I am going to start writing about my dreams. Especially on account of some reading I am doing about Lucid Dreams. I am currently reading a book called Lucid Dreaming: The Power of Being Awake and Aware in Your Dreams by Stephen LaBerge, PhD. It is absoltely fascinating, and I have found the fact of lucid dreaming to be the greatest treasure ever.
Since reading, I have yet to have a lucid dream. But I must make an account of the first time I did. About 8 years ago I was reading a section of a book titled Dreamwork (by whom I cannot remember this moment). Anyways, it told the story of the first written account of a lucid dream, other than in pictographs and such. It is in a letter written by St. Augustine in 415 AD. He actually tells of the dream of Gennadius, the physician of Carthage at that time. St. Augustine describes Gennadius being aware of dreaming in his dream while being led around by a young man of remarkable appearance and a commanding presence. During a few lucid dreams, Gennadius dreams that this same young man guides him to a city where he beholds music "so exquisitely sweet as to surpass anything he had ever heard" and asks Gennadius certain questions. He asks "Where is your body now?" Gennadius responds "in my bed". The young man says "Do you know that the eyes in this body of yours are now bound and closed, and that with these eyes you are seeing nothing?" Gennadius replies "I know it." The youth-guide continues "What then are the eyes with which you see me?" Gennadius has no reply and the youth says (according to St. Augustine's account) "As while you are asleep and lying on your bed, these eyes of your body are now unemployed and doing nothing, and yet you have eyes with which you behold me, and enjoy this vision, so, after your death, while your bodily eyes shall be wholly inactive, there shall be in you a life by which you shall still live, and a faculty of perception by which you shall still perceive."
Why do I tell this whole story? Because the day after reading this I took a nap on a couch at the place where my friend Ruebi was housesitting. I was laid out perfectly flat with my hands folded on my belly and I fell quite asleep like that. Kind of like a mummy. It was then that I had my first lucid dream ever. And the parallel of my dream to that of this account was uncanny. The only difference was there was no youth with a face leading me around, but there WAS a clear and pronounced voice speaking to me in my dream. The first thing the voice said was "Look at your hands." I did. The voice spoke more. "Do they seem real to you?" I answered that they did! Then the voice said "Do you know you are sleeping right now?" I actually did, and I even had enough awareness and wherewithall to open my body's eyes just a slit and look through them to the room around me. I knew my body was lying down sleeping, but I went directly back to the dream and the voice. The voice then gave me my tarot cards (in my dream). The voice ( definitely a man's voice) told me to look at each card one by one and tell him if they seemed real. As I looked at each card I realized that not only did they seem completely real, they seemed REALER THAN EVER BEFORE in my waking life!
This was my first lucid dream. In the next few nights I had more, I believe they had that same voice kind of guiding me. But I cannot remember exactly.
Since then, I have had many lucid dreams. Maybe 25 or 30. Maybe 50. I cannot say. But I do know that having one is one of the most life-changing experiences ever.
In more than one I have touched a leaf and seen a tree or plant grow, flower, wilt, lose leaves, and grow more - all in a moment. Just like fast-speed motion. In another I had no body, and I was flying in the wind, over a grove of beautiful beautiful trees and I could sweep right up upon a leaf and I saw this one tree, glowing and glowing like flourescent and I swirled so close to it and saw the leaves alive, breathing almost, so very very alive. In most lucid dream the first and only thing I want to do is fly. As soon as I realize I am dreaming, I lift off the ground.
In my first lucid flying dream, I could barely make it off the ground. I was too aware of my sleeping body and too aware of my emotion of excitement at flying and I couldn't get very high. But in another, I was on a bus riding somewhere when I realized I was dreaming. I asked the bus driver if he could stop the bus, as I wanted off upon realizing this. (I suppose I could have just THOUGHT the bus away) But I got off the bus, and I stood out in the road, and then I am telling you I SHOT up like a real human rocket and began flying into outer space. That was the fastest and strongest I have ever flown. In other dreams I am often at this kind of lodge, with rafters, and I always choose to fly up, around people's heads and out into the day. In the last lucid dream I had, I was already flying, and it was the act of flying that made me realize I was dreaming! It started out as just a regular old flying dream. I had one lucid dream where I was flying with Devendra Banhart, who was a much better flyer than me. I have had dreams where I started out in my own bed by my sleeping body, and then flew out the window into our yard and got into bushes there! I had another recent lucid dream where I was in a lodge and saw a sign posted that said "222" (in waking life this is a sign-theme that I see alot). Without even being actually AWARE yet that I was dreaming, I said to myself, "Hmmm. 222 even appears in my dreams!" (Which proves I must have been sub consciously aware I was dreaming in my dream- odd, to think there is a subconscious even in dreams!) And it was that innate knowledge that I already knew that I was dreaming but had brought it forth into clear consciousness that made me immediately abandon my thoughts about 222 and start flying in the lodge. In this dream Art was with me, and he wanted me to bring him up for flying too. But he was holding me down, so I told him to let go of me and I took off without him. I was pretty excited to show him how I could fly, and that emotion of pride made flying more difficult than normal until I was out of his sight and then I flew well again. And in this dream, I said to myself "I am going to HOLD onto this consciousness. I am dreaming, I am dreaming," for the longest amount of time yet in a lucid dream. I was able to fly out to a pool of water and get in it, and I explored the water and the banks around it and held onto my lucidity. I can't remember it all completely anymore because it was a couple months back.
But I need to start writing about them more. And taking more naps. I am so very excited to get to the part of the book that tells about practices and ways to lucid dream more frequently, but I am reading it slowly and trying to absorb every word, as THAT itself (the absorption of subjects and matter around a person) is a practice toward lucid dreaming.
I think, if people spend their whole lives trying to get famous, trying to drive the right car, to own a giant house, to fly around in a jet, etc etc. etc. - if they knew the treasure of lucid dreaming would they care so much? It is the exact same thing as being awake except you CAN DO ANYTHING!!!!!!!!! If one trains herself, I am hoping that I will be able to explore the most fascinating mansions and lands and caverns, to fly through lodges and space and gardens, and to hold gold in my hand and not marvel at anything about it's worth other than it yellow bright hue! Money is nothing! Consciousness is everything.
Yikes.
Last night my dreams were not lucid. But I do remember I was taking a music class. I had a teacher with long hair in a ponytail, a man. It was time for finals and we all had to play the class a song we had written. But he only had a guitar in the class, and I had written mine on piano. I did not and was not going to sing acapello. I felt weird about it, and cowardly.
Later in the dream I found my mom sitting, eating her lunch under huge shady oak tree. She seemed sad and lonely. She was on her lunch break at work. I sat with her.
Earlier in the night I dreamed of a crazy long train ride to somewhere. An open face train, like a rollercoaster.
I remember so many rememberings of before. Dreams perhaps I had when I was 20 but they really do feel like they could have been other lifetimes. Like treks I have taken across land, in the night, with a group of friends, toward a strange and small city. Like a house with a garden and watching the sun set there. The gravel driveway there. The roads nearby.
ahhhhhhh, strange mysterious life.
