~ The idea of the ‘lucid dream’ is attractive to us for obvious reasons.
In waking reality, in our lives, to be in complete control, with utter freedom —is the dream. It is the most empowering thing we can imagine for ourselves. Given lucidity, we can truly do anything; if only we had the reigns, what could we do, what could we make?
~ Lucid dreaming ~ A lucid dream is a dream during which one is aware that they are dreaming. During a lucid dream, one may gain some amount of control over the dream characters, narrative, and environment. ~
Lucidity theoretically consummates the inner God complex, fully guaranteed and with a blank check. Even if it isn’t real, it feels like it is and for a few winks we can fully immerse ourselves in such a state. The stage set here presents a state of play which escapes us every day on the surface of our reality. And it can become realized for the duration of a reverie. At-will? Imagine the progress within nightly escapades of lucidity into the kingdom of your dreams.
I have heard anecdotal stories about lucid dreams being workshops for working on real-world problems (active introspection and simulated conversations), developing real-world talents (practicing an instrument, perfecting a fadeaway in the gym), or building the necessary confidence for real-world relationships. As a mere dreamer hoping for eventual ludicity, I cannot attest to these claims. They seem reasonable enough, to be possible to work on skills, abilities, habits which you wake up with and can somehow enact that progress into your day-to-day. What a workshop to have.
But mostly, lucid dreaming appears to me to be a playground for hedonism. This is predictable and probably{?} not unhealthy. The lucid dreamer, given omnipotence in the reverie, would necessarily drive the dreams towards some expected areas, creating expected scenarios — some combination of flying, sex’ing, empire building.
I am an ardent keeper of a dream journal. Initially, it was a mechanism to access the gateway to the potential capability of lucid dreaming. From what I had read, one of the first requirements to gain such an ability is to keep a consistent dream journal. By waking up each morning to record the night’s subconscious adventures, and by going to bed each night with the affirmation to recall as much of your subconscious activity as could be held — you created a mental model, from which the sub-conscious might become the conscious.
Thus far I have had little luck developing any semblance of consistent lucidity in my bouts of sleep. On average over these years, I remember a dream about half of the given days of a month. I try to record them all in my journal, day by day, in monthly collections. Regardless of my progress over this time on the path to lucid dreaming, I do find the dream journaling process to be a useful activity. I have generated at least a few story ideas directly from my journal and it is entertaining to go back and read the chronicles of my slumbers. I can recognize themes among them, recurring events, places, situations, people. My dreams can be very complex. Many are still incomprehensible to me, which is yet intriguing.
Keeping the journal, and pondering the ideal of the lucid dream, has me considering my perspective on these things. Considering dreams vs. reality, where does this ideal of ‘lucidity’ line up? When we aspire to lucidity in our nights of unconscious deathlessness, what are we then saying about our reality? Are we not lucid in our own lives?
Of course not; we are in control of so little. Our genes, our environment, our government, our friends and enemies, our occupations, our faces, our fate — much of this is outside of the semblances of our control.
There are different degrees across the board, but the operative issue in these respects is one of control. In either realm, we wish to lessen suffering, at least for ourselves and likely for those we know and maybe even for everyone else beyond that. But we can only exert so much control in these matters; there’s a limit to our power here, on the hard grounds of day-to-day waking life. Some of us break, some of us rage against it all, most of us long for lucidity. Dreaming sometimes seems to be the only tool we might have as a remedy for the dull automations we continually find ourselves falling into in waking, yet sleepy, life.
I don’t have any answers for how to reconcile lucidity across these two planes of existence — that of the life lived in wakefulness and that of the fantasy dreamed about in unconsciousness. But I have a feeling there’s something worth exploring here, in both realities, if we could only bridge the gap. ~
The easiest way to lucid dream, according to science.
The lucid dreaming playbook: how to take charge of your dreams.
Thresholds of Transformation 