WAKING LIFE DREAMING LUCID
BOLD IF IT FEELS PARTICULARLY SIGNIFICANT
This is a complete but rough draft
From a couple nights ago
Spirituality's Just a Clunky Flashlight: Surprise Gratitude
I wasn’t expecting to have another lucid dream. Not since I did the other night after probably years of not remembering a lucid dream. I wasn’t even particularly focused on it last night, I was more interested in the emotional processing of dreams I’ve been remembering.
Before falling asleep, I went into the deepest meditation I think I’ve experienced before. During this meditation I was using audio with delta binaural (as well as other aspects) for the first time. I had used the demo before, before falling asleep and having the first lucid dream in this journal. That was the first lucid dream I remembered in a long time and it happened maybe 3 nights before the lucid dream in this journal entry.
There were many exceptionally vivid visuals that arose during the meditation. I kept coming back to my breath, but sometimes would just give in to the feeling of witnessing instead, feeling like why focus on the breath if that’s not the real point? Being the Witness is. Then I would lose my deeper connection with witnessing and come back to my breath. Cyclic.
I finished the meditation, rolled on my side, and meditated a bit without audio. I jumped when my name and something else was said in my ear. It seemed like a loud voice because of my stillness, but it was a whisper as if coming from a man, a lover, behind me. It was just so real and audible that it startled me.
I fell asleep normally, not trying to WILD or whatnot.
My mom in the living room, then in my room. Us conversing throughout this. Having the sense that I’m both in my living room and in my bed asleep simultaneously. She kind of giggles at me. I wonder if she’s there with me or not, if I’m hallucinating or something. She comes to my room and I’m only there, not in two places at once anymore. My window is open and there is a breeze. I ask her to close it for me; I don’t want to get up. She starts to close just the blinds and I ask her to close the window as well. She does. (Was some man coming toward the window, flying?)
I thought, this is a dream.
Darkness, vague sense of my body and no surroundings, as if I had my eyes closed in the dream. A strong, turning slowly in bed sensation. I couldn’t control it. slowly, over, over, tipping the sensation of falling at the same time. The slow shift ended.
Walking, it is rather dark around me, a kind of muddy and empty yet dense darkness, like mist. Around something, turning, perhaps it was a small gate that I walked around.
The dream felt very ordinary. Almost disappointing.
meditated for a few breaths but then
wanted to experiment with other things
Asked to see my higher self (I don’t think I reflected on the forum thread specifically, but knew it was something I wanted to do.)
A muted gray "wheel of fortune" with different faces on it, spinning slowly. alternating panels of dark grey and darker grey. Thought it was a very fitting image for how I conceive of a higher self intellectually.
Kinda sorta looked like this
Seemed somewhat boring, too intellectual.
I asked to see what I “need to see”. saw a white light in nothing, black background.
Questioned what I was seeing, like, this? Thought of typical images of god as light.
After waking I thought of the similarities to Alex Grey’s God sacred mirror painting. Similar colors.
I looked for depth in the light but it seemed kind of boring. Again, too intellectual perhaps. On reflection, was it the center of that higher self wheel?
After thinking it was boring, another light moved into my vision as if responding to my thought. I realized it had been there but I hadn’t seen it. It was so bright when I started to focus on it. I questioned that this was really what I needed to see, thought I was just making it up. I reflected on the light being there all along, but I hadn’t seen it next to the dullish moon-like first light. The bright light fell onto the dark ground next to me. It clattered and I saw it was a flashlight.
I guess I dismissed it, that is the feeling I have after waking, and felt joy at being lucid in the dream world
I took a moment to feel gratitude and amazement at this lucid experience. I remembered a show I’d seen the other day about dreaming and how the brain comes alive with activity more than at any other time. I saw that clear image of the brain and nervous system pulsing with activity, inside my body. Deep, shimmering, pervasive gratitude hit and filled me.
Similar to the end of this video.
I felt grateful for being in this state and a deep appreciation and almost affection for my body for allowing it. It felt like this state was healing me. It was that awed, blissful feeling in dreams that I desire to experience more.
I looked around and saw a lit up tunnel in the dark distance, like a tunnel for cars. I decided to try to conjure something. What popped into my conscious mind was a baby and I immediately tried to conjure one. (Odd because in waking life I don’t feel much desire to have a baby, though I love to be around them.) The attempt at conjuring was so quick, it seemed to step on the heel of the thought of a baby. I wanted to give it love and feel its love.
A cat had already been walking up to me. Small, solid, short haired. I concentrated on changing it and a baby’s light transparent image superimposed over the cat for a second but that cat wasn’t going away. I thought about learning more about dream control and gave up on the baby thought.
The cat talked in a witch’s type voice. (Funny, now I remember that I had been listening to Ken Wilber the day before this dream and I’d thought about Ken’s voice being grating and nasal, kind of like a witch.)
The cat seemed sinister.
I picked it up, being careful not to hurt it. Held it like a baby, then shifted it into a more upright position. I thought of it being like Chaos, (my loved and peculiar cat that died a few years ago,) but no, not Chaos.
The physical sensations in this dream were very obvious. The light breeze, the cat against my chest and under my hands.
The cat said it wanted a kiss in that same crackling, grinding, deep yet high witch’s voice. I wasn’t sure if it would hurt me or not. I took its face in my hand and held its mouth closed and gave it a kiss.
I remember its teeth and the feel against my lips.
I was afraid of being bitten (the only times I’ve remembered feeling intense physical pain in dreams was when I was bitten. It has happened twice.)
It was talking like it wanted to hurt things. I kind of tuned it out while I tried to decide what to do. I thought it was talking about wanting to hurt a baby and other darkness, I could hear it but I was only half-hearing and half-aware. It kept talking on and on.
At some point I flew low to the ground
That tunnel, somewhat lit, going into it. On my feet now. The cat still in my arms. Did I put it down? I think so.
Fear and darkness, though I wasn’t completely overcome by the fear. I remember looking down to the other end of the tunnel.
The dream changed
Walking slowly through an office
many people at desks in this main room
one man I identify with emotionally as I walk by is creative
he is conjuring a model/landscape of buildings on his desk that rise up slowly and gracefully
much like the Game of Thrones intro.
The young man seemed very creatively developed but he felt stuck and repressed.
I felt myself fading out of the dream slowly, into nothingness. Nothingness for a bit. I hoped I wasn’t coming out of the dream. Heard a sound, realized it was like breathing. I still felt like I was sleeping. Still. Then I tested my breath, tried to change its rhythm slightly and felt the change, felt the air going through my nose like when I meditate. damn, I’m awake. 
This dream helped me put my finger on that feeling of bliss that I’ve experienced in dreams many times that is so profound and just expansive and freeing. Gratitude. And appreciation. A deeper love than egoic love, though it is kind of like the feeling of when you first fall in love and everything is vibrant and feels like you’re bursting.
So this is what gratitude is. Fuck. I want to be grateful more! LOL. I’m grateful for wanting to be grateful, even. 
So strong. I’m going to practice bringing that into my walking life.
I just felt some gratitude while saying that and it warmed my stomach (where some deep emotional knots are). Gratitude. Wow. God and gratitude seem the same at this moment.
Reminds me of a woman I know who is so vibrant so much of the time. Gleeful in a grounded and beautifully feminine way. She showed me about being feminine in a positive and not fake way, truly feminine. I’d tended toward being a tom boy before that. Well, I still do but I also appreciate that exuberant feminine side.
Now I want to love. Everything. (Dammit, bring back that creepy cat!)
It feels like the gratitude for my body and brain lit up with lucidity was what I “needed to see”. A roundabout answer to a question I wasn’t sure how to ask. Being grateful, I feel in a sense like my higher self, as discussed in the thread.
Since that dream I’ve researched practices in gratitude. Tonglen and others have appeared. My main focus is bringing it to all of my life (waking, dreaming, lucid, all). Now, can I be grateful while being with that cat or other similar darknesses? Yes, I’ve experienced that to degrees. Experienced gratitude along with protective boundaries simultaneously. I don't want to get stuck in "blank gratitude" – not consciously to the extent that I’d hurt myself with it.
The emotional tone of the gratitude in the dream and that came with me into waking life is hit on in the tone of this song.
Nothing In Between by Stuart Davis
Nothing In Between by Stuart Davis
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