Mindblogging

Regular Mindblogging readers (if there are any) know how much I crow about lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is an amazing skill which lets you take full control of your dreams. Lucid dreaming takes a dream that seemed like a play you were only watching and turns it into a three-dimensional, interactive experience. Its where you bring your conscious awareness into the dream state.

I had an epiphany this morning in the shower (the only place for epiphanies, you know. It’s the law). The experience of waking dreaming is lucid dreaming in reverse! Waking dreaming is the infusion of the dream state into conscious awareness.

I’ve often had precognitive dreams where I’ll dream something and soon afterward it will occur. These happen so often as to become almost routine. When I experience the event, I will just know how it will progress. I’m not sure that is actually the textbook definition of deja-vu, but bear with me here.

I’ve been thinking in particular about the experience I had last year with what I called an “extended deja-vu.” It wasn’t just a flash of recognition, nor had I dreamed it ahead of time. It was as if something else entirely was taking place. I call it “waking dreaming.”

I think this morning’s epiphany describes it well. My dreaming self shared time with my conscious mind in the same manner that my conscious mind visits a lucid dream. The realm of the dream self is the subconscious. The subconscious knows all (or knows whom to ask). During that experience, I had access to knowledge ordinarily denied to me. In fact, at the time it actually seemed like I was living a dream! I’m still not sure what brought the experience on, nor has it occured again. But at least now I’ve got a rudimentary understanding of what occured.

Lucid dreaming can be tricky to achieve: you really have to pay attention. I ‘ve had over a decade of lucid dreams and still cannot do it on command. I think this waking dreaming state is even more difficult. Normal waking consciousness guards your attention jealously. It does not wish to share. The dream state is not as jealous, which might explain how lucid dreaming may be easier than waking dreaming. I think my experience was a rare moment when my conscious mind was a bit more relaxed.

The question remaining is how to replicate it!

This morning’s dream was a strange one certain to get my attention. Only later did I find out it was precognitive.

I was dreaming that I had a nail (of all things) caught in my throat. It was a bit irritating, but not painful. It was about an inch long and was simply stuck there, as if I had swallowed it.

Now for the precognitive part! Later this afternoon I was scanning the Boing Boing website when I read about an 84-year-old man coughing up a nail. Interestingly enough, the nail in my dream was the same size as the one the man coughed up.

Now I can say I know what its like to cough up a nail, at least I do when I’m dreaming. Take it from me: dreaming it is much better than living it!