Day 27 - Dreaming

For about a year now, I've kept a dream journal and I've read a bunch of books on lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is when you are dreaming and know you are dreaming. I haven't achieved lucidity in my dreams so I'm practicing several techniques, which I'll share about a bit later. The basic idea is to learn how to pay attention in new ways when in the waking state so as to train the mind to be aware in the unconscious state. At first, mindfulness and lucid dreaming seemed unrelated activities to me but the more I got into it, I realized paying attention is paying attention.

Isn't it weird that in your dreams, you never question the reality of what is happening? If the same things happened in your "real" life, you would immediately know something strange was going on. Like why am I back in high school trying to remember the combination to my locker? So let's explore a few ways to question reality, be creative, and befriend our deepest self.

Practice Options

• Be Embodied In dreams, my body is floaty. I’m not certain my feet touch the ground in my dream body. But how aware of my body am I in real life? My Fitbit vibrates every hour to remind me to move. What if at the same time, I checked in with my body. Am I aware of its solidity and its weight on the earth? How would my life change if I practiced consciously inhabiting my body every day?
  

• Be Curious "Notice beauty and strangeness as you go about your daily life. Is that a duck up in that tree? Oh, no – just a massive pigeon, but for a moment your eyes fooled you. Do a reality check. Wow, look at the snow nestling on top of those bright orange berries – how beautiful against the grey sky. Allow this ability to notice to creep into your dreams. View all of life as a waking dream and ask yourself regularly, “Am I dreaming right now?” from The Art of Lucid Dreaming by Clare Johnson. I suggest this technique not so much so you’ll wake up in your dreams but so you will wake up in your life. Whole swaths of my day pass by as if I’m in a trance. I don’t remember driving the last several miles, what I ate for dinner the night before, or my co-workers from a few years ago. Beauty is all around me if only I stop for a few moments and truly look around. How would my life change if I took time to stop and smell the roses on a daily basis.
  

• Be Imaginative "I’d recommend this wonderfully creative practice not only for lucid dreaming induction, but for any time in your life you experience a creative block. Shapeshifting teaches us mental flexibility and heightens our ability to get inspired.

Lie down, close your eyes, and relax by taking a deep breath. Imagine all the tension flowing from your body when you exhale. Do this for several breaths until you feel your limbs grow heavy. In your mind’s eye, play imaginatively with your body. Can you stretch as tall as the ceiling? Can you shrink down to the size of a hedgehog or expand to gigantic proportions? Can you inhabit the body you had as a child? How does it feel to be this size again? In your imagination, practice the art of invisibility, weightlessness, and shapeshifting. Become the wind, or a cloud floating free, or an eagle soaring over an alien landscape. Become a raindrop that falls into a rushing river and flows into the ocean. Become a grain of sand, a sports car, or a race horse. There are no limits and you can have such fun with this." from The Art of Lucid Dreaming by Clare Johnson.

How would my life change if I deliberately exercised my imagination each and every day?

• Be Kind and Grateful Here's a meditation by Charlie Morley from Lucid Dreaming Made Easy.

Step 1

• Find a relaxed position, either sitting upright with a straight back, or lying down.

• Breathe through the nose or mouth, either is fine, and come into an awareness of the breath.

• Drop any notions of stopping your thoughts or of emptying the mind. Simply breathe and follow the guidance of this meditation. Let thoughts come and go naturally, simply knowing when you’re breathing in and when you’re breathing out.

• After a few minutes, move your focus from your breath to your body. Become aware of your body as it sits or lies in space. Allow yourself to open up to a feeling of gratitude towards your body.

Step 2

• I invite you to bring your attention first to your legs. Really feel your legs and take a moment to consider and acknowledge the amazing job they do. Your legs are amazing! But have you ever said ‘thank you’ to your legs?

• Take a moment now – in your own way, in your own mind – to show gratitude to your legs. Say ‘thank you’ to your legs now.

• Next, bring your awareness to your arms and hands. These limbs that allow you to write, to eat, to touch, to hug. Your arms and hand are amazing! Take a moment to show gratitude to them for the brilliant job that they do. Say ‘thank you’ to your arms and hands, now.

• Next, bring your entire body into awareness and into your gratitude. Be aware of your entire body as it sits or lies in space. Be aware of your feet, legs, core, chest, hands, arms, head and neck. Be aware of your digestive system, nervous system, your ever beating heart.

• What a miracle your body is – it’s remarkable. Always working hard and always trying its best. However ill or broken it may seem, your body is always trying its best and so let’s show gratitude for that. Take a moment to say ‘thank you’ to your entire body, now.

• Next, bring your awareness from the physical to the mental. Bring your awareness to your mind and show gratitude for its creativity and genius. Say ‘thank you’ to your mind now.

• Finally, bring your awareness to your inner dreamer, the part of your unconscious mind that creates and plays out your dreams. Give thanks to the dreamer; give thanks for the dreams. Say ‘thank you’ to your inner dreamer, now.

Step 3

• By showing gratitude to your body, your mind and your inner dreamer you’ve opened up to a direct line of communication to the deepest depths of yourself, and it’s to this deepest part that you now make your request.

• Ask to move beyond your limitations and to have dreams that allow you to see the oceanic vastness of your own potential. Ask you inner dreamer to let you see your fullest self, now.

• The dreamer is part of you; the dreams it creates are part of your mind so ask for what you want to find, and ask for what you want your dreams to show you. Ask for dreams of insight, ask for lucid dreams. Ask to see the ocean of your own potential. Make your request now.

• And to conclude, take a moment to dedicate the beneficial energy of this meditation to all beings.