IDL Dream Sadhana

Integral Deep Listening has four spiritual disciplines or sadhanas associated with the dream state and one associated with the deep sleep state.

The first is interviewing self-aspects in your dreams while you are dreaming.

This practice is cultivated by making a habit of regular waking interviewing and by setting this intent while drifting off to sleep. Its purpose is to practice deep listening while dreaming as a way to integrate self aspects as they arise in consciousness, not simply by becoming them, but by respecting why they exist and in what way they serve as a wake-up call.

This second practice has two levels.  The first involves asking a dream character questions while you are dreaming and listening to its answers.  At first you will be limited to interacting with people, but then you will find yourself interviewing animals plants and then objects, like forks, doorknobs, and walls.

The second level involves actually becoming self-aspects as you are interviewing them in your dreams. This is assumed if you answer as the interviewed self-aspect instead of simply asking questions and listening to the answers provided by the character.

The third practice is carrying out self-aspect recommendations in your dreams while you are dreaming. Instead of doing what you want to do in your dreams you choose to follow the recommendations of aspects of yourself that score higher than you do in the six core qualities.

The fourth practice is to go to sleep observing your breathing and to continue that observation in the dream state. The round of breath is associated with the six core qualities. The purpose is to come to constantly watch a field of abundance, joy, and luminosity that is the outgrowth of integration of the six core qualities.

The sadhana associated with the deep sleep state involves carrying the fourth practice, above, into deep sleep.

(More detailed information is available in Integral Deep Listening and Meditation)

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