Mirage, Salvador Dali
I had a lucid dream a few nights ago. Days later, it hovers
at the edge of my consciousness, coloring my life. It was
brighter than reality.
I dreamed that Cameryn and I were sitting on a park bench
on a very sunny day, and it occured to me, because of the
position of the sun, that we must be late for Cameryn’s
tennis lesson. At that moment, I realized I was dreaming. I
turned to Cameryn and said, “This is a dream.” She
smiled at me and I stood and walked to the nearby street.
I knelt and examined the asphalt. Blue-black and dotted
with pebbles, it was cool against my hands.
I have had this experience a handful of times in my lifetime,
and every other time it happened, it concluded with my
simply looking around at my dream world and enjoying how
real everything seemed. This time, I was able to remind
myself to try and change something in my dream.
Standing, I turned back to Cameryn and called, “I’m going
to make it rain!” She smiled at me again and I pointed up
to the sky. “Rain!” I commanded. The sky began to cloud
over. I skipped around, thrilled with my power, as I felt
the first fat drops begin to strike me. The passing
people were all smiling. They knew I had caused the rain.
I knew they were pleased because I was not sleeping in
their world. I was fully awake.
I don’t believe I have ever felt such utter satisfaction. I
ordered the sun to come back out and it complied. Without
intending to, I then forgot I was dreaming, and the moment
ended, much in the way that one snaps back out of a
“Magic Eye” picture.
Whether I actually had a lucid dream, or simply dreamed
that I had one (try to wrap your mind around that existential
nightmare) does not matter one iota to me. What does
matter is that I figure out how to do it again.
What little understanding I have of the phenomenon I
gained in college. I had experienced a couple of lucid
dreams before the subject was discussed in my psychology
class. My professor told us that some people are able to
bring about lucid dreams by reminding themselves, while
they are awake, that they are not dreaming, that what they
are experiencing is real, and forcing themselves to take
note of the reality around them. It sounds silly, but most
of us walk around in a very un-zen-like state, conducting
a constant inner dialogue with a phantom community
within ourselves, ignoring most of the world around
us. In other words, we sleep while we’re awake. If we
teach ourselves to be truly awake, we will be able to
wake up during our dreams.
The night following my wonderful dream, I dreamed
that I was talking to Tim when I again realized I was
dreaming. In my excitement at this, I let it slip
away from me, a trout off an unset hook. I fairly
screamed into Tim’s face, “I’m dreaming!” when
everything faded away. I grabbed him and pulled him
to me, but I could no longer see a thing. I could feel his
face next to mine. I could tell from the smoothness of
his skin that he had just shaved. I closed my blind eyes,
hoping that, by conforming myself with the dream,
making myself logically blind, I would be able to pull
it back. It was gone. I opened my eyes to my own
dark room.
