Dear Robert,

Thank you for all your amazing books. I have them all and they have changed my life.

Many times in different lucid dreams, I want to ask a question to the dream awareness but I cannot speak or breathe, or I can say some words but not others. For example, in one dream, the dream awareness urgently asked me to go live in the same city of my mom, but [in waking reality] I am encountering a big challenge to move there. So yesterday I wanted to ask: Dream awareness, what do you advise me to do with the big challenge I’m facing to move into my mom’s city?

When I asked that question, I completely lost my voice and couldn’t breathe or speak at all. I don’t see anything wrong with the way I am asking the question. Why is this happening? It has happened to me many times. Thank you.

Thanks for your question.

In lucid dreams, we ‘see’ that the dream state is mentally reflective and also mentally dynamic. By mentally reflective, I mean that in the lucid dream, we often see our beliefs, emotions, intents and expectations ‘reflected’ in the experience. For example, if I ‘expect’ to have a hard time flying through a wall, then I may hit the wall and bounce off — even though it is a dream wall! Or if I am lucid and ‘fear’ that the river will get bigger, then suddenly the river seems much bigger. The lucid dream reflects our ‘thinking in that moment.’

So to your situation, I sometimes hear from people who have noticed the same thing: they wish to ask a question of the non-visible awareness behind the dream (as I talk about it my books) — and suddenly, they cannot speak! They lose their voice.

Because of the mentally reflective nature of lucid dreaming, a person needs to look at their beliefs, emotions, intents, and expectations. For example, do you have a concern about asking a question because you ‘fear’ the response? If so, it may become very hard to ask a question.

Or do you have some ‘belief’ about the non-visible awareness behind the dream, which makes it hard to ask a question (e.g., some people believe in the ego self, but have a very difficult time believing in something ‘beyond’ the ego)?

Or does the ego self feel conflicted about asking a question — that is, one part of you wants to ask the question, but another part of you resists? That is the classical psychological situation called ‘approachavoidance’ conflict (which Wikipedia states is this: “Approach–avoidance conflicts occur when there is one goal or event that has both positive and negative effects or characteristics that make the goal appealing and unappealing simultaneously. For example, marriage is a momentous decision that has both positive and negative aspects.” )

Or does the ego self feel conflicted about asking a question — that is, one part of you wants to ask the question, but another part of you resists? That is the classical psychological situation called ‘approachavoidance’ conflict (which Wikipedia states is this: “Approach–avoidance conflicts occur when there is one goal or event that has both positive and negative effects or characteristics that make the goal appealing and unappealing simultaneously. For example, marriage is a momentous decision that has both positive and negative aspects.” )

Now for beginners to this aspect of lucid dreaming, I suggest that they start out with something simple: For example, ask the larger awareness, ‘Hey dream, show me something funny to see!’ or ‘Hey dream, show me something important for me to see!’ These ‘open’ questions are simple and normally do not bring up concerns or fears about the response.

Please realize the response may be symbolic or it may be quite literal. Also, when we ask to ‘see’ then we normally receive a visual response. If we ask to ‘hear’ then we may get a vocal response. The exact wording of a question or a request is very important.

Finally, you may wish to look at the dream where you felt like you were ‘asked’ to go live in your mom’s city. If you wish to send it to me, I will take a look at it. Sometimes people are ‘literal’ about things that are actually ‘symbolic’.