Lucid Dreaming Read online

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One: In Dreams Awake

  Chapter Two: A Psychobiological Model of Dreaming

  Chapter Three: Learning Lucid Dreaming: Methods for Developing the Skill of Lucid Dreaming

  Chapter Four: The Practical Dreamer: Applications of Lucid Dreaming

  Chapter Five: Lucid Dream Work From Nightmares to Wholeness

  Chapter Six: Life as a Dream: Awake in your Dreams and Alive in your Life

  Notes

  About the Author

  Back Cover Material

  Acknowledgments

  ***

  “When eating fruit, think of the

  person who planted the tree.”

  —VIETNAMESE PROVERB

  ***

  We little know how much we owe to our predecessors; without the efforts of countless others, this work could not have been accomplished. Thanks to them all, known and unknown.

  Foremost of those to whom I wish to express my loving gratitude are my parents, Dorothy and Vincent—and their ancestors— sine quibus non. Lynne Levitan contributed substantially to the writing of the material, while Patricia “Ki-Lin” Keelin tirelessly and cheerfully edited and tracked down innumerable details. The whole crew at Sounds True was wonderful to work with, patient, thoughtful, and professional, notably Matt Licata, Tami Simon, Mitchell Clute, Randy Roark, and Karen Polaski. I thank them all!

  Thanks also to Kenny Felder, Dominick Attisani, the Fetzer Institute, and the Institute for Noetic Studies for financial support.

  Finally, I am grateful to Mushkil Gusha for the usual contributions, and ultimately to the person who planted the tree!

  In Dreams Awake

  ***

  “Why, sometimes before breakfast, I’ve believed

  as many as six impossible things.”

  —THE WHITE QUEEN,

  THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

  (LEWIS CARROLL)

  ***

  THE WONDERS OF LUCID DREAMING

  I realized I was dreaming. I raised my arms and began to rise (actually, I was being lifted). I rose through black sky that blended to indigo, to deep purple, to lavender, to white, then to very bright light. All the time I was being lifted there was the most beautiful music I have ever heard. It seemed like voices rather than instruments. There are no words to describe the JOY I felt. I was very gently lowered back to earth. I had the feeling that I had come to a turning point in my life and I had chosen the right path. The dream, the joy I experienced, was kind of a reward, or so I felt. It was a long, slow slide back to wakefulness with the music echoing in my ears. The euphoria lasted several days; the memory, forever.

  —A.F., Bay City, Michigan

  I was standing in a field in an open area when my wife pointed in the direction of the sunset. I looked at it and thought, “How odd, I’ve never seen colors like that before.” Then it dawned on me: “I must be dreaming!” Never had I experienced such clarity and perception—the colors were so beautiful and the sense of freedom so exhilarating that I started racing through this beautiful golden wheat field waving my hands in the air and yelling at the top of my voice, “I’m dreaming! I’m dreaming!” suddenly, I started to lose the dream; it must have been the excitement. I instantly woke up. As it dawned on me what had just happened, I woke my wife and said, “I did it, I did it!” I was conscious within the dream state and I’ll never be the same. Funny, isn’t it? How a taste of it can affect one like that. It’s the freedom I guess; we see that we truly are in control of our own universe.

  —D.W., Elk River, Minnesota

  As I wandered through a high-vaulted corridor deep within a mighty citadel, I paused to admire the magnificent architecture. somehow the contemplation of these majestic surroundings stimulated the realization that I was dreaming! In the light of my lucid consciousness, the already impressive splendor of the castle appeared even more marvelously vibrant, and with great excitement I began to explore the imaginary reality of my “castle in the air.” Walking down the hall, I could feel the cold hardness of the stones beneath my feet and hear the echo of my steps. every element of this enchanting spectacle seemed “as real as real could be”—in spite of the fact that I remained perfectly aware that it was all a dream!

  Fantastic as it may sound, while dreaming and soundly asleep, I was in full possession of my waking faculties: I could think as clearly as ever, freely remember details of my waking life, and act deliberately upon conscious reflection. Yet, none of this diminished the vividness of my dream; paradox or no, I was awake in my dream!

  Finding myself before two diverging passageways, I exercised my free will, choosing to take the rightward one and shortly came upon a stairway. Curious about where it might lead, I descended the flight of steps and found myself near the top of an enormous subterranean vault. From where I stood at the foot of the stairs, the floor of the cavern sloped steeply downward, fading in the distance into darkness. several hundred yards below I could see what appeared to be a fountain surrounded by marble statuary.

  The idea of bathing in the symbolically renewing waters of the spring captured my fancy, and I proceeded at once down the hillside. Not on foot, however, for whenever I want to get somewhere in these dreams, I fly. As soon as I alighted beside the pool, I was at once startled by the discovery that what from above had seemed merely an inanimate statue now appeared unmistakably and ominously alive. Towering above the fountain stood a huge and intimidating genie, the guardian of the spring, as I somehow immediately knew. All my instincts cried out, “Flee!” But I remembered that this terrifying sight was only a dream; emboldened by this thought, I cast aside fear and flew straight up to the apparition.

  As is the way of dreams, as soon as we were within reach, we had somehow become of equal size and I was able to look him in the eyes, face to face. resolving to overcome my fear, I took both his hands in mine. As the dream slowly faded, the genie's power seemed to flow into me and I awoke, filled with vibrant energy. I felt like I was ready for anything.

  —S.L., Palo Alto, California[1]

  Strange, marvelous, and even impossible things regularly happen in dreams, but people usually do not realize that the explanation is that they are dreaming. Usually does not mean always and there is a highly significant exception to this generalization. Sometimes, dreamers do correctly realize the explanation for the bizarre happenings they are experiencing, and lucid dreams, like those recounted above, are the result.

  Empowered by the knowledge that the world they are experiencing is a creation of their own imagination, lucid dreamers can consciously influence the outcome of their dreams. They can create and transform objects, people, situations, worlds, and even themselves. By the standards of the familiar world of physical and social reality, they can do the impossible.

  The world of lucid dreams provides a vaster stage than ordinary life for almost anything imaginable, from the frivolous to the sublime. You could, if you chose, revel at a Saturnalian festival, soar to the stars, or travel to mysterious lands. You could join those who are testing lucid dreaming as a tool for problem solving, self-healing, and personal growth. Or you could explore the implications of teachings from ancient traditions and reports from modern psychologists that suggest that lucid dreams can help you find your deepest identity—who you really are.

  Lucid dreaming has been known about for centuries, but has until recently remained a rare and little-understood phenomenon. My own scientific and personal explorations, together with the findings of other dream researchers around the world, have just begun to shed light on this u
nusual state of consciousness. recently, this new research field has captured the attention of the population outside the world of scientific dream research because studies have shown that, given proper training, people can learn to have lucid dreams.

  But why are people interested in learning to be conscious in their dreams? According to my own experience and the testimony of thousands of other lucid dreamers, lucid dreams can be extraordinarily vivid, intense, pleasurable, and exhilarating. People frequently consider their lucid dreams as among the most wonderful experiences of their lives.

  If this were all there was to it, lucid dreams would be delightful, but ultimately trivial, entertainment. however, as many have already discovered, you can use lucid dreaming to improve the quality and depth of your life.

  You can learn from your dream experiences just as much as from your waking life experiences. Chapter 5, Lucid Dream Work: From Nightmares to Wholeness, will focus on learning how to use your lucid dreams for self-integration and personal growth, as one of my own dreams illustrates:

  I was in the middle of a riot in a classroom: a violent mob of thirty or forty was taking the place apart, throwing chairs and people through windows, grappling convulsively with each other and letting fly random shrieks, war cries, and insults—in short, the sort of thing that is likely to happen in certain grade schools when the teacher steps out of the classroom for a moment. The goliath and leader of the Huns, a huge, repulsive barbarian with a pockmarked face, had locked me in an ironclad grip, and I was desperately struggling to get away. Then I realized that I was dreaming, and in a flash, I remembered the lessons of past experience.

  I stopped struggling, for I knew that the conflict was with myself. I reasoned that the barbarian was a dream personification of something I was struggling with in myself. Or perhaps it represented someone, or some quality in another, that I disliked. In any case, this barbarian was obviously a shadow figure if I had ever seen one! experience had shown me that in the dream world, if nowhere else, the best way to bring hate and conflict to an end was to love my enemies as myself. What I needed to do, I realized, was to completely accept with open arms the shadow I had been attempting to disown.

  So, I tried to feel loving as I stood face to face with the shadow Hun. I failed at first, feeling only repulsion and disgust. My gut reaction was that he was simply too ugly and barbarous to love. Determined to overcome the initial shock of the image, I sought love within my heart. Finding it, I looked the barbarian in the eyes, trusting my intuition to supply the right things to say. Beautiful words of acceptance flowed out of me, and as they did, my shadow melted into me. The riot had vanished without a trace, the dream faded, and I awoke feeling wonderfully calm.

  Although the outlines of a practical art and science of lucid dreaming are just beginning to emerge, and the systematic use of lucid dreaming as a tool for psychological self-exploration is still in its infancy, most people can safely use the available knowledge about lucid dreaming to conduct their own explorations. Probably the only people who should not experiment with lucid dreaming are those who are unable to distinguish between waking reality and constructions of their imagination. Learning lucid dreaming will not cause you to lose touch with the difference between waking and dreaming. On the contrary, lucid dreaming is for becoming more aware.

  LIFE IS SHORT

  Before we get into the specifics of how to have lucid dreams, let us take a closer look at the reasons for learning to awaken in your dreams. do the potential benefits justify the costs in terms of the time and effort required for mastering lucid dreaming? We think so, but read on, and decide for yourself.

  Proverbially and undeniably, life is short. To make matters worse, we must spend between a quarter and a half of our lives asleep. Most of us are in the habit of virtually sleepwalking through our dreams. We sleep, mindlessly, through many thousands of opportunities to be fully aware and alive.

  Is sleeping through your dreams the best use of your limited lifespan? not only are you wasting part of your finite store of time to be alive, but you are also missing adventures and lessons that could enrich the rest of your life. By awakening to your dreams, you will add to your experience of life and, if you use these added hours of lucidity to experiment and exercise your mind, you can also improve your enjoyment of your waking hours.

  “dreams are a reservoir of knowledge and experience,” writes Tarthang Tulku, a Tibetan Buddhist lama teaching in Berkeley, “yet they are often overlooked as a vehicle for exploring reality. In the dream state our bodies are at rest, yet we see and hear, move about, and are even able to learn. When we make good use of the dream state, it is almost as if our lives were doubled: instead of a hundred years, we live two hundred.”[2]

  We can carry not only knowledge but also moods from the lucid dream state to the waking state. When we awaken laughing with delight from a wonderful lucid dream, it is not surprising to find that our waking mood has been brightened with feelings of joy. A young woman’s first lucid dream, which she had after reading an article about lucid dreaming, provides a vivid example. Upon realizing she was dreaming, she “tried to remember the advice in the article,” but the only thing that came to mind was a notion of her own: “ultimate experience.” She felt herself taken over by a “blissful sensation of blending and melting with colors and light” that continued, “opening up into a total ‘orgasm.’” Afterward, she “gently floated into waking consciousness” and was left with “a feeling of bubbling joy” that persisted for a week or more.[3]

  This carry-over of positive feeling into the waking state is an important aspect of lucid dreaming. dreams, remembered or not, often color our mood upon awakening, sometimes for a good part of a day. Just as the negative aftereffect of “bad dreams” can cause you to feel as if you got up on the wrong side of the bed, the positive feelings of a pleasant dream can give you an emotional uplift, helping you to start the day with confidence and energy. This is all the more true of inspirational lucid dreams.

  Perhaps you are still thinking, “My dream life is interesting enough as it is. Why should I make an effort to enhance my awareness of it?” If so, consider the traditional mystical teaching that holds that most of humanity is asleep. When Idries Shah, the preeminent Sufi teacher, was asked to name “a fundamental mistake of man’s,” he replied, “to think that he is alive, when he has merely fallen asleep in life’s waiting room.”[4]

  Lucid dreaming can help us understand Shah’s words. Once you have had the experience of realizing that you are dreaming and that your possibilities are far greater than you had thought, you can imagine what a similar realization would be like in your waking life. As Henry David Thoreau put it, “Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”

  LISTEN TO TRACK 1

  Your Present State of Consciousness and the Lucid Dream State

  LUCID DREAMING AND WAKING LIFE

  How does your renewed appreciation of the richness of your ordinary waking state of consciousness relate to the experience of lucid dreaming? Much of what you just observed about your present experiential world applies as well to the dream world. If you were dreaming, you would experience a multisensory world as rich and apparently real as the world you are experiencing right now. You would see, hear, feel, taste, think, and be just as you are now.

  The crucial difference is that the multisensory world you experience while dreaming originates internally rather than externally. While awake, most of what you perceive corresponds to actually existing people, objects, and events in the external world. Because the objects of waking perception actually exist independently of your mind, they remain relatively stable. For example, you can look at this sentence, shut the book for a moment, and reopen to the same page, and you will see the same sentence.

  But, as you will see in Chapter Two, the same is not true for dreaming. Because there is no stable external source of stimulation from which to build your experiential world, dreams are much more changeable than the physical world.

>   If you were in a lucid dream, your experience of the world would be even more different from waking life. First of all, you would know it was all a dream. Because of this, the world around you would tend to rearrange and transform even more than is usual in dreams. Impossible things could happen, and the dream scene itself, rather than disappearing once you know it to be “unreal,” might increase in clarity and brilliance until you found yourself dumbfounded with wonder.

  If fully lucid, you would realize that the entire dream world was in your own mind, and with this awareness might come an exhilarating feeling of freedom. nothing external, no laws of society or physics, would constrain your experience; you could do anything you could conceive of, anything you believed you could do. Thus inspired, you might fly to the heavens. You might face a situation that you have been fearfully avoiding; you might enjoy an erotic encounter that surpasses what you had previously imagined, or experience symbolic union with your inner opposite; you might discover what it would be like to visit once more a loved one who has passed beyond the world of the living; you might seek and find a measure of self-knowledge and wisdom.