A Guide to Lucid Dreaming, Astral Projection, and Hedgecrossing [2]
Hedgecrossing refers to the state of mind that occurs when one is lucid during light sleep. This state of mind is useful for spiritual and psychological work. People who subscribe to a mystical belief system may use this state of mind to contact spirits or perform a ritual or detect something about the world. People who see these states of mind as psychological tools may use this state of mind to access parts of their memory - similar to using hypnotherapy techniques.
The general procedure for hedgecrossing is to meditate in a comfortable position until the mind begins to enter a sleeping state. There are certain tells that the mind has entered such a state - the thoughts that automatically come to us become random, nonsensical. As with all dream-based work, it is important to try many times to attain and work with these states. It is very easy to fall asleep or to fail to enter into a dream state at all and this can be discouraging for many people. Hedgecrossing is the easiest lucid dream state to attain because it takes place in the first stage of sleep, so it is the first dream state entered. People don’t feel as though they have left their body but they do feel like their imagination has taken on a mind of its own and it can surprise them with moments of insight and inspiration.
We will be creating a specific mental place inside for each of the three lucid dream states. Eventually, our brains come to associate this internal mental space with the state of mind provoked by each type of dream state. Over time, as the association becomes stronger, this helps us enter into a particular dream state more easily.
Lay down in a comfortable place that you ordinarily sleep in. Practicing good sleep hygiene, especially the step where you only sleep in the room/area you sleep in so that your mind can associate that area with sleeping, can help. Beginning at a time where you are naturally tired and normally go to bed helps. This state is prompted by entering the first stages of sleep, light sleep.
Clear your mind as though you are meditating. Enter your mind’s eye and focus solely on the experience of being inside of your imagination. Ignore external thoughts and sensations as they come up, letting go of them and turning back inside. You are free to develop your own set of visualizations. The general framework for developing your own system of visualizations to distract you until you enter light sleep is, more or less, this: enter the first of your visualizations and ground yourself in your 5 senses; leave the area to a second room associated with hedgecrossing; leave to a third room where you engage in a repetitive (hypnotic) motion; then leave to a final room where you can walk endlessly until you enter a hedgecrossing state/light sleep state. I will give an example below.
Enter your mind’s eye at the foot of a blue cliff with the opening to a black cave. Feel the blue grass beneath your feet. Drink from a nearby pool of clear water above pastel blue sand. Look at the deep blue sky above and listen to the wind blow through the blue leaves coming off the black trees behind you, smelling the cool, chilly, evening air. Enter the cave.
Enter a black room with blue steps leading down. Blue stars line the walls of the cave, approximating the complexity of the universe. Look at them as you continue downwards. At the bottom of the stairs is a glowing blue number one on the walls instead of stars. This mental state, hedgecrossing, is associated with the star symbol as well as the color blue and the number 1. Giving specific symbols meaning like this helps make entering this state from this mental location easier in the future. There is a door with a large blue A glowing on it. Walk through the door, feeling the texture of the doorknob in your hand.
Enter a room with blue crystals and a pool of water with a waterfall. Watch the waterfall flow endlessly into the pool of water, feeling the cool water wash over your hands. Listen to the sound of the water flowing into the pool. Dive into the water.
After entering the water, enter a room without water. This area is a maze. Ankle deep water and blue crystals and stars line the walls. Walk through the cave, taking random turns, until the area begins to randomize and things begin to change outside of your control. You will have entered the state informally called hedgecrossing (lucid dreaming during light sleep) when the area and things inside of it are partially outside of your control.
Some people find it helpful to take a small amount of caffeine; others find this does not help at all. Stimulants can make it easier to maintain lucidity, but also harder to fall asleep. I have narcolepsy and I’m prescribed Ritalin and I accidentally lucid dream on it all of the time because of this.
Soul retrieval and hypnotherapy both force the practitioner into a trance that is similar to light sleep or near light sleep in order to enter into and manipulate the mind in a deeper way than is normally possible in a waking state. This allows us to cross mental barriers, such as the barriers that keep memories repressed, and view normally forbidden materials in our mind. This also means that, since our emotions are more vivid, the things that we think and the way we interact in our mind leaves a stronger impression than is normally possible during a waking state where our emotions are more repressed. The increased emotional vividness serves as a flag to our mind that what we are thinking is more important than normal.
The following techniques can be practiced in other sleep states, although the form they take may differ between stages of sleep. Because it is difficult to remember information between a waking and sleeping state, it is essential to keep a journal nearby in order to write down important thoughts. Get into a habit of writing about the contents of every lucid dream, regardless of which stage of sleep it occurred in, as soon as you wake up. Write down every regular dream, as well.
Symbols are important elements of our mind. Symbols serve as associative cues to different places in our memory. When we hedgecross, we enter into a state of mind where we are closer to our memory, almost living in it as we do when we are deeply sleeping. We can use symbols to interact with our mind. When we are hedgecrossing, we can call up a symbol. Say, the color red. We visualize this color, and because our thoughts have become more random, they will warp and respond to the introduction of this cue. We could randomly remember a memory connected to the color red. Or we could spontaneously imagine a character or the beginning of a story prompted by thinking about the color red.
We think about the world in certain ways that are connected to our different types of memories. We have special neurological processes dedicated to processing things like narratives, relationships, time, other people, cultural stereotypes, and places. These elements become easy to notice when we engage in dream work. We become immersed in the components of our memory, and the types of components we can think in become obvious quickly. Elements that frequently recur in dreams often have some significance, and it is worth it to interact with these symbols - doing so can reveal old memories and can allow us to interact with these ideas to inspire or change the self. This is the process of dream analysis. By interacting with these symbols, characters, and other ideas, we can see their meaning. Dream analysis books offer interpretations based on cultural symbolism. This is helpful to some extent, but personal symbolism is what matters the most, and it can be quite contextual and idiosyncratic. It is possible to interact with an idea or symbol in a dream and to talk to it, touch it, see what is inspired by interacting with it. The ideas that spring up from interacting with this element can be used to analyze its meaning.
Interacting with symbols in the mind can be used as a hypnotherapy tool. If someone has a troubling thought loop or memory, they can interact with it in a dream state to learn more about it and to gain mastery over the memory. However, it is possible to trigger nightmares in doing so. That is the risk of good dream work - there is some element of difficulty to it, and one must be willing to face and master difficult thoughts to proceed. This can be used to identify core thoughts and traumas and integrate with them in the course of dealing with difficult personal experiences and thoughts.
[ If you liked this, check out my book, The Path: Psychomancy. It goes over this particular topic in addition to covering how to practice and understand other occult and alternative psychological techniques.
https://www.amazon.com/Path-Psychomancy-Astora-Diam-ebook/dp/B08F2YD1GM
