Lucidity as Self-Rescuing

From:

Surfing Your Way Out of Your Life Nightmare

I am in a jail. I have to take care of people on death row. I’m not a prisoner but I’m not a caretaker. I’m something in-between. I am taking care of people in the last hours before they go to the electric chair. One of them is a former male friend. He knows that he will die in a few hours. I have to cheer him up. (Crying). It’s not a good time for me. It’s dark with all the fear of losing him. I have to tell him that I love him and that he’s a good guy. I have to cheer him up for his last hours. It’s awful. Then they take him out of the room and take him to kill him. I have to stay there until they bring him back dead. I try to wake up because I realize it’s a nightmare, but I can’t stop dreaming. I knew I was dreaming but I couldn’t wake up; I couldn’t stop it. The next person is my grandmother. I have to take care of her. They take her and kill her and I have to wait for the body to come back on a stretcher. Then I woke up, went back to sleep and the same thing was happening to other people. Even with waking up I couldn’t stop this nightmare.

Notice that going lucid accomplishes nothing for this dreamer. There is no freedom, no control, no autonomy, no ability to change anything. Instead, what is experienced is that the nightmare embraces everyday consciousness, as is the case with post-traumatic stress disorders. Also, notice that going lucid is a failed attempt by the dreamer to rescue herself from the drama triangle by waking up. Instead of avoiding persecution and victimization by waking up, it is merely extended to other examples in other parts of her life, stressing the pervasive nature of the nightmare.

While lucidity is often an attempt at self-rescue which succeeds in keeping one stuck in the drama triangle while exerting the worldview of a stuck waking identity into the dream state, deep listening honors the nightmare of your life by giving it the respect of suspending judgment, listening, and applying what makes sense. Instead of changing the nightmare to conform to your assumptions of happiness, both the nightmare and your waking identity learn to conform to the culture of a transcending and inclusive intrasocial reality.

For more, see lucid dreaming and Some Challenges to Some Assumptions About Lucid Dreaming.

Feb 16, 2010