Thoughts On The Reciprocal Nature Of Lucidity

1

One of my earliest goals in all of this was to establish an unbroken continuity of consciousness between my waking state and my dream state. Early on I was thinking that I would work to be as awake in my dreams as I am during the day. But here I am almost two years in to this training and I am realizing that it works both ways…the whole process is reciprocal.

Here’s the thing…almost all of my dreams now are just like my waking life. I let things happen around me. I watch and don’t do much of anything to change the course of things. I’m older now and that’s just how I live my life. I rarely go for flights in the dream these days and I have not found myself in a situation where I needed to dissolve a dream character or an entire dream scene in weeks. So…am I ever really “lucid” in these dreams?

I came to a realization about this last night based on this premise: if you are truly convinced that what you are witnessing is an illusory image, that is, that it is absolutely not what it appears to be…you are “lucid”. In the context of this premise I use that term in its classic lucid dreaming form to mean that you know you are dreaming. I am absolutely certain that what I am seeing right now as I write this is an illusion. It is not what it appears to be. It has taken over a year of contemplation to come to this point. So…I am lucid right now. :slight_smile:

The implications of this are huge. If I know that the world around me is an illusion then it has no real hold on me. I will no longer be conditioned by my reactions to it. This lets me get closer to my real goal of breaking the grasp of karmic conditioning and becoming my true self, which is, of course, no self at all. :wink:

I contemplated this last night before a short meditation on emptiness. Then, for the first time in almost two years, I slept through the night with no dreams. I woke up, instead, to this dream where I am writing this to all of you. :sunglasses:

4 Likes
2

Is there an accompanying song?

3

:sunglasses:

I’m working on one now that I am calling “The Golden Seed”. But here’s one that comes close to these feelings:

2 Likes
4

Loved that!

It makes me think of something that happened last night in a liminal state—perhaps in some small way, I think of it as a dream outside of a dream. There was a song, forgot which, and it made me very happy. So happy that I wished everyone could be as happy when listening to their favorite music, or viewing their favorite art or walking through the woods or the mountains or down a picturesque street.

Then I realized, that is what wishing happiness for all beings is about. That is how I can ask for happiness for folks who are not friendly or wish me harm or harm others. That may not be “lasting happiness,” but it’s a start. I can ask for happiness for the guy at the pizza place who got upset at me for pointing out the entrance was not the exit (Covid-19 Protocol). Boy was he upset. Who was this guy telling him what to do? I ask that he finds peace in his favorite music or song and that carries over into his everyday life and he becomes less aggressive and less constricted.

2 Likes