1. Being Afraid of "Physical Harm"
There are certain kinds of situations in which action is reflexive,
not awaiting decisions from the conscious mind. Fearful
circumstances are one example. It is much better for our skins, in
general, if we respond quickly to danger, in a way that will
increase our chances of avoiding harm, usually running away, less
often fighting. Consciousness can override behavioral impulses
resulting from fear, but is unlikely to do so without good reason,
decided on in advance. For example, some people decide that, for the
pleasure of skydiving, they will ignore the terror involved in
jumping from an airplane 10,000 feet above the ground.
I go into the closet and throw myself out the window. Briefly, I
doubt if I'm dreaming, again, and get stuck halfway through the
screen. Wow, what if I weren't dreaming, I think; I'd be killing
myself!
I became aware that I was lucid and started to change my size and
quasi flying with the Jeep. When I noticed the other cars I became
worried and pulled over for concern of safety. I lost lucidity...
I want to go into the house, so I fly up to a window on the second
story and try to fly through. I bump into the screen. I tell myself
that I should be able to get through. I'm banging against the screen
with my hand and scraping myself up a little. I'm not entirely lucid
because I think even though I'm dreaming it's probably not wise to
get cut up like that.
...I reflect on the lucidity itself as being so effortlessly stable
that I don't even have to try or struggle to maintain it.... I am in
a cafeteria type place and remember my intention to look for lottery
numbers... [looks for lottery numbers]... I ask if there are any Lotto
6/49 machines around am told there is one--at a nearby tourist
centre on the edge of the [military] compound. I go there and find
myself walking down a slightly wooded lane. There are some men doing
something that looks covert. I hesitate, then proceed and seeing
others around am reassured....
The next example illustrates how
lucidity can help negate irrational
fear:
Spinning is easy. I see a chart of words--which seem to be possible
dream selections. I choose the one that says, "Joy Traveler" and
don't remember any others. I come to a scene in my parents' living
room with Fred standing next to me. The light is dim blue. Fred has
no shirt on, is tan, with golden highlights in his hair and no hair
on his chest--he looks good. I go outside with him, to the front
yard. I say, "Fred, you never have lucid dreams. Indeed, you rarely
remember your dreams."
He agrees. As we're crossing the street, Fred
ahead of me, I see a car at the corner backing up. I tell Fred to
watch out; this car is backing up towards him. We fly up into a tree
and hold on. The car drives back at us (going forwards now), so I
figure it really was trying to hit us. I tell Fred to fly higher
into the tree. I realize I am feeling some fear and it's of this
car. I decide I should deal with it rather than going somewhere
else.
I yell to Fred, "Merge!" and as we dive at the car, I hear him
making a grunt of surprise and shock. The car comes up slowly. A
flap opens in the top and shoots projectiles out. Then a
stereotypical terrorist with a gun leans out the back. I note all
this and keep falling at the car. When I hit: "POOF" and the scene
vanishes. I see notes on paper float before me and think, these are
of no interest to me and I feel myself wake up.
2. Being Afraid of "Social Consequences"
Social interactions are another case in which behaviors are
automatic. As children, we learn how to behave in a variety of
social circumstances, the difference between public and private, and
the consequences of breaking the rules. Parents discipline their
children to train them to act "correctly," and peers punish with
ridicule, exclusion and violence when a child does something
"forbidden," such as urinating or crying in public. As we mature, we
internalize this training to make it unconscious, because even a
momentary slip-up can cause severe social consequences. Once social
rules become unconscious, only deliberate conscious decisions can
override them.
The people populating our dreams are only mental images of people,
with no power over our social standing in waking life, yet they look
and act completely real. It can be extremely difficult to ignore the
dictates of our social training when faced with wholly realistic
"people." The following analogy might make the challenge
understandable in a waking context: Imagine you are in a room with a
window into another. It is a one-way window that allows you to see
into the other room, where a group of people is sitting, looking in
your direction as if watching you. However, they cannot see you,
because their side of the window is mirrored. How would you feel
about undressing, using the toilet, picking your nose, having sex,
or, say, singing, in such a situation? Now imagine that the
"audience," although they cannot see you and do not know what you
are doing, have shocked or amused expressions on their faces as you
carry on with your embarrassing activity.
Dream characters are
mental images of people that we endow with the social reactions we
have learned to expect from others. Thus, if you decide to take your
clothes off in a dream, the dream people around you might act
astonished, because that is what you would expect in waking life.
Your knowledge that there are no actual people there is purely
intellectual, contradicted by the evidence of your senses, which see
and hear a social situation and automatically define for you
appropriate and unacceptable behaviors. It takes solid lucidity and
a strong will, at least initially, to overcome the internalized
mental constraints of society in the essentially private world of
dreams.
Wandering about again, I see some money on a table--a big stack,
with a $1 bill on top. A minute later, it's a smaller stack with a
$20 bill on top. I pocket it. Around this time the light flashes
(DreamLight) and I reflect that it doesn't matter what I do 'cause
it's a dream. But it doesn't sink in yet, and I'm a bit worried
about being caught.
I find myself saying over and over, "This could be a dream," and
say, "This is a dream." But I continue with the story because I'm
very emotionally involved in it. I'm with B, approaching the place
where M is going. B says something about B being with M and me and M
replies with something about taking off as many clothes as we can
when we get there. I wonder at this lack of discretion.
I'm in a foreign country staying at a hotel and I know there's a
nice French girl in the reception area. I know I'm dreaming and I'm
in a hurry to meet her before I wake up. I run through the
building.... I find the girl and decide to go back to my room.
[Risks losing the girl to the instability of dreaming, probably
because of a lack of awareness that there is no need to go to a
private room for sex in a dream.]
Then the old woman says it's 21 something. Then she thanks me, and
gives me some ... money, towards something. She doesn't look as
though she can afford it so I don't take it at first, but then
accept it so as not to hurt her.
3. Thinking Another Dream Character is "Really" There
One research aim in child psychology is to identify when children
recognize that other people are like themselves in having emotions,
needs, pain, pleasure, etc. Before that time, presumably, we treat
ourselves as the center of the universe, and everything else as
being important only in how it affects our well being. Once
awareness of self and other dawns, our choices generally reflect
concern for others, although the degree of consideration we show
others varies greatly.
Fear of social consequences reinforces our
social deference, which in common parlance we usually call
"goodness." Being "bad" is being selfish or cruel, that is, not
considering the feelings of others. Another way of describing this
aspect of human psychology is to say that we learn at some age that
other people are "real," like us, and to treat them accordingly. And
so we do in our dreams, too. Of course, as long as we think dream
characters are "really there," we are likely to be concerned about
social consequences, as described above.
I believe that B is also dreaming and aware and thus we are having a
"mutual dream."
Inside with M, we decide we're both dreaming and attempt
simultaneous signals. I can't understand some of what he says, then
he mutates to look like some food by Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee.
I see an arm coming from behind a tree, and tell myself, "That's
him." So, sure enough, when I get there, it is S. He is wearing a
belt with an amazingly shiny buckle in some angular pattern--this
startles me a bit. We embrace and kiss--this is sort of
insubstantial. Now he wearing shiny silver mylar pants, and looks
like a slick cowboy. I am not too clear about it being only my
dream. I have a few thoughts like--he'll remember this, too. He is
very sharp and clear and startlingly real. I ask him to come with me
and we'll fly. He doesn't believe it will work. I know it is me who
is causing him to be uncooperative. I tell him it always works with
my dream characters. I take his hands to pull him up.
I run down the hall into the kitchen, deciding on my way that I will
do a back flip in mid air when I get there. I do it smoothly and
land on my feet. ...I am full of energy but I don't know what to do
next. I say that I want to do something little. At some point I
eagerly suggest to M "Let's go wake up your sleeping body!" I
mention something about flying through people. M says, "You can't
fly through me unless you are some alien who can get up my nose." I
begin to think something like "I don't think anyone can fly through
you (if you're real) not even aliens" but fear saying it before "one
appears and proves me wrong." I tell M that I've flown through dream
people before and if they were real it must have been an offensive
act. (This seemed logical at the time; that the dream people could
be real.) If they were real then I am sorry that I flew through
them.
As the bad guys get out of the truck, we fly into the air. I call to
my dog, and he flies up to me, and we fly and fly. It's all so easy
and I'm very relaxed. Knowing that I'm dreaming, I try to think of
other interesting dream places I've been to so that I can show them
to my sister. I lucidly fly out of the dangerous dreams I remember
and take her to some fun places.
I know I'm dreaming as I fly about with R and others. I encourage R
to try to remember this experience [not lucid enough to realize I'm
talking with a dream character]. We hover in front of a striking
glass picture of pale green hues, with flower designs embossed into
its surface. I tell R that lucid dreams are even more easy to recall
than non-lucids.
I was walking in a building. I was going to meet with some people.
My plan was to meet in a dream with people I was going to meet in
waking tomorrow. Then, I would compare the waking meeting with the
dream meeting. (I don't know from where this idea came. I never
considered this experiment.)... I lost lucidity.
Steve and I and Sasha and Shane are doing laundry downstairs in
Ethel's basement, where there are dozens of washers and dryers
stacked against the wall. Sasha takes the grocery cart I've hung our
clothes on because she wants to use it to hold the helium tank for
blowing up balloons. I blow up a few balloons, Sasha and her friends
blow up a few balloons, but they keep popping for some unknown
reason. I start wondering what's happening with the balloons and
notice a boy using the tank on a single balloon which gets larger
and larger until it's the size of small hot air balloon.
He finally
pulls the balloon away from the helium tank and I remember thinking
that the balloon was so huge it would carry him away. The next thing
I know, Steve and I are looking up at the sky and there's a white
parachute coming down--as it gets closer, I can see two people on
the chute--one has skis on and is doing flips. I'm wondering aloud
to Steve how this is possible and explicitly say, "This must be a
dream--we're dreaming--this is a lucid dream! We're both in the same
lucid dream." I waited for Steve to come to the realization that he
was dreaming (i.e. the logic was that we're in the same dream
because we each put ourselves there, not because I, the dreamer, had
constructed this experience). I wanted Steve to write down that this
was a dream so we'd remember.
In the meantime, I'm still watching the two boys with the parachute
come in for a landing. They landed off behind trees in a distance in
a mountain of popcorn, which exploded when they landed. I again say
to myself and to Steve that this is a dream--I remark on how stable
the environment is--I find it hard to believe. We're in a beautiful
lush canyon area--lots of blue-greens and purples, water below--we
stop to watch the ocean and a surfer who seems to grow out of a
wave. I remember the environment as exceptionally vivid and detailed
and satisfying. I "check back" to see if I'm still
dreaming--determine that I am, and say to my husband that I'm going
to fly a little more as long as I'm lucid. The environment switches
to the Southwest and the colors change to mauves, sandstones, etc.
...a creature that looks like a deformed elephant seal comes toward
shore. Some guys are trying to capture it. My son and I are
watching, spellbound. From behind the creature comes a giant
octopus, at least ten feet in diameter. We back away from the
water's edge, but it comes right out of the water and at us. It is
purple and I can see the lighter colored suctions on the underside
of it's raised tentacles. We are trying to back up into a tree. Due
to the intense emotion, I become lucid. I tell my son, "Relax, we're
dreaming and octopi don't climb trees." Now, more aware, I know my
son isn't dreaming with me....
[As the level of lucidity changes in a dream, it is possible to
correct an error of thinking a dream character is real.]
I decide to fly and go straight up toward the roof of the warehouse.
There's something hanging there; I think it's a representation of a
human, art work of some kind. I say, "Are you the teacher?" Then
it's a little girl of four or five who's flown up with me but is
suddenly scared to fly down. I hold her in my arms and bring her
back to safety. I want to make sure she gets home safely and ask her
where she lives. She doesn't answer at first and I think she may be
confused and overwhelmed. Then she says, "San Jose." "San Jose!" I
repeat, wondering how in hell I'm going to get her back there.
