The Master of Lucid Dreams

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Summary: How emotional traumas are fostered - and overcome
Review: A Russian psychiatrist learns how to heal trauma in Asia in a title which considers why some people don't heal and stay wounded despite the best treatments medicine can offer. Kharitidi traveled to Samarkand in the heart of Central Asia to learn about the potentials of lucid dreaming and gained insights on how emotional traumas are fostered - and overcome.

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Summary: To young to die but to old to read a personal psycho diary!
Review: Can please somebody tell me about what is this book?
1) It is certainly not about lucid dreaming.
2) It has no practical lessons or values in shamanism or other paths.
3) It is not a travel guide to Samarkand (town where most of the action in the book is placed in).
So if your interest is within these fields, then in my opinion, invest your time/life in some other book.

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Summary: Holding the Balance
Review: Dr. Kharitidi's two autobiographies, the first being "Entering the Circle," are excellent portraits of a scientist/healer's life in a Siberian "science city" in the 1980s. She helped pioneer the development of out-of-body-inducing apparatus at a top physics institute, bravely accepted initiation into the Siberian shamanic tradition, and successfully applied aspects of it to her hospital work. "The Master of Lucid Dreams" picks up the story at that point, and chronicles her study with a psychologist/neurologist group interested in depicting centers of the human consciousness on computer monitors. She is then contacted by a representative of a healing brotherhood in Samarkand, to study their healing methodology. Ann Ree Colton's "Watch Your Dreams" is a valuable companion volume, as it discusses telepathic dream symbols used by Beings of great Light. Additionally, "The Teachers of Gurdjieff," by Rafael Lefort, parallels the wisdom teaching found in "The Master of Lucid Dreams." John G. Bennett's "Masters of Wisdom," Hasan Shushud's "Masters of Wisdom of Central Asia," Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov's "Man, Master of His Destiny," Mark L. Prophet's "Climb the Highest Mountain," and Salim Michael's "The Way of Inner Vigilance" are other books of great value for the reader interested in this area of attainment.

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Summary: What does this have to do with lucid dreams?
Review: I was disappointed in "The Master of Lucid Dreams." While the story was entertaining and had some interesting psychological theories about dealing with trauma, the connection to lucid dreams was tenuous. The author and her teacher frequently discuss the important of conscious dreaming, but they provide no information on how to achieve it. Go ahead and get this book if you're interested in healing trauma, but don't bother if you want practical information on lucid dreams.

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Summary: A special book on dreams and healing.
Review: Like a Russion Castenada, Dr. Kharitidi brings us a facinating mix of dreams, magic and psychiatry in the quest to heal the inner self from trauma and hurtful memories. And like Castenada, we really don't care if her shamans are real or fictional--the journey toward enlightenment strikes home. Dr. Kharitidi has fulfilled the therapeutic promise of lucid deams and the healing power of conscious interaction of the dreaming self with the dreaming universe. History itself dreams and healing extends backward as well as forward in time. Mystical, sure, but it sure rings true when you're reading this human adventure story. A special book.

Rating:
Summary: lucid dreaming?
Review: This book promises much and delivers little. The main idea is that our traumas create a semi-autonomic "painbody" within us that needs to be exorcised one way or another. The need to understand our ego and the subconcious semi-autonomous fragments in our psyche is not new and hardly controversial; there are many better works that deal with the "trauma monsters".

There is also disappointingly little information on healing/shamanic traditions in Uzbekistan, something one might expect Kharitidi, a self-described expert in shamanism and a Russian speaker, to be able to deliver. ... not to mention zero information on lucid dreaming. K. seems content to present us with a watery and sentimental pseudo-autobiographic (fictional?) account of her "meetings with remarkable men" in Central Asia. Many Altaic traditions, including especially the Tibetans just around the corner, have developed amazingly sophisticated methods for maintaining awareness during sleep. Kharitidi does not tap into this wealth of accumulated knowledge and in fact appears to be oblivious of it.

This is not a book for people interested in shamanism. lucid dreaming or authentic experience of alternate realities. Its only saving grace is that it puts (however fictional) Central Asian esoteric traditions on the map - where they richly deserve to be.

Rating:
Summary: lucid dreaming?
Review: This book promises much and delivers little. The main idea is that our traumas create a semi-autonomic "painbody" within us that needs to be exorcised one way or another. The need to understand our ego and the subconcious semi-autonomous fragments in our psyche is not new and hardly controversial; there are many better works that deal with the "trauma monsters".

There is also disappointingly little information on healing/shamanic traditions in Uzbekistan, something one might expect Kharitidi, a self-described expert in shamanism and a Russian speaker, to be able to deliver. ... not to mention zero information on lucid dreaming. K. seems content to present us with a watery and sentimental pseudo-autobiographic (fictional?) account of her "meetings with remarkable men" in Central Asia. Many Altaic traditions, including especially the Tibetans just around the corner, have developed amazingly sophisticated methods for maintaining awareness during sleep. Kharitidi does not tap into this wealth of accumulated knowledge and in fact appears to be oblivious of it.

This is not a book for people interested in shamanism. lucid dreaming or authentic experience of alternate realities. Its only saving grace is that it puts (however fictional) Central Asian esoteric traditions on the map - where they richly deserve to be.

Rating:
Summary: Another compelling book from Olga Kharitidi...
Review: You have to be able to trust your spontaneity to enjoy Olga Kharitidi's books, or to enjoy life for that matter. Her new book, Master of Lucid Dreams, will not disappoint anyone who was moved by this same quality in her first book, Entering the Circle.

In her new book, the outer story of how she meets a remarkable healer in Uzbekistan is somewhat surreal but as captivating as a good novel. She moves forward, in this new account of her continuing development as a healer, with her usual persistent curiousity and willingness to take chances at junctures where others would quickly turn back or see little opportunity. This persistence leads her finally to meet "Michael", a gifted healer and highly evolved spirit, in the city of Samarkand.

And then it becomes the inner story of her meetings and walks about Samarkand with Michael which actually make this book so valuable and provocative. She has come to Samarkand to learn more about a method of healing the "spirits of trauma", which a visiting lecturer in Russia had told her is still practiced by healers there since ancient times. Yet the first thing that Michael has her start to see is her own need for healing from things that she only has faint contact with, within her own life.

From this starting point, Michael opens a huge, interconnected and timeless, dream-level view of the causes of suffering among all humans for generations and even beyond death. And then he introduces her to the way in which the healers of Uzbekistan heal this suffering by ridding one of the spirits of trauma that otherwise occupy the "space" where the trauma has occurred. But this healing really only begins to happen, she learns, when one has accepted as real, without evasion and without giving inner "space" to, the trauma which is already a part of oneself.

My only disappointment with this book was the heavy emphasis that it places on women's experiences - not because they aren't important. Healing the feminine side of the human experience may well be our greatest challenge. And this must, of course, include men. But even with this emphasis on women's experiences, Master of Lucid Dreams is a MAGNIFICENT and compelling, timely book for all spontaneous adventurers who are truly brave of heart! A must read.