A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming (7 page)

The subconscious is (theoretically) much larger than the conscious mind,
and the former feeds into the latter, influencing our decisions, thoughts, and
feelings. The subconscious appears to be the source of our imaginations, and
it may be the well from which wisdom springs. It’s an educated guess to say
that the dream world is the subconscious incarnate. But since our dreams are
a tapestry woven from personal symbols, archetypes, and waking life details, it
seems fair to say that the dream world is the actual embodiment of our larger
minds.

It’s a nice visual isn’t it? Inside your skull is an infinite world filled with
clouds, beasts, memories, fears, old friends, and entire cities. and each and every
night, you have access to this boundless landscape. Talk about self-exploration!

as you become conscious in your dreams, keep this question in mind: Is it the
subconscious that we’re visiting, or is it somewhere else, somewhere beyond
the scope of our current understanding?

This question is not new. For thousands of years, humans have been

exploring the mystery of our nocturnal adventures.

=
25
<

Where Do You Go When

You Dream?

No one knows where dreams take place. Sure, scien-

tists and psychologists have theorized and pondered

over this daunting question, but an official statement has

yet to surface. Take a second and think it over yourself:

Where do I go when I dream? In this book, we tend to call

this destination the subconscious. To rashly summarize, the

subconscious is the part of our minds that’s responsible for

anything other than conscious mental activity.

3

A History of Dreaming

<•=

If we have learned one thing from the history of invention

and discovery, it is that, in the long run—and often in the short one—

the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.

—Arthur C. Clarke,

writer, knight, and scuba diver

Shamanic cultures believed that dreams are a key to realities

hidden from our five senses, and that there are many subtle

worlds that exist parallel to and overlapping the physical

one. To them, dreams were a connection to these higher realities,

a bridge to the soul, a journeying to the realm of “spirit.” Many

aboriginal cultures throughout the world believed in Dreamtime,

a separate reality entirely, a collective space where one has direct

access to sacred knowledge, and can communicate with the deceased

and learn from the spiritual masters who have transcended the

physical world.

To many indigenous cultures, such as the Iroquois, someone

who was not in touch with their dreams was not in touch with

=
27
<

their soul. Not only were dreams important, but they were also

vital. If you were disconnected from your dreams you were consid-

ered a spiritual and emotional cripple. Ouch!

If these ideas fly in the face of everything you were ever taught

about dreaming, we’re right there with you. It’s hard to understand

what these ancients were talking about. Other worlds? Meeting

other people in dreams? What are you on, drugs? The ideas sound

crazy to us now.

To understand where these ancients were coming from, we

need to first humor the idea that dreams are important, whatever

they are. With minds open, let’s take a short peek at how past

cultures saw dreaming. Despite the many perspectives you’ll see,

the majority of cultures would agree on one thing: dreams are any-

thing but meaningless.

Sumerians

The earliest evidence of dreaming dates all the way back to 3100

BCE in the fertile crescent of Mesopotamia. Through the recorded

stories of legendary Gilgamesh, we read of the king’s recurring

dreams of his goddess-mother, Ninsun, dreams that were taken

as prophecy and used to guide the king’s decisions in the waking

world. It’s clear from these stories that dreams have been playing a

historical role for at least the past five thousand years.

ancient egyptians

The first recorded evidence of a dreaming society can be found

among the ancient Egyptians. These guys believed dreams to be

a direct connection to the spirit world. The Egyptians appear to

=
28
<

have practiced a form of lucid dreaming and likely mastered dream

skills such as shape-shifting and time travel. How do we know they

were conscious dreamers? One clear indicator comes from their

belief in the Ba (or soul), which they thought could travel con-

sciously outside of the body while the body slept. Even their word

for dreams,
rswt
(pronounced “resut”), translates as “awakening” or

“to come awake” and was depicted in hieroglyphs as an open eye.

Scholars say that the open eye might also signify an awakening to

truths, advice, or insights commonly missed in daily waking life.

Egyptians were so into dreams that they constructed temples

specifically for the practice of dream incubation, a method of

receiving divine healing and revelatory messages through sleep.

They believed that the dream world was a deeper reality, a place

where true transformation could happen. The dream interpret-

ers of their day were called the “Masters of the Secret Things.”

Imagine that on a business card.

ancient greeks

Ancient Greeks saw dreams as a spiritual practice as well, a con-

nection to the divine. At first, only Zeus was thought to send

divine dreams, but as time went on, other gods were allowed to

send dreams too. There were two gods who specifically ruled in

the arena of dreaming— Hypnos presided over sleep, and his son,

Morpheus, ruled dreams. Scattered across the Mediterranean, the

Greeks built more than three hundred shrines to serve as dream

temples. These temples were heavily involved with dream healing,

where the sick came to heal physically, emotionally, and spiritually

with the help of nightly dreams.

=
29
<

Well over two thousand years before Freud, Plato theorized

that dreams are the expression of our repressed desires. In his vol-

ume
The Republic,
Plato wrote “in all of us, even the most highly respectable, there is a lawless wild beast nature, which peers out in

sleep.” Aristotle, on the other hand, while fascinated by the fact

that we can perceive colors, lights, and images with our eyes closed

during sleep, concluded that dreams had no purpose. They foretell

the future, you say? Mere coincidence.

In the second century, Artemidorus wrote his five-volume

work,
Oneirocritica.
“The crocodile signifies a pirate, murderer or a man who is no less wicked,” he wrote. “The way in which the

crocodile treats the dreamer determines the way in which he will

be treated by the person who is represented by the crocodile. The

cat signifies an adulterer. For it is a bird-thief. And birds resemble

women.” Instead of creating just a generic interpretation system of

dreams, Artemidorus was the first to take the individual’s personal

background into account.

Romans

Like many aspects of their culture, the Romans piggybacked their

dream beliefs off the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. They had

everything from dream incubation to dream temples, they even

read the
Oneirocritica.
Pythagoreanism, a Greek philosophy dating back as far as 500 BCE, was also revived by the Romans.

This metaphysical system of belief was based on mathematics

but had nothing to do with high school-level geometry. It stated

that “conscious soul travel” was possible and that spiritual gurus

born centuries apart could communicate through these mystical

=
30
<

avenues. As more and more Romans were converted to Christianity,

dream interpretation was refocused through the lens of the Bible,

and the dream temple culture was all but wiped out.

hindus

According to Hindu mythology, everything around us in the

physical world is a dream happening in Vishnu’s mind. Even we

ourselves are only manifestations, dream characters if you will. It

is thought that our world will end when Vishnu’s dream ends.

“Dreaming gives us a glimpse of the god who creates us by dream-

ing us into existence.” Hindus believed that dreaming is a higher

state of consciousness than the waking state.

=
31
<

Tibetans

The philosophical practice of dream yoga among the Tibetan

Buddhists dates back at least a thousand years. While ancient

Egyptians and Greeks knew the power of dreams, these yogis were

the pioneers of lucid dreaming—we can’t thank them enough for

laying the groundwork. They described specific techniques for

achieving lucidity and training consciousness. The buck didn’t

stop at lucid dreaming either. Once they became aware in the

dream state, yogis had to complete a number of tasks, progressing

to higher levels of their practice. These challenges included the

exploration of various “worlds,” speaking with enlightened dream

beings, and shape-shifting into other animals, to name just a few.

The ultimate goal for a dream yogi was to become conscious of the

fact that “all life is but a dream.” “Apprehending the dream” was a

term that meant attaining complete conscious awareness. If a prac-

titioner could become really, really aware in a dream, they thought,

the dream would bleed together into a big mix of egoless bliss.
Ah,

pure nothingness.
Once a yogi entered this nothingness, he would

be able to observe the absolute purest form of conscious awareness.

chinese

Recorded evidence of dreaming in Chinese culture dates back to

over four thousand years ago. Like other cultures from that era,

the Chinese idea of dreams intertwined with other concepts: the

realm of the dead and of the spirit. They divided the soul into two

parts, the
p’o
(material soul) and the
hun
(spiritual soul). At night, when the physical body was at rest, the spiritual soul would depart

from the body. The
hun
was free to visit the land of the dead or

=
32
<

commune with the souls of other dreamers. (Just don’t wake some-

one up before their soul comes back to their body. The Chinese

believed that their soul could be lost if they were awakened too

abruptly, and no one wants that.)

hebrews

The deeper you go into the history of the Hebraic culture, the

more you’ll find clues to a dreaming culture. In the Talmud, a

book written between 200 and 500 CE, which instructs one on

how to apply the Torah to everyday life, there are over two hun-

dred references to dreams. It even has a dream dictionary of sorts

that allows the reader to analyze dreams, nightmares, and visions.

It states that “dreams which are not understood are like letters

which are not opened.” Dreaming was considered to be a direct

way to receive guidance from God.

Indigenous Tribes

To these “people of the earth,” everything around us contained

spirit and we accessed this spirit realm when we dreamed. Dreaming

was also a very social activity. These cultures thought that when we

dream, we go to a shared space that is not limited by space or time.

One could have dream visitors in addition to visiting other peo-

ple’s dreams. Instead of gulping down a cup of joe, both Aboriginal

Australians and the Iroquois would start their day by sharing their

adventures of the previous night. Dreams were often a source of

guidance not only for the individual, but also for an entire com-

munity, and were used in hunting, healing, and war.

=
33
<

european Middle ages

They aren’t called the Dark Ages for nothing. As the dogmatic

practices of Christianity spread throughout Europe, dreams began

taking a backseat. Despite this unfortunate approach to dreams

during this time, it’s important to note that in the religious texts of

Christianity there are plenty of nods to dreaming. Dig and you will

find stories of divine dreams and the interpretations that followed.