Do you move around the dream, or does the dream move around you?

[benjhenry]

Remember those old racing games at the arcades where the car stayed in one spot and the track flowed beneath it? And then 3D gaming picked up and you actually moved around the computer-generated environment. It got me thinking... in a lucid dream, do you believe that we move around the dream, like a conscious entity tracing our neural pathways, or does the dream move around us? I'm writing a blog on this and would love to hear your experiences.

[Summerlander]

I'm going to give you my input here as a lucid dreamer and my understanding of it, but before I do, I'll provide an excerpt from my last recorded DEILD (dream-exit initiated lucid dream) for reference ... 'Upon awakening without movement, I attempt separation from the body, finding that it is hard to escape from the bed without getting pulled back. I feel trapped in the sleeping position and can hear myself breathing, but I notice that my arm appears to hang unnaturally off the bed. I phantom-wiggle it and yank myself up from the edge of the bed; as I stand, I know I'm in the dream world because I'm blind whilst having a sense of where the bed is, so I walk around it and start deepening by rubbing hands. The door of a bedroom replica emerges in my field of vision and I choose to open it, rather than pass through it, by squeezing and pulling its metal handle—imagining an angel waiting for me in the hallway. To my dismay, there is nobody around in an environment defined by vibrant colours, but I discover a massive mirror where my youngest son's bedroom door should be. 'I notice holographic stickers on the mirror frame. As I rub the surface of the wooden frame and follow my hand with my gaze, I can see that the shapes of the stickers are visually incoherent. In the mirror I find a distorted reflection of myself with an enlarged head, no eyes, and pouting lips. I go through the mirror expecting to meet an angel inside, but encounter great resistance as I gradually pass through it, lose vision, and foul. 'Back in bed and eyes shut, I start rubbing hands and simultaneously sit up. It feels like I've just uncovered my wife but I'm blind when I try to open my eyes, so I know it's still the dream world and not the real world. I make out curtains in front of the balcony door and pass through them to find myself looking at a pale sky and an intricately vivid neighbourhood below. I jump off the balcony and experience a breeze, as I fall slower than I would have done in the real world, to land on the nextdoor neighbour's silver car parked in her driveway. I dash to her front door and open it, wishing to find an angel inside, but there is nobody around, only a staircase surrounded by rust-coloured brick walls. "Angel! Where are you?" I shout, hearing my voice echo. I go up the stairs and lose consciousness after opening a grey door with access to an upper floor.' Lucid dreams provide great realism to the extent that sensations perceived in them often have a lot more in common with real world perception than ordinary dreaming. However, everything in a lucid dream is a very elaborate illusion ... You have a dream body, which can feel solid and 'real', but it does not exist in the same sense that your physical one does. The dream body is more like a mental 'avatar' which can arise in your perceptual field from expectation (after all, we are used to perceiving a body in waking life). The dream world doesn't stop here in its emulation of things that have already been perceived in waking life. Motion, or movement, is another familiar concept in our minds. In a lucid dream, movement is perceived when you walk, run, jump from one rooftop to another, take flight, etc. Walking or running can feel exactly the same as in the real world (unless you turn into Flash and break the sound barrier). But nothing is really moving—it only seems like something is moving. And again, your already 'malleable' experience in lucid dreams can also be influenced according to your interpretation. It is absolutely possible, for instance, to stand still on a platform and experience the surroundings moving according to your will; if you spot a building near the horizon, you might wish for it to be literally brought to you. Alternatively, you may wish to take a massive leap to it, experience some G-force, a breeze, and even a little vertigo as it seems that it is your dream body that is traveling through illusory space. Experience is, in my opinion, open to interpretation. There is what is, what seems to be, what we think it is, and what actually is.

[benjhenry]

Thanks for this Summerlander, some really interesting points. I have also experienced drawing the environments towards me in the manner that you describe while standing still on the platform. There was a time when I was struggling to 'fly' to a building, and so instead I drew it towards me - which was part of my interest in other peoples' experiences of moving around the dream versus the dream moving around them. And yes, it certainly is all an illusion, with dream and dreamer the same entity! I find your mirror experience interesting - it must be such a challenge for the mind to replicate ourselves truly in a mirror in the dream. Quite telling! When you say you were 'blind' on a couple of occasions, what do you mean by this? Thanks!

[Summerlander]

I fully agree. We create the dreamer-dream dichotomy based on the subjective-objective logic which is ostensibly applicable in waking life. But if we look closely, whether awake or dreaming, all we have is subjective experience within which the concept of a world that exists apart from us can manifest. It also goes without saying that lucidity doesn't guarantee absolute control over the dream world. It certainly boosts control, but sometimes we aren't as confident with our flying skills as we'd like to be. Mastering the art of flying in lucid dreams can take time because flying solely with our bodies is not something we are used to. I do believe there are different forces at play in shaping dreams, namely, memories, imagination and creativity—any of which can take life in our nightly adventures. For instance, since we have no memory of flying like Superman in waking life, I'm willing to bet that the strong illusion of flying we experience whilst lucid dreaming is mostly based on imagination, which, over time, will build a mnemonic foundation from which to draw further aerial sensations. Eventually, flying becomes so familiar that we start exploring and playing with such experience, trying new things. In this manner, we start to build a foundation of creativity upon the concept of flying, whereby not just realism but also crazy abstractions in the mind can arise. Here's another excerpt where flying is concerned during a DILD: DREAM STATE 'My wife dresses up a mannequin that sits in an office chair; gradually, the mannequin starts to resemble a person. The house we are in is strange but I take it to be normal. We leave the house together to go somewhere (unknown) and it looks like it's about to rain as a storm brews in the grey sky above. I look up and see a dark cloud looming behind us as bolts of lightning appear and are not followed by thunder as you'd expect in waking life. I find this strange and become lucid.' LUCID STATE 'The menacing clouds begin to part despite sparkling with lightning. I run towards the edge of a precipice and daringly leap to fly over an exquisite coastal village that could pass for the gracious kingdom of Aragon, with curious and apparently medieval turrets and cathedrals, and the architecture as a whole displays many khaki, serrated juts of limestone. Myriad structures cover a vast plain by a cobalt sea. I land on a sandy, tropical beach with a view that is absolutely vibrant and breathtaking. 'The weather seems to reflect my high spirits—with a clear blue sky overhead—and I walk among sporadic growths of green foliage whilst rubbing my hands. I start to run through this colourful, tropical landscape and try to remember my task from Project Elijah. "What did I plan to do first?" I ask myself, beholding the inviting realism that surrounds me. My memory fails me so I decide to explore what's before me instead, running towards the sea like I'm in a virtual reality game. I hear the surround sound of violins resembling The Flower Duet by Léo Delibes. The enchanting music adds to the heavenly atmosphere of the place and makes me very happy. 'I start flying again, this time over sea waves, as a tsunami looms ahead. I dive into the water to re-emerge in the air, like a leaping dolphin over the surface, hearing the realistic sound of fluid turbulence and feeling fresh droplets collide with my body. As I dance with the sea, even the splashing seems ideal and perfectly chaotic. I continue to glide towards the horizon, where sky a sea appear to have no divide. I get the urge to explore underwater and plunge to the depths of the seascape. It's murky as I go deep, with only a few hazy flashes of blue and green light adorning an increasing darkness, and I succumb to hesitation and thoughts of waking up unexpectedly, which is exactly what happens next.' Looking back at my mirror experience (mentioned in my previous post), I begin to question its origins. What influenced or shaped its creation? What do I see when I look in the mirror in waking life? How do I see myself and what emotions arise from that? Does me having an enlarged head in that lucid dream perhaps reflect a subconscious thought that I think of myself as intelligent or is it something slightly more negative such as 'I have a lot on my mind'? Why was I pouting? Was the fact that my reflection had no eyes a latent manifestation of proprioceptive feelings experienced at the start of the lucid dream when I was visually impaired? It all sounds plausible but, as with any kind of oneironautic interpretation, there is always a degree of uncertainty. By 'blind' I don't mean literally blind—whereby absolutely nothing is seen (like the imperceptible 'blind spot' in our visual field). The blindness I refer to is closer to visual impairment than no sight; something like crusty eyes or seeing through a dark veil. (Sometimes it's an absence of light with spacial perception rather than the sensation of unimpaired or 'healthy' sight in what appears to be a 'black void' environment.)

[benjhenry]

I know exactly what you mean about the flying. Being lucid does indeed give you an element of control, but sometimes it feels like a battle of will versus expectation. And, as you say, having no real experience of this means it is just born of our imagination. Your questions re the mirror experience are exactly the type I ask myself in such situations - fascinating to try to determine why we see what we see. Thank you for clarifying re the blind point, that makes sense to me. The 'subjective experience within which the concept of a world that exists apart from us can manifest' reminds me of the meditations by Michael Taft, which I have been enjoying recently. Thanks for sharing!

[Summerlander]

Michael Taft? I'm going to check him out, too. I like meditation. One could say to be lucid in a dream is to me mindful. Update: I've been checking him out! Neuroscience and nondualism—right up my alley!