We have discussed many methods for awakening consciousness within dreams. Today we will provide practical techniques for how to remember them. We will first explain why dream recall is important, followed by ways to record our deepest spiritual experiences. By remembering everything we experience, we can cultivate a rich spiritual life.
Subconsciousness and Consciousness
Although we might have great success with awakening in dreams, it is still possible that we do not remember them.
This can sound confusing or contradictory. How is it possible that we can awaken within our dreams and yet not remember them? While surprising, this problem is clearly reflected in our daily life. Do you remember what you ate for breakfast a week ago? Can you recall within your mind the route you took across your neighborhood or city to get to a job interview? Do you remember everything you witnessed, said, and heard? Or are there gaps in your memory, even though you know you were engaged in diverse situations with people? We live in a paradoxical state. We think we are conscious, and yet we cannot recall all the facts of our experiences. We believe we are alert, and yet there is much that we cannot remember despite our interactions with the world. We might remember snippets of conversations, images of people and places in our mind, and yet there are gaps. Memories can be fuzzy. While we can recall whom we met, we might not remember what we thought, felt, or said. We might also forget what we were told regarding minor or even consequential issues. In some cases, we remember nothing at all. Some would argue that it is impossible to remember everything. However, all the world scriptures emphasize the need to know ourselves completely, to remember ourselves in relation to every aspect of life. Likewise, each world religion emphasizes the possibility of becoming something more. The same dynamic applies to our ability to remember and recall our experiences, to bridge our subconscious and conscious worlds. Here is what Samael Aun Weor had to say about this topic: 32. Our head is a tower with two rooms, the cerebrum and the cerebellum.
Possessing a keen memory is important in our Dream Yoga studies. If you cannot remember your dreams upon awakening from rest, you are missing out on an entire world of data. There are entire dimensions or realities to be known. To ignore that is to ignore a huge percentage of your existence.
An average person might sleep eight hours a day, which, as a third of the day, constitutes a third of one’s life. Someone who lives for 75 years spends 25 of them asleep, or 9,125 days. Just as you can imagine, there is a lot of missing time spent in unconsciousness. Yet we also know by experiencing a lucid dream that there is much to be discovered even in a single moment. This is how we can understand the magnitude of being spiritually asleep. Also, if you cannot remember your dreams, it is most likely because you are not conscious of yourself during the day. We have already established the relationship between waking and dreaming life. They are two sides of the same coin. If you want to explore one, you need to know the other. 
Mechanical vs. Conscious Memory
In order to advance this discussion, let us explain two distinct types of memory.
To remember signifies to “keep or bear (someone or something) in mind,” to “retain or preserve unforgotten in the memory.” This is from the Old French remembrer, to “remember, recall, or bring to mind.” The prefix “re-”means “again.” Therefore, to remember is to bring a memory or experience again to one’s attention. Despite these specific definitions, we need to consider how memory recall has diverse qualities. Memory, in the conventional sense, is often unreliable, as you see in the image to the left. Memories can change, fade, or disappear altogether, precisely because they can be impermanent. Or if such memories are significant, we do not tend to see them objectively for what they are. Memories can also fluctuate and morph, primarily through how we narrate them to others. We might hear a story in one way and tell it in another. Stories can change from person to person, to the point that we cannot recognize the originals. This is the basis of gossip, whereby a falsification gains power and influence because it may contain a half-truth, a kernel of reality with the shell of multiple embellishments. Most of our memory is egotistical. By this we typically recall information and experiences through the filter of a self. If we are angry, we recall the injustices we’ve suffered from someone in the past. If we are afraid, we might recall how we grew up in poverty and do not want to repeat its miseries. If we are proud, we relish in the memories of victory and success. These are thoughts, memories, images, or experiences related to some event. It really does not take any effort to attend to such states. It is simply instinctual, mechanical, unintentional. We do not will it to be. It merely arrives through association. Mechanical memory is related to the ego, the self, and our sense of self, as we’ve explained throughout this course, is the origin of dreams. A memory is a form of dreaming. It is a crystallized representation of the past in the mind. When we are engrossed in memory, we tend to ignore the present. This is how we’ve been able to assert that we are dreaming all the time. If we wish to advance in dream yoga discipline, it is essential to develop a different type of memory that is fundamental, accurate, and reliable. What we are referencing is conscious, intentional, objective. It is known as work memory: the perception and remembrance of the real. Work memory is the conscious capacity to accurately recall and factually remember our experiences. The consciousness has a form of memory that is objective and unfalsified. It is the result of putting our Essence, our consciousness, to work, to perceive reality as it is. This means that we do not filter anything through fear, attachment, craving, affliction, identification, or selfhood. We merely recall what is without preference. 
Work memory is developed through conscious imagination, as we see with the image on the right. Conscious imagination is intentional. It is willed. It is purposeful. Such perceptions arrive, sustain, and cease according to our volition. When you imagine something consciously, you see it without an interpreter, without a self. Your imagination clarifies and expands like multiple mirrors augmenting the light of a candle. You perceive more without any distortion or flaw, like a reflective and polished surface.
This clear seeing is often accompanied by a lack of an “I,” or sense of “me, myself.” Since it is pure seeing without an interpreter, one can arrive at an objective assessment of phenomena. We often reiterate in these studies the need to remember the Being. The Being, our divine nature, is impersonal. It is pure perception without a filter. When we remember the Being, we are bringing to our attention, to our awareness, a state of consciousness that is devoid of any “I,” and yet it is characterized by spontaneous joy, profound insight, and perfect serenity. This is what can consistently and precisely recall dream experiences without fault, because it is free from mistakes in observation. Samael Aun Weor also explained in The Great Rebellion how work memory involves psychological photographs of different stages in our development, to visualize and compare how we were behaving in the past to what we are now, followed by what we might become. This can provide inspiration to work on ourselves and change, to possess greater motivation to awaken within dreams. Work memory allows us to recall our dreams, yet this skill is developed through training our consciousness to accurately remember the events of our daily life, and to see the connections between them. 
Atrophy of Memory
The reason why we cannot remember our dreams is because our conscious memory is atrophied.
Any muscle lacking exercise atrophies. If you refuse to engage your body in some type of work, your muscles will become weak. The same with the consciousness. The same with our ability to recall experiences. It is crucial to remember our internal experiences, for as I stated, we tend to go through our physical and internal existences without cognizance. There are possibilities accessible to us when we dream that can inform our daily life, wisdom that is so profound that we do not need to rely on anyone or anything for spiritual guidance. Mystical experiences constitute the ethical compass of the Gnostic. Without this connection, our spirituality is deficient, because we are not aware of the genuine messages we receive from divinity regarding how to live. The fact is that we might be traveling to the temples of the White Lodge to be helped, and yet we do not bring those experiences back with us to our body. This is like the sci-fi television show Severance, where employees at a certain company receive an operation that splits their identities. Whenever they come to work, they are one person and can only remember their life at the job. When they leave the building, they are someone else with a completely different set of memories. Even these two distinct personalities are colloquially termed “innies” and “outies.” This is our reality. We live two lives, a physical and internal existence. Only one who has awakened in dreams is conscious that there is another reality. However, those memories must be brought back for there to be an integration of the psyche. Here is what Samael Aun Weor said about the topic: The ego lives in the internal worlds and travels to different places while our physical body sleeps. There, within the internal worlds, we are exposed to tests many times. It is within the temples of the internal worlds where we receive the initiation. Therefore, it becomes necessary to remember everything that we do outside the body. Thus, with the instructions given in this book, every human being will be able to awaken the consciousness and remember his internal experiences.
Let’s explore why we might not remember our dreams.
Psychological Integration, Equilibrium, and Alignment
Dream recall is facilitated by the full integration, equilibrium, and alignment of the psyche.
We spoke previously about the five centers of the human machine. If our intellect, emotions, movements, instincts, and sexuality are at odds with each other, then we live in a state of psychological confusion. If we think one thing, feel another, and do something contrary to both, we suffer from a lack of inner clarity. For example, if someone insults us, we might be filled with self-justifying thoughts. We also might experience a barrage of desires for retaliation. Lastly, we are also torn between fight or flight impulses. These related but disparate reactions all occur within a moment. However, they demonstrate that our consciousness is fragmented, dispersed. We lack a sense of cohesion, which is unity and peace. We’ve also explained how our consciousness needs to be super active while our personality and mind must be passive. This allows for our human machine to operate optimally, with balance. Memories from the internal worlds flow better into our human machine when it is passive and integrated. If we train our intellectual center to function consciously, alongside our emotions, movements, instincts, and sexual drives, then we will possess a better vehicle for receiving experiences from the higher worlds. 
The best technique for balancing the five centers is meditation. In this way, we can leave our bodies behind to experience the superior states of the Being. While out of the body, we witness and perceive beyond the limitations of the ego. If our human machine is healthy, balanced, and integrated, then such memories of our internal experiences can flow freely down through the silver cord, the Antakharana thread (like in the image to the right), to be permanently established within our interior.
Moving Upon Awakening
Besides a lack of psychological integration, there are other reasons why we might not remember dreams. A major one is that we usually move upon awakening.
This is the first and most important step for dream recall: don’t move. It is very simple, but easy to forget or ignore out of habit. Normally upon awakening, you might feel agitated or antsy after having slept for eight hours. The natural compulsion is to stretch, move, or adjust your position. Despite these tendencies, it is very important to become conscious of yourself and to make the deliberate choice not to move. Why is this, you might wonder? In the beginning, our dream memories, because they belong to the subconsciousness and not the consciousness, can be delayed from transferring into our physical brain. It is normal for dream experiences to take some time to transfer from the astral body into our brain, especially if we’ve never trained ourselves to do this before. Just as you would not click cancel while in the middle of an important download, likewise you should not move upon awakening. This is because the astral body, while a material and energetic vehicle, is more fluidic. Ever watch the reflection of a pool of water after it is disturbed? The images on it its surface become distorted. However, when it is still, water can reflect with perfect clarity, vibrancy, and translucence. The same with the astral body after it returns to our physical body. When you awake in bed, your astral body naturally integrates with your physical body after having been engaged in activities in the astral world. You have basically just gotten back into your car again after a night’s journey outside of it. Now you have the opportunity to transfer any dream memories into your physical brain. You do so by making as little to no movement as possible upon awakening. When the astral body reintegrates, its memories and values are still present in the form of images and experiences. They naturally reside within the translucent nature of the astral body. In such a delicate moment, you can try to remember your dreams by not moving. You will have greater efficiency, accuracy, and sustainability in this, because you do not agitate the fluidic composition of your astral body. When there is no ripple of movement, you make it easier for dream recall to happen. If you move upon awakening, even if you remember some fragments of dreams, it will become increasingly difficult to recall them as you engage in your daily activities. Just as the stars of the night vanish with the rising of the sun, so do our dream memories dissipate as we engage with the responsibilities of life. This is why we have to discipline ourselves not to move upon awakening and to concentrate on remembering dreams before we move in bed. Some people really struggle with this. Perhaps some are too mechanical and feel like they have the move first thing upon awakening. If this is a problem, train yourself and do not beat yourself up if you initially fail. This is a lifestyle. Take your time, but practice consistently so that you make a new habit. Others have difficulty getting up for work and therefore need an alarm. Perhaps this is problematic because it is disturbing to your dream recall exercise. If you make an alarm to wake you since you sleep deeply, set it ten minutes before you need to get up and move. Make sure the alarm is not so annoying that it distracts you, but can wake you up in time for you to try and remember your experiences. 
Retrospection Meditation
While you are awake and bed and have not moved, it is now time for a retrospection exercise.
Retrospection is the conscious review of our memories. We perform this to help us remember what we witnessed and experienced while out of the body. We also perform retrospection meditation daily as a means of strengthening our capacity to remember events during the day, so that our conscious memory is exercised and strengthened. This is thoroughly explained in our course on Gnostic Meditation. I will synthesize this practice for you here. When you find yourself in your body again, concentrate upon any lingering memories that are still present with you since you dreamed. If your dreams are fuzzy, distant, or obscured, concentrate upon the last thought you had as you awoke in bed. This last thought will relate to the last dream you experienced. You want to focus on either the last thought or image you have in your mind and trace it back in sequence, for the latest to the earliest. You may find that if you focus on the freshest memory, you will get a better foothold in the door between the vigil and dreaming states. The earlier dreams will be easier to access. Sometimes it just takes one dream memory to lead into the rest. It is important to balance drowsiness when performing this retrospection exercise. This might not be hard for some people upon awakening, since one has just rested for eight hours. However, it can be easy to fall asleep again if you’re particularly tired, so it might take some discipline to maintain the threshold of drowsiness without falling asleep again. This is something you can only know through familiarity and practice. 
The Mantra Raom Gaom
However, lying still might not be enough. Even after concentrating upon our last thought, image, or memory, the door to the internal worlds can feel shut. In this case, it becomes necessary to work with mantra.
We provided an entire lecture on Mantras for Astral Projection, where we explained how sacred sounds can activate conscious abilities. The following mantra, Raom Gaom, is most effective for dream recall. Samael Aun Weor explained how each word is divided and prolonged into two syllables, like this:
Rrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaa… Ooooooooommmmmmmmm… Gaaaaaaaaa… Ooooooooommmmmmmmm…
Do not worry about whether you can trill the consonant R, because these mantras are performed mentally. You only need to imitate the sound in your mind. We do not vocalize the mantra upon awakening because the vibrations of the sound will agitate the astral body. We instead pronounce Raom Gaom mentally. Samael Aun Weor explained that this mantra is like dynamite. When you mentally pronounce this mantra, you concentrate upon a memory and hold your attention upon it. The mystical sound within your consciousness will, with repetition, sincerity, and prayer, open the caves of your subconsciousness and allow for its contents to come out. If you have absolutely no memory of your dreams in the beginning, then this mantra will be even better for you. Concentrate upon the mantra in your mind. Reflect upon the contents of your mind with serene attention, and then wait. Suddenly, memories associated with your dream experiences will flood into your mind. This often occurs as we simultaneously pray to our Divine Mother to show us the rest of our experiences, to help us remember. We do not need formula, but simply, “Help me, my Mother!” The more natural the prayer, the better. 
Abracadabra
To strengthen our conscious capacity to remember, we can also vocalize the mantra Abracadabra for one hour daily. It comes from the Hebrew אברה קדברה Ebrah K’Dabri, which means "I create what I speak." It has traditionally been used as an incantation and magical seal for amulets, talismans—and now—T-shirts.
This mantra, due to its exposure to humanity, has been greatly denigrated and vulgarized. However, it is exceptionally powerful for strengthening not only our consciousness, but our thymus gland. There are many benefits to this exercise. However, I only want to highlight its contexts for dream yoga, since the vowel A—pronounced as the A in Father—helps to activate the pulmonary chakra, whose power is past life memories and dream recall.
Glorian Publishing produced a video on how to pronounce the mantra, whereby you do so in its entirety, and then subsequently remove a letter off the end of each repetition, prolonging the vowels. For example, Abracadabra becomes Abracadabr, followed by Abracadab and Abracada, and so on, until finally you are reduced to the vowel A. Afterward, you repeat the whole process again with Abracadabra. For more information, you can reference the article and video from Glorian.
People wonder why this mantra is diminutive through each repetition until you are reduced to the single vowel A. The reason is that when you retrospect your dreams or even your life, you are slowly increasing your resolution, reducing your vision to an even more distant and primeval moment in your experience, before all the complications of life eclipsed it. When you perform this mantra to remember distant moments of your past, you sequentially strip away the superfluous aspects of the personality to arrive at the simplicity of childhood, whereby the tendencies for much of our current, everyday life originated. Raom Gaom is great for when you first wake up. But if you still struggle to remember dreams with facility, then you might want to consider using Abracadabra as well. Prolong and sing the mantra with all of your being. 
The Ma Ma, Pa Pa, Ba Ba Mantra
There is another series of mantras to help access memories, especially from one’s childhood. They are the mantras Ma Ma, Pa Pa.
These sacred sounds are the first syllables children pronounce. The letter M relates to water and the Divine Mother. The consonant P relates to the Latin Pater, the Divine Father. The vowel A activates the pulmonary chakras, related to past life memories. When children are born, they breathe and cry, since their lungs and chakras come into activity. People ignore why children really cry at birth. We often have a very simplistic view of children, that somehow as adults, we possess greater intelligence and understanding and that children are helpless. In reality, children are conscious, intuitive, awake. They have not been acculturated into society because they have not yet developed a personality. Their Essence is present and alert, since the world has not yet conditioned their capacities for novelty and imagination. In such moments of birth, children can remember their past lives and how they are now reborn. Therefore it is very unpleasant to remember one’s past mistakes and sufferings with the foreknowledge that such circumstances will repeat in a new cycle. Such memories are part of the consciousness, which process and manifest themselves in the form of images. The perception of internal imagery, as we previously explained, has been known by the terms imagination or clairvoyance. Such memories come into activity when we are born because of the pulmonary chakras, the vowel A, which we exclaim whenever we are born into this world. We do not remember such primitive moments because of acculturation, experience, personality, and the gradual sleep of our consciousness throughout time. However, if we wish to remember our dreams and access greater insights into them, it is necessary to reactivate our lost powers. Jesus stated in the Gospels to become like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven. This does not mean we become naïve and defenseless. It signifies that we reactivate our work memory, that we resurrect the internal images and abilities of our infancy that have been submerged within our subconsciousness. Such capacities are encoded within our psychological energy and are referenced as atoms, not in the literal sense, but as forces and principles that need to be stimulated and manifested again. Here is what Samael Aun Weor had to say about this practice: …the syllables Ma Ma, Pa Pa, Ba Ba are the first syllables that we articulate in childhood. You can start the initiation with these syllables. You must sing these syllables while assuming an innocent and infantile attitude. You can learn the intonation of these sacred syllables when listening to The Magic Flute of Mozart.
We included a link here to the scene in The Magic Flute of Mozart where the mantras Ma Ma Pa Pa are sung. The innocence and purity of childhood is beautifully reflected in this opera. I highly recommend you listen to it to understand the quality of such a state.
I will also pronounce these mantras for your use now:
Mmmaaaaaaaaa Mmmaaaaaaaaa, Paaaaaaaaa Paaaaaaaaa, Baaaaaaaaa, Baaaaaaaaa
Pronounce them with serenity and happiness, so that your inner child is manifested to your consciousness. 
Dream Journaling
As you start to remember your dreams, it becomes essential that you record them.
The act of recording dreams is significant. Having an accurate record with thorough details regarding each dream, no matter how incoherent or vague, is important for three reasons:
Many dreams might be so complicated, abstract, or disjointed that it becomes difficult to discern what to document. If a dream is hazy, write down whatever general feelings or mood accompany it. You can articulate the thought of idea associated with the dream. If the dream is super crazy and sophisticated, then documenting it with as much detail will help you later in deciphering what it all means. It is better to do more than less, because each entry is a proven record of your psychological states when you go to bed. There might be details of your dreams that seem insignificant, but in reality prove to be crucial later in your analysis. Thoroughly recording your dreams with as much possible detail provides greater data points when assessing, month by month, your general progress in awakening consciousness. It also helps to pay closer attention to what is going on. Plus the act of writing or documenting your ideas, whether on a notepad or an electronic device, goes a long way toward helping your memory be more reliable. You will likely find after adopting this practice that if you stop recording your dreams, it becomes more difficult to remember them, even with a retrospective exercise. It’s good to be consistent with writing dreams down, because any lapse can have medium to long term consequences. We might miss out on really important experiences. Also, any missing piece to our dream yoga discipline can corrode our entire efforts, since all these practices come together to form a cohesive whole. 
Nutrition to Develop Memory
Another method to remember dreams is dietary. It consists of consuming, for breakfast, ground almonds with honey and citrus fruit. These foods are packed with spiritual nutrition to help with work memory and dream recall.
Food not only provides sustenance on a physical, biological level, but spiritual as well. The reason why we are nourished by whole foods is their vital elements, the energies and spiritual forces that help animate our physicality. Ground almonds with honey and citrus fruit are particularly condensed forms of spiritual nutrition, since they are packed with atomic principles for the brain and consciousness. Some things to keep in mind, however. You do not need to make this the only thing you eat for breakfast. It can merely complement your current regiment. Also, if you are allergic to nuts, then you will obviously not be able to eat ground almonds for this dietary stipulation. You can try to consume foods with honey, preferably raw and organic, along with citrus fruit if you can. The better the quality food, the better results. 
The Four Ethers
The spiritual forces that animate our body, as well as make up our food, are known as vital or etheric energy.
Our physical body is constituted by four different forms of ether, some of which play a significant role in the quality of our memories, dream recall, imagination and perception. Similar to an astral body, we even possess a vital body that permeates every atom of our physical body so as to animate it with life. This vehicle has often been shown in Kirlion photography, which was developed to document the living aura of people, animals, plants, and even minerals. Our different ethers determines a lot for us, including the quality of our life, health, perceptions, offspring, and memories. The etheric or vital body is like a solar panel that attracts energy into our physicality every time we go to sleep. One reason why we leave in the astral body every time we sleep is so that the vital body can repair the physical body from its daily activities. Once we return and awake in bed, the vital body is done rejuvenating the physical body. The quality of our etheric vehicle determines dream recall. The vital body is an intermediary between our physical life and the astral body. It is like a conduit or channel whereby our internal values can express out into the world. It also, like a mirror, can reflect internal imagery into our consciousness, if it is polished, maintained, and clean. If our etheric body is sick or polluted from harmful behaviors or substances, then it cannot clearly transmit information and memories into our physical brain. This is why we are very careful in our studies regarding what we eat, drink, and, most importantly, think. The quality of our minds determines a lot for our spiritual well being. This is why we work, through the path of initiation, to purify our psychological environment, our mind, so that we can access the internal worlds with more frequency, profundity, and clarity. There are four ethers. Let us relate how Samael Aun Weor described them: The Vital Body is constituted of four ethers:
These ethers are graded on a spectrum, from more base and coarse to more subtle and refined. The ethers associated with our biology and reproductive abilities are obviously the most basic and material. The ethers associated with our sensorial perceptions, imagination and willpower are more abstract and synthetic. While our biology plays a part in how we perceive physically through our organs, the superior two ethers help energize and catalyze our very being in the physical and internal worlds. They are the fuel that animate the car of both our physical and astral bodies, allowing for that relationship to even exist between them.
While the two inferior ethers drive our physical body, the two superior ethers can be separated and imprinted within our astral body through the process of initiation (See The Secret Path of Initiation). This allows the astral body to better retain and transmit our dream memories to our physical body when we awake from rest. Let us continue with Samael Aun Weor: I learned to liberate the two superior ethers in order to travel with them far away from the physical body during the Second Initiation of the Fire.
If your etheric body is healthy and you conserve its vital energies, then the thread that connects your astral body with your physical brain will become enlivened and strong. This way, you will have greater bandwidth and processing of internal experiences within your physical body, so that you don’t forget anything.
The Maiden of Memories
Samael Aun Weor builds off the two superior ethers in his explanation of the Maiden of Memories. She is part of our unique, idiosyncratic divinity, our Being. She is part of us, and also the divine.
Some people get hung up over the idea that there are parts to the Being, or that divinity is male or female. Do not think of parts as some kind of disassociated fragments, but rather constitutive principles and forces that exist within an infinitude of expression. They can be characterized as having either masculine or feminine characteristics. Together they form our perfect Being. When Arjuna asked Krishna to show him His true form, Krishna manifested as an army of people of diverse appearances. A rabbi in the Midrash (or Jewish biblical commentary) related that when divinity spoke to Moses and the Israelites, His laws and commandments were pronounced all at once in a cacophony of voices, which were too powerful and overwhelming to experience. Therefore, the divine unity always manifests as a multiplicity. The Maiden of Memories is one such expression that seeks to help us remember our dreams. She is described as salient, a sapient soul (sapience referring to authentic wisdom). She thrives within our two superior ethers and can be consciously utilized to enter with us in our astral projections, so that she can help us retain our dream experiences and remember the wisdom we receive in the internal worlds. Here is an explanation and practice from Samael Aun Weor to work with the Maiden of Memories: The sapient Soul expresses herself within these two [superior] ethers. She is the beloved Maiden of our Memories. When seen clairvoyantly, this Maiden looks like a beautiful lady within the Ethereal Body.
We previously explained the mantras La Ra S, which we not only use for conscious astral projections, but also to work with our Maiden of Memories. Pronounce the mantras aloud at first. Then whisper them. Finally, pronounce them in the mind as you fall asleep, meditating and praying.
The Primary Colors and Memory
There are other reasons why we might not remember dreams.
In our lecture on Overcoming Obstacles to Astral Projection, we talked about decorating our homes with the three primary colors: blue, yellow, and red. These represent the three primary, spiritual forces characterized by Affirmation (the Father), Negation (the Son), and Reconciliation (the Holy Spirit). These creative forces permeate all of existence, down to the level of the atom up to the magnitude of a galaxy. Even the three forces can relate to the proton, electron, and neutron, respectively. You might already realize this, but colors have profound significance in dreams. Lighter, happier, and pleasing colors bear positive connotations. Dark, shadowy, or foreboding colors set a negative precedent. Neutral colors are indifferent in dreams. Bold reds can signify lust and passion. Luminous white can indicate psychological purity. Now our brain is a receptacle for spiritual forces. Such forces are characterized in the internal worlds by colors. Our vital body can be illuminated by a beautiful spectrum of color. This is why Tibetan Buddhism refers to the perfected vital vehicle as the Rainbow Body of Liberation. When our brain is energized, manifesting a wide range of colors within the vital body, then internal memories are easier to retrieve. Just as light refracts due to moisture in the air so as to form a rainbow, likewise when we work with the waters of our creative energies, spiritual light refracts and forms a healthy vital aura related to the rainbow. Light, when perfected through spiritual practice, augments into many varieties and colors. The same principle applies to our vital body. Sometimes such vital values, represented by distinct colors, are absent within the student. Other times those vital values are spent outwardly within a materialistic lifestyle rather than being conserved through a spiritual discipline. Likewise, people can forget their dreams due to the overall lack of brain health, which can result from bad habits. There are ways to heal the brain so that we can remember all our dreams. One can petition to the spiritual masters of the higher worlds who are responsible for universal medicine, who can visit sick patients within the internal worlds. They work through the Temple of Alden in the astral world. Some of them are renowned in our own history: Hermes, Hippocrates, and Paracelsus are just a few initiates who spent their lives healing people, both physically and internally. They will often appear like terrestrial doctors, whereby they will place you in a chair underneath a light with the three primary colors. This apparatus allows them to examine your internal bodies so that they can diagnose and treat you. Let us reference what Samael Aun Weor had to say about this problem and how to remedy it: 
Also, there exists within the Gnostic Church a lens with which the colors of the disciple can be examined. When the disciple does not carry all of his complete colors, then he cannot bring the memories into his body. Many times, due to daily preoccupations, these colors remain within the physical body. One must perform this action filled with faith, kneeling, praying to heaven, and begging to be heard. Certainly, the material part of the letter is burned, yet the Astral counterpart goes directly to the hands of the Master to whom the letter is meant. Thus, the Master reads the Astral counterpart of the letter and then proceeds to heal the disciple. —Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of Beelzebub: “The Elixir of Long Life”
You can perform this last practice if everything else is failing you, or if you just want to be sure to remember everything you dream. Incense is important, because frankincense is a spiritual aroma that attracts positivity and the help of the masters.
Some people wonder how a burnt letter can get into the hands of a spiritual master. People might wonder why the masters can’t just use Google. In truth, our prayers, amplified through frankincense, deliver the astral contents of our message. This is much more reliable and profound than sending an email. In fact, it is transformative and moving, especially since a hand written letter is more personal and sincere. Likewise, not all of these masters are incarnated. Therefore, the best way to reach them is through the best search engine: meditation. After performing this practice, you have to be patient for the results, because it takes time to heal ourselves. With practice, you might even have an experience where the master you petitioned appears to you internally using the three primary colors to examine your astral body. Exercises
We will now conclude with practices.
At this point, I would like to open up the floor to questions. Questions and Answers
Question: At least in one state or layer of astral projection, there appears to be three kinds of people. There are people who walk around and do not notice me floating above them. If I approach them, or try to interact with them, they do not notice me, or barely notice something (usually a small child). Then there is another group who also walks around and sees me but do not interact. They seem to be on a mission of some sort. The third group are people who like me float around and seem to be discovering their state or whereabouts. They see me and I see them.
The question is, what are the possible differences between these groups and who the initiates should try to contact or interact with? Instructor: Obviously there are a lot of different kinds of people within the world. Most people when they enter the astral dimension do so unconsciously. People who wander the astral plane usually are merely repeating their daily life. Someone who has never trained their consciousness to be awake through the Key of SOL (Subject, Object, Location), will not be aware when their physical body is either asleep or deceased. Plato had said that a man is known by his dreams. If we go to bed and eight hours pass and we do not see anything, it means we are not conscious in the objective sense. Most people are like this. The astral world is often just a repetition of one’s physical existence. So if you work at a bar or serve as a teacher, such people will repeat their occupations within the dreaming state, but they will not be aware of it. But there are people who you can recognize in the astral dimension who are awake. You can see it through their eyes. Descartes said that the eyes are the windows of the soul. Clairvoyantly in the astral dimension, you can look at the eyes of an individual to determine their state, their level of being, their quality. It’s an intuitive process. You have to be very sharp and alert. There are beings who, like us, are trying, people across the globe who want to awaken within dreams, so they are applying these techniques and are getting results. So you can run into many people internally who are part of, say, the Gnostic movement, or other traditions and religions who are being conscious, and you can recognize them by interacting with them. The difference between them is obviously people who train and people who don’t. I don’t recommend spending a lot of trying to wake up people who are really unconscious, who don’t make the effort to know themselves. Samael Aun Weor related an experience how he tried to wake up a person in the astral plane who did not have any type of training. He was with a high master of the White Lodge who attempted with him to stimulate the consciousness of this individual through a spiritual transference of force, because the masters of the White Lodge can provide assistance in that way. They give you a type of light or force, kind of like fanning a fire in order to awaken some sparks, some recognition that one is dreaming. Obviously, someone who has no fire, no light, the firewood is damp, is dead, is dense. It won’t light, and so this master told Samael Aun Weor, “Don’t waste your time. This person is too asleep.” However, people who are working in the physical world to awaken internally are developing fire in themselves. We know from his teachings that one should work with the creative energies of sexuality through exercises like pranayama, sexual alchemy, the perfect matrimony. By working with the fire of our spirituality, the creative force, we awaken sparks and flames, so that it is easier to awaken internally. No fire, no light. So the initiates and the masters do have a preference. They like to work with people who have some semblance of sincerity, who are trying to change in themselves so that they can really better themselves and humanity. It is good to interact with masters internally. It is the best use of our time, not trying to appease lunar people. Question: I rarely understand what my dreams mean and therefore struggle to motivate myself to remember dreams or perform dream yoga. What do you recommend? Instructor: It’s difficult. We talk a lot about spiritual nights where we lack motivation to really do what is in our best interest, spiritually speaking. It can be difficult to motivate ourselves if we feel depressed and we don’t get the results we want. Or we have many dreams that we don’t understand. I think the solution, especially for motivation, is prayer and remembrance. We have to remember those spiritual and psychological states that pushed us to even study this in the first place. Obviously, any person who approaches Gnosticism or dream yoga has had some type of experience, however fleeting, vaporous, abstract, or enigmatic. If we reflect on those moments and reflect on why it is we want to study dream yoga, we can in turn inflame our heart, especially by connecting through prayer to our Being. We have to remember divinity, to remember the presence of the divine. A lot of people might not have had a dream about that or an experience, but in our daily states, perhaps in childhood when we were young and uncorrupted, we tasted that. We tasted what it means to be awakened, to be able to see a mountain in the grain of sand, or through our imagination, to see an ocean in a droplet. There is a type of spontaneity and profound joy that we knew when we were young. In truth, many of us when we were young had very lucid dreams. That might be the reason why a lot of people approach these studies. With age, acculturation, and time, our experiences as an adult often obscure or smother those remembrances. So it is very difficult to even understand our dreams or to be motivated to want to remember them because we are so hypnotized. The mantras we gave earlier, such as Ma Ma, Pa Pa, Ba Ba, as well as Abracadabra, are very powerful for motivation, especially the former, Ma Ma, Pa Pa, Ba Ba. If you struggle to remember your dreams or to be motivated, make the sincere effort by praying to your Divine Mother and working with that mantra. Remember your childhood. Remember what it was like to be awake. Those experiences, when they come to you in meditation, are so profound that they will change your life and what you thought you knew about yourself, about your family, about humanity. When you see those images emerge from within your subconsciousness with that practice, you realize that truly one can enter the kingdom of heaven by becoming like a little child, by recapturing and reconquering that state. So I recommend working with that. When you recognize those superior states of consciousness, you realize that there is more to life than what our television shows, our popular media, our social media would have us believe. There are profound realities that are far beyond our current grasp. In that way, you will be more motivated. You will try harder because you want to experience that. The meanings of dreams unfold even after many years of practice. Some dreams you can experience and understand immediately. But the more you reconquer your intuition, those infantile forces that reside within the subconsciousness, the easier it becomes to access and to push ourselves further in this path. Question: Do you have an experience or insight into what being attacked by a dark entity is like, to the point of feeling your heart or soul being crushed inside of a lucid dream? This experience has not left me since I was a child. Instructor: Yeah. There’s a lot of entities out there. Not all of them are good, but there are ways to protect yourself. Study our course Spiritual Self-Defense. We gave many exercises and practices that you can use to defend yourself spiritually, not only in dreams but also physically, such as preparing your home for meditation, creating a spiritual space to meditate, to perform dream yoga, etc. Don’t be discouraged by such experiences because whenever any negative entity tries to impede our development, it is because we are making some progress. Often times students get pulled away from these studies because of fear. They do not want to experience again being attacked. But that is merely just giving them what they want, and in fact, those beings have little power compared to your divinity. So the practices we gave in that course help invoke the presence of our inner Being so that while awake and clear and alert, we know how to effectively deal with problems. Therefore they just become a little annoying rather than a tremendous sense of terror and uncertainty. Question: This is the first time I have heard about the three primary colors. Can you explain how these came to be? Instructor: Think of light. Light exists in a spectrum, such as the three primary colors and its gradations such as in the rainbow. Light is a metaphor and a quality of being, of divinity. Wherever there is light, there is consciousness. Light, even in quantum mechanics, is known to possess intelligence. Light particles make decisions. Likewise our consciousness is a form of light. The root of that light, that direct perception, that seeing without conditions, is divine. We reference the three primary colors because in a cosmological sense our own particular light, our own spark of divinity, unfolds and enters the world to have experiences, to develop and mature. In the process of the creation of any universe, we can say in a metaphorical sense, that light divides and becomes three, the three primary forces which have been characterized by every single religion throughout the world. The Christians call them the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Other religions have different names, but we use the three primary colors to symbolize or represent those principles that are within us. Those principles have to be activated through dream yoga. So in our dream yoga exercises we are training the consciousness, training ourselves to be present, alert, and aware. In the process, we develop our full potential. It’s a very deep topic. It’s not easy to synthesize in a few sentences. But if you study some of the writings of Samael Aun Weor, especially Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, you will get a good sense about what does it mean to develop light, and especially his book The Great Rebellion and The Perfect Matrimony, he talks a lot about the divine origins of the soul. These are represented by the three primary colors, which we use to qualify parts of our Being. In our vital body, if we are very awake and alert, especially within the internal worlds, we can directly experience the different energies and colors of that vehicle. So they can relate to the three primary colors and the health of our physical brain as well. Question: Is it possible for someone or something to affect me? I had a dream of three old women who were pressing their thumbs into my forehead (the third eye location), saying that they were locking something in me. Was it a real attack on me or not? How do I know? Instructor: Follow your heart. What does your heart tell you? I know a lot of times people are filled with doubt and uncertainty about what they experience. But the way to interpret our inner visions is done through the heart, through intuition. You do not need to think about it. You can discern and comprehend the experience, but it is not an intellectual exercise. Intuition works through hunches, and a lot of dreams that are very impactful or real have a very profound effect. They hit harder than other dreams. Now witches and black magicians or negative entities can try to affect our energies in our physical and internal bodies. So it is possible to that this is a very real experience. Only you can really judge and ascertain that. If you want to be sure and secure and to protect yourself from such influences, you can practice certain prayers in our tradition that we use like in the course we mentioned (Spiritual Self-Defense). They’re called the Conjurations and the Invocation of Solomon. Glorian Publishing provided some videos about that too, but in our lectures and in our course, we do go into a lot of detail about how to protect yourself, but also how to know if you’re being attacked. You got to evaluate your psychological states too. What elements are surging in you in response to the event? Are you experiencing any abnormalities in your daily life? Maybe health related issues, maybe psychological issues, maybe obsessions, maybe fears, unexplained terrors, different emotions, qualities of your psychology that feel very overwhelming. So those are ways that you can ascertain that maybe something is wrong and that you need to take precautions. Part of our dream yoga discipline too is we do a lot of these prayers and invocations before we go to bed. We learn to protect our home through a seal of magical protection provided by our inner divinity. So we gave explanations of those practices in that course. I recommend that you study it and apply them. Comment: I’ve found that if I try to write my dreams as soon as possible, just in the mere process of writing them I recall more and more. I have tried remaining still, but sometimes my mind begins to think and wander, or other times I just feel too lazy and fall back asleep. Not sure if this is a question about this part, but I would like to hear your views on this if any. Instructor: That’s been my experience too, is that writing dreams down helps to remember them more. There is something about the act of writing, whether physically on paper or on an electronic device, that concretizes or solidifies those abstract moments in dreams into something material. It helps to remember, so it is very useful. So it is good to combine this with retrospection and Raom Gaom. Question: Tying back to the earlier question about being attacked by three old women or witches, can I undo that harm? I felt like they predicted my death. Instructor: Yes. There are many ways to undo works of black magic, so there is no need to fear them. Yes, there is a way to protect yourself but also take away any negative harm done unto oneself, whether visible or invisible. Question: I actually remember dreams better when I move upon awakening little by little. What might this indicate? Instructor: It means your memory is stronger. There are levels of intensity of forgetfulness and remembrance. Some people have a very fragile dream memory, which is the case for a lot of people. So you may find that upon awakening you can remember more even after moving because your dream recall is stronger. Some people can remember dreams more accurately, more easily. The connection between your astral vehicle and your physical brain is stronger. Some people don’t have that luxury because of abuse, of wrong behaviors, bad diet, poor psychological habits. So you’re in a good spot, but I suggest that if you really want to go deeper and to remember more, try this exercise. Don’t move. See what it can provide you. Question: How do you get past the vibrational stage? I woke up in the middle of sleeping with the middle of my spine feeling like it was contorting up and I felt vibrations in the palms of my hands Instructor: Some people when they’re dreaming are psychic and sensitive. You might have perceptions within your physical body even that are metaphysical. They’re not normal. You may feel vibrations or sensations. You can even see images, hear mystical sounds even while being partially awake on the threshold of wakefulness and dreaming. You can hear different sounds from the internal worlds manifesting in your physicality. My suggestion is that when you experience such states to not get identified with them. These things are very temporary. As you’re practicing dream yoga, because you’re working with the vital as well as the astral bodies, you start to get more sensitive to energy. Sometimes because of the changes in the vital body, especially because you’re working with the two superior ethers, you are learning to create a new type of dynamic within yourself. So sometimes that can manifest within different types of sensations in the body, where you just sense and see things, and even feel them. They’re not indicative of long-term progress. Neither of them are indicative of any type of harm. They are just phenomena that happen. Some people experience very different things. The important thing is, don’t get identified. Don’t limit yourself to being obsessed with that phenomena, with repeating it or with hiding from it. If you observe yourself and learn to practice meditation, you can be unattached to anything. I recommend you practice meditation as taught within the course Meditation Essentials by Glorian Publishing. It’s a very good course that will teach you how to develop equanimity, serenity, dispassion. Whenever something of this type happens, you observe it as it is and watch it. Observe it. Examine it. The more you examine such states, the more you will find their roots. Your consciousness will show you in meditation, your divinity will show you in meditation, the origin of this phenomenon. It can be related to the vital body, as I said. It may be something deeper. You will have to explore. Question: Are there any plants that you recommend to assist in dream memory retention? Instructor: It’s a good question! I was preparing this lecture and remembering a little bit about the book Igneous Rose by Samael Aun Weor where he talks a lot about elemental magic. He talks a lot about the relationship between the aloe plant and retrospection meditation, but also reincarnation. He explains in that chapter how the soul of the elementals of the aloe plant are intimately related with reincarnation and he hints that there is a connection between that and memory. In order to remember your past lives, you perform a retrospective exercise like we explained with any of the mantras we provided already. However, the aloe plant is a very powerful soul. It attracts a lot of positive energies and vibrations within our home. It’s good to possess an aloe plant for many reasons. It helps oxidize the environment. It helps attract spiritual force, solar light, within the internal worlds. What’s remarkable about the aloe plant is that if you practice with the soul of the plant, there’s things that the elemental can teach you about your past lives, about reincarnation, and about remembering. I know I included a lot of exercises for remembering our childhood. The reason being is that if you’re memory is strong and you can remember obscure moments in your infancy, you will be very equipped to remember your dreams.
The mantra for the elemental of the aloe is the letter M. You prolong it, singing it. You can pray to the aloe plant, “Help me to remember myself. Provide me with spiritual support. Teach me about the mysteries of reincarnation.” You can meditate and fall asleep, imagining the plant to the point that you see within the internal worlds the soul of the plant. You can speak to the elemental. They often appear like children with little tunics of different colors. In a way, by working with this elemental, you are accessing a part of yourself that is subconscious and relates to memory. They can teach you things related to memory, what it means to remember. That is one recommendation.
Any other questions? OK. If there are no other questions, we will conclude. I really appreciate the turnout. We will continue with this lecture series next month. So I thank you all for coming!
1 Comment
Adam
7/23/2022 09:51:03 pm
Some people may lack motivation to remember dreams because they do not know how to interpret them: Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
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