A mirror’s reflecting properties seem a valuable quality. Since ancient times, mirrors have allowed people to see themselves (or, one should say, their reflection) more truly. Every day, most of us look into a mirror dozens of times. But have you ever considered the mirror-like qualities of a lucid dream?
Lucid dreaming shows you how lucid dreams act as a mirror of your mind, thoughts and emotions. When you see a dream figure and expect trouble, then the dream figure becomes aggressive— but actually, it mirrors your mind’s fear. Or if you see a dream figure and expect them to act seductively, suddenly ‘that’ scenario becomes reflected as part of your experience. Lucid dreaming reflects your thinking in that moment.
In my first book, I wrote a chapter called, ‘Creating the Dream Reality.’ There I encouraged lucid dreamers to notice precisely ‘how’ the lucid dream reflects the mind: through the ‘reality creating principles’ of Belief, Expectation, Focus, Intent, and Will (along with ‘X’ or the inner awareness). By actively playing with ‘expectation’ in a lucid dream, you quickly discover how it invisibly over-lays the dream experience. You also see how your own expectations get reflected back to you!
In my on-line workshops, the truth of these reality creating principles appears again and again. For example, a lucid dream beginner will tell me that “All lucid dreams end quickly” and there seems no way to make them last longer. When I ask them to provide a detailed report of their last lucid dream, then the evidence suddenly appears—the beginner has learned to ‘expect’ the lucid dream to end quickly, and the lucid dream ‘reflects’ their mental expectation accurately. The lucid dream ends.
But in the workshop, when I convince them to change their belief and expectation (because of the reflective aspect of lucid dreaming) and adopt a more constructive expectation and belief in stable, long-lasting lucid dreams, then suddenly it happens—their new belief and expectation gets reflected, and they have longer, more stable lucid dreams. The ‘mind’ co creates the lucid dream experience. Out there becomes another way of saying, in here.
For experienced lucid dreamers, the problem with lucid dreaming as mental reflection occurs as they go deeper.
What does it mean to go deeper? When you lucidly see a comely dream figure, which results in seductive thoughts, then you see how surface level mental energy can become expressed in a seductive figure, which you allow to become the complete focus of the lucid dream. But now imagine going deeper into lucid dreaming and meeting a dream figure expression of some unexamined belief. For example, let’s say you lucidly meet your 30-year feeling of self-pity (created as the inner result of all the difficult challenges that you have endured since age 10), and this self-pity exists as an energetic dream figure! What then? Have you met something real? Or a reflection that only seems real?
If an experienced lucid dreamer grasps the mental reflective nature of lucid dreaming, then he or she has a chance of constructively working through the energy of their self-pity. But if the lucid dreamer believes that the self-pity has a type of inherent reality, then the energy and the figure remains as a ‘construct’ of their inner and outer life. Or if the lucid dreamer ignores and denies it, then it becomes part of their personal shadow (which also robs them of creative energy and considerable growth). Only by seeing it as a mentally reflected creation, does the lucid dreamer have much chance of resolving it.
If an experienced lucid dreamer fails to see it as a mental reflection of their own energy, then he or she risks acting like a beginner. The reality creating principles exist across all levels of lucid dream ability. However, when you begin to abandon the idea of the reality creating principles, then where do you find yourself? In the quagmire of your belief system, and frequently fighting illusions (that you believe in strongly).
Lucid dreaming, through the power of thoughtful reflection, allows you a way to escape limiting belief systems and grow. But if you decide to use lucid dreaming to simply affirm your beliefs and make no changes, then you fail to escape and fail to grow. In that dichotomy, you can see the struggle—the struggle of the mind strongly connected to its own attachment and aversions, and the mind willingly and lucidly letting them go (because it understands what they will tend to project).
At night, when you realize the previously obvious experience seems ‘too dreamy’ and you lucidly realize your true situation, you move into lucid awareness. In that moment, you see how to pierce the obvious and easy acceptance of your experience by ‘reflecting’ on its dreamy nature. In this way of reflecting, the mind awakes.
In my on-line workshops, the truth of these reality creating principles appears again and again.
For example, a lucid dream beginner will tell me that “All lucid dreams end quickly” and there seems no way to make them last longer.
When I ask them to provide a detailed report of their last lucid dream, then the evidence suddenly appears—the beginner has learned to ‘expect’ the lucid dream to end quickly, and the lucid dream ‘reflects’ their mental expectation accurately.
The lucid dream ends.
