/ LUCID DREAMING

Lucid Dreaming Ep. 13

Learning how to fly…

On this particular morning, I had to wake up after 4 hours of sleep, to take a night shift for work. The only perk of this sleep interruption was that I got to practice the WILD strategy. I covered my eyes with my trusty manta sleep mask and focused on the light visuals behind my eyes. Before I knew it, I was asleep but completely lucid.

This was definitely the longest lucid dream I’ve had in a while, possibly, ever and as the dream began I remember my pre-defined goal of wanting to “look at myself in a mirror”, but for some reason, this didn’t sound interesting enough to me so I discarded that experiment so I could try flying again. I think learning how to fly is probably a beginner’s interest, but a beginner I am, and I also think it’s an excellent way to practice dream control skills because flying is impossible in waking life so serves as a challenge to waking reality and forces the dreamer to use one’s mind instead of one’s body to fly.

My first attempt to fly I leaped forward the way you would if you planned on belly-flopping into a pool, but instead of flapping my arms I just trusted that I would be able to fly and it worked. But then something weird happened. I struggled to stay angled forward and found myself flipping backward over and over again, unable to maintain my balance in the air. Eventually, I gave up and landed in a long corridor where I found myself attacked by a dark creature with long claws. I immediately knew that this creature represented not just a person in my life, but a specific element, the unhealthy aspect of my relationship with this person. I knew I needed to fight back but instead of opting for a physical battle I tried to will the creature away, remembering that I was in control of this dream, but I could not. I tried, again and again, feeling the fear creeping deeper into my bones each time the claws reached me, each time I failed to make the monster disappear. At some point, I realized that I was likely taking the wrong approach and that instead of willing this creature away, I needed to face it and confront the challenges that lie buried in the past of this relationship. However soon after, I lost lucidity and fell victim to the dream.