Oneiric Peep Show

One morning I plunged straight into the dream state from wakefulness to experience a wake-induced lucid dream (WILD). I found myself in a stark interrogation room (think The Matrix). A plain-clothed police detective sat across from me at a metal desk. His monotone voice droned arrogantly concerning some legal matter. I decided to ignore the suit and explore my lucid dream. I had been planning to ask the subconscious mind about a problem at my job in the animation industry, hoping to receive a verbal answer the way some dreamers report happening.

However, before I could begin any dream work, the arm of my “subtle body” popped out of my real arm, pivoting from the elbow. I gazed at the ghostly hand: it was bluish-white and slightly translucent. I couldn’t tell if it had bones inside or not. This spectral limb jerked from one pose to another—lacking what animators call "breakdowns."

Now hinged from my shoulder, the arm swung rigidly behind my back. I had the distinct feeling that this extra body part, despite its autonomy, belonged to me, so I was not afraid. But it was disconcerting to watch my hand moving with a will of its own. I wondered what—or who—was motivating this subconscious appendage! Was this a partial, out-of-body experience (OBE)?

Once I shrugged off the idea of having two right hands (one real, one astral) I got down to business: I did the Waggoner thing and shouted up at the sky to the awareness behind the dream, asking it to show me the solution to my struggle for productivity at work.

No answer. So, I asked again.

Presently a rectangular, violet window appeared before my eyes, with a small, convoluted object nestled inside—glowing light purple, with dark contours. I guessed it represented an optic nerve or something in my head. (Upon waking and searching Google Images, I’m now inclined to think it resembled a solitary neuron...or perhaps a cancer cell?) Peeping through the aperture floating before me in the darkness, I scrutinized this complex origami closely: it was quite vivid and three-dimensional (like a fractal surface), and I perceived an hour-glass structure in the walls of the grotto containing it. Was this a cryptic, visual answer to my query? I asked the dream consciousness what it meant, but still received no vocal answer. The rectangle slid upward—it was difficult to keep my eyes trained on it—like a floater adrift on an eyeball.

I awoke. The vision persisted for a few seconds in the darkness of the bedroom, slowly fading as the dream energy dissipated. Perhaps I was merely seeing hypnagogic imagery, and the purple enigma, locked in its little keyhole, was not necessarily the dream emissary’s answer to my problem...unless I was being shown a brain tumour that needs removing!