Sometimes, we all wish we could go back in time, and change some event in our life, or ask for forgiveness or understanding from someone. Of course in lucid dreaming, we have the potential to move through time and help create any number of situations. Do you think that lucid dreaming offers people a way to achieve closure in life? Have you tried that?
Yes, absolutely! Our dreams are powerful and transformative experiences that can leave us changed upon waking. With lucidity, we can actively seek out self -healing, closure, or guidance in life. I experienced this first hand after a really terrible breakup. My girlfriend and I at the time ended things rather abruptly and there was no communication to get the closure I needed.
I sought her out during a lucid dream and said everything I wanted to say to her. We sat there looking at each other saying our goodbyes. I woke up feeling ok about everything. And I then wondered, even if subconsciously, had something changed for her too?
Some people might say that the lucid dream has no ‘reality’ so how can it really resolve anything. How would you respond?
It‘s silly to think we know the totality of reality. From my experience with lucid dreaming, I know that it consists of much more than what we experience physically – but it‘s even more complex than that. When I encounter someone who doubts lucid dreaming, I try to remind them not to accept what I‘m saying blindly. Don‘t believe anything you read or any dogma you‘re taught from others. Don‘t take anyone‘s word for it! I encourage them to know it for themselves.
Each of us has access every single night to a rich and sophisticated inner world. A world that is just as real as the one in which we currently find ourselves. It can happen tonight, it can happen 9 years from now, but that moment when you look around inside your dream with complete waking awareness, you‘re not seeing with your eyes, nor are you hearing, tasting, touching, smelling with your physical body. That moment an be extremely profound but has to be known through direct experience.
In my book, Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self, I mention ignoring the dream figures and just asking questions to the awareness behind the dream. Have you ever given that a try? Any luck?
Yes! Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self was one of my favorite books of all time! It‘s one of those that I always recommend. It was so refreshing to hear topics such as shared dreaming, telepathy, and the ‘larger awareness’ within the dream being discussed. Personally, I constantly speak to the dream itself while lucid, especially if I need to go somewhere specific or if I need to stabilize the dream.
In one lucid dream, I sat down on this wooden floor and began meditating while lucid. I was outside, and I remember feeling the breeze, hearing sounds, and experiencing the wood underneath me all the while knowing – this is a dream. I mentally said, ‘Now show me what I need to know!’ to the dream itself.
Instantly I felt myself moving somewhat violently. I opened my eyes and saw that I was in a classroom. A teacher at the front of the room told me, ‘Human perception is changing. We only see the surface of things, only the reflection of light.’ My awareness was then taken inside a human mouth where I found myself microscopic.
The microcosm world looked just like the macrocosm with tiny little solar systems and stars! I then heard a voice say to me, ‘Even with our eyes closed, we can still see.’ Perhaps our perception is changing and we are beginning to understand what it means to ‘see with our eyes closed’?
You mention that your experiences with lucid dreaming began to change how you saw your waking life and related to things. Give us an example of what you mean.
For years I was under the impression that I was controlling the dream. It was a total ego trip. When things didn‘t work out my way, I would get upset, ‘I‘m lucid damn it! LUCID I say! Muahaha!’ I would try to use my mental strength to change something in the dream world. Sometimes it worked and other times it didn‘t. What was going on? How exactly am I creating within the dream?
It occurred to me during one of my most powerful lucid dreams, don‘t change the dream, change yourself. There was nothing ‘outside’ of myself. I was intimately connected to the dream world around me, therefore I could change any of it, not by manipulating the dream, but by manipulating myself. In other words, if I changed my thoughts, my emotions, beliefs or expectations, the dream world would reflect back. The source of my experience was within me.
So tell us about seeing something external in waking life that needed work, then making inner changes, and the waking life result or alteration? Does the situation change, or does your reaction to the situation change? Do you simply have a new perspective?
Nearly two years ago, I made the definite decision to give a TEDxtalk. I contacted anyone I could find who was curating one in my area but to no avail – no one got back to me. So I let it go. I knew that the universe would respond if I held this definite thought in my mind so I spent my time doing the inner work necessary to create this. I sat and imagined me speaking. I felt myself up on stage with the red carpet underneath my feet. I asked myself, “For this manifestation to succeed who would I need to become?
What changes did I have to make within myself – to my thoughts, my beliefs, my expectations – to be a vibrational match to this desire? A few months later, I got a random email from a guy who read an article about me in the New York Observer. “I’m curating a TEDxtalk here in the city, I was wondering if you wanted to get a coffee.” Bingo! Merrily merrily merrily merrily life is but a dream.
In your lucid dream training and all, did you feel that you were being trained towards a goal or towards some purpose?
I really believe that it‘s important (and beneficial) that we develop our awareness of the non-physical realities and to create what is sometimes referred to as the ‘second body.’ It really can open us up to a bigger picture of who we are. But more than that, I think it‘s about bringing all these insights here and now into our waking lives; to turn this unconscious dream we call life into a lucid dream. One in which we‘re actively shaping and creating rather than reacting to or feeling separate from.
In my understanding, at the foundation of all lucidity it‘s about being PRESENT. When we awaken to the present moment of our lives we realize happiness, love, forgiveness, enlightenment, etc, it‘s all found right here and now, or not at all. To be ‘lucid’ here in the waking world would mean to know how our thoughts and emotions are creating our reality.
It means being aware of our thoughts/emotions/beliefs/expectations. Once we‘re aware of them we now have the freedom to change them! We are free to choose our thoughts and direct our emotions in order to shape our experience.
And while there seems to be plenty of work to do outside of ourselves, (as individuals and collectively as a society) the real change, the change that will have lasting effects on the world (and your world) comes from within. Don‘t change the dream, change yourself. When you do that, the dream reflects back and changes.
So you and some lucid dreaming friends went to Kickstarter to fund a new book, A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming: Mastering the Art of Oneironautics. Tell us a bit about that process, and the new book?
‘A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming‘ has the intention of being a lucid dreaming book for someone who knows nothing about dreams or lucid dreams. It came about from our mutual frustration of trying to get others to know about this incredible potential that we all share: we can be awake within our dreams!
I remember personally trying to get my friends to read up on the subject but it was often too daunting for someone who doesn‘t even remember their dreams. Dylan, Jared, and I had met each other at NYU, and we ran a production company together for three and a half years, and always discussed our lucid dreaming practices. We wanted to write a book for people who didn‘t want to digest something too academic or too spiritual and it was important for us to keep lucid dreaming grounded.
We thought, ‘What if there was an actual guide, a ‘manual’ for the dream world, that treated our dreams like a real place that one can travel to, filled with illustrations and stories?’ We sought the funds to create it through Kickstarter and later a wonderful publishing house called Workman, took it to a whole new level.
As you go around to talk about lucid dreaming to others, what question do you get that surprises you?
One that I often get is about the dangers around lucid dreaming. This really surprises me! Some people are really concerned that you can go ‘crazy’ from lucid dreaming. Or that it can lead to psychological illness or even death! Having personally faced many dark, ugly, and ‘evil’ elements I can confidently say that there‘s nothing to ever be afraid of.
This took me forever to realize but it takes a shift in your identity: you are not separate from anything. Even the darkness. Moreover, we call them ‘dark’ not because they‘re bad, but because they need our light. They need our love, acceptance, and forgiveness. And because we‘re not separate from them in the first place, we have within us the power to transform these shadows.
And to be honest, the result is the opposite of psychosis. It‘s one of freedom, love, inner peace and harmony within yourself and the rest of the world. If I could give a piece of advice to my teenage self who was new to lucid dreaming, I would tell him, ‘Know this fully: You are always safe. Keep going deeper.’
What lucid explorations do you find yourself doing nowadays?
Lately, I‘ve been finding myself teaching others (mostly friends and acquaintances but also strangers) how to engage lucidly within the dream. Sometimes I‘ll teach them how I do things (how to fly, how to create, or stabilize the dream) but often times I just sit back and let them explore for themselves while I hold space for them.
Just this morning, one of my spirit animals asked me where a particular friend was as if hinting that she needed help. I sent him in her direction for protection. Also, something that‘s really exciting me is that I have also have been deliberately visiting ancient ‘dream temples’ within my lucid dreams. I‘m fascinated by the sacred temples built in Ancient Egypt and Greece and have been seeking them out to learn how and why they were constructed.
Photo by John-Mark Smith from Pexels
But overall, I use my dreams as a tool for personal growth and development. If I need advice on a waking life issue, I go to my dreams. If I am seeking healing (psychologically, physically, emotionally, spiritually), my dreams are where I begin.
Any final advice for our readers about lucid dreaming?
I remember when I was learning how to lucid dream, I tried everything. I changed my sleeping patterns, I carried around totems in my pocket, kept an extensive dream journal, created affirmations and mantras I would say before bed. I experimented with melatonin, different vitamins, galantamine, mugwort, tinctures, etc. I even slept with my head facing north just because I read that it helped induce lucid dreams.
Don‘t get me wrong, all these things made a difference, but you don‘t need any of them. My advice would be to know that you naturally have access every night to a world of infinite possibilities. Know it in every cell of your body: you are a dreamer! Underneath that button down shirt and slacks is a cape and some tights. Go within and know this for yourself!
