Sleeping but awake - Dreams that don’t feel like dreams. Is it more?

Filipino cosmology - The soul may travel during sleep. Mythic insights into lucid dreaming.

Riding the edge of sleep - How to relax the body and flirt with sleep to begin lucid dreaming.

In the dead of night, I become clear and aware into a visual of stark white spotted with translucent rosy tones. It’s a bright white so deep I can’t tell if it’s 2D or 3D.

And I feel a sound. Yes. Feel the sound. Not with my ears but somehow auditory through my being. Like the song of angels we all hear in movies when someone floats down from on high, I hear “aaaaaaaaaahhhh”.

In the middle of the night, maybe a year later, I become clear in an entirely different way.

In an instant I see a bright golden-white light burning through the dark and I know:

This is the end.

I am being incinerated. I’m dying, and this is it.

I cry out to Jesus. I didn’t think to do it. It just popped out. The vision ends with me slamming into wakefulness in my room, with lingering fear and awe.

When I brought this experience to my meditation teacher, she told me this:

If it comes back, “rest in that light.” “Make it your lover.” And…

“Burn, baby, burn.”

Then she told me to draw it. And when I did, for an unknown reason, I titled the light “God”.

Was it real? It felt real. I knew I was dying. There’s a gravity to those moments that’s hard to mistake.

The first dream came a few weeks after trying a moderate dose of bufo. (If you know anything about bufo, the term moderate dose is a little funny. A moderate dose of bufo feels like a heavy dose of mushrooms. A full dose seems to erase your existence for a few minutes where some enter a profound mystical experience.)

The second dream had no substances before or after it. It just happened. I couldn’t tell you what it means.

But it has impacted me in a lasting way.

I wonder whether my soul traveled to some angelic realm, or if these were only mirages conjured by the powerful unconscious?

Filipino lore may have a clue.

Our bodies are not the only travelers through the portal of birth.

A soul-twin, known as kakambal, follows us. The kakambal is the soul of the living, awaiting transformation into a liberated Kaluluwa (spirit) upon death.

During life, we are responsible for our kakambal companion. And though it follows us, it will detach and wander at night. It can even become ill or frightened & get lost. It manifests as illness in our bodies.

Soul-retrievers, women known as babaylan, negotiate with the spirits to return stolen or lost souls, soothing us back into alignment and health.

Upon death, rather than an end, there is a great transition. As the kakambal separates from the physical body, it transforms into a kaluluwa, now ready for its great journey beyond the earth.

Before death, it is said that dreams are the memories of the kakambal’s nighttime wanderings.

The babaylan, female shamans, underwent rigorous training of body and voice. They apprenticed for years to be able to enter a trance, and consciously travel into the spirit realm to assist the kakambals meant to stay with their living partners.

To do this fully aware, one must ride the edge of sleep.

These babaylans spent years mastering soul travel under the guidance of a teacher. But unlike them, we don’t need an impossible-to-find elder shaman. Nope. As luck would have it, we can start training from home tonight.

And since your kakambal may already be wandering the night without you, might as well tag along.

Riding the edge of sleep can take a while to master. But when I do it successfully, it can lead straight into some kind of dreamy experience without ever losing conscious awareness.

And alongside lucid dreaming, this can help you enter various meditative states or straight up go to sleep if you prefer.

The practice is found in multiple cultures and has a very calming effect.

All we are doing is focusing on points rotating around the body, following the joints. You can imagine them melting like butter if you wish. We start in the head, then move to each limb, and end again at the head.

If you lose awareness, gently draw it back to where you were. Don’t worry about perfection, we’re here to relax.

Here we go.

Lay down on your back (possibly in bed). Arms out and palms up like shavasana. Take a few breaths to relax & melt the tension away.

Spend 1-2 seconds drawing awareness to each point in this order. (It’s a lot at first, so I broke it into 3 parts you can sew together later).

Start with the middle of the forehead (third eye area).

Down to the pit of the throat.

Over to the right shoulder socket, then right elbow, then right wrist.

Move to each individual finger in the right hand. (Start at the thumb and work to the pinky).

Back up to the wrist, then elbow, then shoulder.

Now the pit of the throat again.

Over to the left shoulder, then left elbow, then left wrist.

Fingers in the left hand (thumb to pinky).

Back up the left wrist, then elbow, then shoulder.

Rest at the pit of the throat.

Move your awareness to the sternum.

Then over to the right chest muscle, and back to the sternum again.

Over to the left chest muscle, then back to the sternum again.

Now gently glide down to just under the navel.

And then further down to the pubic bone.

(Sometimes I fall asleep here. So no worries if you do too, whenever you realize it, just gently resume).

Glide over to the right hip, then down to the right knee, then to the right ankle.

Move to each toe (big toe to pinky).

And then back up the leg (ankle, knee, hip).

Back to the pubic bone. And now, over to the left hip. (we’re almost finished).

From the left hip, down to the left knee, then left ankle.

Each toe again (big toe to pinky).

Back up the leg (ankle, knee, hip).

To the pubic bone.

Up to just below the navel.

Up to the sternum.

Up to the pit of the throat.

Up to the forehead.

Rest.

Once you can do a full, slow round totally conscious, feel free to work up to three rounds. This prep work can help you relax, choose if you fall asleep, or follow consciously into meditation & dreaming.

I’m not ahead of you on this. Just a few steps into the same dark. As for riding the edge of sleep, when it’s happened, I’ve restructured walls, flown, and even frozen time in my dreams.

That’s enough to keep me going.

In the next couple of weeks, we’ll break down some popular techniques like MILD and WILD, and maybe touch on hypnogogic theta states.

What’s the most vivid dream you remember?

Thank you all,

Alex