It’s not yet six years since I first discovered lucid dreaming. I had read about the possibility of this phenomenon in a newspaper. The idea fascinated me, and I started to read books about the science of dreams and lucid dreaming. Soon I had some success with DILDs and even, at that time, unwanted WILDs. These experiences felt very strange and weird to me, and so I began to read more about them and to explore the borders of lucid dreaming.
I had read in an internet workshop that a way to achieve success in having a lucid dream is to imagine an ultimate lucid dream. My idea of an ultimate lucid dream was to transform into a fluorescent butterfly, then merge into a swarm of butterflies while flying to the music of Chariots of Fire until dissolving in bright, sparkling light. But I wondered if it was really possible to control a whole dream.
(October 3rd, 2014)
In my dream, I see the face of a man. He is talking to me, but I can’t hear a sound. This makes me realize that I must be dreaming - then the face dissolves.
I’m in my bed and recall my ultimate lucid dream goal and shout out loud, “I’m transforming into a fluorescent butterfly and flying in a swarm of fluorescent butterflies…” I think I stop here because I can feel my arms transforming into wings! It’s a very strange feeling. My head is vibrating too. I can fly up towards my wardrobe although at first my wings are covered with my duvet. My daughter (aged around 4 years in the dream) comes with me. Now I can repeat aloud my whole wish to the end, “. . . to the music of Chariots of Fire until dissolving in bright, sparkling light.” There is a TV screen on my wardrobe, and I can watch a movie with butterflies. I wonder if I should fly into the screen to join them, but decide to try to fly out through the open window instead.
I’m standing on the window sill together with my daughter, who wants to fly with me. I’m worried about her ability to fly. To confirm that I’m really dreaming, I want to perform a reality check. I want to look at my watch to see the figures changing. But there is no arm, no watch! I can only see my wing.
We are on the third or fourth floor above the street and I really worry that my daughter could fall down. People are looking up to us. Suddenly my daughter falls and can only hold on to the sill with one hand. In panic, I’m crying down to the crowd, “ Catch her!” A man extends his arms towards her and picks her up safely. I wake up, but into a false awakening.
I return to my bed. There are 4 beds in the room and my other daughter and my husband are awake. I tell them about this incredible dream before waking up for real.
My second lucid dream is about physical healing. After reading of this possibility in Robert’s first book, Lucid Dreaming, Gateway to the Inner Self, I felt extremely motivated to give it a try.
For more than ten years I had a chronic upper heel spur on my left heel. In September of that year, I got a cortisone injection in it, but it didn’t help. Therefore I was extremely motivated to give lucid dreaming a chance!
In my first lucid dream of that night, I recall my goal but don’t believe that it can really happen, and I end up in a false awakening. Then I go back to bed and am even more motivated to give it another try. I wish from deep in my heart with devotion and yearning to becoming lucid again in my next dream – and it works!
As I was still a novice lucid dreamer, after waking up, I couldn’t recall what triggered me to get lucid. I even had the feeling that I might have transformed into a butterfly (which was still my ultimate lucid dream goal at that time). Later, I recall that I felt very confident while inside the lucid dream of being able to heal my heel:
(November 4th, 2014)
I’m lying in a room on a bed (it felt like being in a hospital) and speak loud, “I wish for healing energy for my left heel!” Immediately, a 20-30 cm long bright, bluish-white light beam is flying down from the ‘universe’ above me to my left heel. It’s passing through it and coming out between my toes as a dirty blue gum-like tape. Another light beam is flying down into my heel and out between my toes, but as a transparent, slightly bluish worm, with a sweet little face, made of black points and lines. I wait for a while for a third light beam, but none comes.
I feel euphoric and in awe of what has happened!!! I fly through the wall, out of the building. The dream scene ‘offers’ (throws down to) me lots of other obstacles that I penetrate until I get stuck inside a wardrobe. I realize that I’m still dreaming and walk through it, thinking, it would be better to wake up now, otherwise I won’t be able to recall this incredible dream.
But I have a false awakening. I get up to walk downstairs and write down my dream. But there are strange puppets on the stairway. I realize that I’m still dreaming and that it is of no use to write down the dream. I lose lucidity - until another wardrobe is flying towards me. I don’t want this; I want to wake up, and so I do.
First, after waking up, I had forgotten about the healing. Only after questioning myself, as to why I felt so incredibly euphoric, did I suddenly recall everything.
My power of intention and belief that such a powerful dream can help worked! Within about six weeks my heel was completely healed and still is - I’m jogging 10 km a day or go for long hikes with my husband.
I think, within a lucid dream I’m nearer to my unconscious than in meditation and/or when using positive affirmations and therefore the placebo effect might be stronger. It’s also important to visualize the body as already healed; as though there may not be any doubt about it.
From his Glidewing-workshop (that I participated in later), Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche stated:
“In lucid dreaming, you develop certain levels of freedom, flexibility, strength, healing qualities and knowledge and have access to many powers, because of a deep sense of freedom. Knowing this is a lucid dream, you look at your pain, ‘I can heal it’ and send your awareness and healing energy to that location. You draw attention to the location and bring your awareness of space, awareness of light and awareness of warmth to that location wishing for healing energy and change it.”
My third dream is about a special WILD-Technique. At the beginning of my ‘lucid dream-career’, sometimes when I felt a strong yearning for a lucid dream goal, after a WBTB I was unable to go back to sleep. If I finally could sleep, then I had an ‘unwanted’ WILD experience. Therefore I ‘developed’ my own WILD-Technique: instead of waiting for a DILD and shouting out my wish, for example, “Show me something important to see!”, I began to say it in my thoughts after a WBTB until I could enter the dream state consciously.
This led me to the following:
After reading in books by Carl Gustav Jung, Robert A. Johnson’s book Inner Work and Clare Johnson’s Book Dream Therapy about Active Imagination, I had the idea to try using this Active Imagination Technique as a WILD.
For example, after a WBTB, I tried to induce a dialogue with my “dream baby” from an earlier lucid dream. Inside this lucid dream, a baby wanted to fly with me. Since this has happened in other lucid dreams before, I asked the baby why it always wants to accompany me. But it didn’t respond.
Therefore, I hoped to find an answer by following my ‘Active Imagination Dialogue’ that I’d start in my thoughts, until it turned into a lucid dream:
(April 24th, 2018)
(Unfortunately, after waking up, I had forgotten the beginning.)
Me: Why are you a separate aspect of me?
Baby: Because I need more freedom.
Me: Why don’t you feel freedom within me?
Baby: Because you are too serious!
Me: Why do you think so?
Baby: I would like to play and laugh more and have more fun.
Me: Why do you join me often during my flights?
Baby: To have fun and experience adventures.
Me: Why are you behaving like an adult?
Now the baby starts to talk on its own, like a real dream figure. It says something weird, like, “In my past life I could fill in forms when I was only six weeks old. I paid a bill for the amount of Fr. 600. — (I couldn’t recall the exact words).
At the same time, I’m lifted off my bed, turned upside down and thrown head first back on my bed. My face is stuck in the bed cover, and I begin to fear I’ll suffocate. But I immediately realize that it is only sleep paralysis and/or a hypnagogic hallucination. I relax and breathe normally.
Then, I’m able to turn my head to the right side and can see that a baby skeleton is approaching the foot of my bed. It sits down. Wow – it works !!! I’m feeling terribly euphoric: I can enter a lucid dream with this technique!
Me: “What do you want?” I ask the skeleton aloud. But unfortunately, wake up before the baby skeleton can answer.
For me, this technique offers a fascinating possibility, to reveal the meaning of dream figures and maybe even objects. I wonder if other readers might use a similar form of active imagination or something like my own ‘wish’ technique, mentioned above, to enter lucid dreams.
This article was released in issue from
June 2019
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