Chapter 9 - The proper use of totems
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” – Lao Tzu
Spontaneous lucidity is a phenomenon that should interest us greatly. The majority of my lucid dreams, even as a beginner, all fell into this category. High level lucid dreams would just happen. In the early days, this was frustrating because I had no control over when these desired dreams would occur, I was merely the glad recipient of accidental fortune. We, of course, are not interested in being accidental lucid dreamers. We want to dream with clarity, choice, and power, able to step into lucidity at will.
So what happens if we start to study the spontaneous lucid dreaming phenomenon? In previous chapters, we looked at flying pink elephants. People may call them dream signs or dream clues or incongruities, or whatever, but regardless of the name, they are a curiosity. They are outlier dreaming events. They somehow hook our attention in the dream due to their bizarre nature, we do a double-take, and the waking-up process begins. Unfortunately for me, and probably the majority of people out there, we just don't dream about flying pink elephants all that often. As I scan across the pages of my dream journal, I notice a distinct lack of elephants, and I find that most of my lucidity triggers really aren't that bizarre at all. In one instance from May 2004, it was a normal looking tree.
I’m walking through a city with James. It’s daytime. I believe we’re overseas somewhere, but I'm not sure where. We're headed down a sidewalk, talking, when I notice a particular tree. There's nothing special about it but as I look at it I realize that I'm dreaming.
A lot of my spontaneous lucid dreams are similar to that. Something catches my eye, I pause, and suddenly I wake up. There's no questioning or reality checking involved, it just happens. I've had dreams where buildings, plants, views, rocks, and even grass have all sent me into a high level lucid dream. In each of the cases, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the object. It just hooked my attention and suddenly I woke up.
In one of my favorite dream moments, it was the look in a woman's eyes. I was walking through a public area, in my own little world, wrapped up in my story. A woman was walking towards me, headed somewhere else. As we passed, I looked up. She had a delicious knowing smile and when I caught her eyes, the veil simply fell. My lucid shield, my cloud of illusion, disappeared. I turned around to interact with her, but she was gone into the crowd.
Each of these anomalous dreaming interactions are known as totem events. Totems are objects outside of you that cause you to wake up. In the 2010 film, Inception, they used totems to keep track of whether or not they were dreaming, and like most Hollywood films, despite being a great movie, they didn’t quite get the mechanics of the concept right. Totems pull you out of the non-lucid state, they wake you up. The most easily identified totems are the outrageously bizarre, but totems can be anything. An object, a plant, a view, even a stranger's smile. When we encounter totems in a dream, they are seeming accidents. We stumble upon them, and to a dreamer, they are gifts. We don't necessarily know where they came from or why they're there or how they work, we just appreciate their appearance. They are beacons of lucidity that break down our barriers and wake us up.
Any lucid dreamers unfamiliar with totems should scan through their lucid dreams and look for them. In each of your lucid dreams, what caused you to wake up? What was present in the second before becoming lucid? Often we think it just sort of happened, but if we really go back into those moments, we always find a totem of one kind or another present and anchored in the lucid realm, broadcasting the feel of something more.
Totems possess an ineffable quality. How is it that they can penetrate the densest fogs of our minds and pull us into crystal-clear lucidity? It’s almost as if a part of us wants to be awake and leaves us beacons scattered throughout the dream realm that gently offer us a way out. Totems ignore any shields we may be projecting and reach right into our world and rekindle awareness. They wake us up. Interestingly, once we’re awake, the totem is just like all the rest of lucid reality. It’s only when we’re asleep in the dream that it occurs as an oddity. Once we’re lucid, whatever mysterious quality it possessed blends into the rest of the dream because the entire lucid world all radiates that same quality.
If we start looking for totems in waking life, we find that they are everywhere, scattered across our paths to wake us up in this world too. Often they’re associated with beauty (a sunrise, a flower, a cathedral, a work of art, etc) but they can be anything. A really good wine, a perfect kiss, a song, anything that cuts through to our core, gives us pause, and reminds us what it’s all about. These are all totems, beacons of a super-conscious realm broadcasting their message into our sleepy, wayward lives. Usually, the lucid moment only lasts an instant. We briefly pause, remember, but then rush right back into what we were doing. This happens both in the dream and in life. In order to extend our lucidity, we can’t just approach the lucid realm and be satisfied with a quick glimpse, we have to stop what we’re doing and enter. Then, the farther in we venture, the longer we’ll be able to stay.
We want to become very familiar with the totem process. This is the stuff lucid dreams are made of! We know that reality checks and all the various mnemonic reminders are not guaranteed to work. We want to become lucid as easily as possible with the least amount of effort as possible. We’d like the dream to do the work for us, scatter totems throughout our consciousness and have us bump into them over and over throughout the night. The more we practice lucid dreaming, the more totem events we start having in our dreams. Lucidity becomes automatic. The reason for this is that we’re reprogramming our minds. The work we’ve been doing thus far is actually programming our minds to automatically lucid dream. We’re developing a way of looking at the world, a way of being, that causes spontaneous awakening. Since what happens in life gets reflected in the dream, if you have an argument with a friend, chances are you’ll be arguing in your dreams in a night or two. If you spend your day fantasizing about a vacation, you are likely to find yourself there in your sleep. Now if your state of consciousness throughout the day corresponds to that state of consciousness that we’re distinguishing as non-lucidity in the world, then your state of consciousness in the dream is going to largely be non-lucid. Dream consciousness mimics waking-world consciousness. If being awake in the world becomes our norm, so too will being awake in our dreams.
By using our outlier experiences from dreaming, we’re learning the ins and outs of lucidity. We’re activating enlightened mental pathways so that they get triggered at night. The more accustomed we become to viewing the world with lucid eyes, the more accustomed we’ll become to dreaming with lucid eyes. We already have the know-how, it’s an innate part of being human, we just don’t do it very often. So rather than viewing totems as oddities of the dream world, let us once again consider the dream our teacher and explore what it has to offer.
Looking closer at a totem experience, what do we find? The totem can be anything, it doesn’t have to be special or bizarre, anything will do. In the dream, it catches our eye. We stop what we’re doing and look closer. There’s something about the object… and as soon as we get really interested, it’s hooked us, pulled us into its reality, and we wake up. The totem radiates the essence of the lucid realm, and the power of that realm instantly cuts through to our core. Any shields we were projecting vanish like fog in the sun as the energy of lucidity floods in and awareness dawns. When we see the totem, we are actually seeing the lucid realm, and as soon as we see it, as soon as we connect to it, the spell is broken. The veil is lifted, and we are there.
Our daytime exercises have all been developing the skill called Dreaming, and our nighttime exercises will all be employing this same skill. Dreaming is very distinct from imagining. Imagination is a process that requires effort. When we imagine something a certain way while awake, we are essentially trying to change the nature of that thing. We are trying to overwrite the world as it is. Imagination is a process that occurs in the head, outside of reality. When we’re within the mental construct, imagination can help us get out, but once we’re out, it does us no good.
Opposite imagination is Dreaming. Whereas imagination requires effort, Dreaming is effortless. It involves an allowing and beholding. To Dream something is to choose it and to create it, exactly as it is occurring. While imagination takes place in the head, Dreaming seems to come from the heart. In imagination, we’re separate from what we’re imagining. In Dreaming, we feel an intrinsic connection, like in a lucid dream.
To fine-tune our Dreaming skill, we’ll be alternating between imagining and Dreaming.
Exercise 9a: Totem tuning
Pick something and imagine that it is a totem (requires effort). After a moment or two of imagining, switch to Dreaming that it’s a totem (effortless). You should feel an immediate relaxing.
Pick something else and repeat. Continue until the distinction between imagining and Dreaming is very clear.
Exercise 9b: Waking totems
Totems are things outside of us that cause a change in or disintegration of the dream shield. To learn how to use totems while awake, we start by deliberately creating their intended effects. Pick something outside of your personal space and let your lucid shield stop just on the near side of it. This is a Dreaming process, not an imagining one. When you can clearly perceive the wall of your shield in front of your chosen totem, extend your shield just enough to include it. The totem is now in your space, your reality. Notice any subtle sensations that may occur. Then pick a new totem.
Continue treating things as totems until the separation between inside and outside disappears.
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