Chapter 4 - Alternating Reality
“What I want to do is travel deep and deeper into the dreamlands...” - Charles de Lint
In the last chapter, we found two outliers with a story about getting out of bed, climbing stairs, and taking a shower nestled between them. The story turned out to be inconsequential, as we were interested in the outlier events. In lucid dreaming, outlier events commonly revolve around either the moment of falling “asleep” or the moment of waking up. Not only are these the outliers of dreaming, but we’re beginning to get hints that these may be outliers of consciousness as well.
So what happens if we start exploring the outliers a bit more boldly? This is where we get adventurous. The dream has given us various clues, and now we begin to put them together. In false awakenings, the dream has us move from outlier to outlier, over and over and over again. It’s as if the dream wants us to be accustomed to two crucial moments, two crucial realities. The dream wants us to thoroughly experience and explore these two extremes, so it swings us back and forth between them. Is there something to be found alternating between these two realities? We know that a strange thing begins to occur when we repeatedly (falsely) awaken. After the final awakening, when we reenter the physical world, we are left with a nagging feeling. A curious state of consciousness begins to arise, even though we’re awake, which starts to pull us out of our routine ways of being. New eyes are beginning to form as we look at the world from different perspectives. Those fixed qualities of our minds that prevent us from waking up in the dream, that prevent us from questioning or seeing, start to become more pliable. We become suspicious. We’re almost waiting for something to happen that will wake us up again.
We’re being trained to see, and the dream is a gentle teacher. Having been swung back and forth by the dream a few times during our false awakenings, we discover that the process can be kind of fun. We just gently swing between two states and a new awareness begins to take shape. But what happens if we start pumping our legs? What happens if we swing higher?
Exercise 4a: Alternating objects
Pick an object and look at it from the point of view of the physical world. When you look at the object, know that it is solid and real.
Pick a different object and look at it from the point of view of a lucid dream. When you look at the object, know that it is made of dream stuff.
Repeat these steps, alternating back and forth between points of view for a wide variety of objects. Explore tiny objects, large objects, and everything in between. Continue for 10-15 minutes.
Exercise 4b: Alternating Reality
While standing, fully experience and create the state, “I am awake in the real world.” Once this state is felt for a few moments, experience and create the state, “I am lucid in a dream.” When you feel lucid and have adopted the point of view of being in a lucid dream, begin walking and explore the dream with wonder.
After a few moments of exploration, stop and recreate the state, “I am awake in the real world.” Once this state is recreated and fully felt, go back into the dreaming point of view and continue exploring with wonder. Take a walk, alternating back and forth between these realities until you feel complete.
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