I have been meditating frequently and found a process that has helped me get into a meditative state within several breaths. Only briefly, but it feels like I’m on the right track there, practicing that often. With more practice I should be able to prolong it. I often have wondered why there have been times I got into an altered state very quickly, including a full lucid dream once within about a minute of laying down. This process appears to be one way I did it, without consciously knowing what I was doing.
It’s almost too simple to mention: relaxing my body, focusing on my breath exclusively, and being very “still” physically and mentally. As I ride my breath as stillness, I start seeing and hearing things.
Anyway, last meeting in late June our group set an optional assignment of dismissing or breaking the dream to come into contact with what’s behind or underneath it. It’s one way of trying to accomplish what my goal has been all along: Getting past the illusory dream environment in order to establish contact with other beings and explore a shared/objective reality.
I had to lie in bed this morning after 7+ hours of sleep to meditate and get into a lucid dream. It was not quick! I couldn’t even meditate for a while. Too hot? Covers off. Too cold? Covers on. I don’t know, uncomfortable somehow.
(These events are probably out of order)
I’m standing on the edge of an ocean or large lake. Sierra, a member of our lucid dreaming group, is standing on the beach facing the ocean, arms spread. She falls backwards to the ground, in meditation, and as she falls she disappears.
It’s as if she’s entering a lucid dream and fell like this intentionally. Hey, she’s doing really well!
She appears in a single engine plane that dives at an angle from the air to crash into the water. That seemed intentional also, and I wonder about the purpose of it.
As I think about that, I realize that I’m in a dream.
In the next scene I’m walking along the sandy bank of a creek in the forest. I don’t have a good grasp of the environment. I crouch and touch the ground with my hands to ground myself as my vision fades. This has worked before when I begin to lose the environment.
I wake up but remain focused on going back into it.
In the next scene I’m in a small, humble home, built out as multiple rooms in a basement of a larger structure, with a single small basement window on the upper wall of the kitchen.
I walk through the home as the mother. I’m happy with the small home, despite it being a basement, because it’s near my kids’ school. (I’m not very lucid here)
Then I’m the father. My daughter in her room warns me that my son is going to kick me. That sounds very out of character for him. My son walks through the front door, and sure enough, he fires a kick to my head. I half expect it and dodge enough for it just to nick my face.
He pulls out some kind of weapon. I’m lucid enough to not be concerned. This is a good opportunity for me to practice my manipulation of the dream. I reach out my hand, Star Wars style, direct energy towards him, and he explodes.
Some events pass that I don’t remember. I’m sitting with my family in the living room, and an Black guy, about 50, with a bald head, is pointing a pistol at us. I’m lucid enough to be unconcerned still, but I’m going along with the dream events so I’m not as lucid as I could be.
I extend my hand, directing energy towards him to kill him. He laughs it off at first, but then a look of horror crosses his face and he starts shaking. With the force I stuff him into the fireplace, which is burning. I look around for a hard object to finish him off with. I walk around into the kitchen, grab a frying pan, come back around and pull him out of the fire with the force. He’s a bit burned and not happy. I drop the pan on the floor next to him. No need to get myself dirty. As I compel him, he takes the pan and beats himself in the head to death.
In the next scene I’m walking along a wide dirt road, with a number of other people walking around. At first I start to look around for a pretty girl. No! I need to focus! I focus on… what, exactly? I know there’s something I wanted to do.
My vision fades. I focus on my feet against the ground… Uh oh, I didn’t have my feet grounded in the environment before, and now I’m just floating, half awake, without having the ground to concentrate on. I can feel my eyes, but I expect that if I open them to see I’ll wake up. I patiently wait, breathe, and I make it back.
I have a vague idea that I need to focus on finding some kind of true reality of this place. Who are all these people? They seem fake.
A friend hands me a sheet of paper, stylized with the name of the game on top, a name similar to World of Warcraft but that I don’t remember, and a list of about 20 player names, in typical player name format with various words that isn’t anyone’s real full name. The clarity of it is very good, the clearest thing yet tonight. Kevin in the dream group always wants to know some details to maybe identify where I am, in case it’s some kind of objective place he knows of, so I make a note of the name of the game and look over the player names, speaking each of them. Even so, I know I’m not going to remember a single one of these when I wake. I need to find a way to transfer this info to my waking consciousness. Writing it down never works, because I’m just writing it down here in the dream, so I don’t bother trying that. This paper looks so clear that I wonder how consistent it is. I flip the top of the paper down with the game logo on it, flip it back up, and it’s a different name. Damnit!
Oops, I forgot to shatter the dream to see what’s behind the illusion. I got close to the idea of breaking the dream illusion with the way I blew up that kid, and with the general idea as I stood on the dirt road looking at the paper to see what was really going on. I ought to remember my intention more specifically next time.
And of course I don’t remember the game names or player names.
I did make progress in preventing my fading vision from causing me to fully wake up. Crouching down and focusing on the ground each time I begin losing it is an instinct at this point. The meditation I’ve been practicing helped me move through that in-between period and get back into a dream. I have done that many times before, but on this night I felt more awake as I lost the dream each time and might not have held much hope of returning if I hadn’t made progress meditating lately to be able to get more quickly back into that state in the space of a few breaths.