Letting in the Secrets of the Universe
There was a person I greatly respected sitting across from me asking if I could help him, because the knowledge he needed was in my head. I said yes and the lens of his eyes turned black. Then what happened (and I'll try and describe it best I can) was I felt a huge adrenaline rush and my body felt more alive and tingly than ever as the universe was opening up to let knowledge in. I could SEE knowledge/secrets/wisdom/etc in physical form swirling around towards me as my head was opening up to receive it. I could see for light-years into space and it was filled with these swirly secrets. It seemed tunnel-like. Or actually cone-like because it started from my head and expanded outward. The swirling was in a spiral nature. A lot of people who have had near death experiences have been through or seen tunnels. I went to the IANDS (International Association for Near Death Studies) conference in 2003, and there were a lot of similarities among people’s experiences to lucid dreaming states. I became lucid as soon as his eyes went black but then I began to be very afraid because I didn’t feel ready to receive it all (damn that would have been cool huh?) and his eyes were freaking me out so I shut the flow from the universe off abruptly. The man's eyes went back to normal and he seemed disappointed so I randomly chose one thing I had seen in the swirl which was a man with 3 earrings in his ear, and that’s what I told him. Then I woke. What this man/being/entity—maybe a spirit guide? Maybe it’s my own mind trying to open up to its full potential? |
The Robert Redford Epic
Ok so a little bit of background around the time I had this dream. I had recently gotten back from an ultra-head-expanding summer across the country to the Rainbow Gathering. I really owe it to my friends at the time for influencing me with movies like Waking Life, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, books by Robert Anton Wilson, entheogens, and hours spent contact juggling and discussing philosophy. It was an intense period of personal growth. My little universe was blasted open that summer. I’m sure I had a few lucid dreams before this one, but this one was pivotal. After this amazing dream it was like the flood gates were open and I started to have lucid dreams almost every night for years. A few years ago I started having them less frequently, and I think having this blog will re-open my mind into more frequent consciousness in the dream realm. Part of my growth in the dream realm has been learning about others experiences, so I hope that this blog will help others on their journey of dreams.
Luckily I wrote a journal entry documenting this dream shortly after I had it, its amazing how you forget little details over time.
9/23/02
I was in a house at the bottom of a staircase (staircases seem to be themes in my dreams, remember to look for themes and similarities in your own) there was a man coming down as I went up. I saw it was Robert Redford as a young man and as he passed me he smiled and I kissed him. This is when I realized I was dreaming with the most clarity Id had so far. I was so excited because my head was so clear and I knew my ‘real’ body was in my bed motionless, and I could do what I wanted. I counted my toes to make sure (yep, they were all blurry, wiggly, and there was only eight). I grabbed Robert and headed for a bedroom upstairs. We were in another room in the house with someone who I knew as his brother. Robert looked kind of unhappy. I asked him how he got here, and he said he died. “This is the place you go before you are born and after you’re dead,” he said. After awhile I felt the urge to pee. I didn’t want to use the bathroom in the house because I was aware of my sleeping body back in Washington and thought that I might pee the bed if I did it in the dream. His brother asked if I wanted to go back where I had come from to pee, then come back. Somehow I knew if I woke up I wouldn’t be able to come back. When I started to wake I would open my eyes and see my bedroom, then close them and still be in the room with them. I opened and closed my eyes several times with the same results. Finally I was fully awake, and covered in sweat. When I had gone to sleep it had been 6am and when I awoke it was 1pm. I immediately ran downstairs to ask my dad if Robert Redford had died that night (wouldn’t that be a TRIP???!!) but was disappointed to find out he was still alive. I had not paid much attention to Robert Redford in the past, I had seen a few movies, but why was he in this dream? If he had died that night or even sometime before it would have been a solid piece of evidence supporting life after death.
--At first when he told me “This where you go before you are born and after you die” I thought he meant the house we were in. I was thinking “well that’s stupid why would you go to this house?” Later I realized he meant THE DREAM WORLD. What a fucking revelation! Craziness!!! It makes sense though—it was obviously another dimension. |
The Castle
This dream came after I read in the lucid dreamer’s page on tribe.net that other people had encountered sentient beings or beings that seemed to possess their own will power. Once I accepted that idea, I came across one in my next dream.
I was standing lucidly in a desert, with four castles facing N/W/S/E directions. Since I had no idea which one to go, I decided to use my mind power/energy whatever. I sent out my vibes and felt pulled to the west (west coast all the way, yo!!) so I went that way. After I came to the castle, I opened the front doors. I stood at the bottom of a huge staircase. At the top of the stair case stood a figure that immediately I sensed. He was in a huge robe, and I could feel his presence. I knew he was different from any other creature I had encountered and I was afraid of this. I turned and ran. When I woke I was regretful that I had not been able to handle it and vowed to face the next one I met. Was he a “spirit guide”? Was he another dreamer from Earth? Was he a figment of my mind? |
The Sneaky Manikin
I was in a house where I lived and I was putting about doing domestic things. I had a stuffed, soft manikin there that I moved around occasionally to clean around it, etc. I started to notice (or was it just my imagination?) that its head sort of moved sometimes when Id glance back at it. I started to get a little nervous and even picked it up and danced around with it to calm myself. As I noticed its little movements more and more, I started to become more lucid (as I started questioning, what a minute is this thing alive? that set off triggers as to maybe this was a dream). Finally I propped it up on a couch and when I walked away and looked back at it it was in a completely different position, standing in the doorway. Immediately I became lucid, however I was filled with terror. Usually in a nightmare or uneasy situation I get very calm when lucid and just fly away. So this time I decided to just fly straight through the manikin, to sort of dissolve its barriers and establish control. As I flew towards it, I collided with it and it wrapped its arms around me—I couldn’t go through. I became even more terrified and tried to wake up as fast as possible. I woke up shortly afterward.
Usually my dream characters are compliant and unaware. This manikin seemed almost—sly. Was it sentient? Or was it my own fears limiting my abilities? Last time I came across a being that I sensed was different (castle dream) I was also afraid. I think it’s very important to study fear and lucidity. Fear is something that greatly limits us in both worlds. I suppose I was more afraid of a walking manikin than, say, a crazy guy running after me with a knife because the manikin seemed to embody qualities of deception. It was a sly bugger. I also remember a scary story about a scarecrow I read as a child that stuck with me—perhaps I’ve just never gotten over that fear. |