell, taste, texture, size, shape, color etc all can be encoded and recalled using this technique.  It takes a little time and practice; this shows in the quality of your dreams. 

SEEING THROUGH YOUR MIND.  

         For this technique, understand that everything you experience is the product of your mind's ability to perceive, understand and effortlessly "re-create" the external physical world you exist in.  Know that all the external sensations are a mind-created projection of how you perceive reality to be, based on your ability to perceive. 
        This mind-based re-creation of reality is what I want you to look at.  Know that your mind is what is creating reality for you.  Not the other way around.  Reality only exists because you are somehow aware that you exist, and that you have an ability to sense a reality.  This cognitive function automatically generates a personal objective, your personal objective point in a stream of infinite energy and patterns. 
        The end result, what we hope to be, in as accurate detail, the re-created interpretation of endless waves of light particles, energy wave forms and other complex fields of energy which we are translating into our conception of reality. 
        This can be a profound realization to a some of people, but this is a safe, effective way to show you just how powerful your mind really is.  Sit down, relax and do something.  What ever you want but make sure that this time, you are aware that everything you are observing is just the product of your mental faculties.  That the colors, the textures, the sounds, the objects are all just mer mental representations that your mind is re-creating from sensory data.  Everything you observe is the product of your mind's perceptional abilities and is clearly, concisely flowing in perfect detail from your mind.  The trillions of pieces of information all perfectly broken down, categorized and re-created by your natural thought process.  Notice how when you become aware that this sense of reality exists only in your mind, how true that realization can be. 
         I am not saying that an external reality does not exist.  But for us the observer, all we get to see is a personal objective point that we are mentally responsible for creating effortlessly every time we are awake and observing this experience.  Everything must go through you before you can recognize it, observe it and learn from it.  Knowing that the very reality you exist in, is also a mental reconstruction helps you hone in on very basic, fundamental powers of the mind. 
         Do you realize just how much information your mind is computing to create this reality in a given second?  All the varieties of color, all the sounds, all the shapes, everything you experience is a product of the mind.  And if a computer were to generate what your mind does in a second, it would probably cost trillions of dollars to build something that could effortlessly re-produce data, categorize it, understand it, interact with it, not to mention all the thinking and daydreaming we can do at any given moment.  Our minds are super-reality generators both here, and in dreams.  I don't think people really give the mind much deserved credit. 
        Think of yourself as a big sensory machine that is just interfacing with a reality system.  Your primary goal is gathering data, and outputting a detailed map of that data as it appears to your sensory abilities.  What do you see?  - A splendid humanized view of this massive universe.  It's still your own personal view. 
        You will see with dreams, how this whole process of experience comes down to your ability think on many different areas of your consciousness.  Dreams are an elaborate expression of a multitude of thoughts we have conveying effortlessly in a dreamtime reality.  If you are lucid in a dream, look at the dream knowing you are looking at your thoughts creating a pocket-reality for you to play with.  The mind does have the ability to create reality; dreams are the first moment where we realize that this is evident.  Precognitive dreams and lucid precognitive dreams become more evident that reality is a created experience, if we progress consciously into these layers. 

THE LAZY-MAN'S TECHNIQUE  

        This is one of my more favorite techniques once we start to progress towards a mind-awake, body-asleep state.  If you are a person who can wake up, then fall back asleep comfortably, then this technique may help you.  When we first go to sleep at night, our mind is tired and needs some down time.  The initial first few hours of sleep tend to be deep and nearly void of dreams.  It makes it more difficult to attain the needed mind-awake, body-asleep state if you are to mentally exhausted to do so. 
        By allowing yourself to sleep for 4-6 hours first, then waking up and taking the time to go to the bathroom, clear your head and focus on your intent.  The second sleep tends to produce more dreams, more states of lucidity and more of what we desire to achieve with this course. 
        Your body, which needs around 8 hours of sleep at night, tends to still be tired; however, the mind tends to be more active.  When you feel physically tired enough to go back to sleep (I usually feel this after 30 minutes of being awake), then return to sleep and apply the techniques.  Apply the techniques twice, once in the initial sleep, and again if you use this technique.  That also helps you to benefit more from the course. 
       This routine and technique is very effective in generating much of the desired experiences we are discussing. 

DREAM RECALL TECHNIQUES  

        Dream recall is crucial for this course.  The process of being aware of dreams both before sleep and after waking is one step of dream recall.  The second step is preparing yourself to dream before sleep.  Upon waking, knowingly take a few moments to ask yourself what you dreamt.  Detail-by-detail, document the recalled memories. 
        Doing this each night, is a major advantage to your dream recall abilities.  Waking up suddenly to loud noises and alarms also inhibits dream-recall by causing a shock-awake effect that can cause dream amnesia.  It is best to wake up unassisted when you have the time to do so.  With good practice, you can recall dreams no matter how you were woken up.