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Introduction
My first steps into the world of lucid dreaming seemed inconsequential at the time. My friend had read about this neat trick of realizing that one is dreaming while within the dream, and once we grasped that this little trick led to superpowers of flight and fancy, we were hooked. For the awkward youth I was at the time, lucid dreaming was my ticket to worlds of fun and adventure that were, as of then, unknown. But paths twist and turn, as paths are want to do, and those first youthful steps into the lucid domain marked the beginning of a galvanizing quest that spanned fifteen years and five continents. What began as a passing interest soon led me on an unexpected journey that became the greatest adventure of my life.
Imagine standing on a hilltop and surveying the land around you. You can see for miles in every direction with crystal-clear vision. The trees in the distance are so vivid and bright you can smell, taste, and feel them as if they were inches away. Confidence, wonder, and peace bubble up from deep inside you as you feel an overwhelming connection to all things. You know that in this perfect moment, you are creating it all. This is your dream. There is no fear, no worry, no anxiety, no shame, no guilt, nothing pressing on your mind, and nothing you have to do. It’s a moment of complete freedom and full self-expression. Reality waits by your side, ready to create anything you choose to imagine.
My first lucid dream was what I would later come to know as a high level lucid dream, it only lasted a few moments, but when I woke from it, I knew a quest had begun. The dream had left a stitch in my mind. There was a puzzle there, a riddle. I had touched on something profound and unknown, and some part of me would not be satisfied until I understood what it was. While many of my peers considered lucid dreaming to be a neat trick, I had the nagging feeling it was something more. I didn’t know what at the time, but it felt like a door had been opened, and rather than being a destination, that hilltop in my dream was the starting point.
Naturally, I began reading all the books on lucid dreaming that I could find. They offered me tips and tricks on what to do while lucid and gave me ideas of things to try that I might not have considered right away. After I’d exhausted the local library, I was still unsatisfied. None of the books really spoke to what I felt was the mystery I’d found on the hill, and in order to solve that mystery and satisfy that nagging feeling, I believed I would have to truly master the art of lucid dreaming. A few lucid dreams each month wouldn’t do. They didn’t provide enough time to go in and explore. I needed days, months, maybe even years inside the dream to find whatever it was I was looking for. I wanted to be able to close my eyes and be back on that hill. When I could, at will, close my eyes and enter the dream, I knew success would be right around the corner.
So I read all the books, but after the first few, none of them really helped me progress along my path. I decided I needed a guide, a teacher, anyone who understood my drive and could show me the way. Following an interesting chain of events, the teacher appeared, and I found myself the apprentice to a Native American medicine man. He had some mysterious quality about him, some element of the unknown, and I spent three and half years with him trying to learn all his secrets of dreaming. Following his death and a period of grieving, the quest picked up again. Through more twists and turns of fate, I wound up in a hidden ashram in India, the home of a living saint. More answers were given and more questions were formed, but the riddle remained. As the years went on, the more time and energy I devoted to solving the riddle, the more remarkable journeys I was put upon. From Templar cathedrals in France, to learning forgotten dreaming techniques in the Australian Outback, to ancient shamanic practices deep in the Amazonian jungles, I was led from clue to clue.
Periodically during my journey, I would have what I call “mountaintop moments.” In these moments, often preluded by days alone in a vision quest or countless hours into a mantra meditation, my waking consciousness would rise to heights beyond the hilltop from my dream. These moments were usually brief, but they gave me more glimpses of what was possible and took my lucid dreams to even higher levels. I was thankful for the mountaintop moments, but they were always too short and left me wanting more. After each experience, I worked harder, I became more committed, more ridiculous, suffered more, sweated more, and struggled to solve my riddle.
Then one day I woke up in a parking lot.
Now I didn't wake up from some kind of passed out stupor, I was actually walking around the parking lot, doing what I thought to be a trivial exercise, when suddenly, I WOKE UP. I really woke up. Like waking up from a dream and becoming lucid, the great veil falling away and revealing a world beyond imagination, I woke up in a parking lot. And in that moment of divine insight, that infinite moment of celestial consciousness, connected to the eloquence of buddhas and perhaps all enlightened beings, the divine spoke through me and I said, "Oh! Sh*t!"
This wasn’t enlightenment. I hadn’t suddenly become a guru. This was another mountaintop moment, but it was different than the others. Like in beginning lucid dreams, when you first become lucid, all sorts of thoughts and emotions stampede across your mind and you end up waking yourself up, previous mountaintop moments had always been that way. I’d have a few moments of rapture and bliss, then I’d get excited and my mind would try to figure out what was going on and before long, the moment was fading away and I was trying to grasp at it like fog in the air.
After your first few lucid dreams, you learn to relax. You learn to extend the moment. You just kind of slip into it, and you’re able to look around and explore. When I woke up in the parking lot, that’s what happened. I got excited, yes, but the moment didn’t fade. I was launched so fully and completely into a sort of waking lucidity that after the shock wore off, I gathered myself. I looked around. I kept walking. I was able to think rationally and start piecing things together. Lucid awareness had dawned, the world was bright, and I was rapidly approaching what certain Chinese philosophers refer to as the Great "Well, Duh."
The secrets I'd been searching for all the world over, the secrets that had managed to evade me for years, were suddenly all right there with me in that parking lot. I realized they'd been there all along. I'd come across them in my travels, but never quite realized what they were. From the very first lucid dreaming book I'd ever read, up until now, they were there, they were hinted at, but I didn't know how to connect the dots. I didn't know how to put the puzzle together. But now I could.
I looked again at all my lessons, all the secrets and techniques I had learned. They were all pieces to a puzzle, but I never quite understood what it all meant. I started rearranging things, looking at things from new angles, when suddenly everything fell into place, and I saw the ridiculous truth. I’d been going about it backwards. You just had to flip everything upside down. Read the book in a mirror. Stand on your head, and there it was. I’d been on a fool’s quest. An enjoyable quest, but a fool’s quest nonetheless. I didn’t need shamans or gurus or anything else.
All the secrets to lucid dreaming were hidden inside lucid dreams.
The dream was actually showing us step-by-step how to become lucid. In that mountaintop moment, the riddle resolved itself. Our lucid dreams were showing us everything I had been seeking. They had always been showing us, we just didn’t know how to listen. What once seemed impossible now seemed obvious. The way was simple and clear, and I offer it here to you, the kind of book I wish I’d had when I began this adventure.
May you find everything you seek inside,
And then some…
C. A. von der Mehden
Notre Dame, IN
01 April 2014
