By Maria Isabel Pita © 2017
Lucid dreams inspire all kinds of creative responses from me in waking life. I’ve been lucid dreaming for over seven years, and have had hundreds of lucid dreams. My lucid dreaming experiences have dramatically changed my beliefs and my life, all for the better.
I wrote a non-fiction book, Lucid Dreams & the Holy Spirit, about a major transformation wrought in my soul by my lucid dreaming practice. But my favorite way of expressing myself has always been through fiction, and as I kept accumulating intensely fascinating dreams, the idea formed in the back of my mind that, one day, the best way to write about the different themes unfolding in my dream life would be through a series of novels. In many respects, the dreams themselves seemed designed to become scenes in an epic tale I would structure around them.
The books in this series are based on real dreams and events. People and circumstances are fictionalized, but the experiences are all true to life. The dreams of Mary Fallon, from whose point of view the novels are written, are all actual dreams I have had. The novels also feature lucid dreams by a few of my friends who gladly contributed them for other characters in the story.
Years passed, I became a practicing Catholic, and having created a spreadsheet of my dreams with categories, themes, etc., one day, in May of 2017, I suddenly began writing. The first two books in my ongoing series Lucid Dreams & Spiritual Warfare have already been published: Book 1—The Spirit of Imhotep; and Book 2—Fifty Shades of Hell.
The following excerpt is from Fifty Shades of Hell and contains no plot spoilers:
I’m sitting inside an evenly lit rectangular space. Through windows and a door to my right, I can see it’s dark outside. Directly to my left is a low balcony that rises only a few feet above the first floor. A blonde man is seated there with his back to me. The moment I become aware of him, he turns his head and looks down at me. I quickly look away, so I’m rather surprised when he steps down and joins me on the first floor. Facing me, he leans casually against the wall, and pulls out a really big joint wrapped in sky-blue paper with a molded end like an old fashioned cigarette. His pale hair is neither short or long, and the expression on his perfectly proportioned face is strangely neutral, intently focused yet also relaxed. His long-sleeved shirt and pants are both white, but his clothes aren’t a uniform, and I wonder if their actual colors are being washed out by the lighting. He’s young, slender yet solidly built, and I sense his body is as tender as it is firm. He had simply been sitting in here, but I don’t feel as if he was actively waiting—it was more like he was on duty, and the moment I turned toward him, he went into action.
When he extends the joint to me with his left hand, there is really no question of refusing to smoke with him. Accepting it, I take a quick hit, then pass it back to him. I don’t remember whether or not he draws on it himself as I become aware of a group of teenagers like me standing near the door, a few yards to my right, watching us, and I distinctly sense their desire to be in my place. It makes me feel special to have been put in this position, while at the same time I don’t feel I did anything at all to merit it.
The young man steps closer, so that he’s standing directly over me as his right hand slowly and gently caresses the left side of my face. I feel his thumb stroking my brow, moving down my temple and around my eye to my cheek. His touch is intimate and soothing. Then, bending over me, he blows smoke directly from his mouth into mine. The experience is a bit overwhelming, and I clench my teeth because the smoke is so hot it almost hurts, but although I resist a little, I can’t escape, because he’s relentless. I’m forced to accept as much as he wants to give me before he finally straightens up again. I didn’t much enjoy the experience, but I like that it happened, that he got so close to me, and did something so intimate, which makes me feel very special. Then, his face close to mine again, his thumb very gently brushes my lips as he speaks to me, asking me a question, something about a virus, as I wake up.
“Why would an angel of God force me to smoke pot?” I demanded.
“Mary, not so loud, please.” Steve glanced around us at the other passengers sitting on the Egyptair flight to Aswan.
“Sorry!” I whispered. “In any case, doesn’t everyone vape these days?”
He murmured, “I don’t think that was an actual joint, Mary. You said it was sky-blue.” “Yes…”
“It sounds to me like your Angel was filling you with the desire to be open to receiving the Holy Spirit, which is also sometimes called the Holy Ghost, which sounds a lot like smoke. Parts of you are still resisting.”
I stared out the little circular window I was sitting next to, and watched another plane take off into the clear blue sky before I said, “It was almost painful, and yet also intensely sensual.” I had no problem believing that dream figure was an Angel. My Angel? God, he was hot! I could hardly believe how real the experience had been, and still felt—the heat of the smoke, and the uncomfortable pressure I had also experienced as an immense honor, almost too much for my small mouth… my little soul…
“Fasten your seat belt, Mary, and I mean that in more ways than one.”
I looked at him, and saw that his eyes were serious.
“Mary, I feel blessed to know you.”
“And I feel blessed to know you, Steve.”
“Even if I didn’t have feelings for you, to be the person you talk to about these dreams, so that my soul
shares in their experience, would still be a gift.”
“Like I was saying, that’s just how I feel about you, Steve.”
He kissed me, but only briefly, and on the cheek. In a Muslim country, it was polite to keep public displays of affection between a man and a woman to a minimum.
As the flight attendants prepared the cabin for takeoff, I sat watching other flights taking off. The Egyptair planes had blue and white falcon heads painted on their tails, and also in the front with the bird’s beak facing the cockpit. Ghost, smoke. . . planes, saints. . . Dreams spoke to us. . . Dreams were a mystical kind of language Steve seemed able to understand as effortlessly as his boss read hieroglyphs. At first, the ancient Egyptian language had made no sense to scholars, who saw only little pictures of nature, animals, objects and people. Like all languages, dreams were a method of communication. Ever night, whether I remembered or not, my mind hosted a magical party of living hieroglyphs. But there the comparison ended if that beautiful guy from last night was a real conscious entity Christians called Angels. Had he been helping to write the dream with my brain’s electrical synapses the way Egyptian scribes had used their inks? Angels were said to be messengers, and from the beginning, I had felt my lucid dreams were special messages from God, the Author of everything.
Unlike some people, I didn’t suffer from a fear of flying. On the contrary, I had always loved the thrill of takeoff when the plane—which seemed way too heavy to make it even an inch off the ground—began accelerating, going faster and faster until that impossible, barely noticeable instant when its front wheels rose off the ground, and it began moving gradually upward. But it was only an illusion that it was moving more slowly as it left the earth below. In reality, it was moving just as fast, and even faster, the invisible wind beneath its wings supporting it. Thinking how slowing down in these crucial moments might prove disastrous, I tightened my grip on Steve’s hand.
Leaning over to gaze out the window with me, he said, “There!” and I saw them, the three pyramids of Giza sitting neatly on their plateau above the city, and swiftly shrinking to the size of toys as we left them behind us.
Note: Maria’s books are available at Amazon.com
For free review copies, please email Maria at [email protected]