Lucid reality: How to dream yourself awake (transcript)

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Episode Transcript:

Lian (00:00)

Hello my beautiful mythical old souls and a huge warm welcome back. Could dreaming hold the key to consciously shaping our waking reality? In this conversation, I'm joined once again by Robert Wagner. Robert is a lucid dreaming expert who has experienced over 1000 lucid dreams and has taught workshops around the globe, helping people to become lucidly aware in their dreams.

Together we explore the profound ways our dreams reveal how we shape our waking reality. We journey through how beliefs and expectations become powerful forces within our dream worlds, which illuminate striking parallels to how we consciously and unconsciously create our lives while awake.

We discuss practical techniques for energising neutral beliefs to intentionally shift our waking experiences.  offering a playful yet potent approach to consciously reshaping our reality.

And before we jump into all of that good stuff, if you've ever felt the pain of hiding, contorting or doubting the way you look, then you're certainly not alone. That ache is a symptom of what I call the beauty wound. In my upcoming Crucible Beauty Potion, we will, as a circle, work together to alchemise the beauty wound into a beauty that is utterly an expression of your soul's own truth. To find out more and to join us, go along to bemythical.com slash beauty. We begin very soon, there's still time to join us.

And if you're struggling with the challenges of walking your soul path in this crazy modern world,

and with benefit from guidance, kinship and support, come join our Academy of Soul, UNIO. You can find out more by hopping along to bemythical.com slash UNIO or click the link in the description. And now back to this week's episode, let's dive in.

Lian (02:12)

Hello, Robert. Welcome back to the show.

Robert Waggoner (02:16)

Happy to be here.

Lian (02:18)

me too, me too. It's our last conversation really, really left its mark on me. And I've sort of continued my own journeys with lucid dreaming and kind of, guess what we're beginning to deepen into in this conversation, what it shows, I guess, I think the way you worded it is in like how we create our reality as a whole.

And so in our last episode, we focused a lot on the, what it can show us about our inner self, which again was a really, just for me, like a magical, wonderful mystery tour. And we thought, I think we definitely touched on, I mean, we can't really not touch on this notion of how we create our reality, but this is the place we'll focus more in this episode. So I'd like to begin with just hearing what, What did you begin to see that inspired you to focus on this aspect of lucid dreaming, which I wouldn't necessarily say is the one that people typically talk about with lucid dreaming. So I'd love to start there. What did you experience? What did you discover that kind of started to make you think, huh, there's something here that shows me more than perhaps I realised.

Robert Waggoner (03:39)

So lucid dreaming of course means that you realise within the dream that you're dreaming and once you realise within the dream that you're dreaming in many respects you can do virtually anything. But I taught myself how to lucid dream before the scientific evidence emerged in 1980-81 and so I had about five years where I was lucid dreaming on my own without any real guidance and what I began to see though was that the lucid dreaming realm has certain principles that it operated by. And the more I began to understand these principles, the more broader and more amazing my lucid dreaming experience could become. And so one of the first things I began to see is the importance of your beliefs and expectations in that lucid dream, in that moment. because oftentimes the lucid dream would reflect back to you what you believed or what you expected. And so that was fundamentally important to see how that connected to the lucid dream.

Lian (04:44)

Mmm.

So it kind of first alerted you to like, ⁓ I'm not only creating this, I'm perhaps creating it in ways that tell me something about myself, which of course again was an aspect of what we were talking about last time. But I know that what you started to see is like, huh, what does this tell me about how I create life outside of my dreams?

Robert Waggoner (05:17)

Right, exactly. so, belief and expectations are very important in so many of the world's religions, in A Course in Miracles, and in many writings like Jane Roberts and the Seth material. Beliefs and expectations are very important. But what I began to see in my lucid dreams is that if I believed something was going to be difficult, it then became very difficult. If I became lucidly aware and decided to fly through the wall and thought it would be easy, I would fly right through that dream wall because it was made of dream stuff. But then if I circled back around and flew in the other side and now it seemed hard and strong and powerful, I would bounce off the wall or I'd get stuck halfway through the wall. And so I began to see whenever I had a moment's doubt, or when I believe something was going to be difficult, then the result was it was difficult. It was either impossible or difficult. And so I began to see that that experience is a connection between my own beliefs and expectations and the outer realm is a reflection of all of that. So whenever I began to have issues in a lucid dream, I would think, okay, do I need to modify my beliefs and expectations here?

Lian (06:20)

Mmm.

Mmm.

Robert Waggoner (06:42)

in order to make it easier or more likely to occur.

Lian (06:45)

Hmm. And did you find you were able to do that? Like, is that something that was accessible or is accessible to you that you couldn't recognise? ⁓ it's because I'm believing X and I, you know, that's what's creating this experience. What if I were to believe Y instead?

Robert Waggoner (07:05)

Right, so that's the beauty of it. In the dream world, you get almost instant feedback. And that's why you begin to see the connection between your thoughts and the outer experience. I remember reading Lucid Dream by a woman who she said she became lucidly aware, started flying, was having a magnificent time, but then she got really high and began to worry that, my gosh, now I'm so high. And as soon as she had that thought, suddenly she began to plummet towards the ground. But then as she's plummeting to the ground, she thought, well, wait a second, this is my dream. I can fly however I want. And she would start flying higher and higher and higher. But then she'd look down and get her concerned again and she'd begin to plummet. And I think eventually, somewhere in her lucid dream, a non-visible voice said, doubt is gravity. And so it was basically,

Lian (07:59)

⁓ I got chills then.

Robert Waggoner (08:02)

Yeah, it's basically understanding that the mind is helping to create the experience. And when you believe and have faith and trust, then you can fly freely without a concern. But as soon as you begin to fear, have doubt, have concerns, then all of a sudden there's a good chance you're going to tumble. And this particular woman went on to say that at that time she was unemployed.

Lian (08:22)

Mmm.

Robert Waggoner (08:27)

And that week she had a job interview. And when she went to the job interview, they asked her a really difficult question. And so she's thinking in her mind in the job interview, I could answer in a real constructive way or in a not so constructive way. And then she remembered her lucid dream. And so she answered in a very constructive way and they gave her the job and all. And so she went on. But again, that's how you begin to see it because it's instant.

Now that's the issue with waking reality though. Waking reality doesn't fluctuate at the same speed as the dream state, as a lucid dream would. And so for something to appear in the waking world, oftentimes you have to really put some energy and intent into that belief or expectation or idea in order to get it to manifest.

Lian (08:55)

Hmm.

Mmm gosh there's so much that's just come up as you've shared that so I guess…

I was going to say, someone might be listening to this and say, okay, I understand the theory, but the waking world isn't as malleable. And then as I was listening to the story about, I think you said doubt is gravity. was like, actually, that's quite an interesting word, like this idea that the waking world is sort of heavier, it's denser, you know. it is less malleable because of its weight. But I would love to know how you, you probably had people come up with sort of questions and objections like that before. What's your sense of that? if, if this, yeah, you could well be right that your beliefs, your doubts about things have an impact, but ultimately this waking world is, doesn't seem as malleable. So Is it a kind of like for like comparison?

Robert Waggoner (10:26)

Right, so what happened to me is as I went deeper into lucid dreaming and began to see the importance of belief and expectations and the other principles I discovered, one day it occurred to me that you could show this in the waking life, that anyone, a non-lucid dreamer, even people who don't recall their dreams could do a waking practice to see how they act as both a projector of energy and the outer environment reflects that energy back to them. And so I'll tell you the practice. It's actually quite simple. First, I realise there's a lot of ideas or beliefs we have that we have a lot of mental and emotional energy about. Like, you know, when it comes to wealth or having a significant relationship, we might have a lot of energy and emotional activity about that already. So the first thing I asked people was to do this. Think in their mind, where do they have a neutral belief? Where do they have a belief that they don't really even care about? I mean, it's just so neutral they don't even think about it. So it might be how lovely your hair is or how hilarious you are or your shoes. I never think about my shoes. I'm just totally neutral about my shoes. Whatever it is, find that neutral belief.

Lian (11:40)

Mmm.

Robert Waggoner (11:54)

And then what I want people to do, because I know that people can really only deeply concentrate and focus for about a minute at a time. I want you to supersize that neutral belief. I have the loveliest hair in all of England. Nobody has more beautiful hair than I do. My hair is gorgeous. You know, it's a neutral belief, but you're adding this positive emotional and belief energy to it. This habitual idea.

Lian (12:21)

So it's neutral but positive as it were, as in you don't really have much in the way of emotional charge around it or need to believe it, but it's something that is... the word positive is the best I've got, as in you wouldn't necessarily do it around something, you know, like I've got the worst shoes in England. It's something that... so do you actually believe it or is it something you could kind of easily believe because you don't really have much on it?

Robert Waggoner (12:41)

Yeah.

Lian (12:51)

because they're slightly different.

Robert Waggoner (12:53)

Well, it's really, you have to be in a situation of not really caring about it. You just have no connection. It's just so neutral. You really don't think about it. So however you want to think about it, but here's what I encourage people to do. For every day, about 10 times a day for one minute, just imagine and think and tell yourself,

Lian (13:08)

Mmm.

Robert Waggoner (13:23)

that you are the most hilarious person that ever existed. That until you came along, comedy did not even know how hilarious you could be. And imagine all the people just laughing whenever you appear. And what a great joy that would be. Just imagine it for one minute, then let it go. Then an hour later, imagine it for one minute, let it go. That neutral belief. So what we're doing is we're taking a neutral object and we're adding energy to it.

Lian (13:50)

Yes, so if I can just slow that down because I want to make sure I'm understanding this and therefore listeners are too. So it's something you actually kind of don't you don't start out with a belief around is something you feel neutral about and then you're creating a belief around. And ideally something that's kind of like quite positive and beneficial because hey, why work with something that wouldn't be very nice? Is that correct?

Robert Waggoner (13:52)

Right.

Right, right.

you That's right. You've got it right. And the reason that we're working with a neutral belief is it doesn't have any energy about it. And so therefore it doesn't resist energy. It just accepts the energy. So a lot of our beliefs, you know, we have a lot of issues about, but a neutral belief we don't have any issues about. And so it'll accept all the emotional and intellectual energy that we're sending to it.

Lian (14:46)

Mmm.

Robert Waggoner (14:47)

So what will happen, you'll do this day after day, and normally by day four or five, you'll see it reflected back to you. People will come up and, what are you doing to your hair? It's gorgeous. And you'll think, I've known that person for 10 years now and they've never mentioned my hair. And then it'll happen three times in the day, people will comment on your hair. Or you'll have people asking, are you using a new shampoo or whatever? And you'll think, I haven't said anything, I haven't done anything, but now I can see that energy of that neutral belief that's now all puffed up is being projected out there.

Lian (15:27)

Mmm. Wow. So, carry on.

Robert Waggoner (15:28)

And the world is responding. The world's responding.

Lian (15:32)

Hmm so I've got two questions I'm trying to pick which one to ask you first. I'll ask you this one. Would you do you have any real life examples either personally or people that you've guided into this practice that you can share?

Robert Waggoner (15:50)

Right. I recall the first time I offered this up in a workshop, there's a woman from Bermuda and she was in her mid or late 50s. And so she began to think, you know, I really don't think of myself as being attractive. And here I am in my mid late 50s. And so every day she began to tell herself that she is most attractive.

Lian (16:11)

Can I just stop you right there though? Like, is that something anyone feels neutral about? Like I find that hard to understand how someone would be neutral about that.

Robert Waggoner (16:17)

Well, You know, maybe in your late 50s, all that stuff is for teenagers and 20 and 30 and 40 year olds. You know, I'm to the point now where I just don't care. So anyway, she said she began to do this practice every day, 10 times a day, adding on to this energy about what an attractive woman she was, how incredibly vivacious she was.

Lian (16:35)

Okay.

Robert Waggoner (16:48)

And she said on day four, a guy in his 30s asked her for her phone number. And she said she was so gobsmacked by the idea of this young, attractive guy in his 30s asking her for her phone number. She said she had to stop the practice. She said it was just too shocking to think that creating energising a neutral belief and making it into something that would then be reflected out there in the world. so, was at a university in the Western US and I gave this talk and I mentioned that anyone could do this practice. This one young woman did it and it was about her hair, know, what gorgeous hair she had. And she told me within the week, she had a number of people talk to her about her hair.

Lian (17:24)

Wow.

Robert Waggoner (17:47)

And she said she'd been at that campus for four years and nobody had ever talked to her about her hair. So again, it's outrageous when you see it happen. When I first, so I dreamt up this technique and I began to do it. When it occurred to me the first time and the world began to reflect back to me, I literally cried. It was just like, my God, I do, I am connected. My thoughts and thinking are connected. to what I'm experiencing in this reality. And it's just much like a dream, except in a lucid dream, it just occurs so much more quickly. If I believe I can't pop through that wall, I'm just going to bounce off it. If I believe I can go through easily, I'll sail through to the other side. But here in the waking world, it's just a little bit slower, and you have to play with the energies more. And if you don't mind me just saying one final thing here.

Lian (18:26)

Mmm.

Robert Waggoner (18:44)

I think this would be very important for people who are involved in belief strategies like A Course in Miracles and all these things. Oftentimes when people start to think about beliefs, the first thing they do is work on their most troublesome, Gordian-not-belief system, you know, about relationships or about money or whatever it is. That's what they immediately go to. And that's the most difficult one because it already has all these

Lian (18:58)

Yes, yes, yes.

Robert Waggoner (19:14)

positive and negative energies, you know, all combating or fighting or confronting themselves within that belief. If you start with a neutral belief, pile on energy, and then it's reflected back to you, you go, okay, I get it. I am helping to create this reality that I'm experiencing. So therefore, I need to be more mindfully aware of what I'm thinking and how I'm be more mindfully aware about how I'm relating to this world.

Lian (19:43)

Mm, I love that addition that you made there. It relates to something that I often say to students, which is we do often pick the sort of like most high stakes version of something when often if we can look for the kind of like lower stakes aspect of it, it allows much more sort of spaciousness and relaxation around it. And often that kind of provides that way in. So very much agree with what you're saying there. Would you have a personal example of doing this practice you would be willing to share?

Robert Waggoner (20:18)

Good grief. Yeah, I hate to say it. I've used it quite a bit and I've often been surprised at what happens next and because, because again, it does occur. Boy, if you would have asked me a few minutes ago, I had a great example in my mind, but right now I am drawing a blank that I want to share. but, but this

Lian (20:19)

I love examples.

Robert Waggoner (20:46)

This area is so fundamentally important and also it's important for lucid dreamers to understand. They have to see how their beliefs and expectations really matter. Now, one thing, like when I would come to London or wherever and give talks on lucid dreaming, if in my talk I saw in the back row there were three guys with their arms folded across their chest looking at me like I'm the biggest idiot in society and all.

At the break, those would be the first people I would go interact with and see what they had to say. Because I realised that if you believe there's some sort of trouble out there, as a lucid dreamer, I realise, you have to go to it and find out what's going on. It's kind of like if there's some energy that's strange or odd or unusual or worrisome, instead of running away and creating a shadow, 

Lian (21:21)

Hmm.

Robert Waggoner (21:46)

ignoring it or denying it that kind of energy, I instead would go directly to it. And I am so thankful that I also began to develop this because oftentimes in interacting with those folks, you realise that, they have some lovely experiences and questions to ask. either I was misreading their body language or that I was just projecting my own concern or insecurity out there. and using them as the focal point for it. So again, this is why it's so important to investigate beliefs and expectations and begin to see that we're actually connected to creating our own personal experience.

Lian (22:31)

really, really great point. So I'd like to explore that in more detail in a moment. I'm just going to ask you question which I'm realising is kind of a bit of enormous question. It's a bit like kind of define consciousness. But going back to what you said at the start of this episode, through so many different spiritual traditions, this... what we're talking about here fundamentally in different words is spoken about this idea that we're creating our reality. So I'm going to ask you something that is spoken about and explained in those traditions, but I would love to ask you personally, given what you've seen through lucid dreaming, what do you think, like why do you think this works as it is? Why do you think coming up, like say for example, just simply using the practice you've come up which I think is genius. Again, I love the lightness of this. Why does that happen? Why do we have that played back to us, reflected back to us? What do you think is happening at that deeper level?

Robert Waggoner (23:41)

Right. So in some respects, this is a meaning of life or a meaning of experience, a question. And I really just want to express to everyone, I think what's going on here is that actually we are all within an educational system. We are being educated. When our thoughts and beliefs and emotional energy is reflected back to us, we learn. And that's what I began to see in lucid dreaming that If I saw that guy wearing the black coat and I thought, he looks like a gangster, then he'd turn around and have a gun or a knife. But if I saw the same person in a black coat and thought, he looks like a priest, then he'd turn around and have a Bible and a crucifix or whatever. And I began to see that lucid dreaming was educating me in the nature of the mind. And when I saw that this was also an aspect of waking reality as well,

Lian (24:35)

Mmm.

Robert Waggoner (24:40)

I began to realise, okay, I have to more mindfully observe what my thinking process, what my believing and expecting process is in order to understand things. So in the aggregate, all of us are in an educational system. And sometimes the lessons are hard. Sometimes the lessons are extremely difficult. And if we don't pass, what lucid dreaming has shown me is that we come back and have another chance at it. And for a little kid growing up in the Midwest here in the States, you know, this idea of reincarnation, I mean, that just wasn't part of my thinking. But lucid dreaming has shown me that very much indeed we have other life and other life experiences. And as we move along, we become more and more educated in the nature of mind.

Lian (25:12)

Mmm.

Robert Waggoner (25:37)

and begin to grow as a result of that.

Lian (25:41)

Thank you for tackling again. It was a bit like kind of, know, why are we here? What's all this is about kind of question. It's interesting that what you said there was this, in short, this is all to teach us about the nature of the mind and it, you could have answered that in many different ways. And, you know, it's pointed in the same direction, but not spoken directly about the mind. so focusing on on that, again, something that's spoken about, you know, in so many different traditions, and the challenge we all have, and I think this is where you've almost found like a little bit of a sort of trap door when it comes to lucid dreaming is, of course, we're always 

learning and experiencing the nature of the mind from within the mind, which kind of becomes a bit of a hall of mirrors. So it occurs to me there's something in the way that you've been taught by lucid dreaming that has allowed you to see things that otherwise aren't so clear. I'd love to just isn't a direct question, but what occurs to you as I say that because I think there is something profound in the way that you sort of found that little kind of sort of side route in.

Robert Waggoner (27:05)

Right. So as time went on, I realised the importance of my beliefs and expectation, also what I would focus on, you know, and what my intent was. And I also, if people listen to the earlier recording, I also discovered, there's this inner awareness that you can also access in lucid dreams. But you're right. 20 years into lucid dreaming, I asked myself, OK, if Waking reality, lucid dream reality, and dream reality are all a function or mediated by my beliefs and expectation and focus and intent. Is there a real reality? Is there a reality that's not predicated on what I believe or expect or think about it? And I'll tell you what happened. As soon as I really began to think about this issue, is there a real reality? I would fall asleep at night. and the entire night would be nothing but blue light. There was no me, no symbols, no action, no activity. It was just blue light. And I remember the first morning that happened, I woke up and I thought, what just happened here? And what do I put in my dream journal? know, blue light? I mean, there was nothing but blue light the entire night. And so I thought, boy, that was really strange. And then periodically, you know, once a week or whatever, I would have an entire night of blue light. And I remember one morning coming down to the breakfast table, and there's my wife, and she looked at me, and before she said anything else, she said, what is happening to you? And I said, why do you ask me that? And she said, last night I woke up and I believe I looked at your face and I've never seen someone in so much bliss before. What is happening to you?

And I said, well, I'm trying to understand the actual nature of reality and I'm having some pretty strange experiences.

Lian (29:10)

That's all I'm trying to do, nothing to see here.

Robert Waggoner (29:12)

That's all I'm trying to do. I just want to understand, you know, what is this whole thing about? I just want to understand it. And that's truly where I was. I just wanted to understand nature. Anyway, this carried on into some other events until something really profound happened. A variety of things happened. But ultimately, one night I was around this time I was going to sleep.

And I heard my inner self ask me, it said, if you really want to go the distance, if you really want to go the whole way, you might have to cease to exist. And I told my inner self, said, look, I've been doing this for all these years, trying to understand the nature of things. I agree to cease to exist. Otherwise, this is all just going to be some strange, tragic comedy that I'm living through.

I agree to cease to exist because I was realising that if my beliefs, expectation, focus and intent and all that emotional self-history propped all this up, then the only way to go the distance was just to let it all go. Just let go of all beliefs and preferences and emotions. Just let it all go. And I told my inner self, I said, I agree to let it all go. The next thing I recall is suddenly finding

Lian (30:26)

you

Robert Waggoner (30:40)

So imagine being light within light, being light within a field of light. And it's hard to express because this is kind of, our language is kind of set up in a dualistic manner that, ⁓ I saw that and I saw this and I experienced this. But this was such a bizarre experience. It was just awareness within awareness. And, and, and, ⁓ so this awareness within awareness experience was happening and then suddenly boom, it stopped. And now there's a gentleman in a robe and I said, what was that? Was that a lucid dream? And he said, no, to enter a lucid dream, go here. And I stepped into the space and boom, I'm shooting through with this tunnel of light. And then I eventually popped through the floor of a building and find myself totally aware and lucid dream. But when I woke up.

Lian (31:34)

you

Robert Waggoner (31:39)

When I woke up, I thought, well, what was that first part, that light of awareness, aware within awareness thing? I mean, what was that about? And literally, you know what I thought? I thought, did I voluntarily have a near-death experience? Did I voluntarily cease and basically just return to the source?

It was probably three years later, I was at an international association for the study of dreams conference and they had a Tibetan Buddhist gentleman, Tien-Zen Wangyo Rinpoche, and he said the goal of Tibetan dream yoga is an experience, a non-dual experience of the clear light of awareness by awareness itself. And I thought, what? There's a tradition behind this? There's a name behind this?

And so it was really a stunning thing to realise that without ever having studied Buddhism or any of that kind of stuff, I kind of bushwhacked my way by virtue of just wanting to understand how does this all work? So again, what we're doing right now, I don't really call this reality. I call it our perceived experience.

Lian (32:41)

you

Mmm.

Robert Waggoner (32:56)

The real reality is behind this. that's why also I would just tell everyone that fundamentally we exist within an interconnected oneness. And this light of the interconnected oneness connects everything, everywhere, instantly, all at once. We're truly fundamentally connected.

We appear separate, we appear different, we appear diverse, and there's galaxies and all sorts of things. But there's also a fundamental interconnected oneness, and we're all part of

Lian (33:36)

wonderful. hadn't imagined we would go quite to these depths in this conversation, but I'm absolutely loving it. I love the way that you bushwhacked your way here. then like, you know, I suppose really in any spiritual tradition is ultimately begun by someone asking questions like you were asking.

Robert Waggoner (33:49)

you

Lian (34:05)

know, it might be then thousands of years later it's become this kind of system but you know one way or another you know the Buddha bushwhacked his way there too.

Robert Waggoner (34:17)

It is interesting and I do think this path of questioning really is a fundamental path. Oftentimes I find myself becoming lucid when I have to question. Like last weekend, or maybe this weekend before, I became lucidly aware when I found myself at an intersection. And when you're at an intersection, that's when you have to question, where am I going? Which way?

Lian (34:24)

Mmm.

Robert Waggoner (34:44)

you're at a decision point. so oftentimes, the chance to become lucidly aware occurs at those decision points when we have to decide, when we have to choose. But for myself, understanding the nature of reality was beneath and behind the essence of myself. mean, that's really, you know, it wasn't fame, wasn't fortune, it wasn't any of that. It was just, I want to understand this and see how it all works.

Lian (35:07)

Mmm.

gosh. So I think there was a question I to ask before I ask this one. Let me just pause and check in. No, I don't think I need to answer. think I did have a question, but I think what we've just been speaking about kind of answered it. So what difference is this made to how you live in waking life?

Robert Waggoner (35:40)

you know,

Lian (35:40)

What, how's that manifested? Cause that's a pretty, you know, it's not just in people can have state experiences, you know, whether that through meditation in your instance, lucid dreaming, psychedelics, you know, all the different ways we can have those experiences. But I guess where the rubber meets the road is how that changes how we live, how we then go on and live from that, that gnosis. so what's that look like for you?

Robert Waggoner (36:08)

So, first and fundamentally, think realising that we have an inner awareness, that we're more than our conscious ego selves, is fundamentally important. We just have to understand that waking or sleeping or dreaming or whatever, we're connected to a larger awareness. I remember one time I was walking along probably 15 years ago and in my mind I was blaming somebody for something. And that's what many of us do on occasions. ⁓ boy, this could have been great, except for that person who caused whatever. And now we sit there and blame them. And then I heard just clear as day, my inner awareness tell me, if you create your own reality, then who is there to blame? And I thought, my God, my inner awareness here has shown me that all this

Lian (37:02)

you

Robert Waggoner (37:04)

Energy that I was spending on blaming people, it's just nonsense. It just has no value. So that was really fundamentally important. You begin to see that, ⁓ we grow up with these kind of approaches responding to events. And then when your inner awareness tells you that, you know, that's not really where it's at. Then the other thing I'd say is Seeing the importance of the mind also has helped me, and this is another technique a person could use without ever being a lucid dreamer, how to heal themselves. So I had hay fever every August and September, and it was really horrible. I could barely sleep. I missed coffee. My nose was congested. My throat was all bad.

And so I thought, well, wait a second. You know, in lucid dreaming, people have used it to heal themselves, but you can also use it in what we call lucid living, where we take the ideas and experiences of lucid dreaming and bring them into the waking life. And so what I began to do, I began to mindfully observe my mind. Every time I thought about hay fever, I would first be mindfully aware. Then whenever… I thought about that. thought, okay, that's that. I said, no, not anymore. And then I realised the third thing I had to tell myself where I wanted to be, what reality I wanted to create. And so I told myself, ⁓ now I breathe easily and naturally. And so every time I thought about hay fever, if there's a hay fever commercial on TV, I say, no, not anymore. Now I breathe easily and naturally. The first year I had a 70 % reduction in symptoms, the next year 90%. The year after that, 95%. And now we don't even think about hay fever because I breathe easily and naturally. So again, you don't have to be a lucid dreamer, but you do have to be mindfully aware of your own thinking patterns. Because if you think, oh no, here comes August and September and the pollen and blah, blah, blah, it's going to be a disaster, then you're already going down the slope and all. So you'll see how I've met some young people who are lucid dreamers.

Lian (39:06)

Hmm

Mmm.

Robert Waggoner (39:23)

They've overcome their generalized anxiety disorder and panic attacks by noticing the same thing. In a lucid dream, they see the zombie and begin to fear it, they know it's a lucid dream, but my God, there's a zombie, and they begin to fear it. Then it begins this cascade of fears and fears and fears that get bigger and bigger until a panic attack or whatever. And so during the waking hours, when they saw the nasty person come in or whatever, You know, they realise, I have to stop myself right here and get in control of my mind and lead my mind to a happy place because if I go down the other path, I'm going to have a panic attack. so again, we learned the nature of the mind. It begins to affect, you know, how we begin to relate to outer experience. so that's that's how I would say it affects my day to day life.

Lian (40:17)

Yes, thank you. And I can hear that that second practice is by its nature likely to feel a little bit higher stakes. So would you suggest kind of working with the first one before you start to use it in the way that you've described? Because I'm guessing if you are using it to heal by its very nature, you're going to have a bit on it.

Robert Waggoner (40:37)

Right, right. Everyone should feel free to approach it how they want. It does help to see that simple practice of energising the neutral belief. And then when you see it reflected back to you, you realise, OK, the mind is connected into my personal experience. The thing about healing, though, is sometimes like with something like hay fever, it's just periodic. connected to certain months of the year and blah, blah. And so in some ways that's a little bit easier. Also for some people there's ailments that they haven't been able, that medical science hasn't been able to resolve or ameliorate in any way, or form. And occasionally people will read my books and they'll get on the chapters about healing and lucid dreams. And they'll send me their stories about how they healed themselves. something the doctors couldn't heal them by virtue of using energy within the lucid dream state. So again, everyone should approach it how they wish, but if you do have some issue that medical science cannot resolve and you do have a deep interest in lucid dreaming and an ability to practice it, you can definitely try some of the techniques that people have successfully used that I mentioned in my books.

Lian (42:04)

Wonderful, thank you. And again, this could be a little bit of a what's the meaning of life level question to end on. how can I put this? So when going back to the way that you were naming it earlier, like is there a real reality? And then the way you would describe it now is there isn't, there's a kind of perceived reality.

Robert Waggoner (42:11)

Cheers, friend.

Lian (42:30)

I guess what we could say is the difference between waking life and dreams is that in dreams, whilst we are able to become aware that we're creating everything and everyone, it's true in that there aren't other people because it is us creating it. However, in the waking world, whilst there is this recognition that we are creating it, there are also other people. 

And so how, I'm not quite sure what my question is. It's something along the lines of recognising like, yes, it is true that you are creating reality, but also yes, it's true. There is, I guess what we could say potentially, it's probably going too far to say there is an objective reality because I don't think that necessarily is the case. But how, how do you work with that fact that there is a kind of paradox there that's revealed in waking life that's not perhaps the same in dream life.

Robert Waggoner (43:32)

Right. So first I want to just get to the point. In a lucid dream, you may meet dream figures that are outside of your own creation. So one thing a lucid dreamer can do, you become lucidly aware and you can announce, now all thought forms must exist. And by thought forms, you mean apparent people who are actually just representations or symbolic elements that are thought into existence. And it's interesting, if you announce in a lucid dream, now all thought forms must disappear. know, sometimes the entire group will disappear, sometimes 80 % will disappear. And you'll see that, oh, in my dreams, sometimes there's figures or characters who I do not create. Also, you'll see this sometimes when you meet deceased loved ones in a lucid dream. And when you begin to ask them questions like what do you have to say to me or what do you have to tell me and they'll tell you something outside of your own knowing that you wake up and then you can verify that it was accurate. So first I don't want to say that all dream figures are creation of one's mind that it is actually a little bit more complicated. But. 

Lian (44:47)

This very exciting, I'm very glad to ask you this question!

Robert Waggoner (44:57)

So you're right. You have to take a little bit of care that you don't end up in some solipsistic philosophical system where everything is you and blah, blah. You know, that's not exactly how it is. What I'm trying to say, though, is that through our beliefs and ideas, emotions and experience, we help to create the reality that we then experience. And so

Lian (45:09)

Hmm.

Robert Waggoner (45:25)

Does a consensus reality exist? Oh yeah, I can get all those dream figures to agree with me that, yes, that is a pink horse walking on his two hind feet. In waking reality, can I do the same? Oh yes, I can get everyone to agree that, yeah, that was a red car driving down the roadway or whatever it is. But then someone will say, well, here we have an instrument, or I can take a video and all that kind of stuff. But again, these are all creations that we've created in this. perceived experience to confirm that our experience is correct. So what I'm saying is that basically, fundamentally, behind all of this is this interconnected oneness, is the awareness, is the energy that's behind it all. That's the fundamental real reality. This is the mentally mediated, we can call it reality if we wanted to, but it's mentally mediated perceived experience. And they're two fundamentally separate things. But again, this is a long trail lucid dreaming is, and this is something that everybody has to come to understand for their own self. But the first steps is beginning to see how beliefs and expectation and focus and intent help to create the perceived experience in the lucid dream. And then you begin to take that into the waking world, see how that's also the case there. And then eventually you get to this moment where is there a real reality behind all of this? and that's where you'll find yourself.

Lian (46:52)

Oh, this has been just such a pleasure. We've got in places that I really wasn't expecting and have just loved, absolutely loved. And I could quite happily spend longer asking you so many more questions, but I know we need to bring it to a close.

So where can listeners find out more about you and your work.

Robert Waggoner (47:12)

Right. So if they're interested, go to my website, lucid, L-U-C-I-D lucidadvice.com. There you can see my books, the free magazine that I co-edit. And also so they can see events that I'm going to be involved in. Normally I do online events throughout the year. Some of them are on demand, so you can do it in whatever schedule you prefer. So anyway, but it's always fun to hear from lucid dreamers and interact with people. who are getting on that path.

Lian (47:43)

Oh, thank you so much. This has again been such a pleasure and is only fueled my curiosity about lucid dreaming even more. So I may well be joining you on a course soon. Thank you so much, Robert. Really, really such a delight. Thank you.

Robert Waggoner (47:49)

We need to.

I hope you

Thanks so much.

Lian (48:00)

I very much hope you enjoyed watching that and if you did and you're not already subscribed then do hit that bell thingy and subscribe to automatically get each fresh new episode as it's released each week. If you'd like to find out more about the work we do at Be Mythical to guide and support old souls in this new world to live their own unique myth…

Do hop along to bemythical.com and you'll find out all the ways you can join us and go deeper with us on your own mythical journey.

Lots of love for now.

See you again next week.

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