tripl3ntendre

Rather than have a lucid dream, I had a dream that I was lucid. That counts, right?

It was kind of strange. In my dream, my chambers (or something designed like my room in my old house, only it felt like a tribal tent and something mythic high fantasy opulent setting at the same time) were invaded by two men. The first invader I threw a heavy gold-and-platinum chain at, and it wrapped around him and a supporting beam so he couldn’t move. When the second invader burst through, I woke up.

I read up a bit on lucid dreaming from a book on the topic that lay beside the couch. It was as if I’d dozed off while reading on the couch and dropped the book there. The book on lucid dreaming was hardbound, blue with white curlicues.

I went back to sleep, and dreamed I was back with the second invader, but what I’d been reading echoed though the dream so that I knew that I was dreaming. I didn’t remember anything about my lucid checklist (visit the Lucid Crossroads, memory regression, etc.,) but I did remember that in lucid dreams, you can change a nightmare.

So I dreamed myself on the back of a T. Rex and chased the second invader out from there.
I woke up on the couch, satisfied.
Then I woke up in my bed, really woke up, with my concept of reality twisted like a pretzel and kind of disappointed that I didn’t do any of the cooler stuff I’d planned.

Popular psychology puts astral projection or the out-of-body experience as just a kind of lucid dream. Well… I’ve learned to do the former fairly regularly, but had such a hard time with the last. If they were the same, you’d think mastery of one would directly cause mastery of the other. (And I know it’s usually the other way around… that lucid dreams are much easier to initiate than OBE’s. Not so, here.)

All my lucid moments (just moments… rarely a whole dream) always came spontaneously, and annoyingly I’ve not really used them all very well. Here’s my lucid checklist:

[x] Fly (the clouds turned to porridge… pretty cool, except I do that in non-lucid dreams anyway and can remember the experience because of my dream journaling, so this was actually pretty useless.)
[x] Talk to my personified subconscious self directly, without all this silly dream metaphor junk (fulfilled, but unfulfilling: he said I wasn’t ready to do without the dream metaphor junk. I wasted a whole dream trying to find him because lucid as I was, my dream control isn’t that good—if I’d known he was just going to say that, I would’ve flown around for a while instead.)
[_] Meet another dreamer in a dream (hey, a one can dream.)
[_] Memory regression

... actually, I tried going to the Crossroads during an OBE this afternoon—since one end of the spectrum of spiritualists will say meeting up in dreams is not possible, but meeting up in the astral is. The Wind just didn’t blow me that way. :P But I’d also like to be able to do OBE’s without 20 minutes to an hour of meditation and full-body relaxation—just popping out whenever I want to, like. I’ve read that’s supposed to happen naturally the more you do it, but… nothing doing…

This is the technique I use to have an out-of-body experience. I don’t really trust the OBE meditations or techniques that involve “visualizations” or “dreams” for some reason… I mean I’ve tried them, but they’re just not the same… This should take about an hour and a half at the most, 20 minutes is the fastest I’ve managed so far.

1.) Lay down flat (or some find it easier to go out of body sitting up or lying on their side… like all meditations, just find what works for you) and completely relax your body. Some relax by tensing up and releasing sections of their body: feet, followed by lower legs, followed by torso and fingers, all the way up to the brow. Let the weight of whatever you’re sitting on, simply support your body.
2.) Wait until your mind is completely blank. Even thinking about not thinking will be a thought.
3.) Ease your awareness outwards… not with visualization, but by the feeling of the air touching your face, or listening out to the void you experience.
4.) Hold the balance of your awareness beyond yourself, your body totally relaxed, for as long and effortlessly as you can.
5.) Wait. Do not wait for anything in particular, just be... the essential state I’ve found I need to be in to have this experience is one that is perfectly selfless, humble, even defeated—completely effortless, and putting no effort into anything can actually be pretty hard. Not that you stop your respiration, just that you don’t try at it. Relax, just let everything happen…

If you got the right balance, holding it even as you drop out of consciousness for a minute, then you should feel “vibrations”. Actually, it felt like an earthquake to me. Everything may become terrifyingly noisy and bright, but it’s important that you maintain the balance you established in the steps above. If you have, you’ll suddenly be able to see the room around you, even if your physical eyes were closed… you’ll see at a point of perspective that you didn’t fall asleep in… you might see yourself, slumbering under you.

When that happens, congrats! New Agers say you can walk through walls and spy on people now, free as a ghost, and meet guiding spiritual beings, experience past events, even explore other dimensions… but I just do it for the buzz. :-P