Last night (or this morning, depending how you figure it) I had an awesome lucid dream. That is, one of those things where you're obliviously wandering across the dreamscape, and suddenly realize-- "Whoah, I'm dreaming!!" and gain conscious control.
I was with my girlfriend, standing in line for something. (The previous night, we'd gone out dancing at Sugar Bar and Spice Bar, where we of course had to show ID's to get in, so we may well have been in line for a club, but I can't remember that specific detail) I pulled out two cards from my pocket, my OSU BuckID and my state ID card (though I don't really have the latter-- it recently got stolen with my wallet, and I've been using my passport to get in places).
The cards were extremely messed up. It looked like someone had made a poor quality, black-and-white, under-sized xerox of the cards and laminated the copies. I remember being rather confused by that-- I was thinking, did the person who snagged my wallet go to all the work of replacing the cards with some crappy laminated copies thinking they'd evade detection that way? Anyway, I didn't think too much about it, just put the cards back in my pocket.
Then when we got closer to the front of the line, I pulled the cards back out-- and this time, they were the real cards. They'd somehow magically returned to their bright full quality, full color forms. Now that really caught me off guard, enough that it made me wonder whether maybe, just maybe, it might all be a fantasy in my dreaming mind.
I did my standard "Dream Check". I looked at my hand. Seemed normal enough... Then I closed my eyes and whispered to myself: "My hand has six fingers." Using a little bit of will-power to try to "will" a sixth finger onto myself, I opened my eyes again. Lo and behold-- I had six fingers!! (In fact, the extra digit was a 2nd thumb, which kind of stuck out from between my usual thumb and pointing finger. It was pretty weird!)
Right away, I knew I was dreaming. I experienced the familiar surge of joy that always accompanies the step into lucidity. When you're new to LD, the feelings of freedom and excitement and happiness that come with "going lucid" can be so intense they'll jerk you awake. I looked around at the people in line, the building we were waiting to enter.. and realized, none of these people are real, let's blow this joint! I was about to fly away, but on second thought, I decided I'd take my girlfriend with me. She might not be the real thing, but I figured it'd be fun to bring her along anyway.
My first inclination was to go flying. Flying is my favorite way to spend precious lucidity time, the thrill of feeling the air whisk by as you soar and swoop like a bird, it's hard to describe to someone who's never done it. I looked up into the sky and somehow my vision shot beyond the blue confines of the atmosphere and I was able to peer deep into the vast infinities of the cosmos. There I perceived heavenly bodies swirling around, as though the universe were a dark and profound ocean, its galaxies and solar systems mysterious sea-creatures slithering through the deep.
But somehow, just as I was about to launch myself up into those inviting heavens, I stopped myself. I said to myself: "Wait... I always go flying... this time, I want to try something different."
The next thing I knew, my girlfriend and I were in a little laboratory, and I was conducting experiments to try and unveil mysterious facts about the dreamworld. I can't remember the details of any of experiments-- my memory at this point is very murky and fleeting. The only specific thing I remember was, I was on something like a bike machine, like they have in gyms. By pedaling the machine, I was doing some kind of experiment, but I can't remember the details.
Suddenly the laboratory was pierced by an ear-wrenching digital shriek. It was unbearably loud, as if the earth itself were wailing in agony. I recognized it at once: my cell phone's alarm clock, telling me it was time to wake up.
"NOOO!!!" I thought, as my fragile wonderland started shaking and disintegrating. "I have to endure it until the alarm stops!!" If I could just make it five minutes, it'd automatically switch to snooze mode and I'd have another ten minutes undistracted. I started frantically spinning-- sleep researchers have discovered that one way to maintain lucidity is to spin in place, and I've found this to be generally very accurate, often salvaging an LD right on the verge of blacking out of consciousness.
But the unholy blare of my cell phone was too much. It was intolerable. I woke up.
FURTHER READING
Introduction To Lucid Dreaming
Positive Affirmations
Imaginative Memory
Become More Intelligent By Doing New Things
I was with my girlfriend, standing in line for something. (The previous night, we'd gone out dancing at Sugar Bar and Spice Bar, where we of course had to show ID's to get in, so we may well have been in line for a club, but I can't remember that specific detail) I pulled out two cards from my pocket, my OSU BuckID and my state ID card (though I don't really have the latter-- it recently got stolen with my wallet, and I've been using my passport to get in places).
The cards were extremely messed up. It looked like someone had made a poor quality, black-and-white, under-sized xerox of the cards and laminated the copies. I remember being rather confused by that-- I was thinking, did the person who snagged my wallet go to all the work of replacing the cards with some crappy laminated copies thinking they'd evade detection that way? Anyway, I didn't think too much about it, just put the cards back in my pocket.
Then when we got closer to the front of the line, I pulled the cards back out-- and this time, they were the real cards. They'd somehow magically returned to their bright full quality, full color forms. Now that really caught me off guard, enough that it made me wonder whether maybe, just maybe, it might all be a fantasy in my dreaming mind.
I did my standard "Dream Check". I looked at my hand. Seemed normal enough... Then I closed my eyes and whispered to myself: "My hand has six fingers." Using a little bit of will-power to try to "will" a sixth finger onto myself, I opened my eyes again. Lo and behold-- I had six fingers!! (In fact, the extra digit was a 2nd thumb, which kind of stuck out from between my usual thumb and pointing finger. It was pretty weird!)
Right away, I knew I was dreaming. I experienced the familiar surge of joy that always accompanies the step into lucidity. When you're new to LD, the feelings of freedom and excitement and happiness that come with "going lucid" can be so intense they'll jerk you awake. I looked around at the people in line, the building we were waiting to enter.. and realized, none of these people are real, let's blow this joint! I was about to fly away, but on second thought, I decided I'd take my girlfriend with me. She might not be the real thing, but I figured it'd be fun to bring her along anyway.
My first inclination was to go flying. Flying is my favorite way to spend precious lucidity time, the thrill of feeling the air whisk by as you soar and swoop like a bird, it's hard to describe to someone who's never done it. I looked up into the sky and somehow my vision shot beyond the blue confines of the atmosphere and I was able to peer deep into the vast infinities of the cosmos. There I perceived heavenly bodies swirling around, as though the universe were a dark and profound ocean, its galaxies and solar systems mysterious sea-creatures slithering through the deep.
But somehow, just as I was about to launch myself up into those inviting heavens, I stopped myself. I said to myself: "Wait... I always go flying... this time, I want to try something different."
The next thing I knew, my girlfriend and I were in a little laboratory, and I was conducting experiments to try and unveil mysterious facts about the dreamworld. I can't remember the details of any of experiments-- my memory at this point is very murky and fleeting. The only specific thing I remember was, I was on something like a bike machine, like they have in gyms. By pedaling the machine, I was doing some kind of experiment, but I can't remember the details.
Suddenly the laboratory was pierced by an ear-wrenching digital shriek. It was unbearably loud, as if the earth itself were wailing in agony. I recognized it at once: my cell phone's alarm clock, telling me it was time to wake up.
"NOOO!!!" I thought, as my fragile wonderland started shaking and disintegrating. "I have to endure it until the alarm stops!!" If I could just make it five minutes, it'd automatically switch to snooze mode and I'd have another ten minutes undistracted. I started frantically spinning-- sleep researchers have discovered that one way to maintain lucidity is to spin in place, and I've found this to be generally very accurate, often salvaging an LD right on the verge of blacking out of consciousness.
But the unholy blare of my cell phone was too much. It was intolerable. I woke up.
FURTHER READING
Introduction To Lucid Dreaming
Positive Affirmations
Imaginative Memory
Become More Intelligent By Doing New Things
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1 comments:
I don't think I've ever had a lucid dream. I've had dreams where I realized I was dreaming, but I never seem to have any influence on the events. Your experience does remind me though of an interesting and powerful dream I have several years ago, where I was visited by an angel (in the form of an ordinary human, but in the dream I believed him to be an angel). In the dream, the angel offered to show me the truth about this reality, to allow me to see it as it really is. He took me to the edge of reality and it appeared as a boundary of energy, pink in color. He told me I had always seen reality from the inside, but now I could step over and see it all from the outside--the God's-eye view, you might say. I knew if I did it, I would get a completely different perspective, but I also realized it would impair my ability to remain emotionally entangled with the events of this world. So having considered the consequences, I chose not to do it.
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