Through my
limited number of years I have come across a certain body of knowledge on which
I feel I am most well-versed on. Not because I have read many books on the
subject, mind you, although I certainly have done my fair share of research,
but because I have experienced this knowledge first-hand and, through sustained
practice, have developed a certain schematic mastery of it. By this I refer to,
of course, the knowledge of the lucid manipulation of dreams as a means of
transporting consciousness into other realities. Many a social scientist may
stumble upon this text and regard all of my words as the simpleminded mumblings
of a religious zealot, and perhaps they may be right in their appraisal. As of
today, I no longer have a measuring stick for madness, and the line between
soberness and delirium has become blurred. But, believe you me, I am not by any
means joking when I say that consciousness is incredibly more complex than what
your wildest fantasies may procure. This knowledge was not passed unto me, I
was merely pointed in its direction, and something which is not me and
therefore not related in any way to my ego aided my path and opened the gates.
I now find myself writing these words, hoping that they may be of use to somebody
else. I believe knowledge is useless when it is caged within the individual,
and it can only serve a purpose when it is shared to the public. So I make my
contribution, little as it may be, to the growth of human consciousness.
I now find myself with the problem
of how and when to start this voyage, and I think that, as with every voyage,
it must have a reasonable beginning.
I remember the first lucid dream I
ever had. I remember it vividly. I was young, perhaps thirteen or fourteen. My
step-brother had been visiting my house for about a week. We got along fairly
well, mainly because even though he was several years older than me, we shared
the same passion for videogames and comic books. The dream took place a couple
of days after he had left. I dreamt I was in my house, and that my step-brother
was calling me to go with him. “This cannot be”, I thought. “My step-brother
left two days ago”. This is what offset the dream. I knew my brother had left
two days ago, and yet he was there, calling me. Did he come back? I can’t be, I
would’ve known, my father would’ve told me. Then I saw his blurred image in the
hallway outside my bedroom. He wasn’t himself. This was a dream. The
realization that I was in a dream blew me away. I had certainly dreamed before,
but I had never been conscious of being in a dream. I became elated, excited,
this was a new experience, I couldn’t contain myself. I went out of the house
as in a fit and started looking around; everything seemed normal enough. Then
came the idea that if this was a dream, then perhaps I could manipulate what
happens. Being the over-stimulated child that I was, I desired action, and so I
focused all my attention on a single thing: an explosion. I didn’t need much effort,
I simply thought about it and there it was. Bang! Everything shuddered. Fire
and smoke over the neighborhood, as if a missile had just hit one of the
houses. This is it. This is my dream. I am God. I can do anything.
Of course I went to town immediately.
Not walking, mind you, but flying at high speeds. When I got there, I wanted
more action. There were monsters, horrible lizards prowling about the buildings
of the small town I grew up in, the townsfolk were screaming and running
scared, and I their flying savior. With my newfound powers I flew around town
making lizards explode left and right, no compassion, and what’s more: I was
laughing! This was such a joyous experience! I was completely filled with joy
and happiness as I flew around blowing up buildings and lizards! It was
absolute chaos, the chaos within the mind of a child. But it did not last long.
You see, current experience has taught me something: what we commonly call lucid dreaming is way more than a
subjective experience. These worlds one inhabits while in a dream are more than
mere projections of the unconscious mind. They are veritable worlds, inhabited
by beings of a different nature than that of humans. And, of course, these
beings do not like it when there are children flying around and blowing up
buildings and such. And so I woke.
These dreams repeated themselves
over and over. Some contradicting situation would make me realize that I was in
a dream and I would instantly start flying and blowing things up, and I would
wake up after the first or second explosion. As the years passed and puberty
hit, there was the added spice of sex. Of course, a geeky teenage boy who wasn’t
very good at sports but preferred computer games finds himself the God of reality
and procures the object of his desire. That was the routine with dreams for a
while. Flight, bombs, sex.
And then it stopped. I can’t say
when it stopped, it simply did. These dreams of action and excitement were
replaced with another kind of dream that stayed with me for years. I would find
myself just flying. The views were of different colors, but always foggy.
Sometimes a foggy blue mountainside, I would just fly and fly for hours.
Sometimes a dusty desert. Sometimes my hometown, but clouded in a bright-yellow
mist. Sometimes a dark cloudy city. Sometimes simply flying over a green
highway. These dreams lasted for what seemed like a very long time, and when I
was in them, I was overcome with a very neutral feeling. I was not excited or
stimulated. I was concentrated, for
lack of a better word. I thoroughly enjoyed the sensation of flying, the cold
breeze filled with raindrops hitting against my arms and legs and face. Sometimes
I could focus on the direction I wanted to go. Left or right, or up, but never
down. I could never land.
And then, these dreams stopped too.
For many years I could not remember my dreams. For many years I was involved in
the tangles of life, University and work, social relationships, the passing of teenagerhood
into adulthood. Until I met a certain character.
I will not, out of respect for him,
reveal his identity. For now I can only say that him and his cohorts became
very dear friends to me, and that it was through their influence that my dreaming
practices were revived.
I had met this group of people
through my step-brother. Not the one I mentioned before, mind you, this one was
on my mother’s side. We had gone to several night clubs and parties together,
until one night I was invited by them to one particular party. It took place on
the rooftop of a building in the center of Madrid, the people organizing the party
had rented the top-floor of an office building for the weekend just to throw
their little artistic gathering. The poster certainly seemed strange and offered
very little information on what the whole gathering was about. I was instantly
curious, and I loved hanging out with this particular group of people, as it
seemed every time we were together was crazier than the last. As soon as we got
to the place we were greeted by a dark-skinned man dressed in a purple tuxedo,
complete with top-hat and round shades. The man seemed like a performer of
sorts, and said not a word to us. We paid him for the tickets and he pointed us
towards the elevator. While we waited he gave us a small toy, a sort of mini-basketball
game, with a little basketball and hoop. You pulled a small plastic lever and as
you let it go it would push the little basketball up, and you had to aim for
the hoop. It seemed impossible, since it was so small and honestly not very
well made. But each of us managed to score two or three times. And as we did,
the elevator arrived.
We went to the top floor. We were
greeted with a toy piano, colored pink and with stickers on it. We immediately
started playing with it. I believe, for the sake of clarity, I was accompanied in
this instance by two of the aforementioned certain characters. A girl to whom I
will refer as ‘Sparks’ and a man to whom I will refer as ‘Noid’. Sparks and Noid
were a loving couple, had been living together for some years. Noid was a great
pianist, and while playing with the toy piano, Sparks immediately asked him to
play Spain’s national anthem on it. The sound of the anthem being played on an
off-tune pink toy keyboard was almost too much to bear, we couldn’t stop
laughing.
After that, suffice it to say that
it was an incredibly strange and fun evening. There were flamenco-singing
firemen, scary poets on a dark hallway, sensual stories in red dim-light, a
delirious man throwing food on top of another man’s head, and just general
tomfoolery. But there was one important event that evening. While out on the
terrace, I was having a cigarette with Noid, and for some reason we started
talking about dreams. I recounted to him what I have previously written on the
nature of my early lucid dreaming experiences, and he seemed to understand it immediately.
He told me that those dreams were no joke, that some people have a particular
energetic disposition for those sorts of things and that I was perhaps one of
them. He said that he too had had similar experiences, and what’s more, he had
even managed to control them. He talked to me about his own dreams and
practices.
I will relate these practices at
another time. The memory of these events weighs heavy on my heart.
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