Sometimes, I think some rather random things. I don’t know if they are worth sharing or appropriate (well, the answer is probably a resounding “NO” on both counts there, actually), but, now they’re out there. And you can’t unread them. You’re welcome.

So today, being not only a snow day, but also my day off, I got to sleep in late. Oh who am I kidding, I get to do that EVERYDAY (♪♪ job perks ♪♪). Now, my brain is a weird, weird place to be when you’re looking to get some sleep; I consistently have the most vivid, random, and adventure-filled dreams of anyone I know. Sometimes, dreaming can incredibly fun and fulfilling; especially when I’ve had an off day, a great dream can erase it for a few hours and bury that negativity in the past. Or it can be really scary – I have a recurring nightmare which I try to avoid triggering, but occasionally find myself caught in anyway. Mostly though, it’s just weird.

Part of this I attribute to my generally overactive imagination, which of course gives zero f-*BEEPS*-s about slowing down during my normal waking hours. While you’re talking to me, I’m probably thinking of a pair of sword-fighting giraffes doing a lumberjack-log roll or something equally stoopid. This same imagination clearly relishes the chance to activate hyperdrive while I sleep. The rest of it I attribute to being physically exhausted after a full day (I’m not exactly sure how this plays a role but the more worn out I am, the better my dreams are) and most importantly, my ability to achieve a lucid state while I dream.

Bow to your sensei!

Lucidity while dreaming is really fun, but kind of works like a double-edged sword. What most people know about lucid dreaming is that you can control things that happen while you dream (Instaboobs? *SHABAM* Done!). What most people might not know is that lucid dreaming is much less about control, and much more about awareness. That whole awareness thing really creeps up on you.

In a lucid state, you aren’t fully unconscious as you would normally be. Because of this, you can recognize that you are in fact dreaming, and influence the dream accordingly. Since you aren’t fully unconscious, you can still receive and process sensory input to an extent, but since you aren’t fully conscious either you can’t always control how that manifests.

I actually became aware of both lucidity and sleepy-time sensory input processing through the aforementioned recurring nightmare, which I’ve had since childhood. Through a story too long to tell right now (hey, you already knew that I was loquacious, do you really want more??), I became mortified of the dark. Nightly, I would dream about a dark figure walking about my living space and deliberately extinguishing all sources of light, then standing ominously over my bed while I was unable to move, speak, and sometimes breathe. I’ve since learned that some people refer to this type of figure as a shadow person, but as a child I had no channels through which I could begin to rationalize the experience.

Anyway, I got tired of feeling helpless so I started to fight back, and although I didn’t recognize it at the time, I actually utilized the major techniques of  lucid dream training to overcome the nightmare. Through seeing the same scene again and again, I was able to recall specifics and focus on their peculiarity as indicators of the nightmare itself. Making detailed diaries of your dreams so that you remember them, and recognizing specific points of divergence between the dream and reality are critical to achieving lucidity while dreaming. Armed with the knowledge of when I was in the nightmare again, I concentrated on how to get out of it, and eventually figured out a way to wake myself up through focusing. After learning to spontaneously wake myself (and no longer having to worry about being stuck in a scary situation), I began to focus on actually manipulating the scene – instead of avoiding it, changing the bad dream.

Much later, I became aware of sleep paralysis and its role in the nightmare, and more importantly the role of conscious and unconscious awareness of sensory input. Most likely, while experiencing sleep paralysis, my eyes and ears were taking in information which my imagination would then run wild with, filling in blanks and creating a scenario which seemingly planted in reality. The lack of control in this reality produced an uncomfortable feeling, and propelled this mix of real input and imaginary constructs into nightmare territory. By harnessing my semi-consciousness to make sense of it all, I became able to out-think myself, consciously recognize that I was being affected by external stimuli, and achieve lucidity.

To this day, I can still have that same nightmare that terrorized me as a kid, but I’m aware of what triggers it, so I always sleep with a neutral source of light or sound in the background. This lifeline is a sort of link to reality, and allows me to make a clear distinction between the dream world and the real world. It can be more than this too – I often take advantage of it to set the scene for a fantastical dream (e.g. Top Gear in the background = super cars racing across Europe, or Superhero flicks in the background = super powered romp-and-stomp with lots of flying), and then play around with the details once I’m dreaming.

Playing around with your dreams is interesting, and kind of feels like being Neo in the Matrix. Sometimes you can change things entirely to your whim, sometimes you can bend things but not control them, and sometimes you can’t control things at all even when you want to. Lately, instead of actively influencing my dreams I prefer to simply set the stage and watch the madness play out. Sometimes it’s funny as hell, like with Lil’ E. or Melvin the hip-hop turtle (whom I haven’t introduced to the world yet, but will eventually), and sometimes it’s mundane like the example I’ll leave you with in a bit.

To generalize, I’d say that my favorite lucid experience so far has been flying, and my least favorite was dying. Flight is so much fun, and out of all my experiences with this the best so far was flying over a few buildings to hit a dunk in a random park two blocks away. Dying sucks because in a normal dream, you probably wake up before it happens, but if it’s a lucid dream, it’s going to happen, and you’re going to be aware of it. The worst so far was getting stabbed. I couldn’t punch, kick, jump, fly, or dodge my way out of it, and watching/feeling it stick you sucks.

But still, try going lucid,  and I’m sure you’ll have some ridiculous (-ly good and bad) moments of your own. It’s definitely worth pursuing, even just as an exercise in introspection. And now for that mundane story:

A few hours before getting up to write this, I had one last go at the dream world, and this happened: I was bored in a professor’s plush office somewhere, waiting for someone who clearly wasn’t going to come back to the office any time soon, so I decided to entertain myself like any 4th grader would; I prank called a rival school and made some really inappropriate demands under that professor’s name. Everything was going swell until I gave them my email address by mistake. I immediately hung up, but some moments later, they called back and addressed me by MY full name, apparently having found my contact information on some application materials they’d received, and then it all started backfiring on me. So I decided to wake up.

Now, I bet you’re thinking exactly the same thing I was after I awoke – “Why the h-*BEEPS*-l did ANY of that matter?!?!?”

Cheers!

-Namakemono