Basically what I do is I will place the crystal either in bed with me, or in my pillowcase, or even on my bedside table. Before I go to bed, I'll hold that crystal and make it my intention to connect with the crystal energy while I'm in the dream state. And then I actually have a crystal journal, a dream journal, near my bed that I'll record things into when I wake up. But I find that, you know, going through this practice over and over where you attune to that crystal energy right before you go to sleep, right before you cross into that astral plane, and then make it your intention, and this is really the key here, is bringing that intention into it to connect with that energy. On the astral plane you get amazing messages. I mean from personal experience I've had some of the most profound dreams. So for instance, I was working with Rainforest Jasper about that same time that I was doing a little bit more study of different shamanic practices. And in my dream state a message was given to me by someone that I consider a dream emissary or dream guide. Because these types of dreams where you're accessing this information are very very different than normal dreams. They're incredibly vivid and all of your senses are involved in the dream. You can hear things, smell things, feel things - it's very very different than just a normal dream - which to me, often seem a little bit fuzzy. And I don't necessarily remember all of the details, things like that. In these types of dreams, where I'm really connecting with this crystal energy, I remember every single thing from start to finish, which is very uncommon. And I feel like that's how I really know that I'm connecting with this energy on a much deeper level. So for instance, when I worked with this Rainforest Jasper, a very specific layout was given to me by this dream emissary and it used five pieces of Rainforest Jasper cut into very different shapes, and they had specific placement on the body, and a process was explained to me where these crystals were placed on the body in different locations every day for seven days so that the physical body could raise its vibration energetically. And I feel like it happened right about the time that a lot of people started experiencing what they would consider to be ascension shifts as we move toward 2012. So I feel like this specific crystal layout, using this Rainforest Jasper, was given to me at this time so that I could help my clients work through these energetic shifts and changes that are happening in their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual bodies. So that's just one example. I've had many many other crystal dreams, though, and if this is something you're interested in, don't get frustrated with yourself. Be very patient. It takes a while to cultivate the practice enough to where you can connect with that energy. So once you make those connections and have those experiences within the dream state, then as soon as you wake up what you should do is lie as still as possible. Because the more movement you make, the more you come back into your physical body. So you want to just sort of be very still and replay the entire dream in as much detail as you can within your mind. Once you think you have all of those details worked through, then you can sort of reach for your pen and notebook and record as much as you can possibly remember in that dream journal. Even if you don't get the chronological order quite right while you're recording, you can go back later and actually put them in order put the difference sequences that you're dream in order chronologically. So I hope that, you know, that helps a little bit with the process of how to work with crystals in the dream state. For meditation, the possibilities are really limitless. So to start out, you can just hold the crystal in your hands and attune to the energy. How does it make you feel? Are any parts of your physical body feeling different to you? Do you get tingling, coolness, heat, or different sensations within your physical body? You may notice that a certain part of your physical body really stands out or draws your attention. That's sort of a good sign that the crystal may work well to treat that area of the body. Similarly you may find that the crystal really affects you on an emotional level. So make note of how you feel emotionally before going into that meditation, and then once you've been sitting with the crystal for a few minutes, you know, bring your focus back to your emotions and how you're feeling while holding that crystal. And then see, you know, has that changed? Is it the same? Is different? If it's different, the crystal could be shifting your emotional state. So again, this is just really a general basic way of using those crystals while in meditation to see how they shift your energy field and change your energy body. There are many other guided meditations using crystals that are explained by a variety of authors. DaEl Walker has some great meditations in "The Crystal Book" and "The Crystal Healing Book" I really admire his visualization techniques. I think that they're fantastic. Also Judy Hall's book, "The Crystal Experience," has a whole bunch of different exercises to do where you can actually record along in the book with your experiences and there's also a guided meditation CD included in that book. So if you want something that's a little bit more guided, that you don't necessarily have to do on your own, those might be good resources as well.