Lucid Dreaming, Lucid Waking: Tibetan Buddhist Imaginal Practices

Abstract

This workshop explores how the imaginal capacity of mind is mobilized via specific Tibetan Buddhist contemplative practices across the spectrum of sleeping, dreaming, and waking. We begin with a discussion of the Buddhist philosophy of dream and illusion in conversation with analogs in cognitive science. Drawn from Tibetan contemplative sleep manuals, the workshop details the discrete lucid dreaming practices of dream yoga (rmi lam) and emergent experiences. Practices of lucid waking to cultivate mental imagery and imaginatively simulate are discussed in relation to illusory body (sgyu lus) practices of embodiment and world-making. The workshop crescendos with discussion about deep dreamless sleep on the clear light nature of mind. We conclude with a report on current empirical research on dream yoga, the use of Virtual Reality to simulate dream yoga experiences, and future-casting imaginal practices.

Speaker

Dr Michael R. Sheehy is a Research Associate Professor and the Director of Research at the Contemplative Sciences Center at the University of Virginia. He is Principal at the CIRCL, Contemplative Innovation + Research Co-Lab, a transdisciplinary experimental collaboratory that studies how contemplative practices work in bodies and minds, cultures and ecologies, ourselves and our worlds; and is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Contemplative Studies. Trained in Buddhist Studies, Michael spent years studying in a monastery in the Golok region of eastern Tibet. His publications include several dozen articles and the book, The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet.

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