ibbqcats

Lately dreams have been coming to me more frequently. What better way to play with the concept of dreams than to explore with the written (or typed) word while watching Inception!

A few years ago, I was able to lucid dream for a month straight. Don’t ask me how I was able to, it just happened and the things I did within my dreams were absolutely amazing. Lucid dreaming, for those who are not familiar with it, is the type of dream where you are aware of the dream itself. To some extent, the dreamer may be able to exert some control over his or her own dream.

Like mine for instance! Given a few years since this happened, please understand that I don’t remember specifics given the nature of dreams themselves. In my lucid dreams, I remember remarking to myself that I’m in a dream. I also remember flying and conjuring the biggest thing to appear before me. At the time, the biggest thing I could think of was a Jumbo Jet and sure enough, it appeared. Every night during that month, I was excited to go to sleep but not every dream was as lucid as the next. Some nights, I would dream and most of the dream would make itself up as most dreams would, but I was still aware that I was dreaming. 

One night, before I was going to go with my friend, Kevin, to check out a potential college (Berkeley), I had one particularly interesting dream. It was very vivid. 

It was night time and snowing outside. I was outside walking up a snowy slope towards a well lit cabin with a glass wall. The light from the cabin alone radiated warmth into me the closer I got to it. The night sky was lit up with stars like the kind you see when you’re in the mountains or the desert accompanied by a brighter full moon about three times it’s usual size. By the time I reached the cabin I felt the cabin’s brightness seep into me. Instantaneously I felt it’s warmth light up my entire being as if I was in complete bliss. I felt as if all of the universe’s secrets poured into me in one moment of time, and like any other moment, it passes. All that was put in me faded, and I woke up in heat as if still warm from the cabin’s embrace. 

I was spending the night at Kevin’s house and it was a very cold night but my body was immensely hot but I wasn’t sweating. I’ve heard of stories where people wake up in heat and claim that they were close to God himself-like his presence was warm and inviting. This then started to seem like much more than just coincidence. In other dreams that occurred years later, I started to die in my dreams but I did not wake. Instead, I was engulfed in a white light and I could not see my body. I had died from a car accident and assumed my body was gone but I still had a consciousness. In this lucid dream, I tried moving my imaginary body that I could not see and could definitely feel something respond and again-was basked in a warm heat. When I woke up, I was at my aunt’s house on her couch, with my body warm-but not sweating.

Was it coincidence that the feeling of bliss was associated with warmth, death, and God? More than once did I die in my dreams and more than once did I feel this warmth. After the night at Kevin’s house, I was no longer able to lucid dream. In fact, I was no longer able to dream at all. It took several months until  I was finally able to dream again. I tried to pursue that feeling of enlightenment again through deep meditation but it was an impossible task. It’s situations like these where you realize that something like this doesn’t come to those who are looking for it.

How curious that the random thoughts generated by your brain while you’re asleep could link death to bliss-touching on aspects of several religious beliefs.

I’m glad I was able to finally record this down before it faded away well into my old age. Food for thought-

By the way, Inception is an amazing movie that plays with the concept of shared lucid dreaming. That’s actually happened before but I’ll save that for another post ;)