Applying translocation and object finding techniques without the precondition of a steady lucid dreaming.

Insufficient concentration on a desire to travel to a location or to find an object.

Doubting that results will be achieved instead of having complete confidence.

Passive performance of the techniques instead of a strong desire and high level of aggression.

Forgetting to repeat translocation or object finding techniques when the technique did not work or worked incorrectly during the first attempt.

Getting distracted by extraneous thoughts during the lengthy process of teleporting with eyes shut. Total concentration is required at all times.

Applying the technique of teleportation with eyes open without adequate experience.

Failing to immediately translocate when using the closed eyes technique; this may induce flying a la teleportation technique.

Glossing over minute details or only observing the broad features of a remote object while applying translocation by concentration.

A delayed desire to move while translocating during separation. An instantaneous desire to immediately move is necessary.

Forgetting to first shut a door completely when using translocation through a door; otherwise, there will be contact with what is already behind it.

Using a translocation technique to go through a wall without knowing how to pass through solid objects.

Paying too much attention to the process of translocation through a wall; this leads to being trapped in the wall.

Forgetting to shut the eyes while translocating diving headfirst. The eyes should remain closed until after the technique is complete.

Insufficient internal association with an animate object while finding it by calling its name.

Trying to find an object via interrogation instead of passively communicating with living objects of lucid dreaming.

Using distant corners when applying the technique of finding an object around the corner. Choose nearby corners to avoid wasting precious travel time.

Applying transmutation techniques without possessing sufficient experience in managing lucid dreaming space.

The Art of dreaming (1993)

…As I was watching a window in a dream, trying to find out if I could catch a glimpse of the scenery outside the room, some windlike force, which I felt as a buzzing in my ears, pulled me through the window to the outside. Just before that pull, my dreaming attention had been caught by a strange structure some distance away. It looked like a tractor. The next thing I knew, I was standing by it, examining it.

I was perfectly aware that I was dreaming. I looked around to find out if I could tell from what window I had been looking. The scene was that of a farm in the countryside. No buildings were in sight. I wanted to ponder this. However, the quantity of farm machinery lying around, as if abandoned, took all my attention. I examined mowing machines, tractors, grain harvesters, disk plows, thrashers. There were so many that I forgot my original dream. What I wanted then was to orient myself by watching the immediate scenery. There was something in the distance that looked like a billboard and some telephone poles around it.

The instant I focused my attention on that billboard, I was next to it. The steel structure of the billboard gave me a fright. It was menacing. On the billboard itself was a picture of a building. I read the text; it was an advertisement for a motel. I had a peculiar certainty that I was in Oregon or northern California.

I looked for other features in the environment of my dream. I saw mountains very far away and some green, round hills not too far. On those hills were clumps of what I thought were California oak trees. I wanted to be pulled by the green hills, but what pulled me were the distant mountains. I was convinced that they were the Sierras.

All my dreaming energy left me on those mountains. But before it did, I was pulled by every possible feature. My dream ceased to be a dream. As far as my capacity to perceive was concerned, I was veritably in the Sierras, zooming into ravines, boulders, trees, caves. I went from scarp faces to mountain peaks until I had no more drive and could not focus my dreaming attention on anything. I felt myself losing control. Finally, there was no more scenery, just darkness…

New York, USA

I woke up not trying to move but that was unsuccessful. I decided to try some cycles anyway and began with phantom wiggling. To my surprise I felt my body go into sleep paralysis and get numb (M.R.: no separation). Then I switched to listening in, but then I decided to try and separate by rolling over. There was resistance, but it ended up working and I stood up. I was skeptical as to whether I was really in lucid dreaming, even though I have had lots of experiences before. I guess it was because the transition between waking and dreaming never felt so conscious and self-induced before. Not to mention that it only took about one minute.

I hear my mother in the kitchen. I did a reality check by trying to put my right index finger through my left palm. It was a struggle, but it worked – so I know I am in lucid dreaming. I walk out into the kitchen and my mother says good morning, I give her a kiss on the cheek and continue down the hallway (M.R.: no plan of action). I touch the walls as I am walking to stabilize the experience, even though I don’t need to. It’s pretty dark inside the house but I can see that it is sunny outside. I am in my shirt and boxers, although normally I just go outside and clothes appear on me without me noticing.

I open the front door and see all of the upstairs neighbors outside on the porch. I close the door back just to double check that I am phasing before I go outside in my boxers, I do the reality check and it works again, so I go outside. By this time the neighbors were going upstairs. It is indeed sunny outside and there is a little kid outside sort of nagging me, but I ignore him. I half-heartedly try to create a portal and teleport by going through the floor but neither of those work. I walk down the block and I try this hopping thing that I read about to get around faster, but I don’t like it. I fly upwards and don’t have much control… I keep going higher and higher and have to grab on to these power lines to prevent me from leaving the atmosphere.

It was a long lucid dreaming and for some reason I lost a chunk of memory here (M.R.: no maintaining). I don’t remember where I landed, I remember bits and pieces but my memory kicks in when I am in a department store and I see a guy that looks familiar. I ask him, "don’t I know you?" He shakes his head “no” and keeps walking. He looks suspicious so I keep an eye on him. He meets with another guy and he points at me and they start running after me. I duck behind some people as they run by and I go the other way. I go out of an emergency exit expecting the alarm to sound, but it doesn’t. There are two locked gates leading to stairs that go to the roof. I melt through both gates and go to the roof. I fly away and they come out and start flying after me. I use mental energy to fly faster but it isn’t enough. We battle for a while, and then I end up in a portal inside some sort of spaceship.

I am driving it through these tunnels that remind me of the Matrix. I crash into the walls a little but for the most part I am good. I pull up into the place that these tunnels lead to. This part is boring so I will skip it.

I walk out of this building and I am in a cityscape full of people. I walk down this block and my vision gets sort of different, almost movie like. I walk in this hotel lobby and people are sitting around. I decide to look for someone to have to sex with to end the experience because I want to remember everything. All of the females around are either not attractive or too young. I look back at the hotel door and there is a lady looking at me but she turns away quickly. I was curious why she was looking at me and who she was so I go outside. She is kind of in a panic running towards a black van. I run after her and pull open the door before they pull off. There is a guy in the driver’s seat and she is crying in the passenger’s seat. She said that when my friend got his promotion (from the boring part of the experience I skipped earlier) she was forced to set him up and that this is the guy that made her do it. I started punching him in lucid dreaming and this caused me to lose my proper frame of mind to maintain and I woke up (M.R.: no re-entering).

With indirect techniques body position isn’t important since conscious awakening regardless of body position is the goal. However, the position of the body is crucial while practicing direct techniques.

There is not an exact body position that each practitioner should assume since, once again, individual characteristics and instincts differ widely. There are specific rules that allow one to select the right position, based on indirect indicators.

Many hold a belief that the correct pose is that of a corpse – lying on the back without a pillow, legs and arms straightened. This notion has probably been borrowed from other practices claiming that it helps achieve an altered state of mind. However, this position seriously impairs the efforts of the majority of practitioners. The corpse pose should only be used when it is probable that a practitioner will quickly fall asleep while performing techniques in this pose, even though it generally prevents sleep.

If a practitioner experiences difficulty falling asleep and is constantly awake while performing direct techniques, then the most comfortable position for the individual should be used.

If sleep comes quite easily to a practitioner, a less natural position should be taken. If a practitioner experiences fewer gaps in consciousness when the techniques are performed and has a harder time falling asleep, a more comfortable a position should be used. Depending on the situation, there are many possible positions: lying down on the back, on the stomach, on the side, or even in a half-reclined position. It is possible that a practitioner will have to change positions from one attempt to another, introducing adjustments related to a free-floating state of mind. Moreover, no more than 3 days per week should be spent on the direct techniques. The same goes for the practice of lucid dreaming itself. This limit may only be raised in case of a high level of experience and nearly all of one’s attempts being successful.

Once I got into bed, I found myself in the mood to try entering lucid dreaming using a direct technique. After having laid down for a bit and some end-of-the-day reflection, which calmed and relaxed me to some extent, I began to concentrate my attention on imagined rotation along my head-to-toe axis. I was unable to rotate more than halfway for the first minute. But then I was able to rotate all the way around, and it got easier and easier with each minute. I rotated in one direction, and then another. I periodically lapsed into sleep and shallow dreaming. I did not even try to attempt separation when surfacing, because I did not feel any lucid dreaming symptoms. At one point, conscious awareness sank into unconscious for a longer period of time than before (I almost completely fell asleep). When I came to, the rotation was somewhat sluggish. I intensified the rotation, which then spun me around like an electric motor: my whole body was abuzz with vibrations, even though the rotation was still imaginary, and not as perceptually real as usual. I also heard noise. It became clear that if I was not already in lucid dreaming, then I was close to it, and so I tried to roll out for the first time. It worked like a charm. However, I did not fall onto the floor, but floated an inch or two above it, as it seemed to me.

Wasting no time, I abruptly stood up in the middle of the room. I couldn’t see the room around me, but clearly understood that I was in it. I quickly began to palpate the floor, closet, bed linen, my own torso, and so on. On the whole, I could immediately tell that lucid dreaming was deep, even though I couldn’t see. I did everything more out of habit, and in order to ensure a long and confident lucid dreaming. Moreover, the lapse in consciousness was recent, and it would be necessary to fully regain consciousness before going into action, otherwise I might easily drift out of lucid dreaming. After 5 to 10 seconds of palpation, my vision returned. As soon as it did, I stared at my hands, peering at all the lines on my palms and fingers. lucid dreaming became not only real in terms of perception – it became hyper-real.

At that moment, I quickly defined my goals: to obtain information about lucid dreaming training, and to conduct an experiment on the connection between the body perceived in lucid dreaming and the physical body left behind on the bed. I didn’t initially recall what else had I wanted to do, but figured that I’d remember the other tasks while completing the first two.

All that thought on my plan of action did not take more than two seconds. I then closed my eyes and concentrated on finding a wise old man. I abruptly flew off, and quickly enough found myself in a hut, entering as if staggering in after flying through the wall. The wise man sat facing away from me, so I quickly walked around to face him, and then asked him how I could improve my teaching methodology at seminars. I expected that he would once again propose certain tricks-of-the-trade and special techniques. Instead, he unexpectedly said that it was worth working more actively on the emotional factor and especially motivation, as many simply do not make the necessary effort, mainly because they don’t understand what awaits them and how interesting it is. Even though their technique should be corrected, there’s not point in doing so when they aren’t always motivated and do not perform the techniques thoroughly.

Having obtained what I needed and having set its analysis aside for later, I took advantage of the opportunity and asked a question concerning my personal relationships with people that I care about in my life. However, the response caused me to fade out, and my mind wandered for a couple of moments, which was enough for everything to become blurred. Realizing that directly employing maintaining techniques would be useless at this point, I just tried to maintain lucid dreaming by grabbing the sage’s beard. I ended up in my body, but with my hand still holding his beard, which I strongly clutched in my hand in order to amplify the flow of sensations as much as possible. Rubbing my hand with the beard, I was able to almost effortlessly get out of bed. After palpating the nearby space with my free hand and realizing that the state was stable enough, I began trying to scrutinize the hand with the beard, holding it close to my eyes. My vision started to return, and within several seconds I was already able to see the space and my hand itself quite clearly. In it lay a thick clump of gray hair. This made me laugh. I tried not to get distracted, and was able to contain myself.

Then, I began to study the connection between the body that is visible on the bed from lucid dreaming, and the real physical one. Perhaps lucid dreaming space itself came to my aid, because it was precisely at that time that I saw my body indeed lying on the bed. I had been enjoying this sight less and less frequently, though at the beginning of my practice I experienced it with nearly every exit from the body.

Watching myself from the outside was once again not very pleasant, something jostled me inside and aroused mixed feelings. This was perhaps because the person I was looking at did not exactly correspond to how I experience myself to be. I began to touch his feet, stomach, and head. Contrary to old wives’ tales, this did not cause any getting pulled into a stencil – this process deepened and maintained my lucid dreaming, as it was a type of sensory amplification. At some point, touching and examining the face, I all too clearly realized that it was me. Everything faded for a moment, and I even felt someone’s hands on my face. But I was then able to go back to what I was doing, and continued on with the same clarity of purpose. I wrapped up the experiment.

Here it dawned on me that I could not remember what else I had wanted to do. Quite disappointed, I now had to go on with doing the first thing that popped into my head, so as not to waste the rest of lucid dreaming as a result of my poor memory…