Vesna’s voyages

I have just completed a full week retreat up here in the mountains of the Alpujarras. The retreat was very interesting. We started at 7.30 with meditation and then 8.30 breakfast. A typical Spanish timetable I suppose. At 10.00 the teachings and then 12.00 more teachings and throughout the afternoon until 10.00 at night.  So perhaps six hours a day plus an hour of questions and answers and chai tea and biscuits prepared by your chef. Besides that I spent about five hours a day in the kitchen. So you could say I only had time to sleep and do a bit of reading. I have been taking advantage of this time to the best of my ability. I am currently reading a book about the Yoga of dreams, the Tibeten way. In this type of practice you can live and do whatever you want in your sleep just as you do in your daily life, the difference starts to blur and really you can do more things in your dreams than you thought were possible in your life. You can learn things, conquer demons, travel to exotic places or whatever. Well I dont know if I will get to that level but we will see. Most of my dreams are intense and always have been, many fearful and I am often caught by someone chasing me. So I suppose these are karmically created, but last night I decided I was sick of hiding from whatever deranged squadron was searching for me and I changed myself and my friend into dragonflies and flew out the door right after they broke it down. Now these types of dreams are easier to be aware in and know that you are dreaming, what is really difficult is to lucidly dream and be fully aware in calm relaxing dreams that have more to do with reality but where we can really play with all the events and switch things around. What is real anyway? The first thing to do is to sleep on your side like the Buddha, with your hand under your head and relax!