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Incubation Techniques - Linda Lane Magallón
Dreaming Skills
| Incubation Techniques: How To Dream To The Target |
1. Choose Your Goal
You can incubate a dream on any topic you choose, but you will have the
greatest success with those goals in which you have some emotional investment.
Pick a problem or question that concerns you, one which you would be willing
to explore. Or, choose an interesting or intriguing goal, one that excites
you and with which you can have some fun.
2. Immerse Yourself in the Goal
Engage in activities relevant to the goal. Read books or notes on your
chosen subject. Utilize photos, movies, or objects to form associations.
Rehearse the situation in the waking state, using role-playing or discussion.
Pray or meditate to the goal; fantasize about it. Visualize writing the
dream in your journal.
3. Feather Your Nest
Create an atmosphere that will most encourage the dream. Provide a peaceful
place to sleep. Choose a time when you are not fatigued, in which you have
not indulged in stimulants or heavy food. Have your notebook, pen and light
available for recording the dream, or use a tape recorder. Do not give yourself
a short length of tape or piece of scrap paper to record--this defeats your
confidence in the dreaming process. Retire at a reasonable time if night
sleeping, or awake yourself in the early morning hours to return to lighter
sleep. You might also try day sleeping.
4. Narrow Your Focus
Write down your request. Outline all aspects of the topic on paper. Get
in touch with how you feel about the situation, especially all those reasons
for not wanting to resolve or experience the goal. Give yourself permission
to discover and explore. The point is to be specific about your goal, but
open-ended about the results. Finally, write down the phrase that most clearly
speaks to your deepest desires. Use the first person--after all, this is
your dream! Date the dream and write "Dream I" if you wish, to
indicate to your dreaming mind that you are ready to record.
5. Open Your Expectations
Relax and put yourself in the mood or emotion of your goal. Concentrate
on the energy and feeling of the topic. Repeat your goal phrase to yourself.
You may, depending upon the topic, choose to adopt one of the following
approaches: mantra, affirmation, prayer, or command. If your mind wanders,
gently bring it back to the topic. Avoid thinking of alternatives. Think
about the topic firmly, but don't force it. Then let yourself drift into
sleep.
6. Sleep and Dream
Trust your dream maker to respond to your request.
7. Recall Your Dream
Try to awake before your usual time to rise: use a music alarm, a partner,
or give yourself the suggestion prior to sleep. You might try drinking several
glasses of water before sleeping. Don't move; remain prone and try to recall
the images of the dream. Hold on to the feeling tones: these can sometimes
conjure up the related dream visuals. When you have the first fragment,
turn over in bed to another position--this may stimulate additional dream
portions. Try still other positions until you have the fullest recall. Reexperience
the dream several times, noting a key word from each segment to help reconstruct
the whole dream.
8. Record Your Dream
Record all dreams as soon as possible upon waking. Include the feelings
associated with the dream. Title and date the dream, and use the present
tense. If, while recording, you have any immediate associations with waking
life, note them. If you have no dream recall, simply record the feelings
upon waking, or the first thoughts that pop into mind.
9. Reinforce Your Dream
Record each dream! The seemingly trivial can often contain a profound
message. Treat all "failures" kindly; encourage yourself to try
again. Sometimes the incubated dream will appear on a succeeding night.
Share your dream with a partner or group. By yourself, you can try various
methods of interpretation. But do something with the dream; actualize it!
- First published as Magallón, Linda Lane. "Dream
Trek: Incubation Techniques: How To Dream To The Target," Dream Network
Bulletin, 5/3 (1986), 15.
- See also "How
to Hatch A Dream" (Incubation tips for children posted on
Victoria Quinton's web site.)
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| About Time Shift |
Time is loose in dream reality!
- It might be several days before you get a dream that responds to your
incubation.
- Time shift can result in precognitive and retrocognitive dreams.
- When dreaming with partners, corresponding dreams can occur on different
nights.
Just as there can be a time delay in receiving mail, so your own mind
receiver may not turn on and tune into the energy until you are prepared
to receive it.
So if you do not get a dream on a specified date, don't give up! First,
wait for a delayed response. Then, try again.
First published as Magallón, Linda Lane. "Dream
Ahead '96: Dream Ahead Tips: About Time Shift ," NightFlyer, 1/3 (1996)
Insert. Reprinted in Electric Dreams, 3/2 (1996).
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| Incubating A Healthy, Creative
Spirit |
How we dream is highly dependent on what happens before we sleep. Yes,
sometimes the symbols or scenes in our dreams reflect the objective content
of our physical existence. But even more, daily life churns up feelings
and emotions that are pictured in dream dramas. As a result of such waking
state impact, we program, or incubate, dreams automatically.
If we pay attention, we can become alert to those influences and judge
whether they are good, bad or indifferent for us. Just what is triggering
our thoughts, feelings and emotional reactions, our dream imagery? Can we,
should we do anything about it?
I have discovered that dreams do like the influx of positive energy.
They tend to become more ordered, more coherent, and thus clearer to understand
and interpret. Positive energy from the waking state stirs up the inner
hero to deal successfully with in-dream conflict so that it doesn't spill
over into waking life. Positive energy from the waking state nurtures hidden
potential and allows it to fly free. Suddenly, the door is open to the extraordinary.
You don't have extraordinary dreams? I certainly didn't, in the beginning.
Night after night, my dream platter held the same fare. The idea that it
could be different, that I might benefit from a change in the menu, didn't
even occur to me. I was the victim of nightmare and then, the prisoner of
the mundane. My dream psyche painted the best dream product she could, given
the circumstances. Given the daily hash I fed her. Given the limited art
tools I provided. Given how much I ignored her growing needs.
Shouldn't we be satisfied with what we've got? Aren't dreams, all dreams,
gifts of the psyche? Don't they all reflect us? Well, if that's true, let
me suggest you analyze your dreams and their content. Then ask youself:
just how healthy and balanced are they? How healthy can they be if I never
flex my mind muscles? How healthy can they be, given that my dream psyche
is fed on thin broth or toxic ingredients? No wonder she can only paint
in traumatones and greyscapes!
I remember life in the '50's. A jogger running through suburbia would
have been a oddity in a world of calorie-laden and smoking strollers. Yet
today we understand the benefits of a healthy exercise routine and of watching
our diets for our waking lives. But what of our life under the covers? Why
not just cling to old habits and fall asleep with worries, concerns and
the emotions invoked by the evening news? Why not just dump day residue
into our sleeping mind and let our dream psyche deal with it? Isn't that
what sleep is supposed to do: repair waking wounds? Sure, it can and does.
Yet, if we don't take responsibility for doing at least some of the clean-up
work prior to sleep, the dream is all fear, anxiety and repair work. And
guess who gets to *live* a life of fear, anxiety and repair work? Not us
waking egos. Oh, no, we're too zoned out.
However, if we waking egos do clean-up work plus add some rich nutrients
before sleep, the results are truly amazing. Suddenly, the dream psyche
is not just a servant who works for us. Now, she has time to play. Now,
she has time to be creative and innovative. She has time to explore the
unknown. She has the energy to experience the extraordinary. Finally, she
has the opportunity to grow, to lift up beyond the survival level. To become
a master artist. And wow, can she paint some fantastic dreams! Given the
new circumstances.
The goal of intentional incubation is not just to satisfy the needs of
our waking egos. It's the liberation of our healthy, creative dreaming spirit.
First published as Magallón, Linda Lane. "Incubating
A Healthy, Creative Spirit," The Dream Tree News, 3/4 (Summer '99),
5-7. |
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| Tools for the Development
Of Psychic Dreaming Skills |
What does it take to develop basic psychic dreaming skills? For the study
and application of psychic dreaming first consider all those excellent tools
of dreamwork: recall, journaling, incubation and interpretative techniques.
In addition, lucid and out-of-body dreaming can expand your repertoire as
a dream explorer.
Interpretation
Initially, you may not consider your dreams to be telepathic, clairvoyant
or precognitive because they show little evidence of literal correspondence
with daily life. But even a superficial perusal of dreams shows that the
dream speaks a language which is largely associative and metaphoric. By
learning to decode your own personal symbology, you can realize those "hidden"
messages concerning the past, the future or a distant location.
Understanding your own symbology is quite important for a number a reasons.
It helps you decide which of the dreams are to be taken at face value and
which are not. It helps you differentiate between what is your own problem
or complex and those troubled events and characteristics that are gleaned
from an outside source.
I am in total agreement that every dream is primarily personal, meaning
that first, the message is of importance to you, the individual. Having
said that, it's also possible that what can be of importance of you is how
you relate to another part of the universe and how that "significant
other" relates to you.
Recall
Of course, if you can't recall the clues to unlock the message of the
dream, it will remain an unsolved mystery. The revealing elements of psychic
dreams are often in the details, not in generalizations. Memory practice
helps fill in the total picture of your dream underground.
Journaling
Journaling is crucial to produce a recorded copy of dreams which are
titled and dated for reference purposes. If indexed, they can provide easy
access so that you may track correspondences with precognitive and telepathic
information you learn later or with any specialized dream content, like
lucid and OOB dreams. New psychic dreams can be induced simply by reading
old ones in your journal.
Incubation
Incubation goes beyond programming dreams for oneself; it includes incubation
about another place or a future event. Afterwards, interpretation becomes
that much easier, since the you have a head-start on knowing the subject
matter. You can highlight or asterisk incubated dreams in your journal index
so that you may refer back to them when the anticipated event occurs.
Lucid and Out-of-Body Dreaming
Once aware in the dream, you can recall a previous intent to request
psychic information from dream characters or the dream in total. Given permission
from your dreaming partners, you can obtain information by traveling to
visit them.
Psychic events don't have to be spontaneous. They can be encouraged by
hearing of or reading about those people who have similar dreams. They can
be incubated and induced, then analyzed and compared with waking life.
Nevertheless, spontaneous psychic dreams do happen continually. The psychic
is a natural part of the process of dreaming.
First published as Magallón, Linda Lane. "Tools
for the Development of Psychic Dreaming Skills," The Dream Tree News,
3/2 (Spring '99), 2-4. |
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