A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming (28 page)

Feel the Power

Superpowers can be a lot of fun, but they do serve a purpose.

Spend an hour shooting energy balls into the night sky and

you’ll probably wake up feeling powerful and confident. After

you’re able to move cars with your mind, what insignificant day-

to-day problems can stand in your way? If you’re capable of doing

the impossible in a dream, don’t forget that the waking world is a

place of possibility too. Be sure to take that feeling of confidence

and empowerment with you. Remember that under your modest

work clothes hides a pair of tights and a cape.

I think I was in a store, being attacked by evil-satanic witches. I

told them they couldn’t hurt me because this was a dream, and

I have superpowers. They laughed at me.

“Suuure you do,” said one of the witches.

“Watch me prove you wrong!” I said. I created a fireball in my

hand and threw it at them. I did this repeatedly, and the witches

were all jumping around trying to avoid the flaming balls. Next, I

shot ice from my hands onto the ground where the witches were

standing, and the witches slipped on the ice and collapsed in a

heap. This time, I was the one who was laughing. —celeSTe F.

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WHITE MAGIC

energy can be used to create as well as destroy. It can be used to fight off
monsters, but it can also help power your lucid dream creations. Say you’re
building a rocket ship that just won’t take off. direct all the surrounding energy
toward the rocket ship and give it the push it needs. And what about healing
yourself? By manipulating the energy around you, you’re becoming aware of
the fabric of the dream.

I parted ways with the ground and soared into the clouds above. one of

the bolts of lightning struck me but had no effect. I held out my hand and
gathered the lightning into my palm. I proceeded to collect lightning from
all around me, all coalescing into a luminous little ball of energy. It sparked
and glowed with a soothing blue hue. rIchArd V. W.

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�

Summary

•   Superpowers are totally possible inside dreams.

•   The limits of your abilities directly relate to your focus and 

confidence.

•   Your dreams can be a place without gravity, where the 

definition of “you” is unstable and where your mind can control

objects and energy at will.

•   Take your sense of confidence and power into the waking world.

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P a r t F i v e

Mastering

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terrain

You know the land. You know the people. You’ve worked

hard and it’s paying off. Very likely the landscape has

already revealed some amazing wonders. The dream

world is no longer the foggy memory of a foreign world but a

destination you visit with complete clarity every night. The barrier

between possible and impossible is rapidly blurring. Your adven-

ture has only just begun.

You may not be there yet. Perhaps you’re still working on

remembering your dreams, or giving a go at the wake-back-to-bed

technique. Not to worry, you’ll have plenty of time to practice, a

few hours every night in fact.

The dream world is vast. In the upcoming chapters, as we leave

the lush grass and rolling hills, your surroundings transition to a

sparser, rocky place. The road ahead is more challenging to navi-

gate, the map is harder to read, but the rewards are greater than

before.

Here, you will come face-to-face with aspects of yourself.

It’s time to tackle those hopes and fears that have been waiting

patiently (or not so patiently) on the cusp of your subconscious.

Like Odysseus, you will battle monsters, overcome challenges, and

learn to heal yourself. And all before breakfast.

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15

Defusing Nightmares

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Fear has its use but cowardice has none.

—Mahatma Gandhi,

nonviolent activist, lawyer, walking enthusiast

Evil gremlins, masked psychopaths, satanic witches,

mutated zombie brains, little girls climbing out of wells.

We’ll happily pay good money for one of these popcorn

flicks, to feel like we’re getting chased by a chain saw–wielding

maniac or some other monster. We love to get the crap scared out

of us. But when these dark figures show up in our dreams, it gets

a little too real.

Nightmares are the dark underbelly of the dream world, bring-

ing out intense feelings of fear, terror, distress, or anxiety. And

they don’t just happen when we’re young; about 5 to 10 percent of

adults have at least one or more nightmares a month. In a study

of 439 German students, an average of about two nightmares per

month were reported, a statistic backed up by a separate study of

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Chinese students. Whether you’re being chased, attacked, intimi-

dated, or find yourself suddenly naked in public, nightmares are

always emotionally charged. Even after you wake, your heart is still

racing and your stomach is twisted in a tight knot. You may tell

yourself “it was just a dream,” but the physical and emotional toll

it takes on you is very real.

Dreams serve as internal status reports. They reflect how we

are feeling in our waking life. So it makes sense that stress, illness,

The town is happy. The people are happy. The sun is out and

everything is good in the world. All of a sudden about a half a

dozen
Mad Max/Devil’s Reject
–esque thugs come cruising into
town. They start trouble and then knock me out. I awaken in a

dark and dirty jail cell with the door open. As I leave the jail,