From:
slider@anashram.com
We return now to an amazing and rather illuminating aspect of lucid
dreaming the WILD way, something which appears to be totally lacking in
DILDs but ever-present almost from the beginning with WILDs; the ability
to be in several places at once. This is an automatic aspect of lucid
dreaming from the point of view of having entered into them being already
fully awake. I am at a loss to explain this fully, apart from the
observation that it is a seemingly consistent feature of WILDing that is
almost totally absent from DILDs; the very strange awareness of being in several places at once, either singularly or even all at the same time.
This is an experience I find difficult to describe directly or accurately except, perhaps, in terms of what I have experienced personally and from
which you may be able to draw your own conclusions.
For example, the first time I lucid dreamed in WILDs in any kind of
prolonged manner I just so happened to be lying on my left side and didn’t realise yet what a difference left-sided dreams would make as far as their content was concerned. While playing around with hypnagogia the dream
began and, very abruptly, I found myself in an old orange painted room in
some apparently abandoned building, an apartment that appeared to have
been inhabited at some point in the past, yet the occupants had moved away leaving behind just bare floorboards and dust, cracked paint and the odd
piece of wastepaper strewn around. The overall impression was that the
place was deserted and that no one had been there for quite some time. (Symbolic or what?)
I was perfectly aware that I was dreaming and, not wanting the dream to
end prematurely, I deliberately ignored the sudden jolt of the realisation
that I was actually dreaming and walked about examining the room instead. However, my fears about accidentally dispelling the dream prematurely were unfounded because everything in the dream remained steady and clear no
matter what I thought or did. My normal waking memory was also completely unimpaired; I could think perfectly clearly and, although I didn’t really know what to do next, I was able to take the time to consider my next move carefully. In the meantime, I walked around the apartment from room to
room examining things. The decor was just about the same in every room I visited, a kind of deep, dusty, faded orange colour on plain painted
walls. Everything about it said old and deserted, yet even the dust in
that place twinkled dimly with a kind of inner-light of its own. The most remarkable thing about it was the complete steadiness and seeming realness
of everything I was seeing and touching. I examined myself and appeared to
be just as real and solid as I usually knew myself to be and found myself casually dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.
After a while, I remembered reading somewhere of a dreaming technique
whereby touching the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth while
lucid dreaming was supposed to enhance your lucidity, and to that end I attempted to do so. Only what happened next was totally unexpected. I
suddenly found myself firmly pressing my thumbs against the curled
forefingers of my hands which had made a fist. The immediate effect of
which was almost electrifying in terms of the increased clarity I then
suddenly experienced! However, what I had thought was marvellously clear
and sharp before paled to insignificance compared to what was happening
now. The best way to describe it is that everything, myself included,
literally lit up and sparkled with its own vibrant inner energy and
colours. What had been rather drab and dull only moments before now
suddenly glowed in almost scintillating rainbow colours that shocked me
and made me step back a bit.
I marvelled at how I had intended to do one thing only to find myself
doing something completely different, namely, pressing my thumbs instead
of touching the tip of my tongue to the roof of my mouth. At which point,
and with no warning whatsoever, I abruptly found myself lying back in bed,
on my left side, in my darkened bedroom where I immediately noticed I was
also pressing my thumbs against the curled fingers of my hands there too.
I really didn’t know what to think about this sudden, strange turn of affairs, but I remembered that what I was originally trying to do was to enhance lucidity by holding my tongue against the roof of my mouth and,
quite logically, assumed that if I did so while I was still awake in bed,
then maybe this would also transfer itself back into the dream. So,
without changing my position at all, I did just that; I deliberately
un-pressed my thumbs and instead held my tongue against the roof of my
mouth. Without knowing how, the next thing I knew I was back in the same
orange room as before, except now I was indeed touching the tip of my
tongue against the roof of my mouth. Only it didn’t seem to do anything at all; the sparkling colours had simply reverted back to drab and dull
again, the tongue-trick disappointingly not appearing to have any effects
at all upon lucidity. What I couldn’t figure out, however, was how I had managed to be pressing my thumbs when I had originally intended to do
something else altogether. I had sought a greater lucidity in the dream
and achieved it, although not quite by using the method I’d set out to employ. I pondered on this for quite a while in the dream only to find
myself suddenly back in bed still lying on my left side.
Dammit! I thought, realising quite clearly that my rather ponderous
behaviour had just got me booted out of my very first prolonged lucid
dream, only I could somehow tell that I wasn’t yet fully awake in the
usual sense. I was clearly lying in bed with my eyes closed and still
hadn’t moved or changed position at all, yet I could also still see the orange dream room floating like a bubble in the pitch dark just a few
metres away. In fact, I seemed to be in a very strange place where I could clearly see both the lucid dream and myself lying in bed at one and the
same time. At this point it only required a simple shift of focus to
switch from one to the other. I wanted to know more about this strange
place between waking and dreaming, but my original intention to have a
lucid dream convinced me to go that way instead. I stared at the dream
bubble to the left of me in which I could clearly see now what looked like buildings of some sort and stepped/leaned towards it. Instantly I was back
in a lucid dream again only this time everything appeared to be at arm’s length compared to the utter convincing reality of that initial orange
room dream. I appeared to be in a modern and spacious garage of some sort.
All the recognisable tools of the mechanic’s trade were lying around
either on the ground or on shelves, and I was looking at everything which
still exhibited a very dreamlike quality in this dream as opposed to the
utter reality of the first. That ‘utter reality’ effect was what I really craved again, only now everything was vague and seen as though I was only viewing it while still lying in bed or as if seen from a distance. I was definitely in the dream, and yet, I was still not quite in it like I was before, with everything somehow lacking that former convincing realness.
At this point a young man in clean, garage-type, light green overalls
stepped out from a doorway and glanced briefly in my direction while
walking towards what looked like a large lever standing four feet tall
from the floor. He slowly pulled on that lever and, to my amazement, a circular area of about twelve feet all around me began to sink slowly into
the ground with me still standing on it. I quickly realised that I
appeared to be standing on some sort of an industrial elevator that was lowering me down to other levels of that building. Not knowing what to do
I just stood there and watched as the ground slowly sank away below me and
I descended with it. I watched several floors in succession pass me by as
I went down until finally, I seemed to be at the bottom of a fairly long
shaft that now towered above me several stories high. The platform I was standing on was definitely slowing down and apparently fitting itself into
a large matching circular area where it was obviously going to stop, but I stepped off of it before it had time to dock fully with the ground. My sensation of the solid reality I had wanted had apparently returned to me
at this level and I was truly back in the dream in the same concrete way I
had been formerly. I glanced behind me at the elevator as it continued to slowly dock with the ground but deliberately ignored the dark space full
of, what looked like, stars just below it. I was fully back in the lucid
dream again and that was all I really cared to know.
There was no one else around. Beyond some swing doors I could see daylight
and I walked towards it quickly finding myself outside in bright sunshine.
I looked around. I was apparently out in the countryside with trees,
hedges and fields all around me. I could see the blue sky above and the
horizon in all directions. I could just feel the reality of it all, so
real, in fact, that I doubted for a moment that I was still dreaming. I
wanted, at that point, to prove to myself that I was indeed still dreaming
and figured quite rationally that, if I was really dreaming, then I should
be able to just fly up in the air if I wanted to. With this in view I
mustered all the strength and intent that I could and leapt up into the
air to see if I could indeed fly, but the force with which I jumped must
have been too much for I literally took off like a bullet and shot up into
the air so fast and furiously that, before I even fully realised what was happening, I could clearly see the curvature of the earth and the
blackness of space beyond. A blackness that then swallowed me whole as I continued to gain altitude, only to suddenly find myself back in bed
again. I was completely nonplussed! Apparently, my overzealous and
prodigious leap in that dream had taken me all the way out to waking.
D’oh! I lay there awake, literally tingling all over from the jolt of
waking up so fast, only again, I wasn’t quite awake in the normal sense
and was instead back at that same midway point between waking and
dreaming. How strange!
Again, I could clearly see that bubble of a lucid dream hovering there in
the dark nearby which appeared to be only a step or two away and slightly
to my left. My resting body then appeared like another option but slightly
off to my right, or rather, the option to be fully awake appeared to my
right, even though I was completely aware of myself lying down in bed.
This place between these two options was indeed very strange and I decided
at that point to investigate further.
To my utter surprise, I quickly discovered that I was somehow able to
hover at that midway point, being totally aware of myself lying down in
bed, yet at the same time knowing that I wasn’t fully awake in the normal sense. The option to regain full consciousness was like something that
hovered ever so slightly to my right, just as the option to step straight
back into that lucid dream seemed to hover ever so slightly to my left. Furthermore, I could apparently change or shift my point of view from one
to the other and back again at will. In fact, at that moment the option to lucid dream appeared to be equal to the option to reawaken completely. In
order to prove this to myself, I deliberately, and in full consciousness, stepped right back into the lucid dream, only this time the need to feel
myself descend in an elevator was completely unnecessary because the dream
I stepped into was exactly the same dream as before with the same feelings
of solid reality. I was right back in a lucid dream and this time it had
been completely effortless, merely the decision to do so being apparently enough to take me right back into it. Again, I was genuinely amazed at
this sudden unexpected and unanticipated turn of events but, never having experienced any of this before, I assumed that this was probably all
perfectly normal.
I looked around me and saw and noted all the things I had seen in the last dream, trees and rolling cultivated countryside that stretched to the
horizon in all directions, added to which was the absolute certainty that
I was right back in the exact same dream and place as before. Fascinating!
At this point I noticed that I was also aware of myself still standing
back at the midway point, and found that I could again shift my point of
view back and forth between those two points of view. I could be
exclusively in one or the other, yet, paradoxically, even in both at the
same time, although when I did that – by which I mean experiencing both simultaneously – I noticed that the sharp clarity of either point of view
was slightly dulled. It was while I was playing around with all this that
I then became aware that I could also feel myself lying down in bed. With
no effort on my part I found I could very easily shift back and forth
between all three perspectives, with an ever so slight focusing on my part being enough to accomplish it.
The more I played around with it the easier it became, even to the point
of being able to see, feel and experience all three places at the same
time. Added now to which, a feeling of utter confidence began to take
hold. Moreover, at this point I spontaneously realised that shifting back
and forth like that had somehow completely erased all doubts and caution
on my part. Nothing I had read or heard had prepared me for anything like
this and, believe me, I’d read lots about lucid dreaming and thought I at least knew what to expect.
I liked the feeling I’d had while standing at the midway point. I enjoyed
the sheer clarity of it and the warm feelings of calm confidence that came
with it, and so I deliberately returned to that point again in order to
examine it further. I realised then that all this shifting back and forth
had also created in me a very strong sense of total detachment, so strong,
in fact, that I was surprised by the intensity of it. I had already
considered myself to be fairly detached before but this was something new
and at a completely different level. In fact, it was almost frighteningly
cold and distant in a way I’d never quite experienced before, yet at the
same time a strong sense of unparalleled confidence grew out of that very detachment in a way that’s hard to describe. This new detachment allowed
me not only to do whatever I wanted to do at the time, but also provided
me with the direct knowledge of exactly how to do it.
From then on, my ability to dream took on, and rose to, incredible proportions. I shan’t, however, bore you with the details of the several other dream sequences that followed that I explored with utter facility
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