I was lucid for nearly two hours. Each time the scenario developed and there was a scene change I expected to lose lucidity, but I didn't, which was amazing. I was in different rooms in a "building" that felt to me like a place between heaven and earth. Based on all my varied experiences there, it was a hospital as well as a school with private rooms dedicated to deep therapy where souls are cared for and brought back to health. And it was full of children. My impression is they were souls who died when they were still children on earth, and it was obvious they had all been abused and traumatized. But I wasn't only helping them, I was also being mysteriously helped in the process.
As sometimes happens, I almost didn't try to capture this dream night with words because it was so eventful, so full of real people, all fully vibrant individuals. But there was one overriding theme: helping and being helped to heal. Distinctly, I recall an especially vivid moment when a little girl (who I was sitting or kneeling next to on the floor of her room) told me she had never been kissed before, and so I kissed her on one of her tear-stained cheeks. Her reaction was incredibly intense, and it was a very special moment. She was one of the young children I interacted with.
In other rooms I was also being tested in strange ways, not with diagnostic machines of any kind, but mentally and emotionally, which sometimes included dream figures who appeared to be hostile or dangerous as they attempted to interfere with the good works being done there. It was all so incredibly real and rational, but I knew I wouldn't be able to hold on to most of the experiences in detail because I was lucid for so long.
As I exit the store, and continue walking along the dimly lit passages of this underground mall, I become aware of the possibility that I can walk myself into lucidity. Then I spot my "shopping guide" a few yards away; her bright-green, long-sleeved sweater is unmistakable... She has her back to me, and as I approach her, I become fully lucid at the same moment I ask her, “Who are you?”
Turning to face me, she begins speaking quickly, in a matter of fact tone of voice. I only remember two fragments of what she said: “A rush of cells to wash the scalpel... just looks down at this lump of dead matter.” I understand she's telling me that as a character in my dream, she is merely a symbolic manifestation of physiological processes going on in my body while I sleep. This is really disappointing, even disturbing, and as she goes on relentlessly, I interrupt her to demand, “Are you testing me?”
My outburst silences her, and she gives me a little smile. “Yes,” she admits, and now I see her clearly. Her bright green sweater has transformed into a shining, long-sleeved dark-green shirt with gold buttons, and her hair is not merely blonde, it is golden. She is young and attractive, in a distinguished, intelligent-looking way, and her expression is intriguingly animated. We begin walking side-by-side, heading for the exit as she communicates with me, but this part happens in a kind of dim, muted blur of colors.
The dream becomes vivid again when we step out into the night, and continue walking beneath a white, gently curving arbor that feels like it could go on forever. It is surrounded by a vast white circular building with tall arched doors and windows (all of them black now) lining its multiple stories. There are open spaces between the arbor and the building, in which I glimpse fountains and other artistic structures. I recognize this place, I've been here before in another lucid dream, in a different section, when the sun was shining. But tonight I have eyes only for my lovely Guide, whose golden hair frames her face in dense ringlets.
Keeping a firm grip on my right hand, she never stops speaking with fervent eloquence, mysteriously instructing me. I listen to her in wonder, for she is expressing herself in perfect, beautiful verse. I have never heard anyone actually speak like this; the closest approximation is an actor reciting Shakespeare. She uses no archaic words, she talks quickly and normally, and yet everything she says effortlessly emerges as exquisite prose-poetry, her conversation a verbal form of music. Fully wrapped up in the gravity of her intense presence, and acutely aware of the grip she has on my right hand, I dare to ask her, “Do all Angels talk like you?” Falling silent, she looks directly at me, and I slowly wake.
Later that night, I have another brief lucid dream. I'm sitting in a classroom, aware of being dressed in black, and facing a large window-screen of blue sky and clouds. Far below, on the surface of the earth, a black grid-map is displayed. The professor is mostly a black-clad presence to my right, where he stands just to one side of the window-screen. He is educating us on some of the unfortunate differences between how things are experienced where we are now vs. how they are experienced on earth, and how they must be “synched up.” Before I wake, a Voice says, “Hail Mary.”
... I start up the steps, and when I come to the first landing, I can see it very distinctly. I’m really here! I made it, I’m in a lucid dream! In that instant, someone grabs my waist from behind, and propels me up the remaining steps to the door of the apartment. It feels good, part of the thrill of being conscious in a dream, but I don’t want to get too excited and wake up. We enter the apartment, and I wonder what it is I am meant to discover and do here. The presence behind me is still gently pushing me forward, and I glimpse a man’s silhouette as we pass in front of a mirror hanging on the wall in front of us. A very small part of me is anxious, but I'm really more curious than concerned when I ask him, “Who are you?” and when he doesn’t respond, I repeat, “Who are you?” Managing to turn around then, I'm pleased to make out in the darkness a hard but handsome face framed by shoulder-length dark hair. “Is there something I’m supposed to know?” I query, thinking he might have something to tell me.
In a firm yet kind voice, he replies, “Just go with it.”
Understanding that he wants me to simply flow with the dream and see where it leads, I say eagerly, “Okay!”
Now it's obvious that the occupants of the apartment are asleep because it's nightime and the place is dark and quiet. It's laid out essentially like my waking life house but it is not in the least familiar; it's another home entirely. I head down the hallway and see a little boy standing just outside the bedrooms in the dark corridor. Smiling, I approach him. "Hello," I say, "are you dreaming too?" He seems to nod but I sense he's a little confused, he's very young, and like many little kids he has a natural ability to see disembodied people. I speak reassuringly and brightly, "That's great, we're all dreaming. We're awake in a dream." What's curious is that he has what appears to be a mask that covers his entire head quite tightly, as though made of thick plastic wrap that's a rather sickly green in color.
The door to the master bedroom is open and I can see his parents sleeping in there. I know without thinking about it that they are not very pleasant people, and I discern the big pot belly of the boy's father and the hard thinness of the woman. Their personalities are clear to me even though I can barely see them. I follow the boy into his parents' bedroom, into which he's backing up as if pulled in that direction. Indeed, his mother sits up and impatiently tugs him up onto the bed with her, telling him to shush because he's mumbling as though talking in his sleep. In a flash, I understand that he'll grow up being told dreams aren't real and receive no encouragement in developing any ability he possesses. I lean over him where he's lying in bed with his mother and tell him, "Don't believe what they tell you. Keep dreaming" and as I speak, I understand that I'm a teacher and that the man with me has brought me to, and is supervising, my first lucid instruction. I know then that I've been helping people in a similar fashion in non-lucid dreams for some time, but that I'm being promoted, in a sense, and this is my first time on this level.
As I leave the bedroom, I wonder how the kid can breathe in that mask, which he has to wear around his parents, but I am hopeful as I seem to know that for the rest of his life he'll remember this dream; he'll remember the man and woman he met in a dream who confirmed the fact that he was dreaming and that it was real, and that this memory will aid him in overcoming obstacles he will encounter in his upbringing.
Back in the living room, I am drawn to a wall which has a window lining the bottom, where I crouch and gaze out at a beautiful bird sitting right outside the glass. "Oh, look at this bird!" I exclaim to my companion, clearly seeing it's deep yet bright-blue feathers that are faceted like jewels with other rich colors, especially red and gold. I force myself to look away from it because I don't want to wake up as a result of focusing on one thing for too long.
I can feel the sun rising and it does indeed seem to be morning because the family is rising, walking out into the living room. And what's interesting is that the little boy can still see us. As his parents go about their groggy morning business, he stands against the wall staring at us. My companion then demonstrates to him that you can fly in dreams, and I join in by rising off the ground and doing a slow backward flip, something I've never done before in dreams, and I'm not quite sure how to do it, but I seem to succeed and understand that I'm educating myself as well, learning not to be so linear in the sense of behaving in dreams as though I'm awake.
Massive lucid. But I had such a long false awakening, I can scarcely remember everything I did, except that I was very active. Walking down a central corridor in a seemingly endless white structure (I often find myself in such a place in lucid dreams) which seemed to be full of classrooms, I called out to scientists of the future who might be monitoring dreams, "Are you there?" I knew it made no sense, but it was fun yet serious at the same time.
At one point, when a lion was devouring my hand, I just kept calmly repeating, "Heart of Jesus. Heart of Jesus. Heart of Jesus..." over and over again. The beast released my hand and became tame.
In one of the instruction rooms, I was riding (fully clothed) on the back of a man, and somehow assisting him in the process of learning how to make love to a woman rather than just have sex with her.
I featured this lucid dream, along with several others, in my most recent novel Song of the Blood and thought it would be fun to share the third person version which reads like a story.
Sophia is outside at some outdoor event taking place at twilight. Then before she knows it, she has flown up to the very top of some kind of tall but narrow monument overlooking a great flat expanse of grassy ground. She seems to be perched on a crown belonging to a giant statue! It's nearly dark now, and the vast sky is dense with purple-black clouds as she stands poised above the world. Becoming aware of holding her key chain in her right hand, staring down at it she experiences the usual prick of anxiety associated with losing her keys. Deciding in that moment that she's done with that once and for all, she flings the keys away. But instead of falling to earth, the keys rise up and return to her. Flying around to the back of her head, her keys swiftly gather up her long dark hair, and arrange it in a timelessly elegant fashion. Nestled in her hair like living pins, her keys are now a part of her. This is so magical, so wonderful, she opens her arms exultantly, and leaning forward into thin air takes off like a hawk. And in those purely exhilarating moments she realizes this is a lucid dream!
Flying, she soon lands on a dark city street, where she walks through a door into a tiny foyer opening onto a small and narrow room crowded with men. She doesn't like the look of them or the atmosphere, but she knows she has to be here simply because she landed right in front of the place. Immediately, she's taken through a door in the back and down a long corridor, where she's locked into an extremely narrow wooden booth which is pitch-black inside. She knows it's a trap, and discovers its nature when, on her knees, she is forced to go down on a man. She knows she can escape by waking up, but that's not good enough. She doesn't have to submit to this. She can fight. And that's just what she does!
It isn't long before she escapes the porn booth, and finds herself in an evenly lit white space, where she can now see the male figure she's battling. Feeling that she's winning, she grows even more aggressive, at which point a woman standing nearby and observing the action cries out, "Stop, he's an angel!" This gets Sophia's attention, and she experiences an intuitive flash: Could these dream figures be angels deliberately putting me though spiritual trials to make me stronger? The possibility is extremely intriguing, but she still has to defend herself.
Hurrying over to a series of large glass windows on her left, she realizes they lead out into an enclosed rectangular space ending in horizontal glass doors. The way out! The man she was battling follows her, but she makes it through the first clear barrier before he can catch her. There is another man floating inside this middle space leading out into darkness, and she hears him say, "She's headed for the Spook Tunnel" which confirms her impression that what she just suffered was only the first in a gauntlet of trials arranged for her. She makes it outside, where she hovers above a dark city street. The second man doesn't follow her, but as she flies to her left away from the building, she suddenly finds herself apparently trapped in a transparent tunnel that twists off to her right wormhole-style, narrowing and curving away as it disappears into the deepest darkness of space. She's afraid the "spooks" in this tunnel are evil entities invisibly surging down the dark passage straight toward her, and she has no desire to confront them head on. Fortunately, she escapes simply by intending to do so.
Her relief is short-lived, however, when she senses/glimpses/understands that another enemy is setting up an immense explosion (she has a split-second vision of a raging yellow inferno tinged with orange) and the radius of the devastation will be so great, she won't be able to fly fast enough to escape it. Closing her eyes, she wills herself to quantum leap a great distance by becoming pure spirit—unbound by any physical laws of space and time—and the next instant, she knows she succeeded.
Gliding above a dark suburban street, she perceives another trap waiting for her. It's being set up by a man standing on the corner of a sidewalk just a few feet below her. Looking down at him, she distinctly understands there is a limit to the forces her enemies are manipulating, and attempting to use against her. She then sees an object like a large golden compass drifting across the dark sky away from her, and a young man in black walking parallel to it on the street below. Beyond him, she glimpses the silvery light of the moon, and although she knows this is another trial, she doesn't meet with any resistance as she glides away.
She sees herself as if from behind now wearing a tight black tank-top, her squared shoulders bare and her arms held straight against her body, and in both hands she is clutching wet white rags she squeezes triumphantly; wringing the moisture out of them with strong, victorious fists. She feels like a soldier who has been through skirmishes in which the enemy sought to render her helpless—or to force her to lose by taking the coward's way out of waking up. She senses this was only the first night of future trials, but happy with her performance, she's ready to wake up.
That morning, lying in Jonathan's arms, Sophia told him, "The more I think about this dream, and what that woman said, 'He's an angel' the more I feel like I wasn't actually fighting real spiritual trials, but only being trained for them, because you don't actually want to hurt your fellow soldiers when they're playing the enemy in a simulation."
"Go on."
"I think this lucid dream was like a training exercise in the military, where experienced soldiers play the enemy and set up traps for those being trained for combat. My experiences were like that, I knew I could wake up, just step out of the dream-simulation—which was real in the sense that the dangers I was being trained to face are real—and yet I wasn't afraid the way I would have been if, like a soldier, I'd been in real combat as opposed to trying to do my best in a simulation, knowing I wasn't in actual danger but that I might one day be, so it was important I get it right and do the best I could." She paused, then added self-consciously, "But listen to me talking to a veteran as if I could really know what it's like to be trained as a soldier."
"You're doing a good job," Jonathan assured her. "Lucid dreaming special forces training! And just last night you were saying you didn't deserve me."
"I really feel stronger this morning, and I don't mean physically just because I got a good night's sleep. I mean deep down."
"You don't have to explain it to me, Sophia. But I want you to tell me what you learned from last night's training, breaking it down trial by trial."
"Okay," she said, but then hesitated, because the first test was the most embarrassing one to talk about. "Well, that first trial was obviously about my sexual past and sins, but they're behind me now. The second trial seems to imply that being too afraid of malicious entities can be as bad as the demons themselves. I just have to keep in mind that invisible conscious forces are actively working against my spiritual growth, but that as long as I'm on God's side, they can't really hurt me. I could feel how that wormhole-like tunnel was designed to channel them straight down to earth—a cosmic umbilical cord opening into the small foyer-like area I was in that was semi-transparent, like a large amniotic sack."
"Like a womb."
"Yes," she admitted, but unable to face Genesis 6 so early in the day, she moved on. "The next trial was an immense far-reaching explosion. In the dream, I knew the bomb had been dropped far away behind me, yet the orange-yellow blast was all around me in an instant; there was no escaping it, and I only survived because I was in the spirit.
"The fourth trial," she soldiered on, "was strangely peaceful. Nothing seemed to happen, but that golden compass—and the young man dressed all in black walking alongside it beneath the moon in a starless sky—makes me think of sorcery and black magic, all of which center around the self and its supposed powers as it travels imaginary paths of enlightenment. The moon reflects the sun's light, but is itself a dark and lifeless body, like our brains' gray matter, which have the power to shine as minds only because they reflect God's Living Light."
This article was released in issue from
December 2020
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