Customer Reviews

Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light, Revised

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What a gift! This book will introuduce you to a whole new level of dream understanding. Rather than seeing dreams as messages from the Psyche, the Dzogchen tradition of Tibet views them as an opportunity to recognize and interact with the foundations of your life. At Play in venue of your existence you can make changes and recognize the source of all that you experience. This is no "how to" silly book about lucid dreaming, but an invitation to have the most profound experience of your dreams availible. This is no patchwork technique to amuse you , but an introduction to a disciplinee that will serve you for eternity. The skills acquired in this book will aid you for this life, after your death, and in many lives to come.

This is a good book, probably the best of those available, on the bardo teachings of "dreaming" and "natural light", within the Dzogchen view of Tibetan Buddhism. The book contains profound instructions for developing clarity within the sleep and dream states.

The relevance of these teachings is that they allow us to practice even while sleeping and dreaming, because these states make up almost one-third of our lives. Moreover, it is said that if a person applies a practice within a dream, the practice is nine times more effective than when it is applied during the waking hours. Dream practice is very important for liberating us from habits.

"When the state of dreaming has dawned,
do not lie in ignorance like a corpse.
Enter the natural sphere of unwavering attentiveness.
Recognize your dreams and transform illusion into luminosity.
Do not sleep like an animal.
Do the practice which mixes sleep and reality."

Tibetan yoga seeks clarity and continuity of consciousness in waking, sleeping, dreaming, imagination, memory and the thousands of sentient experiences that we call mind from our first to last breath and beyond. Mindfulness, meditation, biofeedback and dream yoga are only techniques to create skill on the path of our larger aim, to be able to enter deep sleep, unconsciousness or death in total and transcendental awareness. Jesus demonstrated the Resurrection Body of Glory, Padmasambhava, Buddha and Tara the Vajrakaya, and Sri Aurobindo the Divine Body.

But the body is consciousness. Even Einstein said "There is no matter; it is all field."

In that spirit, Norbu's book is a complete method for transformation and liberation; other readers only see random gibberish.

Let your own lucid perceptions serve you. Yogic discipline will yield much treasure. Western complacency will unearth corrupt trash.

Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche is one of the world's leading master's in the Dzogchen tradition. Born in Tibet, and recognized as two mind stream emanations, Norbu's youth was jam packed with studies, empowerments, retreats, etc. Today his teachings reach a wide audience. Although his mainstay is in Italy he holds retreats all over the world. Some of his teaching styles are quite revolutionary in the Tibetan Buddhist world. There are a few who do this, but Norbu not only teaches via the web but also gives teacher to student transmission via the web as well. I have been lucky enough to have tuned in to a couple so far.

"Dream Yoga..." is a new concept to me and I am very grateful to have received the book for review here. Norbu teaches through various techniques, how not only to control our dreams but to bring our practice into the dream world. It is believed, as Norbu explains, that practice in this dream state is that more effective and meaningful because our minds are more focused on one thing at a time.


For those that have had some experience with Tibetan meditation and visualizations, this book is a valuable tool. The directions are not difficult, but it definitely would help to have done some sort of practice in this vein. To be honest, the book is more of a practice manual and I know by the end I could use a couple answers to some questions I came up with.

That being said though, some of the practices at the beginning of the book are easy enough to do, and although I cannot remember the dreams, I know I have awoken the next day with a bit more focus without the typical grogginess. Strangely enough, I used to drink 2-3 cups of coffee before heading out to work. Right at this moment, I have come to the realization that for about a month now I've barely been finishing one cup. Hmmm...

This edition of "Dream Yoga..." contains a new and unpublished bit Norbu has been working on for a few years. It also contains a translation of a powerful work on meditation and awareness written by the great master Mipham and a fantastic interview of Namkhai Norbu.

Although I said this book is similar to a manual, it is much more than that. It provides a valuable practice to help calm the mind in lucid, dreaming states so that we can truly deepen our awareness. "Dream Yoga..." is not just about awakening in the dream state but also bringing it together with our non-dream awareness as well.

Norbu says "In a real sense, all the visions that we see in our lifetime are like the images of a dream. If we examine them well, the big dream of life and the smaller dreams of one night are not very different. If we truly see the essential nature of both, we will find that there really is no difference between them. If we can finally liberate ourselves from the chains of emotions, attachments, and ego by this realizatrion, we have the possibility of ultimately becoming enlightened."

I enjoyed this book and look forward to incorporating some of these practices into my life. :)

This is one of the better ones of the same subject (dream yoga). I also like "Dreaming, Sleeping, and Dying, an exploration of consciousness with the Dalai Lama."

This is the worst book I have ever read. I thought it would be a book about dreams and meditation, but it is just a rambling collection of random sentences with references to fanciful imaginary friends, gods, and places. I thought this book contained instruction to help me learn to have more lucid dreams and to remember them, but this book makes no sense. I learned nothing from this book. It was a waste of my money and time. It reads like a bad "trip."