When I first started lucid dreaming practices, me and my, then, girlfriend (now wife), were all about it and dove in head first. We did all of the daily reality checks, we kept dream journals, we discussed our dreams, and we consumed every piece of literature on lucid dreaming, dreaming, meditations, and sleeping practices that we could get our hands on. I was having lucid dreams within the first month and I had, what I felt to be, unusual confidence in my control over those dreams where I became lucid. I flew at will, hovered meditatively, transformed my surroundings. It was great.
Life happens, though, and like so many healthy practices, we let circumstances get in the way of our lucid dreaming practices which were, for us, waking life practices of awareness and self-control through light meditation. I had one last lucid dream that year before moving out of Fairbanks which turned out to be prophetic. The dream basically lined out how I would fall away from these practices, become weaker through lack of exercise, start working as a tech, and it even showed me my father buying me a white car as a means of conveyance to and from work. All of it came to pass up to and including the white car which I had no say in because it was just happenstance. It was just there, one day, and it was the last thing of that dream to come true, I realize now, looking back.
Well, as anyone who has gone so far into self-discovery and lucid dreaming can probably attest to, losing the lucid dreaming practice feels a lot like losing a part of yourself and I have long regretted it and feel lessened, somehow. Like all such things which take effort, however, I keep meaning to get back into it, trying to work up the internal strength to begin again, but have never really managed to do more than think about it a lot, which is something. I don’t do the reality checks, I don’t keep a dream journal, though I did place it next to my side of the bed, and I don’t practice the nightly mantras aimed at developing my dreaming awareness. I do think about it a lot, though, and with longing. As such, once in a great while and despite not practicing anything to do with lucid dreaming, I do have a lucid dream. These days, though, those moments are a bit frustrating because I do not appear to have ANY control over anything and it makes me feel bad like I am less myself than I once was.
Last night, I had one such lucid dream where I was elected President of the US and I was running away, with my wife and newborn son, to live in Canada instead. A lot of things happened and it was a pretty long dream (they usually are for me) so I will spare you the finer details and skip to the part where I became lucid.
We found a place to live in this poor housing unit filled with people in their separate rooms. Our room was at the end of a long, unlit hallway, and even though it was on the same level as all of the other rooms, it appeared as a loft with vaulted ceiling and a single room with a shared bathroom which had timers for all of its functions like lighting and the fan and water. The bed was too small for two people so I gave it to my wife and I took to the floor. As we were settling in to sleep, I realized that Johan, our newborn son, wasn’t with us and hadn’t been for some time nor could I remember when we had last had him with us. This triggered my awareness that it HAD to be a dream because we would NEVER leave Johan behind for any reason and I knew that like I know I am me.
I said I was dreaming out loud and then looked at my hands which weren’t incredibly screwy, but they were a bit skewed which was enough for me to know that it was a dream. The normal excitement I feel when becoming lucid filled me for a moment and almost woke me up which took the form of me falling asleep in the dream or at least starting to close my eyes, but I managed to recover and stay in the dream. I got up to test the other dream signs starting with jumping to try to fly because that is one of my absolute favorite things to do when I am lucid, but it failed, I just landed normally like I do when I jump in real life. That bummed me out a bit and I began to question my assertions that I was dreaming so I walked over to the mirror hanging on our door and looked into it. I was there, staring back at myself, looking tired, so I tried to put my hand through it, slowly, but it was cold and solid. I decided to try to command the mirror and so I said to it, “Show me the truth.” and my image vanished from the mirror. Then I found myself standing beside the mirror instead of in front of it which was also weird so I walked back in front of it and found my image to be changed. I looked a bit older and my hair was very short. This was a bit confusing for me so, in an attempt to further prove that I was dreaming, I wandered into the bathroom, fumbled with the timer knobs for the fan and the lights, but managed to turn everything on. I tried putting my hand through the glass window in the bathroom overlooking the city from above, but it too was cold and hard and did not permit my hand to pass through. I tried jumping again. Nothing. I didn’t feel confident about my abilities, I should mention, I felt a bit guilty for my ways and lack of self-control. I also felt guilty for having drunk too much wine that night and felt like it was probably interfering with my dreaming. I don’t really know, I only mention those things in case they may resonate with your own inner circumstances.
As I was doing this, my wife walked into the bathroom and asked me what I was doing. I excitedly explained to her that I was having a lucid dream and how I knew I was dreaming, Johan was missing. She got wide-eyed and asked me if I was sure and I said, “Of course! I KNOW I am dreaming, I have no doubt, but I can’t seem to take control and most of the dream signs aren’t working. Try some for yourself.” She began feeling excited and worked at realizing it herself. I eventually lost my lucidity as the dream progressed, as we so often do, being drawn back into the narrative of the dream.
I awoke with mixed emotions. Glad to have been lucid, but bummed out that I had so little control.
Talking to my wife this morning as I showered, she revealed that she too had become lucid without having any real control and that it happened in our bathroom concerning our son, Johan. She had been getting ready to shower and had turned the water on when she heard Johan start to cry and she thought, “Who put my son in the shower?!”
It was then that she realized it had been a recurring dream circumstance and became aware that she was dreaming. She sat with it for awhile and, eventually, lost her lucidity as well. The synchronicity of our two lucid dreams was not lost on me and I have been thinking about it all morning.
Thing is, I’m not mystified by any of this, I know why my dreams are like this now. My life is filled with stress which is something that we perceive and manifest and is not necessarily real, but it is powerful, nonetheless. I drink a bit too much, though I am not an alcoholic as I go without it for days, often, but I do tend to over-indulge, these days. I no longer practice all of the healthy, life-affirming, habits that first brought us to lucid dreaming, and I feel negative a lot of the time because Trump exists, education has been dismantled and extremists have convinced the uneducated that they are not the government and that the government is the bad guy in all of this misery, and I see that those things are what is leading to Trumps rise, and I now fear for the life and safety of my family if he grabs the reigns of this country. It may seem stupid, but that is what is bothering me the most, along with natural dangers on the rise due to global warming. The thing is, my anger and fear isn’t doing anything about it and I know that I should just step back and cleanse myself of this garbage, but it is hard, you know? I want my son to be happy and to have a chance.
Anyway, the only thing that is in my control is how I choose to see the world and my place in it and I have let myself grow too sour and bitter. I know that if I turn from that and return to a balanced and positive life, my dreams will return. It won’t fix the world outside of me, but it will heal my inner world. Easier said than done, of course.
So that is the story of my dreams and their connection to my waking life. I hope that it is useful to someone struggling with, maybe, the same or similar circumstances. I realize now that my dreaming life is about as important to me as my waking life. Either one out of balance leaves me feeling weak, out of control, and unhappy. It’s a never ending journey. I am, at current, in a dark wood, but I will find my way out.
Good luck to all of you!
If you’re expecting or fearing that you won’t be able to do anything “special” maybe it comes true.