A note from my 1999 journal:

After a long work day, I sat up with Tenzin Wangyal’s book on Tibetan dream yoga. Quite a lot of it appeals to me, especially the guidance on using dream states for emotional clearing, which he calls the “self-liberation” of grasping and desire and “karmic traces”.

The Tibetans associate different dream experiences with the movement of subtle energy along the three central channels. The red one – on the right in men, on the left in women – is the channel for “negative” traces, the white one for “wisdom” traces, and the central blue one for the clear awareness and balance associated with rigpa. Hence, if you’re a man, you are encouraged to sleep on your right side to constrict the “negative” channel (other way round for a woman).

Tibetans also associate dream experiences with six realms, which are both dimensions of emotion and consciousness and transpersonal realms associated with gods, demigods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts and hell-beings. In dream yoga, dream experience is also linked to the chakras, and lift-off may involve successive meditation at different hours of the night (at two-hour intervals!) on the throat chakra, the brow chakra, the heart center and the “secret chakra” behind the genitals – which releases the challenge of confronting terrifying “wrathful” images and entities. I found the Dragon here – surprise, surprise! I also felt the solar plexus should be included; Tiger lives here, with a host of other protective energies.

When I went to bed around 2:00AM,  I focused lightly on Tenzin’s four approved centers, not successively but all at one, and had the clear vision of colors revolving and radiating from these chakras. I lay on my back and then on my right side for quite a while without falling asleep or entering a significant flow of dream imagery (apart from an early burst of erotic flashes I associated with the focusing on the “secret chakra” and its “black” light).

When I rolled onto my left side (not recommended by the Tibetans!) I experienced a dream series that may indeed reflect those negative “karmic traces” – and also welcome emotional clearing, since (although not lucid) I traveled through these dreams and woke from them with calm, almost serene detachment