Lucid dreaming is the art of becoming more self-aware in our dreams. Often when we realize we’re dreaming, the dream becomes clearer, and colors more vibrant. We’re aware, alert, and we know that ours is a dreaming landscape. The sheer joy of it often lifts us off our feet and we float into the sky, looking down at all of the dream’s creation.
The rules are different here.
This ecstatic state is known as the lucidity effect; it’s been documented by countless beginning lucid dreamers.
Unfortunately, holding onto that feeling can be difficult. As soon as we try to control the dream, to bend it to our will, the feeling may be dashed altogether.
But dream control is not the only way to go.
For many, lucid dreaming is a spiritual practice. This looks different for everyone, as we have wide range of personal dreaming styles. Some seek experience with the highest powers; others commune in the underworld with earth spirits. Still others have learned that flying can result in information that is later verified in consensual reality. Some brave souls find themselves in conversation with the deceased.
Finally, this state allows for intensely real encounters with other creatures, leading us to wonder if dreams are more than “our own stuff” but a forgotten communication tool.
These dreams of landscape include communing with non-human voices. An example of ecodreaming that is reverberating strongly for us at the DreamTribe right how includes dreams of whales, who seem to be telling us of their perilous state and asking for our help. While forgotten to us as Westerners, this practice has been known for much longer as whale dreaming by the Australian Aborigines.
Going deeper with lucidity
It takes time, perhaps a lifetime, to balance self-control with the dream’s own energy. I am by no means as master of this, even after 20 years of lucid dreaming.
Lucidity is flighty by nature. What all lucid dreaming spiritual practices have in common is that no matter how high they fly, they touch the ground of compassion.
Right action can only be felt in the particulars of the dream, and only the dreamer has the authority to know what that feels like. There’s no final, better, or ultimate goal here.
The Lucid Dance of Balance
But this much is true: lucidity emerges in maturity not as total dream control but as a conscious dance with the energy flows of the autonomous dream figures. The dance shifts between active and receptive postures, which we embody by asking questions and making space for an answer. This lucid dance is also about shifting from abstract ways of knowing to more emotional involvement in the dream, and vice versa.
Ultimately, this flow allows for a conversation between the dream ego and the self-rising currents of the moment.
If you’re interested in moving beyond your comfort zone in lucid dreaming, it’s good to know that many have gone before us on this path. Interestingly, when lucid dream psychologist Fariba Bogzaran researched how people approach the divine in lucid dreams, she discovered that those who take an active, seeking stance in the dream often find lucid outcomes that largely mirror their own expectations.
However, when the dreamers took receptive postures, not seeking but opening up to mystery, a different pattern revealed itself. They found themselves in new situations, encountering aspects of the divine that surprised, delighted, and sometimes challenged them.
Seeking the Divine
Sometimes the way a question is framed in the dream makes all the difference. Rather than demanding, “I want to find God!”, try asking an open-ended question such as, “What is beyond my senses?”
So perhaps it’s better to say: do not seek. Rather: wait and see…
Psychotherapist Mary Ziemer is another researcher who has studied receptivity in lucid dreams. Her website LucidAlchemy.com outlines a new way of adapting lucid dreaming to the goals of alchemy, in which we throw images before us to enter into, and are forever changed by the transformational process.
The receptive posture in lucid dreaming has been much maligned in Western lucid dreaming culture. Many fear emotions in their lucid dreams because they may “lose control,” and others are more interested in testing willpower than learning from the dreaming imagination.
Luckily, the dreaming mind is patient, and when we become open to new possibilities, the dream responds.
In this time of ecological crisis, lucid dreaming emerges not as a narcissistic fantasy realm, as it is often portrayed in mass culture, but as a valuable method of engagement with the repressed and forgotten voices of the land, our own ancestors, and the cosmos we inhabit.
You may not find what you’re looking for, but you’ll find something better: the threshold to the unknown, where information, knowledge—and possibly even wisdom—await.
*photos by eschipul and arno arno
I have PTSD and my dreams are very disrupting to my life…However, throughout my life I have noticed that when I wasn’t dreaming, I wasn’t a happy person. I both love and hate dreaming. I would like to chat about your take on PTSD patients, such as myself, taking Prazosin to help get rid of nightmares. Do you know if it gets rid of all dreams? Can you help?
Thanks so much for your time and thoughts~~~
Bella
I also had PTSD and have found that dreaming provides a way to reconcile the psychological issues I have that I’m unable or I don’t have the time to face while awake. What do you think?
That’s wonderful to hear, Kristin. This appears to be one of the functions of dreams. Most researchers that work clinically with PTSD nightmares agree that the nightmares do indeed work to separate the traumatized feelings from the memory. Other suggest that it’s important to do this work with social support; as nightmares can actually increase tension and anxiety. In my mind, dreams want to be shared for this very reason: it brings them out into the world, to be acknowledged and then ritually dealt with (in whatever way feels best to you).
After returning from the Army I used to have a night terror that was always the same. Total darkness and the impending fear that there was something out there that was trying to crush and suffocate me. I would always wake up with a fight or flight adrenaline rush and soaking wet.
Then one night, I had a dream that I was being attached and was murdered. I thought to myself that this is only a dream just wake up. Then a second thought came to me. Why not follow it through to the end. After I was murdered, the was hacked to pieces, doused with gasoline and set on fire. The flame burnt out and then there was only darkness and I awoke. I have never had a night terror again.
When I am aware that I am dreaming now, I usually begin to fly.
Hi Bella, I suspect Ryan will respond soon.
Have you worked with a psychologist/psychiatrist who specializes in dreams?
I’ve had students with PTSD in my dreamwork classes and I’ve heard how frightening their dreams can be. I also know that dreams hold the key to our ability to heal, so taking medication to eliminate dreams altogether may not be a good idea.
If you can find a psychologist or psychiatrist who specializes in working with dreams I highly recommend it. If you need a referral I know one in each profession who may be able to help you. Email me at amy@thedreamtribe.com and I’ll send you to their information.
warmly,
Amy
Hi Bella,
thanks for commenting.
Long story short: Prazosin does not repress dreams like many common anti-depressants do. It’s not a “dream blocker.”
Instead, Prozosin appears to reduce negative dream content (or, more precisely, your perceived threat from negative dream content), leading to less awakenings from nightmares. This effect is probably related to the dampening of the vigilance response which goes along with decreased blood pressure.
By the way, Prazosin actually increases time spent in REM sleep, so it can be a dream helper.
Further reading:
My post on DreamStudies about depression and dreams (which get into the ways different medications interact with dreams and nightmares)
A peer-reviewed article on the topic:
Prazosin Effects on Objective Sleep Measures and Clinical Symptoms in Civilian Trauma PTSD: A Placebo-Controlled Study
I also cited this:
Prazosin reduces nightmares in combat veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. 2002 Jul;63(7):565-8.
I am happy that you mentioned taking a receptive posture in dreams. Having trained with Robert Moss, I enjoy active dreaming that begins with awareness and stays that way, i.e. without falling asleep, and maintaining that receptive posture through which so many luscious new things can come.
Hi Alice,
yes! Robert exemplified how one can be “active” and not “in control.” His hypnagogic methods for lucid dreaming are effective and powerful. The dream is soo much more interesting than our egoic wishes!
thanks have a nice day…
Hi Amy and all,
I know that it has been a couple of weeks since we dreamed about whales as a group. And I did not have any dreams at that time. But last night I had this dream:
I look at my cell phone, and on the right hand side towards the bottom is a button that says Whale Clamp. I understand in my dreaming mind that this has to do with a whale watch.
I wrote this information down and just googled whale clamp to see if anything like this existed since I had never heard this terminology. What I read was a horrifying article about how very large whales are hunted down with a kind of cannon harpoon that explodes inside the whale, therefore maiming them and slowing them down. A clamp is put on the tail, and the whale is hoisted up on a factory ship and then flayed and cut apart and processed. Is it totally dead yet? Is it possible to verify its death because since the whale is hung by the tail the rest of the whale is still in the water.
I have never read anything about whaling, so perhaps everyone else here already knows this. When I was hoping to dream about whales, I was thinking that something much more metaphoric and lovely would come up.
Any comments?
wow Carole that’s so haunting! I have never heard about that practice either and my stomach is boiling. I think we could do some cool dreamwork about the “whale watch.” (Given that the icon was on your phone, and that’s how many of us tell the time these days, this is a great pun!) Now is the time.
As for the dream delay, that’s quite common! some dream research suggests that dreams can reflect experiences, memories, and focused-upon problems up to nine days after the original experience.
So you’re right on time.
Hi Ryan,
Could you move my dream and comment over to Dreaming with Whales, sorry,I sent it to the wrong thread. Thanks
Hm, interesting about the whale watch, I didn’t catch that.
I was meditating on the cell phone dream while drumming today- this is a technique that I have just started to test out , and the answer is rather blurry and on-going.
Also, the cell phone is a communication device. One of the purposes of the group dream idea was to see if whales could communicate with us through dreams, or if there was a message for humankind. But just imagine if you are inhumanely – pun?- being hunted down, perhaps that was the message. First things first.
So a few nights ago i thought to myself in a kind of sadness that i hadent had a lucid dream for maybe 3-5 months or so and i reached the conclusion that i had experienced everything there is to it so it was time to move on. That very night i had the most stable and realistic lucid dream ever. It was so real that i had to tripple my reality check.. i regained the perspective of how illusory our reality is and do wonder where we go after we die in this realm,..cheers for a nice post! 🙂