Lucid Dreaming

I'm running down a hallway, having just demanded that the woman I was handcuffed to be locked away. I then sequester myself in a private cell, safe for the moment. The woman in the dream is actress Patricia Arquette who stars in the TV show, Medium. Later in the dream, I'm writing down on a pad of paper the sentence, "What keeps you going?"

It's 4 a.m. and I'm writing down this dream on the pad I keep by my bed. As a lucid dreamer, I'm able to make decisions in the dream state, and to remember my dreams with greater clarity than normally available to the dreaming mind.

Having analysed my dreams since childhood, I'm clear on the meaning. I had been considering a change in focus to my career that would cut me off from my intuition (represented by the actress from Medium) and also limit my creativity severely (putting me in a cell in the dream) by playing it safe. My subconscious painstakingly wrote out the sentence it wanted me to consider carefully. As anyone knows who dreams lucidly, writing something down in the dream state can be hard work, since letters seem to move and shift with the tide of the human mind.

I was a teenager when I first picked up a book on the subject of lucid dreaming, written by Stanford University professor, Stephen Laberge. My dream recall (I can still remember dreams I had when I was eight years old) has often rivalled my memory of waking life, and I'd learned early on how to be completely present in the dream state in order to make conscious choices as to how I reacted - including waking myself just before being trampled by a wooly mammoth!

Laberge's techniques deepened and extended my ability to stay conscious to the point that I learned how to slip into dream imagery and out again without losing consciousness. More than a parlour trick, knowing how to maintain awareness in the dream state means getting the most out of the information that your subconscious has to offer.

Historically, dreams have given forewarning and inspiration to the recipients. Elias Howe invented the needle on the sewing machine based on a dream he had of savages attacking him with spears. Each spear had a hole in the tip, thus giving him the solution as to how the needle should be threaded.

Tibetan buddhists use dreams for spiritual development, with the aim to realizing enlightenment in the dream state.

My dreams have proven useful over the years, providing direction on practical and spiritual matters. It seems a shame that so many of us spend a considerable amount of time sleeping and never utilize the dream state to its full extent.

To improve your dream recall, here are a few tips:

1. Keep a pad of paper by your bedside and write down your first impressions in the morning before you get out of bed. Record images, emotions, phrases that pop into your head - even if they seem nonsensical. Doing this signals to your subconscious your willingness to hear what it has to say. Over time, you'll get more information. Today, my recall often involves writing down as many as seven dreams in the morning in considerable detail.

2. Tell yourself as you fall asleep that you will remember your dreams. Your subconscious is open to suggestion and will offer more information as you persist with this affirmation.

3. As you start to fall asleep, stay aware of the images that arise. Notice when the things you see appear to be dream imagery rather than what you would expect to see in waking life. Tell yourself, "I'm dreaming." It will help you to stay conscious in the dream state.

Dreams are doorways to a rich inner terrain that offers guidance and ideas the waking mind is too busy to realize. Plumb your mind for the treasure it has to give. Dream.

Searching the Shadow

It's 2:30 a.m. and I've finished a thorough housecleaning I felt inspired to begin at midnight. The need for order overwhelmed me. Tidying up was also a vain attempt to sweep away thoughts that arise in the wee hours, that time when the world is quiet and we have no distraction from our shadow self.

It's then that it's most tempting to dissolve into sleep, ignoring the unfinished business of the psyche. Yet, this uninterrupted period is when we can best confront what we wish to ignore about ourselves: our pettiness, our inconsistencies, our fears and reactive indulgences. Honesty reigns when there is no one to rescue us from ourselves.

Take time on occasion to embrace the hours after midnight, to sit with your demons and discover the treasure beneath the dross of the human mind. Beneath the bullshit we feed ourselves to prop up our egos, there lies pure truth. Within, we find the Observer who never thinks to wear the tired costume of identity, role, and plot. The Observer simply is, with no need to impress or further one's aims. If you can forget the ego for a moment and dwell in the Observer, I guarantee you will find a simple sense of peace, a recognition that all is as it should be, a connection to the benevolence that permeates everything.

It's only when we stop running away from our shadow and sit with it until it dissolves that we know ourselves to be the Observer, that we know peace.

Trusting that Still Small Voice

It's not always easy, listening to our intuition. One of the reasons that people often don't pay attention to the still, small voice within is that it will tell them to do things that counter decisions the rational mind has made.

It's the ego-oriented mind that tells us to play it safe, go along, compromise - even when it's not ultimately in our best interest. The ego wants to preserve what is, since the status quo is where it has anchored its identity. The ego is all about maintaining itself - often at the cost of our well-being and happiness.

The intuitive mind lives in the moment, ignores the ego's suppositions about what is known, and occasionally acts in ways that confound egoic logic. Our intuition has access to information that the rational mind does not, which is why it can demonstrate knowledge without derivation.

If we listen to that inner voice, we may find ourselves making choices that seem illogical in the present or to the rational observer. Yet, it is the intuitive mind, tapping into universal consciousness that will take us to our ultimate happiness.

Anti-chaos theory suggests that there is no chaos - just a pattern too large for us to see close up. Intuition shows us the piece of the pattern most pertinent to us in the moment. If we have faith in our inner voice and act on the information it provides, gradually we will see the logic behind that information and the pattern into which we fit. It is only in retrospect that we will understand why it was correct to follow that hunch and trust our instincts.

The Perpetual Night Owl

Why do I find myself writing in the early hours of the morning? What prompts me to start cooking at midnight or decide to redesign one of my websites under cover of darkness? At 46 years of age, you'd think I'd heed the warnings that running on four hours of sleep a night isn't healthy for a body pushing middle age.

Still, there is a hunger to make useful most of the time that has been handed to me in this life. As a young child I feared death not because I saw it as an end, but because I envisioned myself lying in a box for eternity in a perpetual state of boredom. Ever the vivid dreamer, even my nights don't afford much quietude. Awake or asleep, my mind seeks refuge from inertia.

So I find myself seized at odd hours with poetic thoughts that must be documented, desires for eggplant lasagna that must be satisfied, and fears that my time is running out - even if I've 40 more years left.

I fight that ticking tyrant, will it to slow while I figure out who I'm going to be when I finally grow up - this 46-year-old who still feels like a kid on the inside (and most days on the outside, too). I console myself that many folks have made their mark late in life, and that there's still time for me to accomplish some great purpose.

Then, I remind myself of the many small acts I perform that make a difference to someone each day. I resolve to retire for the night... as soon as I water the plants, do a few loads of laundry, and take out the garbage destined for morning pick-up... four hours from now.

Brain Plasticity and the Dangers of "Rigid" Thinking

Reading about the plasticity of the human brain in "The Brain that Changes Itself" by Norman Doidge, MD, drives home the realization of the necessity for varied activity. It's not enough to do well at our usual tasks; we have to continually think outside the box. If we don't, we risk losing areas of the brain that could be devoted to a variety of functions to those that are most predominant.

A simplistic life literally leads to a simpler brain map. If we want to continue to grow new neural pathways, if we want to develop creative muscle and maintain our brains into later life, we have to recognize how clearly the adage "use it or lose it" applies to brain tissue.

We have become a pleasure-seeking society, often looking for the most comfortable route through life. We need to scare ourselves a little, take the path of most resistance, go out on the most tenuous limb. We need to attempt those very things we're least sure we can accomplish.

A friend of mine spent an entire year doing things she "sucked at". At the end of the year, she'd discovered some latent talents, but she'd also found many areas in which she remained unskilled. The great gift of this experience was the realization that her world didn't end when she failed at something. She became far more accepting of herself and appreciative of her own adventurous nature.

Young children seldom think about failure - until uptight adults suggest the possibility - and they have a lot of fun trying new things. If we can adopt the exploratory nature of children, we may benefit not only in our enjoyment of life but maintain healthy brains long into our old age and enhance our ability to traverse more deeply the great inner terrain of our minds.

Poverty

Fill my bowl with empty promises
Take from me my security
There is nothing I can count on
But greater want

At times like this
There is only looking in
To find what's missing
On the outside

Birth the Sacred

Dancing out of desire
Into that holy place

Where you will see past my limbs
That belong to the bonebreakers and birds

Past my womb that will spill for worms
Past the brain that will rattle in its dried husk

To the wind and rain of which I am
To the fire that consumes us all
And makes us back to stars

The ancients watch the dance
Our now their long ago
We light the forever sky


Bonita Summers (from "Digging Up the Bones", to be released soon)