The Mysteries of Lucid Dreaming
Episode 16 - My experiences with lucid dreams
Greetings,
I see new faces among you. If you’re new here, welcome, stay close to the fire. It’s warm, and the night is long, with no dawn in sight.
I recommend you check out the Archive: you may find something interesting in there.
Let’s Dream
Given the upcoming release of my second book, Dreamwalker, I wanted to take some time to discuss a related topic: dreams and lucid dreaming. This has been a fascinating, and very poorly understood topic for many. Though there are books and courses you can find online on the topic, I think lucid dreaming remains part of those vast territories of the Unconscious that remain mysterious and mostly unexplored.
I discovered lucid dreaming over a decade ago, and it was one of the topics, alongside out-of-body travel (or astral projection), that first introduced me to the wider mysteries of what consciousness is capable of, and pulled me into spirituality. Though my path has changed considerably over the years, these topics were my introduction because they were wild and deeply intriguing to my teenage mind.
What is Lucid Dreaming?
To answer this question would require knowing what the hell ‘Dreaming’ even is. Frankly, we don’t have a pertinent answer to this question, because it would imply knowing what ‘being awake’ means, or what this life is - both, upon serious consideration, are questions without answers.
In order to not get stuck on philosophy I suppose we have to make some assumptions, so let’s just go with the accepted paradigm and carry on. Lucid dreaming is the ability to acquire lucidity and a sense of identity within a dream scenario, that would allow you, as the dreamer, to realise you are in a dream.
Now this… in itself is one of the most spiritual concepts you can possibly imagine, not least because, well, you can layer it on top of waking life and understand the idea of ‘Enlightenment’ in the same way. They don’t call it ‘Awakening’ for no reason - but let’s not get carry on.
Normally in dreams you simply find yourself in some world or scenario, doing things and acting out some narrative without questioning it. Kind of like…in life. I suppose one may assume the difference is in Memory - waking life has the memory of yesterday and most of the years of your life, while dreams seemingly only have a narrative.
Eeeeeehhhhh… that’s also questionable and I get giddy considering this, but I’ll try not to get carry on.
Anyway, through the use of techniques and practice, one can acquire Lucidity in a dream, waking up inside the dream, and realise the astounding possibilities that exist there: you are now free to do whatever you wish, with no consequences.
My Lucid Dreams
Ironically enough, my relationship with dreaming has been quite poor in the past decade, likely due to my regular consumption of weed, which has brough me great creative benefits, at the detriment of REM sleep, and therefore dreaming. I’ve not had any lucid dreams in recent memory, and I haven’t been practicing either.
But in my teenage years, when I first began to delve in this adventure and keep a regular practice of dream journaling and conscious practice in waking life, I had a few experiences that were profoundly transformative.
Acquiring lucidity in dreams is… incredible. There’s a sense of profound liberation, joy and ecstasy when you do it (which again is quite telling) and there is a sense of excitement at the limitless possibilities that await you. Unfortunately, too much excitement is what will take you out of the experience and back into unconsciousness. One must also remember to stay calm and centred, otherwise the experience is very short lived.
It’s difficult.
I remember one of my first lucid dreams I saw the inherent beauty of everything that surrounded me, including a friend I was with (a person who was just a dream character). I told him how beautiful he was and that I loved him. He didn’t take it well - he started screaming and ran away. I don’t know why.
In another instance, I found myself inside a bar filled with people. I told everyone that this is just a dream and they don’t actually exist. That didn’t go well either - much like in waking life, people don’t appreciate being told they’re unreal. They simply stared at me like I was some lunatic, quite understandably. I pressed further:
‘If you think you’re real,’ I said, ‘where were you before coming here?’
…
‘I was at home,’ someone replied.
But these are merely the first experiments everyone will do in their first attempts, sort of wasting time instead of properly using this super power. Acquiring lucidity in dreams would technically allow one to interact with the deepest parts of the unconscious, asking for profound revelations and meetings with archetypes. Jung would have a field day - actually he did.
One other thing I found profoundly fascinating, because it mirrors waking life especially well, is just how enslaved and unconscious we are to our primal instincts. It seems that no amount of lucidity can skip over proper training and self-mastery.
In this other example I became lucid and immediately realised I was very… uh, horny. And so, well, I was a God in that world, therefore proceeded to ehm… satisfy myself with a female dream character. It felt as if I was humping a piece of cardboard and I felt like an animal. The instinct ruled, but there was no pleasure or satisfaction, and my lucidity ended in the process.
While I’m not very proud of this, it did show me just how powerful our animal instincts are, and how deeply linked they are to a state of unconsciousness. Following base desires (or, as Buddha would say, attachments/desires in general) keeps us trapped in Samsara.
Now Samsara is often interpreted as the cycle of death and rebirth, but I think it could also point to the cycle of night/day that rules our lives. We go to sleep and we wake up, and this cyclical transition marks what we call ‘day’. In some sense, we die every night and are reborn every morning. Yesterday becomes part of the memory that makes up your identity, while tomorrow becomes your goal.
Both are illusions, in a sense.
But I’m gettin’ carried away again - the point is that Lucid Dreaming seems to point to increased awareness that can only be realised through discipline and self-mastery. You cannot both be lucid/enlightened and also go around satisfying your ego cravings. There are rules in consciousness and I think this is one of them - some kind of fail-safe mechanism to keep the Ego in check and prevent the complete disaster a God-Delusion would bring.
I mean, imagine a 6-year old with Superman’s powers: disaster would be too kind a word.
Jung himself and many others stated there is NOTHING more dangerous than an Ego who believes it has acquired Divine status. In theological terms, this is the ultimate evil, the most dangerous thing. And this is also why I said what I said in the Previous Episode.
Conclusion
You may ask yourself ‘How do I get to do this lucid thing?’ or ‘what are the techniques?’
Well, for this you have to wait and keep an eye out for more episodes. There’s a lot more to say on this topic.
Blessings,
