Your hands are a quick and easily accessible tool to attain mindfulness.
What we're going to briefly look at today is a little practice that will both help you to attain mindfulness wherever you are,
But will also assist you in a lucid dreaming practice.
So if you're into lucid dreaming or into mindfulness,
This little talk will be for you.
What I want you to do is hold your hands out in front of you and look at them.
Really observe your hands for what you see,
The vision coming in.
So it's very easy to look at something and instantly your mind goes down a word association.
You think hands and then gloves and then snow,
Or you'll see calluses or blemishes and you'll start sort of feeling bad about yourself.
Or your mind will just twist off into a variety of different things.
The idea of being mindful is that we want to observe things for what they are as they are.
So when you look at your hands,
We're trying to look at the visual stimulus coming in and just seeing what's there.
So when you're holding your hands out in front of you,
And I'm going to pause the audio for about 10 seconds,
I just want you to look at your hands,
Turn them over and see your hands for what they are as they are.
Are you ready?
Let's begin.
Okay.
Now,
For most of us,
Our thoughts will start to wander.
But what we can do with this practice is just to,
Whenever we feel like it,
We might be at work,
At home,
Or just sort of get triggered this idea that we want to just practice our mindfulness meditation practice off the meditation mat and in our day-to-day life.
Just pull your hands up and take one slow breath and observe your hands for what they are.
And if thoughts pop up,
If your mind starts going down other pathways,
That's okay.
Observe that too and bring your attention back to your hands.
And like I said,
You could do this for one breath or for as long as you like because your hands are always with you.
Now,
I want to add to that a potential lucid dreaming practice.
The idea of lucid dreaming is that you'll be able to become aware that you're dreaming inside of the dream and then take control of the dream.
And there's,
You know,
A deep practice here of lucid dreaming that will go well beyond the scope of this talk.
I'm going to do some talks on this at some stage.
But the idea is that you can gain control of your dream and then you're actually inside your mind.
It's a great way to explore the depth of consciousness.
And if you practice meditation inside the dream,
It's amazing to say the least.
So for this practice,
Hold your hands up and observe your hands mindfully like we just were.
I want you to say to yourself out loud or in your head,
Tonight when I'm dreaming,
I will see my hands and realize I'm dreaming.
Tonight when I'm dreaming,
I will see my hands and realize I'm dreaming.
Now you can repeat that saying once again as long as you like and as many times as you like.
The idea being is that at night when you're dreaming,
You'll look at your hands and they'll pop up in your dream and you'll just see them.
And then you'll remember this.
You'll remember that you've been programming yourself,
Saying to yourself,
Tonight when I'm dreaming,
I'll see my hands and realize I'm dreaming.
And then in your dream,
That'll be a reality check.
It'll check you into the fact that you're dreaming.
And then you'll look at your hands and you'll be like,
Okay,
I'm seeing my hands,
They just popped up.
You'll look around and you'll notice the inconsistencies in the environment.
And bam,
You're lucid dreaming.
And from there you can explore the inner worlds of your consciousness.
And it's an amazing experience.
There's a massive crossover between meditation ability and lucid dreaming ability.
And I believe that they're quite connected.
Because to recognize that a dream is a dream,
You have to look at the inconsistencies that you notice.
What was happening in the dream?
Are the people there that shouldn't be there?
Was there some oddities or differences or weirdnesses happening?
In order to notice that,
You have to be quite mindful,
As in a continual practice of mindfulness,
Because otherwise you'll just casually accept the dreamscape.
And we've all been there.
We've all woken up from dreams and gone,
Oh my god,
How did I not realize I'm dreaming?
That was so ridiculously obvious.
With this practice,
Looking at our hands and saying to ourselves,
Tonight when I'm dreaming I'll see my hands and realize I'm dreaming.
This is a way that we can both practice our mindfulness meditation and practice our lucid dreaming.
So give it a try,
And good luck.
