How to Prevent False Awakenings
May 4, 2010 by Ryan Hurd
Filed under Nightmares & Dream Terrors
False awakenings are dreams that seem like waking life… until you get out of bed and fall down a bottomless chasm. True story. False awakenings can be frustrating, terrifying, and may even begin to impact your daily life, especially when they occur 5 or more times in a row.
9 Ways to Wake Up From Sleep Paralysis
April 29, 2010 by Ryan Hurd
Filed under sleep paralysis
Sleep paralysis is the terrifying feeling of being held down after just waking up or going to sleep. You can’t move or scream, and sometimes this paralysis is accompanied with the certainty that someone –or something — is in the room. Quite simply, sleep paralysis is one of the most horrifying experiences in life, because we know we’re awake but can’t believe what appears to be happening to us.
PsiberDreaming Conference Coming up!
September 8, 2009 by Ryan Hurd
Filed under New Dream Studies
There’s less than 2 weeks until the premiere Dreaming event on the web. I’m talking about the 2009 PsiberDreaming conference: a two week online conference that features over two dozen presentations from leaders in the fields of dream research and consciousness studies.
Keep in mind, this is not a boring academic conference, but an open forum for everyone who is interested in the strange and amazing possibilities of dreaming.
What is Lucid Dreaming?
September 2, 2009 by Ryan Hurd
Filed under Lucid Dreaming
This is my final post on ways of working with dreams without a dang dream dictionary. Becoming a lucid dreamer is an advanced dream practice that is actually easy to learn. I’ve been leading up to this post because to start lucid dreaming you have to have good dream recall, know how to set a strong intention for dream incubation, and understand how to honor a dream with action. All of these are foundational practices and perspectives for those who want to take their dreaming life to the next level.
How to Incubate a Dream
August 31, 2009 by Ryan Hurd
Filed under Working with Dreams
Image by Desirée Delgado
In this post series about how to work with your dreams, so far I have focused on dreams you already have had. Now let’s take it to the next level, and learn how to ask for the dream you want to have. Know as dream incubation, this ancient method for asking for guidance from the dreamworld is scarily effective.
Honoring a Dream with Thanksgiving and Action
August 26, 2009 by Ryan Hurd
Filed under Working with Dreams
The 8th approach in this series about working with dreams is dream honoring. This is an ancient technique that, rather than trying to project waking life concerns into the dream, brings the dream into the world. The action can be a blessing or a ritual, or it can be a change in course in some aspect of your life that the dream addresses.
Dream honoring is a practice, and it is not instant. It’s the slow-food approach to dream digestion. Over time, dream honoring is an invitation to let a dream breath, percolate and oxidize in the realities of waking life. Like the process of doing dream art, the focus is not on trying to figure out what the dream means, but how best to let it live through us. But as we act, the meaning is revealed, as well as deeper possibilities that hint at our greater potentials.
How to Start a Dream Sharing Circle in Your Town
August 12, 2009 by Ryan Hurd
Filed under Dream Interpretation
Image by Felix42
So far, in this post series about ways to work with dreams, I have mostly focused on ways of working with your dreams alone. Today let’s talk about group dream work and how to start your own local dream sharing group.
EcoDreaming: How Nature Speaks in our Dreams
August 10, 2009 by Ryan Hurd
Filed under Eco-Dreaming
“God sleeps in stone, breathes in plants, dreams in animals, and awakens in man” – Hindu Proverb
Dreams that Warn of Illness
August 6, 2009 by Ryan Hurd
Filed under Dream Interpretation
Dali, Birth of the New man, 1943
This is the sixth post on ways to work with dreams, continuing the discussion about the role of the body in dream formation. One of the most important reasons to invite dreams back into your life is their role in warning of illness and sickness. The accounts of this phenomenon have been documented for thousands of years. Aristotle wrote that the “beginnings of diseases and other distempers which are about to visit the body… must be more evident in the sleeping than the waking state.”
Dreams Come Through Our Bodies
August 5, 2009 by Ryan Hurd
Filed under Working with Dreams
The brain as computer: our modern myth that denies the intelligence of the body
This is the fifth article in my series about working with dreams without buying a dream dictionary. Even though we all say we want to interpret our dreams, I think often we are not looking for an explanation so much as a chance to deepen the experience of the dream, to bring the dream into our lives and work its magic in this realm too.
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