Every Gnostic student, after waking from their normal sleep, must perform a retrospective exercise based on the process of their sleep, in order to remember all of those places they visited during the hours of sleep.  We already know that the ego travels a great deal; it goes towards where we have physically been, repeating all that which we have seen and heard.

The masters instruct their disciples when they are out of the physical body.

Therefore, it is urgent to know how to profoundly meditate and then practice what we have learned during the hours of sleep.  It is necessary not to physically move at the time of waking up, because with the movement, the Astral is agitated and the memories are lost.  It is urgent to combine the retrospective exercises with the following mantras: RAOM GAOM.  Each word is divided into two syllables.  One must accentuate the vowel O. These mantras are for the student what dynamite is for the miner. Thus, as the miner opens his way through the bowels of the earth with the aid of dynamite, similarly, the student also opens his way into the memories of his subconsciousness with the aid of these mantras.

Excerpted from The Perfect Matrimony (1950) by Samael Aun Weor.