Is This A Dream?Every day my students are asked to write a journal response to a thought I write on the board. "We must never do evil, even for the sake of accomplishing good." and "Have you ever had or currently have an urge to rebel? What would you like to rebel against?' are two of the entries they were asked to consider. Many good discussions have been started from this. We are now on Journal #72.
"Have you ever had a lucid dream?" is one that elicited much discussion. Most of the students have never even heard of a lucid dream and a few didn't believe me when I told them I had multiple lucid dreams.
The most important thing to keep in mind when striving for a lucid dream is to remember your dreams. You can have ten lucid dreams a night but what good will it do you if you don't remember them? Keeping a dream journal will help this.
Some tips for becoming lucid during a dream is to try and adjust light levels. Turn a light off once in a while. If you can't you're probably dreaming. Also, read fine print. Look away and read it again. If it changes you're dreaming. Jump up in the air. Before doing so, say to yourself, "I will stay in the air if I'm dreaming." If you stay afloat, even for an extra second you're dreaming.
Once you realize you're dreaming you can do anything you want. Make a habit of doing all of the aforementioned in your waking life and eventually you will do it in your dream life. Sure you'll look funny occasionally but it's a small price to pay to be able to do anything you want. (I was once caught mid-air during a reality check. The person was puzzled as to why they caught me jumping for no reason.)
Another technique is to ask yourself multiple times a day "Is this a dream?"
Or you can take the attitude of
Pedro Calderón de la Barca. "All life is a dream from which only death awakens us". Assume that you are dreaming at all times and eventually you will take that belief into your dreams.
Once I dreamed I was in Dock's Riverfront Bar and Grill's washroom looking in the mirror with hair on my head. I remembered I shaved my head that day and with a joyous and jumping fist-pump I willed myself to fly through the ceiling into the night sky. Many times I woke myself up due to the overwhelming exuberance that occurs when I realize I'm dreaming.
The reason I bring all this dream stuff up is that life has been a little dream-like lately. Tuesday night Porter opened for Spookey Ruben. (
Check out two songs from that night here on our new YouTube Channel) Jay (our singer) is good friends with Spookey (see him 3 minutes into "Daddy's Truck" on YouTube) . A stranger in a large white dog-suit mascot-thingy wearing a black vest arrived at Loplops and danced beside the stage for 90% of Spookey's stellar set. Spookey had no idea who it was and neither did anyone else. Bizarre. I had to ask myself: Is this a dream?
Two nights later on a quiet Thursday the Wings lost 4-2. I decided to clear my head a bit and took the dogs for a walk. Heading down Wellington Street the faint sounds of an accordian perforated the night air. Leading the dogs down a back alley I could clearly hear Eastern-European-folk-song-type-music riding the winds of the night. Someone was sitting in their backyard and playing music. I stood there with Leo and Mira and asked myself : Is this a dream?
It wasn't that time. But maybe it will be tonight.
