Dream Yoga

Dream Yoga and Death

In this next section of the dream yoga class, we will focus on deep dreamless sleep, or luminosity yoga.  Sleep and dream will be explored as a descent through the eight consciousnesses, with an emphasis on the substrate consciousness as the basis of dreams -- and samsara.  Other topics will include clear light dreams, physics and the illusion of reality, further induction techniques, and how all this relates to death.

Sleeping and dreaming provide a precious opportunity for spiritual awakening.  Every night we drop into the enlightened state, do not recognize it, and miss another chance.  By learning how to wake up in our dreams, we can transform sleep into a profound method to help us understand the nature of mind and reality.  Dream yoga is also an important preparation for death - lucid dreaming leads to lucid dying.  In this course we will melt the boundaries between day and night, dissolve the solidity of daytime appearances, and become children of illusion.

Dream yoga evolved principally as a preparation for death.  If you can wake up in your dreams you will be able to wake up in the bardos and take rebirth into a pure land, or attain enlightenment.  One third of our lives is spent sleeping.  Dream and sleep yoga allow us to transform sleep into meditation.  Instead of going to sleep each night, we can practice waking up.

Dr. Andrew Holecek has been a student of Tibetan Buddhism for over twenty years.

In l987 Andrew began his serious study of Buddhism and Shambhala Training in the lineage of Trungpa Rinpoche.  After completing the traditional three-year meditation retreat in 2003, Andrew began to write and teach extensively.  A former faculty member of the Ngedon School of Higher Buddhist Studies, and a lecturer at Naropa University, he is a highly respected teacher presenting seminars around the world.  Andrew writes a column on death and dying for Bodhi Magazine, and his first book, "The Power and The Pain; Transforming Spiritual Hardship into Joy," was released in spring of 2010.  He is writing several books on death and dying, as well as a sequel to Power and Pain.

Andrew is also the co-founder of the Global Dental Relief Project, and travels each year to India and Nepal to provide free care to impoverished children.  His other interests include skiing, tennis, and hiking.  He lives in the mountains west of Denver, and maintains a part-time private practice of general and surgical dentistry.

Link to Andrew's web site.