Lucid Dreaming
Lucid dreaming is something I'm interested in doing more. Never heard of it? Well there are people who can realize that they are dreaming -- while they are dreaming, and not wake up, but take control of what happens in the dream. That's a lucid dream. Instead of being completely reactive, powerless in some respect, or even a completely passive observer in dreams, lucid dreamers are able to call the shots and make things happen. And because it's just a dream, they can do anything. Lucid dreaming may be as close to having god-like powers as many of us are really ever able to get. And those of us who do not naturally do this, can learn how. I did it once myself.
The first problem with dreams is that unless I try, I never even remember them. But you can remember your dreams, simply by trying to. Remembering your dreams is as easy as remembering to do it. The same way you'd remember to get milk when you go shopping. It usually takes me a few nights of trying to remember to remember my dreams, but it eventually does work.
Once you got that going, the next thing is to become aware in your dreams. The technique that worked for me was visualization. Every night as I fell asleep I visualized the dream I wanted to have. Eventually I did have it, and I realized I was dreaming and was able to take control. Unfortunately it didn't last. At one point I lost control of the dream and then it was just like a normal dream where I was just reacting to whatever was happening. Anyway, I had this partly lucid dream in 1999 or 2000, and do not remember why I stopped working on this after that point�
What I visualized was this. Experimenting with lucid dreaming, I decided just to start out with a flying dream. Sounded like fun. So every night I visualized myself with big angel's wings sticking out of my back, getting a running start and jumping off a mountain road and flying out over the ocean. I always pictured it as dark, but was never sure why. Thinking about that now, it could have just been that I knew it was night when I was dreaming so it seemed appropriate. But I don't think that's it. There were no stars, and the darkness was not black, it was really just a very dark gray. I think it represented the unknown, not actual nighttime. I think I wanted to leave open the possibility for random things to happen in the dream. I had no desire to make it a completely scripted experience with no surprises. I could imagine that during the day. And that would be boring.
Anyway, so one night I had the dream. I got a running start, jumped off the cliff and I was flying! I realized I was dreaming, but I think I only made two real decisions before I lost control of the dream. The first was to fly straight ahead and see what was out there! I flew. I found some of the people I worked with at the time, swimming in the water. My second decision was to fly down and see what they were doing there. Turned out they were there because a ship they had been on had sunk. This was not an ominous or particularly bad thing in the dream, it was merely a convenient explanation for why they were there. Here's where I lost control. I dropped into the water and was then swimming myself. I could not get myself out of the water to start flying again. I don't remember now what else happened after that, but I was no longer lucid, I was just reactive from that point on.
So, to continue to try to have lucid dreams, maybe I should change my visualization. My flying abilities should perhaps not be so much like those of a large bird, but more like a jet fighter or cruise missile! Flying can be fun, but honestly it's kind of pedantic. I'm interested in my dreams for the bizarre and creative things that happen. I should visualize something with a lot of creative potential. Maybe I should visualize myself traveling to other planets and see what kind of alien beings I can literally dream up�
