I found this New York Times article to be of particular interest in terms of the Subtle Realm's influence on our lives without our even knowing it. The author was diagnosed with cancer at age 36, and found herself facing the fact that the medical field has surprisingly few answers to many of the life-changing questions that face someone in that situation. 

Take decisions about treatment for example. This woman had to make a decision where, if she was wrong, the results would have been either needless surgical alteration or death, and if she was right (at best) she would still have parts of her body removed and live to tell the tale, but it would be with no help from her doctor, who essentially gave her a coin to toss. Any one of us in her position would obsess about questions like that, mind racing with the consequences of every possible outcome and the likelihood of each one. Given the enormity of the stress induced from having to make these decisions, it would be the most natural thing in the world for her to take these concerns with her into the Subtle Realm when she falls asleep.

The TLDR from the article is that a woman with cancer used her dreams to formulate a course of treatment and healing in the face of uncertainty presented by the doctors who weren't able to provide any answers. As it turned out, she was successful at minimizing the surgical procedures and eventually beat the cancer. While this is remarkable, and is certainly worth further scrutiny (and will be further explored later in this article) I want to focus on a particular term the author uses to describe her experience with dreams, along with the inevitable attendant mindset that necessarily follows the use of the term.

The author says, "I’m a deeply practical person. I grew up in a Scots family of farmers, coal miners, construction workers and veterinarians. I finished college one class short of a biology degree. I understand the importance of common sense and double-blind scientific studies, but at the same time, I believe that occasionally a little bit of woo-woo can’t hurt."

She is careful to point out to the reader that she comes from an educated family. Not only is she educated herself, but she comes from a long line of people whose very livelihoods depended upon science. She is saying, in essence, I am not one of those people. One is left to oneself to think about who those people are. The uneducated? Someone who doesn't understand science? A "new ager" who wants to sell crystals at a ski resort and talk about good vibes? We can be sure that no matter what the image is that comes up in folks' imaginations, it will be of a person who leaves some characteristics to be desired. 

So she is trying to establish some credibility with the reader. She doesn't wear headbands and bell-bottom jeans. She understands common sense and scientific methodology. But at the same time..."a little bit of woo-woo can't hurt".

"At the same time", a phrase that gives truth to the mindset I mentioned above where if there is something science cannot explain then it must not exist. And if it's admitted that it does exist, it exists only within the brain of the person who has had the experience. So when the author says, "at the same time", she implies that science and the things science cannot explain cannot exist at the same time, and therefore only science exists and not those other things. And those other things - those are 'woo-woo'.

Woo-woo. Pseudo-science. Garbage. Ignorance and superstition. Mental dross. Your overactive imagination. Get over yourself. You've gone around the bend since obviously you are forgetting about science. 

We all understand that all of the above do exist. Charlatans and fraudsters have made fortunes on that which we cannot see, yet desperately want to believe. The widely accepted stereotypes around pseudo-science and snake oil salesmen - which are inarguably deserved - only serve to further veil the subject in the fear of the shame of being fooled. After all, what self-respecting scientist would put forward a theory that might subject them to ridicule by their fellow scientists? Such things could have career-ending consequences for some. Self-centered human priorities such as money, status, and ego probably do more to hinder scientific discoveries than we will ever know.

In light of these things, can one be a scientist and be open to the idea that there may be things in the world that we don't understand scientifically yet - and study them using the scientific method? 

One can imagine how insane television sounded to anyone not in the inner circle of innovation around that technology - the woo-woo of its day. Today, of course, the transport of video around the world on devices a thousand times as complicated as a television is taken for granted...

The prevailing attitude in the scientific community is the basis for this paradigm of science versus woo-woo. It is an antagonistic relationship, and so the subject of unexplainable human experience goes unstudied, and science remains dormant. And even though the subject of Subtle Realm experiences has not been explored, science is ready to dismiss it as non-existent or imagined. And in this vacuum, the 'pinnacle' of modern science is currently putting guns on robot dogs powered by AI. 

Many, many books have been written about scientifically unexplainable experiences. The people who share these stories are people from all walks of life - all races, all belief systems, all economic situations. The vast majority of these people would have nothing to gain by making up a story to tell, and the funny thing is, one has to think that some of them did have something to lose in doing so. For example, the author of the article has something to lose - her credibility in the eyes of both her family and the public at large are at risk, considering the article is published on the internet. What would they think of her victory in her battle against cancer if they didn't understand that she has common sense and understands the importance of double-blind scientific studies? 

Given the fact that this woman beat cancer by listening to and correctly interpreting her dreams, why is science not clamoring to study this same phenomenon in other patients? Why wouldn't we want the same therapeutics and benefits for the rest of human kind? Sadly, right now it's easier and more profitable to hand a gun to a robot than to explore our own innate ability to heal ourselves.

Awoken is a free app for Android (sorry, not for Apple users yet) that helps people achieve lucid dreaming. It was designed to "combine proven techniques with experimental enhancements made possible by the presence of smartphones." 

As has been discussed elsewhere on this web site, lucid dreaming is a state of consciousness that allows a person to be fully in control of themselves and act volitionally during dreams - basically, you know you're dreaming while you're dreaming. It has been scientifically proven that while only a few people naturally experience lucid dreaming on a regular basis, with certain training techniques and help from external queues, people who do not lucid dream can 'learn' to achieve lucid dreaming.

One of the methods used to induce lucid dreaming is to contact the sleeper through the use of sound queues during REM sleep to let them know they are dreaming. Before the sleeper goes to sleep, it is agreed that a certain sound will notify them that they are dreaming. The sleeper is then given the audio queue from an external source while they sleep, which makes the dreamer aware that they are dreaming and thus causes a lucid dreaming state to occur. 

Awoken seeks to take these techniques and provide them to regular folks who happen to own a smartphone. When you open Awoken, you are given the tools to make this happen. You can select any sound on your smartphone and set it as the reminder. This is known as the "Totem Sound" in the app. I would suggest making the sound different from any other notification sound on your phone so you know exactly what it's for, and that it isn't used for anything else. You also choose how loud you wish the sound to be played. 

Once you have chosen your audio queue, you then tell the app how many times during the day you wish to hear the Totem Sound. This is the 'training' part of the experience - you program the app to notify you with the Totem Sound several times during the day. When you hear the sound, stop what you're doing for a few seconds and check your surroundings. Does everything appear normal? Ask yourself, "Am I dreaming?" and become extra-aware for a few moments. 

You then tell Awoken how many times you wish to hear your Totem Sound during the night. These are called "Dream Clues" and it is the same as the Totem Sound except it's at night and you're sleeping when you hear it. If you are dreaming when you hear the Dream Clue, hopefully you do the same thing as when you're awake: ask yourself, "Am I dreaming?" and check your immediate environment for anything that appears unusual. If you discover yourself dreaming, then it worked! Use your imagination and have fun!!!

My experience with the app has been mixed. At first it seemed to have issues with the chosen sound. It sounded as if not one - but two - sounds were happening. This may have been due to the app giving the daytime prompts at the same time as other notifications on my phone (on the hour for example). While this persisted for a few weeks and was annoying, it seemed to clear up after an update. 

It also seemed to notify me with my chosen sound more often than I had set it for in the app during the day. This got to be a nuisance and I ended up dialing it back a bit. Again, the issue seemed to stop after an update. 

If you don't have a sleeping partner, no worries at all using Awoken. But if you do, another thing users may want to be aware of is that if your sleeping partner is a light sleeper, they may hear your Dream Clues even if you don't. You may be able to resolve this by tweaking the loudness of your Dream Clues. 

You can also temporarily "pause" the app at any time which stops all notifications. It also provides a way for you to keep a dream journal. While I have not used the dream journal myself, it looks like a great tool for someone who wants to use it. 

While I agree with the basic premise on which the app is built, I have not been able to achieve a lucid state while dreaming as a result of using the app. This may be due to the Dream Clues not happening during REM sleep, or it might be other factors I'm not aware of. But I have not stopped trying and I'm still using the app to this day. I will report back here if I can achieve lucid dreaming, or if anything else develops through the use of the Awoken app. 

This is a really monumental movie dressed up as entertainment.  In subject matter, it scales the Earth, heaven and hell, the heights of human love, the depths of depression, and our lives while alive on earth and after. 

Life after death can be heaven or hell depending on the thought habits one cultivates while alive on Earth.  Positive or negative; strong or weak, optimistic or pessimistic, kind or angry, full of love or full of bitterness.  The main character (Robin Williams) loved art and beauty while alive and consequently his heaven was like living inside of his favorite painting.

He dies in a car crash and is met by an old friend (Cuba Gooding Jr.) almost immediately thereafter who becomes his spirit guide.  His guide gently leads him to understand and accept that he has died,  yet still exists and is just as conscious as he was while "alive".  Part of the spirit guide's initial teaching is that this new environment in which the main character finds himself is thought responsive; and that consequently his thoughts create reality.  This is a fundamental premise we students of the subtle world know is true.

I first watched this movie 15 years ago, before I knew anything about the subtle world other than that I had very vivid and interesting dreams.  At that time it was one of my favorite movies because of how artful and beautiful it was (it won an Academy Award for Visual Effects) and how genuine and sincere it depicted family relationships.  Now I'm blown away by how much the content of this movie aligns with all the things I've learned about life, death, and the Subtle World over the last few years.