This post is long so I will state my objective first -- I believe there is an inner eye within the dream body and can be used to perceive the more true nature of a dream, or to even enter a different world. Be warned though, it is very difficult to achieve because you risk waking up from the dream. I've lost count on how many times I abruptly ended my precious LDs this way and totally regreted in the morning. Of course you may be a lot better than I am with LD control. Thus is the purpose of this post -- to invite the EXPERIENCED LDers on this board to try this and share with us your findings.
THE SECRET PASSAGE
I’m new to the forum, but I’ve had naturally occurring LDs since I was a child, and I have practiced spiritual cultivations of some Buddhism variations for many years. A recent LD prompted me to write this, because I feel there is certain significance in it and would like to share with you – if you are interested in more than acting out your fantasies in your LDs. I apologize for the lengthy content of this post, but I find no other ways to streamline it further.
I'll start with a special LD I had more than ten years ago –
It began as a normal LD. I was slowly hovering above the ground, admiring the dreamscape. It was beautiful – mountains, forests, waterfalls, Chinese gazebos, and beautiful women dressed in ancient Chinese outfits. The visual details were amazing. Then I thought – assuming this is the creation of my own brain, how come I feel so detached from it? I felt my own existence (ego) was very WHOLESOME and SOLID, unlike the somewhat PARTIAL and FRAGILE “self” in the more typical LDs. Logics and reasoning were every bit as good as in waked times. Could I be in a different world other than making it up through my own brain?
I entered into an even more lucid state – it felt at least as lucid as in day times, if not more. Suddenly I detected the existence of an “Eye” within my dream body – throughout the course of the LD it was shut, but at this point I realized what I was seeing was not REAL and I had to perceive the world with the inner eye instead. Seeing through the inner eye seemed a delicate action because it seemed to require me to become even more lucid and I was on the verge of waking up. As I saw through the inner eye, the entire dreamscape vanished. I was floating in a vast and majestic space. Words are ineffective – as I “watched”, it occurred to me that LANGUAGE is not the proper tool to describe this because the underlying CONCEPT is completely different. The only similar concept I could identify is color – the world was covered with a vibrant, translucent purple tone. The world was calm but very fluid beneath the surface, and I had the revelation that what we typically see (the more comprehensible stuff) in LDs were all manifestations of this fluid movement.
I was in awe. Meanwhile, I felt “soaked” with a heavenly joy never experienced before. I cannot describe the feeling because either that sensation had diminished after I woke up, or was simply too other-worldly. However, I do remember exactly what I thought. “This is why people want enlightenment”, I said to myself. The things I was so attached to, such as fame, wealth, family, and sex, all of a sudden became irrelevant and I understood perfectly why we were asked to give up on these “attachments” in Buddhist cultivation systems. Because at this state, you really don’t care for any of those! I started to prey, “Please, let me stay in this world! I don’t want to go back!” Unfortunately, at this point I started to have fear – fear for returning to my world. That immediately caused me to lose lucidity and soon I was having normal lucid dreams chained one after another.
This experience forever changed the way I handle my LDs. Every time I’d try to achieve the same state, but always failed miserably because it required me to become so conscious I’d simply wake up… until two weeks ago --
I was standing with my wife in a breathtakingly beautiful multi-colored crystal room. Soon as I stepped outside I became lucid and immediately went back to the room. I told my wife to not move and that we were in a dream. I levitated myself to prove that I’m indeed dreaming, and then I did some small tricks such as helping my wife to fly in order to stabilize the dream. As the dream stabilized I set out to experiment again. I had no problem locating the inner eye, and gradually opened it while slowly raising the level of lucidity. The dreamscape disappeared just like it did in the first dream, but suddenly a weird scene emerged – the “white” substance and the “black” substance twirled and merged into one! Sorry for the arcane description here, but again no words could describe what it really was. It seemed that as the world disappeared, it turned into two fundamental substances; one is black and the other white. I could not tell whether they had shapes because they were everywhere and I was in the middle of them. Now I think about it, it probably felt like as if I was standing in the middle of a huge Yin and Yang symbol, except that the symbol is as large as an universe and not least a flat one. As they merged, I caught a glimpse of a small window, possibly created at the intersection of the two moving substances. Through the window I saw the same world I had experienced in my previous dream. I was very excited and overjoyed. But this feeling of excitement probably worked the same way as fear, which should also be considered as “attachment” in Buddhist terms, which had an adverse effect. The window, instead of expanding, immediately started to shrink. I grew more anxious and decided I’d run through it. I was not quick enough, and was met by a forceful explosion, created at the final moment when the BLACK and WHITE merged completely. I was smashed so hard I could feel my dream body got thrown afar. The impact transcended through the dream and more curiously, it caused me to bounce physically, with both my feet lifting off the bed and perhaps even my back was lifted off by an inch or so. Of course I woke up, and clearly felt the fading sensation of the explosion, INSIDE my stomach.
According to some Buddhism, Bardo is a stage between death and birth. Some refer to dream also as Bardo stage. Some cultivation methods suggest that at the Bardo stage one has the chance to reach a higher level of existence. However, the Bardo world is a chaotic one, and a cultivator must learn to stay conscious and find her way out. This does sound like lucid dreaming, doesn’t it? Except that the Bardo after death is a lot more confusing and complicated than our dreams. I used to think the Bardo is a stage of “consciousness”, in other word it exists within us. However, these dreams seem to suggest otherwise. It does feel like entering a different and seperate world, not one that’s a creation of our own mind.
This article is by no means academic, and I’m not trying to reach any sort of conclusions here. I merely want to share the experience, and hopefully provide some fruit for thoughts. I’m very interested to hear from those of you who have experienced similar things.
