I have always been curious about the Afterlife, but when my grandma passed away in 1988 my curiosity turned into the urge to check on her and make sure she was safe. My first discovery was that dreams were a door leading to other dimensions, but, owing to my grief, I seemed to have no control over the nightmares that grief could lead to. Here is why I would like to discuss the power of lucid dreaming and how meditation can help.

A lucid dream is a dream in which we are aware that we are dreaming. On the other hand, meditation is a simple practice, usually performed by sitting in a quiet room or outdoor setting, with the aim of quietening our mind and focusing inwards. How and why are these two states linked to after-death communication?

People often report visitations by their deceased loved ones in dreams. However, in a dream in which we are aware of dreaming it is much easier to actually plan to meet our loved ones on the other side, because we are partly in charge of the experience.

Now the real question is: Why is after-death communication more easily achieved in dreams, lucid dreams and meditation?

In his essay ‘The Doors of Perception’ Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) refers to the theory of French philosopher Henri Louis Bergson (1859–1941) whereby the chief purpose of the brain, the nervous system and the sensory organs is to eliminate information rather than produce it. Here is what the essay says:

“Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful.”

According to such a theory, each one of us is potentially Mind at Large. But in so far as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funnelled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this particular planet.

Therefore, the ordinary or ‘normal’ state of consciousness is a measly trickle of concepts compared to what we are capable of knowing.

Upon physical death, this reducing valve ceases to exist. Hence, many people who have had near-death experiences report the sensation of being inundated with a universal consciousness.

There are other circumstances, however, such as the meditative state or dreams, which allow us to loosen our reducing valve and tune into the spirit world.

[The above section is quoted from my book The Afterlife: Hereafter and Here at Hand]

In order to achieve this goal, it is very important to disconnect from daily tasks or concerns that require our full and/or earthly attention (such as driving a car, cooking a meal, worrying about what so-and-so may be gossiping about and so on) and allow our reducing valve to loosen. In our case, this is not aimed at being inundated with a universal consciousness, but at shifting from our ‘ordinary’ state of consciousness to what scientists call a ‘modified’ or ‘non ordinary’ state of consciousness. Like a laser beam, we will use this opportunity to focus on something specific, such as communicating with a loved one in spirit.

Since meditation can allow us to achieve this goal, and meditation just before falling asleep can lead to lucid dreaming, I have found that this technique can really work miracles.

The Afterlife: Hereafter and Here at Hand and Looking Beyond the Fishbowl: A New Comforting Perspective on Reincarnation by Giulia Jeary Knap are available from http://amzn.to/2Em3JnS and http://amzn.to/2E4fQmb. Find out more here: http://fracieloeterra.org/en/