In Lucid Dreams, Does Space Exist?

Does space actually exist in your lucid dreams?

Many of you may find this question strange. Once lucid, you fly around cities, go through walls and explore the dreamscape. In fact, some lucid dreams involve almost constant exploring. Space certainly seems to exist, since you perceive yourself moving through it.

Yet as a lucid dreamer, you may notice that you could announce, “Let me see the Eifel Tower in Paris when I turn around!” And with a sense of positive expectation when you turn around, you now find yourself looking at the Eifel Tower.

What does that say about the ‘space’ behind you?

Or as a lucid dreamer, you may have ignored the dream figures and called out a request to the non-visible awareness behind the dream, “Show me something important for me to see!” Suddenly, the previous dreamscape vanishes, and you find yourself looking at an entirely new environment.

What does that say about the ‘space’ in front of you?

Or as an experienced lucid dreamer, you could stop in the lucid dream (as I once did), cross your dream legs and begin to meditate (for me, this meant emptying my mind). Doing so with eyes open, I noticed that the visual space in front of me began to get torn away like a ripped screen, and brilliant light shot through the ever-increasing rips and holes.

What does emptying your mind say about the nature of ‘space’?

Lucidly Playing with Space

Or perhaps you could play with space, as did Alan Worsley, the first lucid dreamer to signal his lucid awareness with his eyes while sleeping in Keith Hearne’s University of Hull sleep lab in 1975. For instance, when lucid, he might see how far his fingers would extend if he jumped off a tall building while hanging onto the ledge. He lucidly watched as his dream fingers stretched longer and longer as he hung onto the ledge.

Yet Worsley also played with ‘space’ in lucid dreams. Seeing a distant spot to visit, he lucidly refused to fly to it. Instead, he pulled the distant spot to him through the power of his ‘will’ or intent. Suddenly as he watched, the distant spot came rushing to him.

When a distant ‘space’ comes to you in a lucid dream, what does that say about lucid dreaming space?

In these examples, you can see the foolish question, ‘Does space actually exist in lucid dreams?’ may not seem so foolish after all. When you play with space, you begin to realize (much like Alan Worsley and others) that you play with an idea, or perhaps you might call it, Ideational Space.

Ideational Space; Space as Idea

Ideational Space seems to have certain qualities connected to it:

Ideational Space appears mentally responsive (e.g., When Alan Worsley pulls a distant spot to him, it comes.)
Ideational Space seems mentally reflective (e.g., As I empty my mind through meditation, the imagery begins to disappear.)
Ideational Space seems infinitely capable of expressing form or potential (e.g., As you announce, ‘Show me something important for me to see!’, a new unexpected tableau appears.)
Ideational Space allows for communicating and exchanging energy and information with another layer of awareness.

Knowing that physicists like Einstein have shown the linked or relative nature of time and space, or space/time, could a lucid dreamer also play with the concept of Ideational Time?

In lucid dreams, does Ideational Time seem mentally responsive and reflective? Can you move through Ideational Time in a lucid dream?

Does Ideational Time possess an infinite capability to allow for the expression of form and potential? Does Ideational Time allow for communicating or exchanging energy and information with another layer of awareness? How could you play with Ideational Time

Playing with time and space in lucid dreams, naturally leads to viewing time and space in the waking world as fundamentally nonessential or non-foundational. Space and time may exist as only convincing illusions that have no fundamental reality. The eighth century Buddhist dream yoga teacher and meditation master, Dawa Gyaltsen, expressed it thusly: