“
...in one dream I can compose a whole Comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests and laugh my self awake at the conceits thereof.
Sir Thomas Browne
You’ve heard of lucid dreaming right? Perhaps you’ve even experienced it.
Lucid dreams are those ones where you suddenly become aware that you are dreaming, while still inside the dream. You are able to step apart from yourself in the dream, and you realise that what you are experiencing is not real, it is just an illusion.
Often, in a lucid dream, it is possible to control your actions and the environment around you: like Sir Thomas Browne, above, some lucid dreamers can even create art.
Everything is possible and nothing is threatening, because it’s all just a dream!
Lucid dreams are very rare.
For most of us, our dreams are terrifyingly immersive experiences, the events within them appearing fully real to us. If we see our mother making out with our boss in the dream, it feels just like it would in real life. Who hasn’t fallen off a high ledge in a dream and woken up in a sweaty panic, expecting to hit the ground?
“Thank God, it was just a dream!” we say to ourselves…before climbing out of bed and going about our lives, full of its own fears, stresses and oddities.
The vast majority of us go through our lives like we do in our dreams, don’t we: fully immersed in the external action occurring around us. When that tax bill arrives, we feel the stress; when that guy cuts in front of us in the queue, we feel the anger; when our relationships end, we feel the grief and rejection.
From lucid dreams to lucid life
I put it to you that our awakened state (what we all call “reality”) is actually no different to our dream state. It is, after all, one of several levels of consciousness that are available to us.1 We know for a fact that our minds and bodies cannot tell the difference between, say, an assault in a dream and one in “reality”.
Therefore: as it is possible to experience lucid dreams, then it is also possible to experience lucid reality, lucid life.
Achieving this is the same as in the dream world: realising that you are experiencing and witnessing a level of consciousness. It’s the act of stepping outside of yourself, realising that you are not your thoughts, your feelings, the things that happen to you or the labels assigned to you.
These are just objects that you, the conscious awareness, are witnessing and experiencing.
It is possible to live your life like a lucid dreamer, understanding that you are a witness to, and an experiencer of, the adventure of life — not a trapped participant.
Everything is possible and nothing is threatening, because it’s just an illusion!
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi identified 7 levels of consciousness, ranging from unconsciousness up to enlightenment. ↩︎