Hello Robert,
I want to start just thanking you for all your work. It has been one of the most impactful pieces on my dreaming journey that started with random lucid dreams in childhood. I hope to see you do a workshop in person in Boulder CO someday. Maybe with Andrew Holecek?
Anyways, recently my interest has primarily been in wanting to ask the awareness behind the dream questions. Many years ago I asked the larger awareness about the nature of reality and a bird voice squawked and asked “Bawwwk how deep do you want to go?” I then got a little spooked and said cancel. I then focused my intent on manipulation and meditating in my lucid world for a few years til rereading your first book last month.
A little over a week ago I started trying to connect with the awareness behind the dream again and it talked some, then I lost lucidity. It arose again and then I asked “What is the nature of dreaming?” There was no response and I entered into a state of hyper lucidity, though it started collapsing. I re-engaged with the dream—turning the leaves on the ground into a tornado and the fall weather into a mountainous winter wonderland—and awoke feeling that was somehow the answer to the question.
Last night I also became lucid and asked the dream to “show me something important.” But nothing happened again. I then saw a dog and went over to it, cleaned it and then made it disappear since cleaning it was like an autopilot lessening lucidity. I then asked all mental fabrications to disappear, though there was only one dream character, not sure it worked since she stayed. I eagerly talked to the women who said she was real and we weren’t dreaming. I kinda saw her point in the moment, though still disagreed from my perspective. It felt like both could be true.
I have a lot of enthusiasm, expectation, intention and belief that engaging the awareness behind it will work while doing it, so it is puzzling. I almost wonder if the lack of response compared to intentions with less enthusiasm, expectation and focus is trying to teach me something. Pointing to the lack of control, which has been a theme and inquiry for awhile.
Another piece that’s been developing more lately is tunnels of light. Sometimes I enter into them and they go so fast I loose lucidly. Other times it seems like they are tunnels to lucid dreams (which I heard you mention in a recent podcast, though this began before hearing that).
Last night I was in the murk of a collapsed dream and just stared flying through the nothing. I noticed the more lucid and aware I was, the more light there was. Determined to stay in it till a dream formed, I watched the light increase in clarity and density till objects formed and the dream where I said “show me something important” mentioned above manifested.
Any thoughts on navigating these tunnels and the perceived challenges of the awareness behind the dream?
Hi Braxton,
Congratulations on your lucid dream explorations!
At the International Association for the Study of Dreams, lucid dreamers have presented and discussed on the appearance of “portals” in lucid dreams. Also in the online magazine, Lucid Dreaming Experience, ( visit www.DreamingLucid.com ), I believe that some articles by Linda Mastrangelo (find her in the magazine’s index on the website) discuss her experiences with portals or wormholes in lucid dreams.
When it comes to connecting in a lucid dream with the ‘awareness behind the dream’, it helps to let go of any fear, concern, etc., since it will distort or subtly influence the experience. Even in your first experience asking a question and then hearing a non-visible voice reply, “How deep do you want to go?”, if it was my lucid dream then it would suggest to me that I have a concern about “how deep” lucid dreaming could take me. Also, that experience would encourage me to resolve my fearful beliefs about this (while awake), so that it would not influence subsequent experiences.
One thing that I have noticed — sometimes the lucid dreamer asks for something important and receives something but since it does not seem ‘important’ enough to their ego/waking self, they then ignore it or disregard it. For example, you ask “show me something important” and then see apparently a dirty dog. While this might not seem important on a surface level, symbolically a ‘dirty dog’ may connect to someone who has done you wrong recently (and with whom you have a lot of emotional energy) or something else. Because of this, I encourage people to consider responses symbolically too.
As I mention in my book, lucid dreamers can also ask for all “thought forms” to disappear (meaning, dream figures who exist by virtue of your thought energy alone). Normally a person will see all or some of the “thought forms” disappear — and the remaining figure/s normally seem to have greater awareness than your random dream figure. An important lesson for lucid dreamers involves seeing the various levels of awareness, behavior and responsiveness amongst dream figures. Interestingly, all dream figures are not created equal. To me, this seems a very important lesson — especially as one goes deeper.
In general terms, my advice: Let go of fear and adopt an attitude of trust. (Sometimes letting go of fear involves investigating the nature of it in our own personal experience – and then resolving it — or realizing, “I exist in a lucid dream, which I help to co-create through my beliefs, expectations, focus, intent/will and larger awareness. Because of this, I see no reason to fear.”)
Always happy to come and present on lucid dreaming!
Lucid wishes!