do you really think you have control?

Yup that's what I'm talking about. And I only had a few of those.
And yes I believe that these states can be prolonged with practice too. In fact doesn't it make sense that if you're able to make your mind quiet and just witness your thoughts then you can be aware during the dream state without being sucked into whatever your mind produces? I remember my first lucid dream, I suddenly realized I was dreaming, and since I was reading Castaneda I remembered to look at my hands, which is a way to stabilize your dream body (I guess wilber would call that more of a psychic experience rather than a subtle experience, but I'm not entirely sure...) and I remember thinking " holy!$#@! I'm dreaming! ". It didn't feel like I was about to wake up at all. I then looked around, and a few seconds (dream-seconds?) after my consciousness was gone... Oops.

Which book are you reading? The holarchical stuff is good I agree. The best stuff for me is the linking and integration of spiritual traditions and sciences. The four quadrants model is really powerful too. Thanks for the link, the dialog between Andrew Cohen and kw is a good one.

Peace,

Jun.

Then tell what you see. he he he. Even though words and concepts are not too good at expressing this kind of experiences, it's worth trying to share isn't it? I can't be the only one making a fool of myself trying, can I? Maybe I can... :-O

Indeed there seems to be overlapping areas between waking, dreaming and deep sleep, like in Venn diagrams. I was in my bath today going back and forth between waking and dreaming and trying to feel what was happening... It seems that the moment when I actually loose the continuity of my sense of self in the dreaming state is when my thoughts start to wander. It goes something like:
- I'm awake
- I feel the world disappear
- There seems to be something unfolding, like if because the constraints of the material world has disappeared, the dream body can expand and fill consciousness with its energy.
- Then I wake up, and I realize that I was dreaming but I got carried by a thought and lost my "lucidity". OOps

Since in dream state the whole content of consciousness is subtle (emotions, thoughts, luminosities...) when a thought passes by and I identify to it, I simply loose track of what I'm trying to do: keeping my awareness from waking to dreaming. I've got more focusing practice to do... But to come back to the Venn diagram, if you think of the "bodies" existing in each sphere, then there seems to be some sort of layer topology. For instance in dream state, the physical body disappears from awareness, in deep sleep the "dream body" or subtle body, disappears from awareness also leaving only what Ken Wilber calls the causal. Whereas you can say that when you're awake, the subtle and the causal world are accessible to your awareness in that sense it seems to be more like layer. But I guess you could say that when resting in the causal for instance when you're in deep sleep, and assuming that you're also aware that you're in the causal, you can just start dreaminng or wake up, which gives you access to the subtle and causal worlds... Hmmm... I wonder.

There I go and pick my "Eye of Spirit" page 261 to 265. Paragraph "The relation of structures and states". Wilber says that those three states (waking, dreaming and deep sleep) are accessible to anyone and they contain structures (or levels) of consciousness. He points out that the way we experience each state depends on the structures that have developed in the individual. Let me quote two paragraphs:

"Evidence suggests that, under conditions generally of prolonged contemplative practice, a person can convert these temporary states into permanent traits or structures, which means that they have access to these great realms on a more or less continuous and counscious basis. In the case of the subtle realm, for example, this means that a person will generally begin to lucid-dream (which is analogous to savikalpa samadhi, or stable meditation on subtle forms); and with reference to the causal, when a person stable reaches that wave, he or she will remain tacitly conscious even during deep dreamless sleep (a condition known as permanent turiya, constant consciousness, subject permanence, or unbroken witnessing, which is analogous to nirvikalpa samadhi, or stanle meditation as the formless). Pushing even through even that level, the causal formless finds union with the entire world of form, a realization known as nondual (sahaja, turiyatita, bhava).

In each of those cases, those great realms (psychic, subtle, causal, nondual) are non longer experienced merely as states, but have instead become permanently available patterns or structures of consciousness - which is why, when they become a permanent competence, I then call them the psychic level (or structure or wave), the subtle level, the causal level, and the nondual. The use of those four terms (psychic, subtle, causal, and nondual) to cover both structures and states has led some critics to assume that I was confusing structures and states, but this is not the case."

After that he explains that structures develop in a stage-like manner, i.e. if you have stable access to the causal then you have stable access to the subtle but not vice-versa.

I guess that the reason why I don't have stable access to the subtle it is because I still identify (exclusively) with my thoughts or emotions when they arise in my dreams. In other words, I'm in some way fascinated by them and I can't really take the necessary step back to allow my self to realize "Hey dude! I'm dreaming!".

If I practice "stable meditation on subtle forms" then I'll be able to stop identifying exclusively with the subtle world (transcending it and including it) and I'll still have a lot of work with "stable meditation as the formless".

I definitely makes sense now to me though, altough maybe temporarily: since I am not conscious during my dream, I can't really say that I'm myself in my dream. When I'll develop the ability to not be just caught in my emotions and thoughts, but disentify with them and watch them pass by (which happens to me sometime when I meditate, but not in a stable manner) then I'll access the dream state but with a different structure, which will allow me to stay conscious and experience this state as a deeper self. What's the point? Well that's for another post if anybody's interested.

I guess that's why it's at the same time circles in the pond and good ole' stairway to heaven at the same time...

Peace,

Jun.