The Ultimate Guide to Crystals & Stones: A Practical Path to Personal Power, Self-Development, and Healing - Uma Silbey 2016
Lucid Dreaming and Astral Travel with Quartz Crystals
Working with Higher Dimensions
Our dreams can be of two types: a mere replay of the day’s events, perhaps working out the day’s problems, our brains discharging stored up content, or they can be actual experience on the astral planes. When we are dreaming on the astral planes, it is the easiest to experience lucid dreams. To have a lucid dream is to be in a dream while at the same time realizing that we are dreaming. This realization can range from a faint recognition to a significant broadening of perspective while in the dream state. When we are having a lucid dream, we can merely observe our dream, much like our observation during a waking state, or we can actually consciously manipulate our dream.
There are many ways to learn to dream with lucidity. One way is to suggest to our waking mind things that we will notice about ourselves in our dream, such as seeing our hands or our feet, while we are falling asleep. Or we can suggest to ourselves that we will remain aware during the dream, or we can program ourselves to have certain predetermined dreams, visualizing them strongly as we fall asleep. Keeping track of our dreams also helps, recording them immediately upon waking, or waking up to record our dream and then going back to sleep. If this is the method we are using, it is good to keep a dream journal and writing tool next to our bed so we won’t have to get up. When skilled, we don’t have to entirely wake up, but can write down our dream while in a state of half sleep, waking up just enough to be able to move our bodies. We can also develop the ability to have lucid dreams and then learn to travel and work on the astral plane through the use of quartz crystals. The best crystal to use for lucid dreaming and astral travel is the Herkimer diamond, the most brilliant and energetic of all the quartz crystals. If not a Herkimer diamond, we can also use a clear quartz that is filled with rainbows, since this most resembles the colors of the astral plane.
Whether using a Herkimer diamond or rainbow-filled clear crystal, if we want to use it to enhance our dreams so that we begin dreaming with lucidity, the following method is a good one to use. We can also use this method to determine the type of dream we are going to have or to transform nightmares to more positive dreams.
PRACTICE: ENHANCING LUCID DREAMING
1. While holding a Herkimer diamond or rainbow-filled crystal, gaze into its depths and imagine the dream you would like to have. Visualize it in great detail and suggest that this is the dream that you are going to have.
2. Suggest places you may like to go in your dream or things you would like to do.
3. Place the crystal under your pillow so it will charge your dream. As you fall asleep, keep thinking about what you would like to dream.
4. When dreaming, see if you can change any part of your dream or see any part of your body.
5. Upon awakening, even partially, record any part of the dream that you remember. This will help you eventually begin to dream more consciously.
6. Do not clear your crystal upon awakening, instead allow the vibrations of your programming to continue to build.
7. During the day, carry your crystal with you so you remember the dream you had or the dream that you would like to have.
8. Repeat this process over as many nights as it takes to have lucid dreams.
Astral Travel with Crystals
Once we are able to control our dreams, we can eventually move them into the state of astral projection and travel. To understand how this may happen, it is helpful to know more about the astral plane as well as the astral body and its interaction with the physical body.
The sleeping state not only replenishes the strength of our physical body, but also rests our astral body, which eventually tires because of its interaction with our physical body. (On its own plane, our astral body is almost incapable of tiring.) To give both the physical and astral body rest, the two separate during our sleeping state, the astral body usually hovering in the air above our physical body. Even though our physical body is asleep, we are not asleep, and neither is our resting astral body. When we are even slightly more conscious of our astral body, as in the lucid dream state, our astral body, separated further from our physical body, floats about in the astral currents, meeting other astral bodies and having both pleasant and unpleasant experiences. If we are even slightly conscious in our astral bodies and are able to move about more freely in it, we may meet and exchange ideas with others who are also conscious in their astral bodies. These may include friends, teachers, and guides. Not only can we meet others, we can also learn and experience things that are impossible in the physical world.
Because we usually aren’t able to bridge our consciousness from our astral body to our physical body upon awakening, there is a period of darkness or a blank, unconscious period of time as our consciousness shifts from our astral back to our physical body. If this happens, we may only have vague memories of our experiences or confused impressions because they are not brought back into our physical brain. To bring these memories through to our physical brain, we must be able to remain completely conscious during the shift from our astral to our physical body. To do this, we must have opened our chakras so they can all be used to bring the astral forces through to the physical. Our pituitary or third eye chakra must be actively functioning in order to focus the astral vibrations. Our mind must be calm and focused enough to consciously influence matter. As the astral plane is the emotional plane, we should have control over our emotions so that we are able to control ourselves on the astral plane. As we do our work with crystals and stones, these requirements will eventually be met.
The next thing to do is to build an adequate etheric bridge between the astral and physical bodies. This bridge is a closely woven net-like structure of etheric matter that allows the vibrations from our astral and physical consciousness to pass through to each other. Once this bridge is built, we will have perfect continuity of consciousness between our astral and physical life. (The more we have conscious experiences in our astral rather than our physical bodies, death as we have thought or imagined it to be no longer holds true. It becomes obvious that our life doesn’t end when we aren’t in our physical body.)
The following method, an extension of the lucid dream method, is one we can use with our Herkimer diamonds or rainbow quartz crystals to build the etheric bridge that will allow us to control our dreams, and then shift them and ourselves into the astral realms.
PRACTICE: ASTRAL TRAVEL WITH QUARTZ CRYSTALS
1. Once you are able to consistently remember your dreams or to have lucid dreams using the lucid dreaming method, then select a dream that has consistently reappeared or has had a consistent pattern. Before you sleep, program your crystal so you will have this dream again. As before, place the crystal under your pillow. Maintain your state of concentration as when you programmed the crystal and slowly lie down in bed.
2. As you lie in bed, visualize yourself as becoming more and more filled with golden light, so much so that it spills out of your skin and extends outward from your body. In your mind’s eye, see this light extended outward about six inches from and roughly in the shape of your body.
3. As you fall asleep, concentrate on this form of light, seeing it separate from your body. Retain your concentration upon this form as you drift off to sleep. This will help begin the process of building the etheric bridge.
4. Continue this step until you can consistently dream your intended dream and remember it. Any time that you fail to dream your intended dream, clear your crystal. Other than that, keep the vibrations of the dream in your stone.
5. When you can continually dream your intended dream, then program your crystal with visualization to travel to a place that you haven’t necessarily been in your dreams but have been to in your waking state. Again, put the crystal under your pillow and gaze upon your luminous form as before.
6. As you gaze at your luminous form, maintain your focus on the place that you would like to visit in your dream, making it the last thought you have as you drift off to sleep. Again, record your dream upon awakening and clear your crystal if you dream of any other place.
7. When you can consistently visit the intended location, program your crystal for a visit to a location in your dreams that you haven’t been to on the physical plane. Use the same process to program your crystal and drop off to sleep, recording your dreams upon waking. When you have mastered this step, you now have the ability to be anywhere or visit anyone on the astral planes. The etheric bridge will have been built for you to be able to move freely between the astral and physical plane with no loss of conscious memory.
8. You can now be active on the astral plane. Now, before going to sleep, program your crystal, visualizing what you would like to do on the astral plane. You can bring help in some way through the astral plane, visit other astral beings, focus on specific tasks, perform healings, or offer yourself to serve in any way that is needed. Place your crystal beneath your pillow and fall asleep the same way as before, concentrating on the task that you intend. If your concentration was strong, whether you remember it or not upon waking, you will have helped as you intended.
9. Generally speaking, do not clear your crystal upon waking. Let the vibrations associated with your request increase their strength each time you use it for this astral work. However, if you feel a strong inclination to clear it, go ahead, and then reprogram it for your intended task.
10. Upon waking, either carry your crystal with you, visualizing your astral task each time you feel it or see it, continually programming your crystal. If you don’t carry your crystal with you, wrap it in silk or cotton until you use it again so the vibratory energy will remain undisturbed with any other input.
When we are active on the astral plane, we will find that it operates according to its own laws, much like the physical plane operates in accordance with its laws, such as gravity. On the astral plane we can walk through walls, fly, and do other things that would be impossible on the physical plane. Often we can work far more actively and with greater accuracy on the astral plane than we can on the physical plane. In our astral body we have a much deeper power of comprehension of what must be done to help. We develop the vision that allows us to see a way of living for ourselves and others that need not involve the myriad forms of suffering that exist in the physical world. We can also meet beings that are impossible to meet on the physical plane other than through intuition or higher meditative states. We can travel anywhere, meet any teacher, and receive any instruction that we can later use here in the physical world.
Another benefit of being able to operate on the astral plane is that we can learn from it. Our sense of reality expands past any prior limits we had placed on it before. Likewise, our sense of who we are and what we are capable of expands until we can literally be without limits. We are no longer afraid of death because we have experienced that we exist beyond our physical body and can dwell in a state of quiet inner contentment.
Before embarking on our astral journeys, it is helpful to know that not only may we meet higher master beings from whom we can receive valuable guidance, but we may also meet other lesser astral beings that may appear to us, offering their guidance as well as other information. We shouldn’t make the assumption that just because a being is without a physical body or appears on another plane that they are a higher being, more conscious, special. or advanced than us. Other than possibly being able to tell us about the process of dying, although leaving our bodies during high meditative states or when astral traveling will provide us with the same information, they are not necessarily more conscious than we are just because they are not in a physical body. The force of our own desires may draw these beings to us, and though they may offer to help in various ways, they actually might have nothing to offer us, or they may actually be detrimental to us. Furthermore, they may lie, play tricks on us, or try to impress us, just as people sometimes do on the physical plane.
There is another type of being on the astral plane that is actually just an astral body whose inhabitant has already left. The body has died on the astral plane just as bodies die in the physical world. Instead of just disintegrating as they do when left alone, these bodies are kept alive by the lingering thoughts of its prior owner or by the thoughts of those on the physical plane who think they are in contact with a being. These thoughts keep the astral body in movement and form, giving it a semblance of being alive. Any astral speech coming from this body is merely the reflection of the consciousness or subconsciousness of those who are consciously or unconsciously powering it with their thoughts. When we are on the astral plane we may unconsciously draw one of these “shells” to us with the intensity of our thoughts or desires. Upon meeting such an astral shell, the more we accord its beingness with our interaction, the more it seems to speak to us.
There are many other beings on the astral plane, but the two types described are the ones we may attract in the course of our astral work. (Sometimes we can also attract them in our crystal or crystal ball channeling or reading.) When meeting an astral being, it is helpful to be able to distinguish between a bona fide master, who can be trusted to be our guide on these higher planes, and a lesser being. We distinguish between them the same way we distinguish between teachers and guides on the physical plane, by listening to the intuitive voice within our heart. The feeling in our heart when we meet a genuine master will be unmistakable. We feel an exultation that may bring tears, or feel uplifted and more of ourselves rather than less of ourselves. We will feel completely accepted to our deepest core. Whether on the physical or astral plane, a true master will direct our attention away from him or herself and only to the higher spirit. Whether on the astral or physical plane, it is important to listen to our inner voice instead of being led astray by our emotions, thoughts, desires, or impatience.
It is important to know that we are not at the mercy of any being or event on the astral plane that we may meet. We can always use our will to leave any situation or banish any being. Maintaining ourselves in a calm, centered state will assure that the use of our will is completely accessible to us. Fear and doubt are debilitating. If we do find ourselves fearful, all we have to do is focus on our heart center and, remaining in a state of love, we will gain the perspective and ability to act appropriately. Remember, ultimately, the entire creation is contained within us.