Lucid dreams mean full understanding by a person that he is in a dream.
“The more I move away, the closer to you,” Alex wrote to me.
A week later, her lifeless body was found in a toilet in a high school in Thailand. Three years ago, she was late for dinner for the first time and came in with a black eye, evidence of her first epileptic seizure. Eight years ago we first met her and climbed trees in Central Park.
“Did you feel the breeze that whispered in your ear?” She once wrote, when the ocean was already separating us. - It was me.
Her last letter ended with a question: "When will we meet again?"
It all happened on the night of her funeral. She was waiting for me on the other side of the stormy river. She glowed and her red hair fluttered. I tried as best I could to get across the river, but the current and dark waves carried me away. She came back to me the other night. This time she was behind thick glass, to which we put our palms. Then there was a dream about Alex in the hospital waiting room. “It’s not her,” the nurse said, trying to lead me away.
The mind is unable to accept non-being and constantly outlines the contours of emptiness. Death becomes an irresistible river, a glass wall, a gross lie.
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Lucid dreams
“I've been dreaming about Alex for years. The dreams were different, but their theme remained the same: I could not get to her. But one night I became aware of myself in a dream. And everything has changed."
Dr. Keith Hearne associates lucid dreaming with a person's full awareness of being in a dream. This awareness immediately changes the alignment: instead of watching the dream as a spectator, you suddenly get the opportunity to influence its content and direction.
Aristotle and Buddha wrote about this phenomenon. Lucid dreaming can be traced in Egyptian hieroglyphs and Australian Aboriginal traditions. Hindu scripture of the 6th century BC equates lucid dreaming with divinity (this echoes the approach of many modern adepts): "In a dream, a deity does different things, taking many forms: having fun with women, laughing or watching terrible things."
This concept has long been considered a myth among scientists, until Keith Hearn proved otherwise. On April 12, 1975 at 8:07 am, Alan Worsley sent Hearn a letter after a lucid dream.
Sleep paralyzes our entire body, except for the eyes, which continue to rush behind closed eyelids, like butterflies in a butterfly net. Although the electroencephalogram showed that Worsley was asleep, he was able to conduct a series of planned eye movements that resembled Morse code. “These were signals from another world, the world of dreams,” writes Hearn. "It was exciting, like we got a message from another solar system."
In my dreams I imagine women waiting for me
For many who know the technique of lucid dreaming, the inner and outer space intersect. At such moments, Clare Johnson (Clare Johnson) loves to get out of sleep and plunge into the vast emptiness. Felicity Doyle often begins to explore the galaxy of "soap bubbles", each of which is a portal to exotic places. Another dreamer, whose real name we will not name because of the nature of his dreams, forms his own universe. While his wife sleeps carefree beside him, Liam (let's call him that) embodies two of the most common lucid dream motives: he flies through space from planet to planet in search of … sex.
“Usually in my dreams I imagine that women are waiting for me,” he says. - I telepathically send them the thought in advance: "I am your lost love." Liam copulates with them on ruins of castles, beaches of red sand, or in the middle of wild blooming nature, and then flies away, never to return. "There is only one special woman that I look for over and over again," he admits. "I think something like, 'I guess there is something in this bed." Then I wrap myself in a blanket, and she appears in front of me almost half the time."
In his real life, this woman is a friend of the family, whom Liam introduced to her husband. In reality, they had nothing more than simple chatter, but in a dream she is a passionate lover who can offer Liam sex in front of his wife and family. “I love these lucid dreams,” he says with a smile. - I seem to be praising myself, I say to myself: 'I am so cool that I can do it right in front of my mother-in-law.'
Liam feels no guilt the next morning. “My lucid dreams are a completely safe space where I explore everything that is forbidden,” he says. Other dreamers say they go even further and commit rape, pedophilia, incest and even murder. With complete impunity.
We first met Liam at a private meeting hosted by Felicity Doyle. At dinner, ten dreamers discussed their latest nocturnal adventures: some turned into animals, others talked to historical figures, and still others took heroin. Some talked about the feeling of separation from the area of sleep and going beyond it. Someone advised the daredevils not to lose the connection of the dreaming body with the physical, so as not to lose it forever.
Although a recent study found that 47% of those surveyed had at least one lucid dream, Felicity Doyle's guests report frequent and prolonged dreams. We do not know why some people have a predisposition to lucid dreams, but scientists believe that such a dreamer usually has more developed analytical abilities. In addition, after conversations with dreamers, it became obvious to me that training plays an important role in developing inner potential.
At dinner, the question of will gradually arose in conversation. While beginners can achieve minimal control over their surroundings during sleep (such as making a headscarf levitate), more impressive accomplishments are usually hampered by the brain. The dream world has its own distorted and changeable logic, within which certain concessions can be achieved. So, for example, if the dreamer fails to take off, he can imagine a flying carpet. If he wants to move a mountain, perhaps he can do it with an atomic bomb.
According to Felicity Doyle, the world of dreams seems "more real" than reality. “Everything is brighter and more vivid in a dream. More beautiful, - she emphasizes. "Everything is crystal clear." Other dreamers talk about synesthesia (the ability to observe a scene at the same time from different angles) and ethereal music that no instrument of this world can reproduce. Jared Zeizel regularly visits the surreal fruit garden that tastes like nothing else he has eaten in real life.
The world that you control
“As a child, I was a social phobia,” Felicity told me later. We sat in the middle of the chaos at her home in the suburbs of San Francisco and ate oranges while her eight-year-old daughter played the piano. “My parents divorced when I was three, and my mother then divorced again when I was 15. There were constant squabbles at home and at school. Other children threw food at me or locked me in the locker room. Sleep was the only way to escape from it. Nevertheless, the suffering did not stop even in sleep.
“I am dreaming of a boy. We love each other,”she says of a decades-long dream. His appearance changes from night to night, but overall he is still the same person. “Our love is stronger than anything I've ever experienced, but in every dream he is not with me. I try to find him in very strange ways: I climb telephone towers in the middle of the desert to look into the distance, or I ask the giants if they have seen him. I also remember a whole wardrobe of empty bodies: it was just leather on hangers. I looked through them desperately. "Not him, not him, not him," I cried. When I woke up, I was just crushed, and this lasted for several weeks."
At 19, Felicity lost her leg in a motorcycle accident. “I had a fractured pelvis, a fractured hip and a ruptured artery,” she whispers so that her daughter won't hear her. - I had no pulse. They thought that I would not survive."
“As for the leg, I find it a very useful tool,” she says, pointing to the stump. "Although usually a person does not see the difference between a physical and a spiritual body, I can notice it thanks to her." Felicity feels a ghostly leg behind the severed limb, constantly bent in the same position in which her leg was on the motorcycle at the moment of the collision.
She has been walking on crutches for many years, but in her sleep she still periodically opens the door and again finds herself between life and death in the intensive care unit, where she survived only thanks to pipes and wires connected to machines. “I learned to close that door and move on,” she says. In a dream, she always walks on two legs.
Now she is 47 years old, but in her sleep she is young again. She runs over hills and roofs, jumps over houses and fences. The last time Felicity saw her imaginary love with their daughters, she ran to meet them. “I recognized them immediately,” she says. "Our marriage, our children's birthdays … I knew my family in my dreams better than my family in reality." The reunion was accompanied by an intense surge of joy and tears, but Felicity soon felt herself being carried back into her body. The family pleaded with her to stay, and she clung with all her might. In vain.
Felicity woke up next to her real husband. “He is not interested in dreams,” she admits, even though he also leads a double life. Among other things, which are very difficult to voice, three months ago she found out that he smokes in secret. “He lied to me for nine years. I could smell cigarettes, but he usually replied that he was standing next to the smokers."
The resulting small marital crisis led to many sleepless nights. Felicity drinks sleeping pills, but the dream is no longer deep enough to become lucid. Now, when she especially needs inner peace, she cannot get into it …
Face to face with nightmares
At this time, Dr. Joseph Green (Joseph Green) works at his clinic in Los Angeles with patients who have a completely different problem: many of them are afraid to sleep. This psychologist specializes in post-traumatic stress disorder and, in particular, in his typical obsessive nightmares. Joseph Greene teaches lucid dreaming techniques to help patients rebuild the nightmare from the inside out.
He begins by advising clients to keep a dream diary: this is the first step towards lucid dreaming. The diary helps to strengthen the connection between consciousness and subconsciousness, and the dream can be studied if its motives are repeated. Each topic becomes an occasion for validation. “The patient understands that he always sees policemen in his dreams. As a result, every time he sees a police officer during the day, it becomes a reason for him to wonder if he is sleeping. Ultimately, the patient asks this question in a dream. Some dreamers advise you to check reality by tapping your forefinger on your palm, others suggest pinching your nose and trying to breathe in, others jump up to see if they are levitating. All this allows you to instantly navigate.
If skepticism is necessary to realize a dream, faith is required to maintain it. This is perfectly explained by the London therapist Claire Johnson, who works with lucid dreaming: “If you are afraid that a monster is lurking around the corner, then you can be sure that it really will be there. If you are afraid that the door will not open, it will definitely be locked. If you believe you can fly, you will succeed. Only if you start to doubt, you will fall. In a dream, the mind shapes reality.
Johnson and Greene teach patients to be confident in their sleep. The dreamer does not need to run from nightmares and go to meet them. “Everything that makes up sleep is a part of us,” Johnson says. Everything is alive and is a message. “Instead of running away from the monster, turn around and face it. Offer him love. Give something. Ask what it wants."
Greene talks about a Vietnam veteran whose best friend died next to him in a shootout. He periodically relived it in nightmares for half a century, until a therapist taught him how to rewrite the script. When the veteran saw this dream again, the dream became lucid. “Get up,” he said to his dying friend. - War is over. Let's go home . The wounded soldier smiled, and together they left the battlefield. He never saw this nightmare again.
A recurring nightmare
Christina Cha was ten years old when her beloved Aunt Teresa was raped and killed. In a recent article, she becomes a little girl again: “It was 1982. I loved purple, unicorns and rainbows. " She was among the bridesmaids at her aunt's wedding. "When you are found, you are dressed in black and white with red … Your clothes are torn to shreds and lying on the ground … The body was found in a parking lot in Little Italy."
This murder triggered a "nuclear shockwave" throughout the family. “Everything suddenly became very serious, there was a thick silence filled with anger and sadness. I was suddenly required to be strong. To be gentle was a death sentence. Being feminine symbolized shame. My father started teaching me martial arts. I became extremely alert. I tried to be invisible."
Despite her best efforts, Christina periodically suffered from nightmares. Teresa strangled her with her own handkerchief, and at night Christine dreamed that the same thing happened to her. She dreamed of serial killers endlessly. Sometimes Teresa appeared and greeted her niece with an eerie smile. Nevertheless, everything worked out in one of the dreams, when Christina was lying somewhere in a dark basement in the depths of her subconscious. A terrible figure was bending over her. As always, she was to be raped and killed. Only now Christina realized herself. “I started bullying him,” she recalls. - I shouted: “Come on! Kill me, freak! "And he couldn't. He didn't even have an erection. It was funny and disgusting, but at the same time magical. At the end I said: 'Is that all you can do?" Or something like that. " Christina no longer dreamed that she was being raped and killed.
Successful results, as in the case of Christina and the veteran, are frequent, Johnson and Green said. “If you view a dream as a message from the subconscious that is trying to reach your mind, thanks to lucid dreaming, it finally reaches the addressee,” explains Green. - After that, there is no reason to repeat the dream. At least this is what we see on an ongoing basis."
Therapy
These therapies are so effective that after defeating their natural nightmares, some begin to create their own. One of Jared Zeizel's favorite techniques is to invoke a negative version of himself that embodies his fears and shameful impulses. “I call him Dark Jared,” he laughs. - This is my dark and evil clone. When Dark Jared appears, I embody Light Jared and select the positive and negative aspects of my personality."
This ability of Jared is integral to another important clinical process - grief. “If we dream of a loved one who has passed away, it allows us to keep in touch with him and tell ourselves that he is where he should be,” says Johnson. Over the years, I have become acquainted with thousands of dreams from all over the world, and I can say that this topic is omnipresent. When the dead appear, they are usually joyful and full of life. Older people return in their prime. The cancer patient has his hair again. A victim of senile dementia has an excellent memory. Etc.
Unattainable sleep
So it was with Alex, at least at first. Her appearance began to evoke moments of awareness. I began to overcome the obstacles that separated her from me: jump over rivers, break glass walls with a loud shout and break through to her through the guards. At one time I could not touch her, my hands passed through her, but we did not give up. It helped that she once put on gloves. The feeling of closeness was very acute: it was enough to be able to say "I love you" again, to hear her gentle voice in response and see a sly smile.
Only now everything has gone bad. I couldn't find Alex so easily. It only appeared in the form of sound or smell. I tried to fly to her, but a whole host of ethereal beings prevented me from reaching her. I called her, but instead of her appeared only a pile of bones or dried meat. It's like my subconscious is connected to protect me.
Nobel laureate in physics Richard Feynman said similar things about his own lucid dreaming in the 1940s. After months of progress, Feynman suddenly decided in his sleep that awareness was due to the fact that he slept on a copper bar that disrupted the visual cortex of the brain. As a result, he threw away this copper bar in his sleep, but since then he has not had a single lucid dream. According to him, the brain got tired of the interference in the sleep process and "he came up with an explanation why it is no longer available to him."
Feynman's fascination with this mixture of sleep and reality was also shared by several of his colleagues, including Wolfgang Pauli and Albert Einstein. Einstein said that as a teenager he had a dream that he remembered forever: “I went sledding with friends at night. I began to roll down the hill, and the sled went faster and faster. I was driving so fast that I felt myself approaching the speed of light. I looked up and saw the stars. They reflected colors never seen before. Fear gripped me. I realized that in some way I see the meaning of my life. The experience became the source of inspiration for his theory of relativity. “My entire scientific career can be reduced to thinking about this dream,” he said in the last years of his life.
It is often said that dreams have nothing to do with reality, but Einstein's experience suggests otherwise. His dream represents a deep and persistent reality. Many dreamers who travel farther and farther in the world of dreams agree with this point of view. For them, the line between wakefulness and sleep loses its meaning. For example, Felicity Doyle often cannot or does not want to notice the border of two worlds: “Sometimes it seems to me that I could grow a leg, and that for this I only need to 100% believe that it is possible”.
Fair
Thomas Peisel recalls his own path to lucid dreaming that led him to Buddhism: “Waking in a dream is like a fair. When you start realizing yourself, you want to ride all the rides. Only if you have visited the park a thousand times, interest in them disappears. In the end, the question arises as to who built the park and why."
He found the answer to it in his dreams. “The whole city appeared before my eyes: people and houses to the very horizon. Then I said to myself: "I am in a dream, but the dream is also in me." All of this is reminiscent of the sacred Buddhist texts: “Everything is God. God hides in the form of a cloud, a tree, you and me."
Alex has died twice. The first time - in real life, and the second time - in my dreams. One reality has become a reflection of another. “You're going too far,” she once told me during one particularly realistic dream. "You shouldn't be here." After this incident, Alex began to appear less often, and usually in secondary roles: in the crowd, a silhouette in the window. In the end, amnesia seized me. We could bump into her in the crowd, apologize and move on as if nothing had happened. That conversation was our last.
Although she disappeared again, the memories of my dreams smoothed out the feeling of loss. I am reminded of her letter from real life, in which she writes that we estimate distances depending on how we understand them. The greater our understanding, the shorter the distance and the more real the dreams. For a while, we were together in an illusion: two beings born of the dreams of the same mind.
Rock Morin (Roc Morin)