We’re in a discussion about lucid dreaming—a topic of
great interest. We’ve been following the dream of a French horn player who
dreamed that he couldn’t give a performance because he had left his horn at
home. Part of him was in the dream, affected by the dream
events and panicking. But, another part of him was calmly watching the dream events
unfold and was unemotional about them. (Scroll down to my last two posts to
follow the discussion in its entirety.)
Learning to control
your dream lucidly
This dreamer told me that he had had some minimal success
in the past creating shifts in the plots of his dreams. He said that the
observer part of him could separate itself from the emotions that the dreaming
part of him felt. The observer could then witness the dream more calmly.
I encouraged this dreamer to try and work even more
directly with his observer. With practice and motivation, a dreamer who is just
beginning to be lucid during his/her dreams can learn to manipulate the dream
plot. He can become like a screen writer, tearing up part of a script and
replacing it with another scene that is more desirable. As an example, in the
last post, I told of a youngster who was being chased by a monster in a dream,
and then realized that he was dreaming. At that point, he awoke. But with more
practice and experience, he could learn to stay in the dream and begin to
dictate what would happen: “Oh yeah, I’m in a nightmare being chased by a
monster. I don’t like this dream. I think I’ll imagine the monster enjoying an
ice cream cone. In fact, he’s got an extra one that he’s offering to me. We’re
both just sitting here, eating our ice cream and taking in the view.” Experienced
lucid dreamers do this kind of thing on a regular basis.
An important
tool in therapy
Researchers in the field of psychology have worked hard
to try and find a way to harness lucid dreams as a therapeutic tool. If you can
successfully confront your “monsters” in the dream state, you might be able to
save years of expensive and arduous psychotherapy. Prominent among these
researchers was Stephen LaBerge of Stanford University. He went so far as to invent
machines designed to help stimulate dreamers into a state of lucidity.
The Buddhist
approach
Tibetan Buddhism takes another approach. These monks talk
of the “bardo,” the intermediate state one enters shortly after dying. It’s
like a way-station, and while a soul is there, the decisions are made about
what kind of life the deceased soul will experience next. Buddhists believe
that the bardo state is identical to the dream state. And if a dreamer can be
lucid during dreaming, he can also influence what happens to his soul at the
time of death.
All this is conceptually simple, but putting it into
practice is not always easy.
More on this later…
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