Foreword

Herein, I will attempt to archive my experiences with my dreamscape. You will find this journal filled with both normal dreams and, God willing, lucid dreams as well. I am not yet well versed in attaining lucidity, but that is not to say that I have not experienced it. Lucid dreaming is very real. I, too, thought it was a crackpot idea when I first heard the notion of attaining consciousness within a dream. I am very thankful that it piqued my interest enough to give it a shot. If nothing else, I hope that this blog can act as a source of inspiration (or at least entertainment) to it's visitors.

Friday, August 31, 2007

Mirrors and Dream Symbols

I find myself standing around a grille in a courtyard of sorts. I do not recognize the house. There is a black haired female cooking on the grille, and a few other people standing around.

Bored, I suddenly think something like "Boy, I could do anything I want right now if I was dreaming..." to myself. I decide to check my hand. It looks fine, but as I turn it over one of my fingers grows longer. Holy crap, I AM dreaming!

I decide to enter the house and see what is inside. As I enter the door, a stray thought runs through my mind. In waking life I had been thinking about the clarity of eye sight compared to that of dreams. Suddenly my vision is blurry, as if I had poor eyesight. I imagine that I am wearing glasses and the blurry vision changes to something akin to looking through a dirty window. I quickly grab the glasses off of my face. My eye sight is clear again.

I realize that I had just remembered something from my waking life, which I am not normally able to do. I look down at my hands which have six fingers now and start to repeat "Increase Lucidity". Things become sharper. My mind becomes clearer.

I decide that I should try and remember what I had planned to do the next time I was lucid. I remember that this months dream quest at LD4all is to ask a mirror to show me my deepest desire. I move towards the front of the house, and find that there are three full length mirrors in the entryway. I turn my back away from one of them, and tell myself that when I turn around I will see my desire. I tell myself a few times, and then turn around. I see nothing but the wall behind me in the mirror. Not even my own reflection. I try to decipher what this means, but eventually decide that it must not have worked. I move to the next mirror and try it again. Same result. In a last ditch effort, I find a door and will my desire to be behind it. I open the door, only to find an empty utility closet. I note the results and try to remember what else I want to try.

I remember an earlier quest that I had wanted to try that involves finding my dream symbol. I walk into another room (it looks like a large bathroom with a marble hot tub). I imagine that I will see my symbol when I turn around. I turn about towards a blank wall, and look straight ahead. There is nothing there, but as I continue to stare the outline of a star shape begins to show in the air; the type of star that you get when you draw it out on paper in that certain pattern. I muse to myself that this is a very boring dream symbol, and I am a little disappointed.

Having completed the second task, I wonder what to do next. I do not remember setting any other goals for this dream (in fact I have always wanted to ascend into space and look at the earth, but I have never actually set it as a goal for my next lucid dream), and decide that I will just go outside and fly around the local area.

I leave through the front door. I jump up intending to fly and catch a little more air than normal, but I do not begin to fly. I change my mindset and try again with no better results.

I remember reading in LaBerge's book that it sometimes helps to jump off of something. I look around for something high. There is a school across the street, and some sort of fancy temple peeking above the woods on the same side as me. I notice a picnic table a little ways down the road. I begin running towards the table, step up the side and jump off. I catch some air time, but then I begin to doubt myself and come back down.

I look for something higher. I begin to run up the slanted side of a two story retaining wall on the edge of the road. I reach the top and pick up speed intending to soar off as I jump.

AWAKENING

One nice thing I want to note about this LD is that it took place during an afternoon nap that I decided to take after waking up with a slamming hangover headache. What a welcome reprieve! I woke up very refreshed with no sign of a headache.

I also want to mention another interesting dream that I had earlier this month. I dreamed of sitting around a table with a few other people. I was trying to teach them how to check their reality and realize that they are dreaming. I made one of them stand up and I pushed his chair in. Then I told him to sit down. He was immediately sitting in his chair again. I was just about to explain to him that he should have realized he was dreaming because he never had to actually pull his chair out to sit down in it, when the reality of the moment hit me. "Wait a second..." I thought, "that means I must be dreaming!"

I then promptly woke up.

2 comments:

Brian Uldall said...

Hi--I just found your site, and have been enjoying reading about lucid dreaming... Your blog philosophy is a lot like mine (www.mybleam.com). I was wondering if you've found a relationship between the amount of sleep you've gotten recently, the time of going to sleep, and your ability to recall dreams/lucid dream?

For me, it seems to be a pretty major factor, but I was wondering if it is that way for others...

Seeker said...

Hi Brian. Thanks for being the first to actually respond to my little blog. I'm sorry that it took me so long to reply to you; I am in the middle of a big move.

I would have to say that the amount of sleep I get each night has much less to do with my dream recall/LD ability, than what I happened to be doing before I went to bed does.

On two occasions, I feel that my LDs were induced by at least an hour of playing Scrabble just before bed. I think that the focus on the critical thinking portion of the brain just before falling asleep, helps tremendously with recognizing that you are dreaming. I have heard that people have similar results when solving math problems, etc, right before sleep.

I have also had very vivid dreams, and one LD while napping (something I don't get to do very often). So a full night's sleep is not always required.

I rarely find myself getting all eight hours of recommended sleep. I have had LDs on seven and even five hour nights, so I can't be sure that my REM periods always follow the same cycle, and I do not put too much of a focus on length of sleep.

More important, I think, to dream recall than the amount of sleep that you get, would have to be the manner in which you awaken. When I am awakened by an alarm clock, I very rarely remember my dreams (if I do, it is not until a stray thought reminds me in the shower, or something). I also have to have the intention to think about it as soon as I wake up. If I wait for even a few seconds, or think of something else, the memory will be lost.

My life has been pretty tumultuous recently, so I have not had great dream recall. I think that a steady, predictable day leads to more dream recall as well. If crazy days have your mind elsewhere, you are not likely to put enough focus, consciously or subconsciously, on remembering your dreams. You may even wake up stressed out about the day ahead, and that is not conducive to dream recall at all.

I hope my rambling answered at least a few of your questions... This, of course, is only in my experience.