I recently noticed a post on a closed FB synchronicity page that linked lucid dreaming with synchronicity. That caught my attention because I was just about to put together material for a workshop class that relates to lucid dreaming. It’s called Dream and Sleep Yoga, and is about meditation methods and body movements to help achieve the lucid dream state directly from conscious conscious awareness. In other words, programming a lucid dream and moving right into it after falling asleep.
So here was someone – Jo – connecting lucid dreaming with synchronicity. That’s something I had to think about.
Here’s what she wrote: “Lucid dreaming, where consciousness becomes self aware, is likened to synchronicity in ‘waking state’, in that awareness is connected to our higher selves/higher purpose for a flicker of a moment. Just like Lucid dreaming, our consciousness flickers in and out of existence, in both waking/sleep state, due to the dominant nature of ego. To dream is not necessarily to lose the ‘ego’, to lucid dream is.”
I liked the sentiment, but didn’t agree with everything she said.
For most lucid dreamers, connecting with the inner self or true self is an ideal and a work-in-progress, rather than a given. In other words, in lucid dreaming – especially for beginning lucid dreamers who move beyond that ‘flicker of lucidity’ – the ego is alive and well. Once they can maintain control of the lucid state, they might think they own the entire dream scenario, as if it were private real estate, and can manipulate other dream characters at will.
In other words, at first it seems the dream is a total creation of the conscious mind. Some lucid dreamers fly around and play god, but eventually they discover to their astonishment that some dream characters seem to have conscious awareness and act contrary to the intent of the lucid dreamer. These lucid dreamers discover that they don’t control the entire dream scenario, that there’s a larger dream underlying reality. At that point, the lucid dreamer connects to the true self, which swims in those deeper waters of the unconscious, and surfaces from time to time as we experience synchronicity.
Jo also wrote: “By practicing living in the present, we engage the same technique as we do when we lucid dream. Consciousness becomes self aware, we quiet the mind of the ego, which is firmly placed in past and future.”
Good advice. Lucid dreaming takes place in the forever present. Now.
I recommend Robert Waggoner’s book, Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self, and also for an even more esoteric approach: The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep, by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche.
This comment came from Nancy Pickard, who is having trouble commenting on the blog, so I’m putting it up for her:
The following, from your new post, really made my eyes bug out! I did not know that about some dream characters having their own awareness and not following our (ego’s) directions! Wow. That’s soooo interesting. Have you had that experience? (I’d ask it on the blog, but it has not, for a long time, let me write the secret letters to let me in.)
Some lucid dreamers fly around and play god, but eventually they discover to their astonishment that some dream characters seem to have conscious awareness and act contrary to the intent of the lucid dreamer. These lucid dreamers discover that they don’t control the entire dream scenario, that there’s a larger dream underlying reality. At that point, the lucid dreamer connects to the true self, which swims in those deeper waters of the unconscious, and surfaces from time to time as we experience synchronicity.
Nancy, of course in regular dreams we have no control over the actions of dream figures. In fact, we don’t know they’re dream figures, because we don’t know we’re dreaming until we wake up. But when we recognize that we’re in a dream and conscious, that’s when we recognize the dream figures for what they are. We can even ask them what they represent, and often they’ll tell you, though their answers might take some interpretation. Some, though, deny that they are dream figures and actually contend that they are real conscious beings. Which of course is amazing!
Very interesting, must look out for Robert Waggoner’s book … your illustration at the top of the post made me immediately think of the ruins of the Abbey at Glastonbury.
Mike, Waggoner’s book is fascinating. It’s very readable, no academic jargon. In fact, it almost reads like a novel, but very believable.I’d love to visit Glastonbury.
I don’t agree with this either – “To dream is not necessarily to lose the ‘ego’, to lucid dream is.” I think it is the other way around. Very very interesting subject. I hope to get back to you on this later – busy – but dreams and I Ching are my 2 favorite subjects so of course I have “stuff” on the issue . . . later . .. Adele
Will look forward to your comments, Adele.
Very interesting post, thank you. A personal interest here…
I have had what I consider lucid dreams now and then. I am in a very vivid, detailed dream and I don’t want to leave it but I’ve already awakened, so I make a conscious effort to return to it, and when it occurs, I feel somehow that I can direct it a little. I think I’ll look at Waggoner’s book, thanks for the recommendation. 🙂
Returning to a dream to continue it is a valuable skill. It helps to move back into the same body position you were in when you were dreaming and focusing on the dream scenario. That’s a good time to attempt to move consciously into the dream. In that lucid state, you can take control of your dreaming self and explore the dream world knowing that you are awake within a dream.