Body – Integration – Control
by pre.
Our guided lucid dream about Body Control had you dreaming an understanding of how it is the mind which builds the body, which determines it’s poses, how it moves, what it eats, all of which determine to a great degree it’s shape, size and the way the muscles build the frame which the fat and skin hang from.
You dreamed that your posture and gait were improving, becoming more upright, more gravity-defying, graceful and light and learning how that felt from the inside while sleeping. This helped your waking self to understand and push in that direction, try to move more like in the dream.
You learned, in your dream, how the various metabolism modes of your muscle cells feel, how you can guide those metabolism systems to shape and sculpt your muscles, giving you more strength and control.
During that lap we also discussed Muscle Memory and how practising a muscle-based skill pushed the required patterns of movement from the cerebral neurons closer down to the motor-control neurons, enabling both more skill and more precision of control. You learned that practice, especially along with good visualisation, can quickly build these kinds of skills.
We even talked about how mind and body and the immune system are related, and how ensuring each system is functioning well helps build strength in the others, affecting your very health, your susceptibility to disease.
Interactions
Improved control over your the posture, gait, wellness, shape and strength of your body also interacts with the other skills in the spiral, helping to build each of them as each of them in turn support your abilities to improve that control.
We have mentioned how a dreaming awareness of your posture and gait can lead to a better understanding of how these things should feel in the waking world, which in turn helps build improvement of your control of them. As the alexander technique instructors will tell you, having the right balance, pose, posture and gait leads to better oxygenation though deeper more effective breathing, which in turns leads to improvements throughout the body.
This improved oxygenation of course affects more than just your muscles, it brings more life to your brain too, improving consciousness and awareness themselves. Improving cognition to untold degrees.
Posture and gait are also social signals, signalling composure, confidence, charisma and status. Improved control over them gives you improved control over your social skills, and in turn over other people.
Next week we’ll have a small diversion on will power and attempting to use will power directly to control what you eat. The week after that we’ll present this months walking meditation on the awareness and control of your body.