So briefly, what general results did you obtain?
None of the research participants had ever overtly invited kundalini into their awareness while lucid dreaming before. Of the thirteen people, ten finished the study. All ten reported or appeared to experience kundalini in the lucid dreaming state in some fashion. Seven of them had experiences of kundalini that continued into the waking state.
Three of the five participants who reported being kundalini awake and three of the five participants who reported being pranotthanically active experienced kundalini that continued into the waking state, and one of the non-pranically active participants also experienced kundalini continuing into the waking state. No one had a subsequent full -blown kundalini awakening as a result of the study, however, the protocol did raise the frequency and degree of pre-existing subtle energetic sensations and experiences in the waking state to varying degrees.
Five participants reported realizing nonduality during some of these experiences. Four of them reported having these nondual perceptions continue into the waking state for between several minutes to half a day. Three of these people experienced ongoing positive, nondual psychological effects, like having an increased sense of peacefulness, experiences of spontaneous joy, or having a more readily available sense of openness to present circumstances that lasted in an obvious sense for a couple of days. Several people believed that their experiences were connected to ultimate reality in some way.
They all were given grounding techniques that ended up being important to some of them at times so that they could remain focused during their daily activities.
Many of the study participants had powerful experiences! Could you share an example?
Sure, this is an edited, shortened transcript of an experience from a participant named ‘John‖ who dreamed about being in a courtyard, and as he became lucid, the dream shifts and he finds himself in a bed. He remembers the protocol and decides to first test his lucidity:
I have a sense I’m in a dream but I wanna test it. So I’m in a kitchen and I go, “Okay, I’m gonna run up this wall and at this corner.” There’s a corner poking out at me where the kitchen goes two different directions, and I hesitate because it’s a little bit scary because I’m not totally sure I’m in a dream… I just plow into this corner and merge into that corner of the wall and I go, “Okay, I know I’m in a lucid dream, I know I’m there, and I invite it [the kundalini] to come into me right now.” I invite the nonduality experience to come into me and I shove myself hard, backwards and push myself out of the visual experience, into the stream of energy, and I sit there…my body disintegrated into the energy…there’s no visuals at this point.
It’s all experience and flow and just force going through me and I’m being careful to balance the intense energy and the potential of snapping back out and being in my body, in my bed and being awake. And so I’m balancing that carefully and just being in that flow and having that energy come through me…it’s like trying to tune a piano or a string, and just get it to be exactly right and not go too far one way or the other way, but to stay in that narrow band that I have to stay out of the body and stay in that flow.
My sense of it was outside of time… After that, and the energy finally, it’s just smoothing out, slowing down, and I pop into a scene. I pop into a group of people, still, I’m completely lucid, but I pop into a group of close friends, people that I know really well. I can feel them now. I can feel the closeness, still warm. I can feel that connection.
It’s nobody I know here, at least physically that I recognize in this reality, but it’s a group that I know really well there and that I’ve done a lot with, enjoyed being with… I can feel the missing…them, missing being with them, missing connecting with them more…it’s not really a connected consciousness, it’s a connectivity beyond the brain consciousness, and I miss that. I miss that a lot… Wonderful dream, wonderful experience…I popped out [of nonduality] then…When I woke up…
What surprised you about the study? Did any of the results connect with Bogzaran”s observations?
I had been doing the protocol myself for a few years before the study (in part, to verify its safety), so most of the results didn‘t particularly surprise me. They appear to confirm the results of Bogzaran‘s earlier study in many, many ways—in short, that these sorts of experiences of the divine or kundalini are possible for many ordinary people who have the desire to have them. It should be said that while some of these experiences can be life-altering, they are generally a part of an ongoing, lifelong process of growth and discovery. Having these experiences doesn‘t mean that you are necessarily radically transformed or special in any way.
Would you have any concerns about others trying this in their lucid dreams? What cautions come to mind, if any?
Yes, everyone in my study went through a couple of layers of psychological evaluation before participating. I would recommend not only feeling experienced and comfortable with lucidity, but also being psychologically healthy and having a support structure of experienced spiritual teachers and transpersonal or Jungian psychologists that you can draw from if need be.
While there were no cases of people needing psychological help as a result of either of these studies, these dreaming protocols have been known to require this kind of help in a very small minority of instances. One place people can go to find these kinds of psychologists and spiritual counselors is from a free service provided by the Grof Foundation‘s Spiritual Emergence Network: www.spiritualemergence.info.
If people want to learn more about your work, where should they go?
They can go to my web site: www.tedesser.com
Final thoughts?
I think we are living during incredibly exciting times in the study of dreams in our culture. There are a lot of people doing amazing work, many of whom appear at the International Association for the Study of Dreams conferences and their other events [www.asdreams.org]. I highly recommend people getting involved with this group in order to rapidly expand your horizons about not only what is possible with dreaming, but also how to go about interpreting and incorporating the wisdom of dreams pragmatically in your everyday life.
Many thanks for taking the time to share your perspective on dreams and lucid dreaming.
Thank you, Robert!
