## Carlos Castaneda Interviews and Articles

### Dreaming Techiniques - 1995

Some general hints and tips on Dreaming techniques.
(c) 1994, 1995 by Ian Mapleson. Second edition.
Send all comments, suggestions, and extra tips and info to be added to: mapleson@cee.hw.ac.uk
Ian.
Important note: For more detailed info on all things discussed here, read the books written by Carlos Castaneda (CC for short). These are:
1. The Teachings of Don Juan, A Yaqi Way of Knowledge,
2. A Separate Reality,
3. Journey to Ixtlan,
4. Tales of Power,
5. The Fire Within,
6. The Eagles Gift,
7. The Second Ring of Power,
8. The Power of Silence,
His latest book is:
9. The Art of Dreaming.
There might be a tenth book called, 'The Art of Stalking'. We shall see.
By the way, if you end up reading them, note that the first book is very 'scientific' and TOTALLY unlike the others. This is because book 1 is basically his thesis-in-a-book.
Actually, the above books are about a hell of a lot more than just dreaming, but if it's dream techniques you're after, these are the books to go for, especially books 6 and 9. A good method I would recommend is to read the books in a random order and then to read them again in the published order. The reason for this is difficult to explain unless you've read the books, so I won't bother to explain. :)
Also, if you are female, there are books available now written by female members of the group of people Carlos was with; these will probably contain info that is especially relevant to you. As it happens, females can do this sort of stuff much easier than males, in some ways. A girl I've only known for a year has been doing this stuff for just that long, since I met her (I lent her the books.
Now she owns her own copies). But, already, she can do stuff that I couldn't do even after 5 years! :D
It's not that CC's books are not for females, they are for both sexes, but I suspect that the new books will probably have info that female Dreamers will find more understandable because of the way it is presented perhaps. The archetypes will be different, and so on. I can't say for sure because I haven't read the new books, though I certainly intend to.
This file mainly consists of my answers to peoples' questions about Dreaming (I capitalise the word because that's what I am, a Dreamer. The term is defined in Carlos' books; there's not space to define it here - too complex) that occurred during email conversations which resulted from people who were posting to alt.games.doom about them getting dreams about Doom after playing the game for long periods; some people wanted to know how to control the dreams, etc.; as it turned out, every single person who emailed me for info, in response to my offer for said, was actually interested in dreaming skills and altered perceptional states anyway, and so I began to construct this file, to pool together the results of these conversations. As it stands, this file isa the result of chatting to about 10 different people.
Here we go! :)
(NB: sorry if sometimes the same point is repeated; it often helps to have the same thing written down in a different way, so I've left such instances in)
> Dreams: I've been pretty delinquent in this area. I know a few techniques, namely keeping a dream journal and some stuff to work toward lucid dreaming, but I haven't been doing the work :-( ...
That's stage one. Scrap the journal. Only use mental recall to remember.
(Insert: actually, Carlos kept a complete written record of everything he did. For some people, then, this method might work well. What I say here about keeping written records is a generality. This applies to all that I say here. If a specific description of something doesn't work or give useful results, then try something else, vary the parameters, sleep on your head if need be! Experiment.
Little of what I say here is completely concrete - it is just stuff that applies to the majority of people and has worked for me fairly well)
> ... I will get to it, though. What sorts of stuff do you do? What kinds of things does Casteneda prescribe? I haven't
Yeek, where do I begin??
Well, time control, dream-integrity control (maintaining dream stability), dreaming skills (you name it!
Flying, teleporting, TK, PK, the lot).
Lucid dreaming is fairly boring and mild compared with the skills learned in Castanedan stuff.
For example, try going to sleep with the intent that you will dream that you are lying down on some surface (say comfortable moss) in the same posture that you are in when you go to bed.
Then, you have to intend that when this occurs, you will dream that you fall asleep AGAIN, only this time you will dream-dream that you can get up, move about, do whatever.
For some reason, you end up in a perceptual state which is FAR more real than lucid dreaming (one I had honestly felt like it lasted 3 days. I was only asleep 8 hours!), and far clearer and easier to control.
This can lead to problems of keeping track of which dreaming level you're in though. Gotta be careful there! :)
Actually, the above is a pretty advanced technique, so you might not want to try it at first.
Do some of the other simple things first.
General tips though are things that you intend you will do not do when dreaming.
Examples:
- don't stare at one particular spot for very long. Look via glances, look here, look there. Never stare at anything for more than a moment. If you do, the dream will start to collapse; at least, it will when you're a beginner. When you get better at Dreaming, you can hold a dream together by sheer will alone, but that's a waste of energy - better just to not stare at things too long anyway.
- if a dream starts to collapse, it can help if you ram your hands into whatever dream surface is available and claw it to shreds. This maintains a perceptual contact with the dream world and helps to stop it collapsing. I scragged a road in a dream and it stopped the dream collapsing. A useful technique, but it gets superceded later by better will.
- Anything shouted in a dream is a command. This is very difficult to remember. If you are in a tight spot, and you want out or something, shout something like 'I intend that I have a BFG!' and PAFF!
You'll have one! Then you can start blasting! Works for me! I haven't had nightmares in years.
Anything comes near me in a dream and I just blow the crap out of it! :D
- This is the most DIFFICULT thing to remember: in a dream, you can do ANYTHING, but to know you can do something, you have to have done it. Rats. Catch 22. However, if you keep intending that you will do a thing, eventually your reason gives in and it will work. Dream flying is a good example. The first time you get a good one, you'll be blissfully delighted when you wake up! The thing to remember is that dream skills are just like any other skill. Start off small and work your way up. And practice, practice, practice... :)
I use the Castanedan books because, so far, they have matched my prior experience. The Castandean system is just a perceptual model, but it is very flexible and can cover quite a large area of experience, via the use of a concept known as the 'Assemblage Point' (the 'point' where perception is 'assembled').
> Ahh.... You're into Lucid Dreaming? I am too. But I don't know the technique yet.
Hmm... a few tips then:
1. Try getting reeeeeeeally knackered and then going to sleep (like, stay up for 36 hours, for instance). What can often happen is that one's body goes to sleep but ones mind does not - excellent dreams result and often those known as OOBE's (out of body experiences) as well. I've had many. They're great fun! :) They can be a bit scary too, but you get used to that.
2. Try focusing on something before you go to bed. eg. get hold of a photo of a pleasant landscape, sit down and stare at it for 10 to 15 mins before turning out the lights. Then, as you're lying there, will intend imagine that, when you fall asleep, you will be in such a place. Good dreamers can return again and again to the same place. I have one or two. One has a sea that is actually blue! (I mean the water is genuinely blue, like the colour of copper sulphate; no idea why! :D).
Actually, no reason why you couldn't use a Doom editor to construct a cool landscape, minus monsters, etc., and run about that in the game for half an hour before going to bed.
Eventually, you'll dream of being in that place.
3. Try not thinking. To not think, that is. VERY difficult to do. Takes much practice. If you can manage this, lucid dreams are practically guaranteed. Try it now! Right now! Try not thinking of ANYTHING at ALL! Not a word! Zippo! Bet you can't do it. The idea here is to relax your mind's 'attention' on the everyday mundane world, so that it can more easily enter a dreaming state. What you do is get yourself in a non-thinking state when you go to bed and then you have to 'watch' for the moment you fall asleep, that is, be aware of that moment. At first, when you try this, you'll tend to 'snap' back away from actually falling asleep, you'll sortof wakeup with a start. This is because you're simply not used to being aware of the moment you fall asleep! Eventually, with practice, you can be aware of the moment in a way that doesn't prevent you actually falling asleep. And so you're asleep, but you're concious! At this stage, you can initiate a dream about whatever you like! You name it! :)
Note that this technique IS very difficult to do at first, so don't expect instant results.
If you do it right, the time sense of the dream can be controlled as well. This can be very confusing if you decide to 'dream' of something which lasts a long time. The longest continuous such dream I've had lasted 3 days subjective time - in fact, I was only asleep for about 8 hours. Bizarre! But a lot of fun!
Gives you a sense of having made up for lost time.
4. Try relaxation excercises. Many are available from books on Yoga. One particularly good exercise is described in a book called 'Magic Mirrors', available from the Sorcerers' Apprentice, in Leeds, England.
5. Try lying on your front or back, or basically going to sleep NOT on your side. If you normally go to sleep on your front/back, try sleeping on your side instead. The idea here is to upset ones normal routine. The Carlos books recommend lying on one's front, but I find this difficult. Lying on my back always seems to get me some good dreams, but not everybody is the same. Experiment.
6. A dream within a dream.
Warning! This can be rather confusing if you don't mentally keep track of what's going on! :D
The idea here is to have a dream within a dream. It's done by intending that this will occur. The most powerful technique is to become aware that you're dreaming, by whatever method, and, in that dream, deliberately lie down (in the SAME posture that you're in in your actual bed) and fall 'asleep' AGAIN. The second level of dreaming you enter will be so real you will NOT be able to tell the difference from reality, as far as quality of image, smell, taste, touch, hearing, etc, is concerned, if it's working well. Thus, you have to keep an eye on what 'level' of dreaming you're in. I wouldn't want to contemplate what would happen if you entered a 3rd level - two is fine enough for me thanks very much! :D
One time when I was in one such state, eventually I woke up, got up, went to the kitchen, pottered about a bit feeling that something wasn't quite as it should be and then woke up again. This can get confusing, especially if it happens by accident, which it can if you were tired and not concentrating when you went to sleep in the first place.
7. Dream abilities.
Coupla key concepts here:
You can do ANYTHING in a dream. That's so important I'll say it again!
A N Y T H I N G!!!
Trouble is, in order for you to be able to do something, you have to know that you can do it! Oh dear. Catch 22. Well, almost! :)
Basically, some things are easier to do than others, so what you do is intend that you will do (or be able to do) a particular thing, repeatedly, night after night. A good example is flying (my forte :).
Every time you hit the sack, intend that you will fly in your dream. It probably won't work at first, but eventually your brain mind whatever gives in and whooosh! Off you go! My best dreams have been flying types. I often zoom over a landscape of some kind, whilst shouting such things as (and this is a quote) 'Yeeeeaaaaahooooo! I don't beLIEVE how fucking REAL this is! Waaaaheeeee!'. That one was a particularly nice one. Lots of rolling hills, quiet villages, etc.
The key is to remember that you can do anything at all. The bummer is trying to recall that you can do a particular thing when you need to be able to do it in a dream. Dream abilities are JUST like ordinary abilities: they take practice. Such abilities include (these are my own, at varying degrees of effectiveness):
Flight, invisibility, PK, TK, vision-zoom, teleport, item-summoning.
That last one means that you intend that a particular thing will appear and, as a result, POW! It does. I've done this with a BFG in a dream. Got into a sticky situation in a Doom type dream, demanded that a BFG appear, it did, hence much imp butt was kicked. :)
Start off with easy things and work up. Flying is a good to begin with 'cos it's fun! (especially if the dream appears real enough).
On the subject of dream-flying: believe it or not, the "Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" books are remarkably accurate on how to do it; i.e. in a dream, it's not so much a case of learning how to 'get your feet off the ground', it's more a case of learning to forget how to keep one's feet ON the ground.
:) Douglas is into this stuff, I'm sure; there are so many things in Hitch Hikers that sound like stuff from the Castaneda's books, it's ridiculous! S.E.P. fields... :) (stands for Somebody Else's Problem).
8. Commands.
This is tricky to get used to because it's powerful and works very well. Basically, anything you shout say in a dream is a command. That is, anything you 'announce' to the dream environment kinda becomes instant law, as it were. I use the expression 'I intend that... >whatever>'. For instance, in one dream, I was investigating something or other in a shopping mall. Someone was approaching and so I said 'I intend that I am invisible.' Bingo! I'm invisible! :)
The geek in question just walked on by. Never saw me at all (of course, there's no way to tell whether I was invisible from the person's point of view or whether I directly intended that the character wouldn't see me (such that someone else I hadn't noticed would still be able to).
Incidentally, it might seem a little odd that I describe these things as if, when the dream is occuring, the things one experiences are actually happening; more about this in a minute).
Commands don't have to be worded this way, though. If what you say has the intent within it anyway, then it will work just fine. A classic, if rather Doom-esque example, is during a combat situation in a dream I once had: some bad guy comes at me, so I point my finger at him and shout 'DIE!'. He did. Nyeheheh.... :)
9. Dream recall.
When you wake up, the most important thing to do is to remember what you dreamed, to recall it.
Ever tried to recall a word that's on the tip of your tongue? Exactly WHAT is it that you are doing when you do this? What are you feeling when you try to remember? Well, that's what you gotta do to recall a dream. Remember. Recall. It's difficult to describe because, in western languages, there is no word for it at all. It's only in other cultures such as the Aboriginal Dreamtime that such concepts are given names, gestures, etc. This just goes to show how little western cultures care about one third of their lives! :D (think about it: you will spend about 23 YEARS of your existence asleep).
In the system given in the Castanedan books, one would say that, to remember a dream, one has to 'move the assemblage point to where it was when you dreamed - whatever it was that you dreamed - when you dreamed it'. Yeah, I know that doesn't make much sense; you'll just have to read the books to understand that one. Sorry! :)
Anyway, to recall a dream, one way is to just sit on the bed for a few minutes, eyes closed, and try to recall what happened. Tips: if you can only remember fragments, try working remembering backwards from a point in the dream and then forwards again, etc. This helps to 'fill in the gaps', rather like repeatedly painting over the same patch of wall with a brush: each swipe fills over a little more.
If you don't remember much, be aware that, at some point during the day, a brief image of the dream may suddenly pop into your head (at work, in the loo, wherever). If this happens, stop what you're doing (if possible. :) and exploit the moment - try and recall what you can. This can often occur because of something in the real world that 'triggers' the memory. When this happens, try alternating back and forth between trying to remember the dream that the real-life event aroused and contemplating the real-life event that was the trigger. It depends on the nature of the trigger itself: it may be a sight, a sound, a smell, anything.
What you should be trying to do is to 're-live' the dream insofar as the feelings you had when you were dreaming. This is especially important for flying dreams - you have to remember what it felt like to fly. Oh, by the way, don't even bother trying to explain to someone what these feelings are like because you won't be able to - this kind of knowledge is called 'Silent Knowledge' in the Castanedan books; i.e. that which cannot be communicated, only experienced. I know what it's like to dream-fly, but there's no way I can describe it; as Spock says to Bones in 'Star Trek III' when Bones is annoyed that Spock refuses to discuss death: 'we lack a common frame of reference'.
I mean, how do you describe to someone what the flavour 'strawberry' is like, to someone who's never tasted it before? You can't. They simply have to try it themselves. Nice little analogy that... :)
You could try and keep a dream diary but I don't bother with this as you can rely on it too much to keep the details of your dreams, instead of trying to improve your own recall dream abilities. I used to use a diary, years ago, but it ends up being like a history book: the diary's contents get relied upon too much as the basis for remembering the details of the dream; something that, at the time, wasn't included becomes forever lost because it's not there in the diary.
On the other hand, unless you deliberately recall remembered dreams every now and then, the details can slip away. So I guess a diary of dream reminders (kinda like pointers) to what happend might be useful; such a reminder for me might be 'InsubZone', which relates to a fairly lengthy adventure dream I had once about parallel dimensional travel. Just that word brings back all the associated memories. If I tried to write down the dream, it would become too much like a hard copy (I will be writing a story based on the drea though, because it was rather good. (see Appendix A). What IS useful is a dream tape. By this I mean that you keep a tape recorder sitting next to your bed, ready to record. What I did was to have the record button pressed, but the power was turned off at the wall. An easily reached switch would then activate the power and start the recording - no mucking about with 'record + play' at the same time, etc.
Thus, when you wake up, start the recording and just blabber away anything you can remember.
The cool thing is that you can do this with the lights still off, which means you won't get the sights and sounds of the new day 'deleting' your dream memory. Then, later, you can play back the tape and use it to help you remember the dream properly. It's all too easy to be able to fully remember a dream just after you've woken up, but hours later the memory has almost gone. Carlos would say this is because one's assemblage point is, just after waking up, still fairly close to where it was when dreaming. Later, though, it's moved away and so one can't remember. Listening to the tape can help bring the memories back, perhaps because your voice will carry what you were feeling at the time quite strongly and it's the feelings that are perhaps most important.
A final word:
This is a little bizarre, this bit, but make of it what you will. When you get good at this kinda stuff, you can have dreams which, if they aren't controlled properly by you, are so damned real that you can't tell the difference between it and 'normal' reality. Ordinary dreams, and even lucid dreams for the most part, tend to such that one is always aware, somewhere at the back of one's mind, that one is just dreaming. But advanced dreams can be different. Like I said, if you have a double dream (dream within a dream) then, if you don't properly keep track of what you're doing and maintain decent control, you can have the disturbing experience of waking up more than once! 8| This has happened to me about 3 times and it's very annoying.
Hence, therefore, and otherwise, when you're doing this stuff (this is the crunch) you have to treat what happens in your dreams as if what is happening is actually real; i.e. you are aware that what you are experiencing is a dream, but you behave as if it were not, in a way. I don't mean literally real, 'cos i.r.l. a lot of what goes on in dreams would be pretty wierd! Here's an example reasn for this:
If you have a nightmare (I don't get these nowadays. Anything nasty that comes near me in a dream gets SPLATTED! :D), and it's an advanced dream (i.e. better than lucid) then the experience will scare the crap outa ya! More than Doom in VR at 10000000 by 10000000 resolution could! Not nice.
Hence, don't arse around in advanced dreams. For the most part, they're mega fun, if a bit scary at first. But if you get hassle in a dream, nuke first and ask questions later! :D
Doom can help. Having clocked up so many hours of Plasma rifling things, you should be able to 'summon' a suitable weapon at any time. Heh heh, 'I intend that I have a chainsaw!
>BZzzzzZZZZT!> >Splurch!>'.
Ha ha! Messy. :)
> I've had 2 lucid dreams. ...
I've had hundreds. Been at this stuff since the mid 80's. One of my best spanned 30 millions years.
Not subjective time, that is, but there was a 'jump' in the dream that was that long - kinda like a vinyl LP being the flow of time and the needle suddenly skips a few places towards the middle. One was watching so one got a damn good idea just how LONG 30 million years really is.
Oh boy... >mind splatted expression>
When I woke up, I staggered into the lounge and told my brother the entire adventure (cool story!
Gonna write it down sometime). He understood. He's been doing this stuff longer than I have.
Anyway, Mum comes in and says 'Would you like a cup of tea?'. A cup of TEA???!!! Ha ha!
I just stared at her like she was the Suez Crisis popping out for a bun or something. :)
My brother just said to her, 'Don't ask Mum, don't ask... >grin>'. Ha ha! :D:D
This was way back in about 1989 I think, btw.
> ... But I got so excited I woke up. :(
This is a common problem. Start small and work your way up.
So why bother with all this stuff? you may ask. For me, there is one simple reason: Humans spend a third (that's right! A THIRD!) of their lives asleep. Consider this simple fact carefully: out of an average 70 year life span, you will spend some 23 YEARS of it asleep! Twenty three fucking YEARS! 8|
Hence, the least you can do is to spend as much of this time having as much fun as you can! :D
Actually, try writing down some time just how much time you spend doing various things: eating, sleeping, cooking, travelling, working, etc. Being asleep comes in at number numero uno! :D
Be/do anything, go anywhere, see anyone, etc. That's dreams for ya.
I once saw a guy on a youth TV show here, years ago, who had had some kind of accident which made it VERY easy for him to do this kinda stuff. Each night, he would have a dream that (as far as he was concerned) lasted some 30 or 40 years, however long he wanted. He would be or do whatever he wanted: film star, space marine :), gangster, president, assassin, 6 foot blonde female Swedish porn star, etc. His real world waking hours were, for him, the actual dream world since they were so few. He looked... distant, to say the least. Freaked the HELL out of the youth presenters!
One of them (ha ha) asked how old he was. He said he couldn't answer the question. They persisted. He said that his physical age was nothing like the actual number of years that he had, as far as he was concerned, been alive for. His dreams were, from his viewpoint, reality. And reality, being so brief and boring, was a dream. The presenter persisted for a rough figure, an estimate. He said 'About 768 years, give or take a few.'. The presenter didn't say very much after that! :D:D:D
It was very funny to watch! :D
There is one aspect to dreams I haven't mentioned and that is sex.
If you get good at Dreaming, you will probably find that, unless you're happily married, etc, you will start to get some pretty hoopy sex-related dreams. How you deal with this is entirely up to you. They can certainly be very enjoyable (obviously. 8), but if you'd actually intended that you were going to do something serious in your dream, like improving your flying abilities, and the dream just goes haywire into a scene with you and 3 babes (or guys if you're a girl, or whatever. :D) then it can be pretty annoying after you wake up, kinda like 'Yeah, that was fun, but a bit of a waste of energy.
They're not real, after all. :/'
Thus, you have two choices:
a. Will that such dreams will never occur.
Probably a bad move as doubtless one would want to have them on occasion, although if you can do it and it doesn't bother you then go ahead.
b. When such a scene begins in a dream, simply leave, etc.
Yeah, like that's gonna work! :D
Trouble with this is, if you're enjoying something in a dream, it can be difficult to stop doing whatever it is that you're doing. Actually, perhaps a good test of control in a dream is to will that some fantasy event occurs and then when it happens summon the control to walk away from it. Doesn't have to be sex related, either; it could be, for some people, thetemptation of binging on food, etc.
c. Compromise.
I find this the best method. Example: Take flying. If I was trying to do some serious dream-flying practice and instead I end up on some dream-beach with The Girl Next Door, then I'd simply intend that she come with me on the dream-flying trip. Those of you who've read the part in the Hitch Hiker series about Arthur and Fenchurch will know what I mean. :)
Then, along the way, depending on how I feel about whether the girl's presence is helping or hindering what I'm trying to accomplish, I either allow the situation to continue or I kindof fade them out, like a scene-change in a movie.
> ... However, there are still a few things fuzzy. When I close my eyes do I keep my concentration on the void, or do I just try to drift off like I normally do? What are some good methods to 'stay aware' when I'm almost asleep?
This is very difficult to describe. You have to want to do a particular thing, without consciously thinking about it. This is difficult to achieve and takes practice. This is basically what is encapsulated within the concept of 'intent'. Trying to remain aware during the transition into sleep is tricky at best.
One tends to start thinking about all sorts of rubbish, from apples to hoovers to mountains playing guitars! :D
Thus the idea of being able to not think. One technique my brother uses is what he calls 'Monitoring your thoughts'. This is where you sort of look at each thing you're thinking, disspationately, kinda like you think something and feel the equivalent of 'Ho hum. Yeah, so what?'. Eventually, your mind gets bored with thinking and quits, because it's not impressing anybody.
All I can suggest is try. It took me weeks to manage, and even now I'm not an expert (partly my own fault. I don't practice enough).
> The only one I know currently is to say something like "I'm aware that I'm dreaming" over and over again.
Hmm, there were some other questions
I think that might be counter productive. Thinking anything deliberately gives your mind something in the real world to 'hang on' to. Thus, when you are about to go to sleep, you wake up!
Dreaming is kinda like riding a bike. You don't really know how you do it, but you do it anyway, right?
I mean, as you're peddling, you don't conciously think 'left foot down, right foot down, left hand pull break...', etc., do you? In a dream, it's a mistake to try and conciously do anything! For example, do not try and walk in a dream with your legs; you'll find it slow and cumbersome. Instead, you have to will that you do a particular thing. The focus of this 'will' should come from the area just below your navel. This sounds really wierd, and it is. Don't forget that your abdomen contains a nerve ganglion that is second only to your brain in complexity (that's why it hurts so much to get punched in the belly). A good excercise is to will visualise imagine that you have some kind of extra appendage, like and arm, attatched to your stomach. Imagine that you are sweeping the ground in front of you with it, kinda like a blind man's stick. It's an odd concept, I know, but it seems to work. Thus, in a dream, you imagine moving yourself forward by willing yourself to move, from the area below your navel.
Like I said before, there is a distinct lack of useable words to describe all this. All I can suggest is that you try, and practice. I'd be surprised if you get instant results. It's taken me a while and I'm still nothing like as good as I need or want to be.
> that are gone right now, I'll ask them later when I remember them. I've been trying to lucid dream since I was 14. I have every now and then.
Oddly enough, I was doing it by accident then, and very real they were too.
> (better than the holodeck on TNG!), ...
Absolutely! :D
> ... but as soon as I realize I'm dreaming I snap out of it. The longest it's ever last is around 3 seconds, and that's terrible. That's only happended three or four times that I can remember. ...
Bummer. My guess is that the surprise is too much and you then wake up. More often than not, you'll try and do something in exactly the same way as you would in the real world, like lift an arm up. This doesn't work. You have to will such things to happen, not think such things to happen.
> ... When I close my eyes, am I supposed to concentrate on the 'colorful void' that multiples?
Nope. Just relax, do nothing, etc. But be aware, without thinking about it, of what your intentions are, i.e. your intent. Incidentally, there is an eye exercise which can eliminate the 'colorful void' you describe; email if you'd like to know more.
> ... Sometimes I see the image I am trying to picture, ...
This is good and it's known as visualisation. There are techniques to improve visualisation to the extent that you can actually see a full colour image with your eyes closed (I know a girl who gets after-images from Doom that are like this).
Closing your eyes and trying to 'see' the dream place you want to be in is one way, yes.
> ... but it is VERY faint and disappears somewhat quickly. I know
Practice! You'll get better.
> these are a lot of questions, but please try to answer as many as you can, it is very important to me. Thanks a lot...
I know how imortant it is to you because it's just as important to me.
Hope I've been of some help!
Thing to remember is that you won't get to Supreme Adept Dreamer in one go. It takes time, energy and practice.
One thing:
If you do something in a dream that's unusual, like fly or throw a fireball, then when you wake up you should instantly try and recall and remember what it felt like to do what it was that you did (especially for flying). Just try and remember in the same way that you'd try and remember something that's 'on the tip of your tongue'. None of what you feel will be describable, so don't even try to - it's not worth it! :D ie. don't try and put it into words, just memorise the feeling that you had in the dream when you did whatever it was that you did.
The idea here is to get your mind to become used to what it feels like to do stuff in dreaming.
Therefore, next time, it will be easier to do the same thing once again.
More will be added to this file at a later date.
---
Appendix A:
I have had 3 dreams that I intend to write out into stories. One is about a man who's 1st and 2nd attentions are the wrong way round; his waking state is our dreaming state, and vice versa. He only realises after an Aboriginal shaman sees him and says Hi. :) It's the first time anyone has directly addressed him without him saying something to begin with. :D The shaman tells him that he must find his real body, wherever it may be, and recombine with it. A difficult task because he doesn't know where his real body is or even what his real body looks like, not even whether it's male or female - all he's ever had were ghost-like images. The story is called 'The Dreamer and the Dreamed'.
Incidentally, this dream-story was triggered after, in a dream, I found a book case on a waste land. I opened the book case. Inside were some magazines, such as 2000AD, etc. There were also some books. I pulled one out. It was 'The Eagles Gift'. I looked at it and thought 'Cool!'. Then the dream story began.
Another I call the 'InsubZone', which is an acronym for 'Zone of Insubstantiality'. This dream was even more real than the above one. It is about a scientific type who is attempting to create a kind of dimensional warp device for instantaneous travel. He creates a device allright, but it is not what he was seeking. The device vibrates the object it is attatched to, not through space, but through time.
The result is that it vanishes, constantly alternating between being a fraction of a second in the past and a fraction of a second in the future, but never inbetween (kinda like a square wave function).
The actual fraction is about 1 kronon, or 1E-32 of a second. Anyway, in his experiments, the objects just vanish and never return. He thinks they're gone somewhere else. In fact, they're not; they're still there, just vibrating through time. To find out for sure, he attatches the device to himself. When he switches it on, everyone around him thinks he's gone, but he can still see them clearly, though he cannot interact. He wanders around for a while, which is difficult as there is an element of being able to 'phase' through solid objects, and eventually turns the unit off. His colleagues are delighted with the results, but he immediately sees danger. The project is funded by the military and he fears they will use it as a weapon (imagine being able to enter the Insub Zone and just waltz into your enemies bunker, lower the bomb, set the timer for 2 minutes and you wander off. Boom!). His superiors learn of the results and try to force him to continue. He decides to enter the Insub Zone for good, taking all the necessary research data with him, but they come after him...
The third dream story is a bit more over the top in terms of scale. It concerns a race of beings who inhabit a planet which is dying, because the star the planet orbits is dying; the star will nova within millenia. The 'high council' type ruling body decides that they have only one option. They have no space technology; it was never needed as their culture is based around psi abilities. Hence, they decide to move the planet itself. This is done by constructing the Mind, an entity which combines the sum total intent of all the beings on the planet. This Mind is controlled by something that humans might regard as a computer, but that's a bit simplistic. Either way, once each being hands over control of its will to the Mind, said being no longer has control anymore. The Mind is then in charge, with a mission to find a new star to place the planet in orbit around.
There is, however, a restriction imposed upon the Mind: it must not find a star about which there exists planets that are already inhabited. Unfortunately, this is a problem because almost every suitable star already has, by the very nature of the star being a suitable one, inhabited planets orbiting it! 8|
And so the Mind moves the planet on again and again. 30 million years pass (re my comment about the skipping record). By this time, the Mind has become warped in its purpose. The individual beings are aware that that something has gone wrong, but they cannot regain control and shut down the Mind.
And so the mind comes across a world and decides to orbit it, despite the presence of life already there. The world isn't Earth, but something fairly similar. A world in which corporate empires rule totally, where governments are unheard of, commerce is all, especially military related commerce.
The civilisation has reached the outer planets, but not other stars. Mercenaries, mining colonies and general not-so-nice places abound. Meantime the rich luxuriate on skiing holidays on exotic moons, etc.
Into all this, comes the Mind. The planet is detected when it is very far away, though no one suspects its true nature. A company sends out a team to investigate, with the intent of possible new mining wealth. The second half of the dream begins with this team's arrival on the approaching planet, and what they find.
The End