Electric Dreams
.

An Excerpt From The Lucid Dream Exchange

Who is Dreaming?

Lucy Gillis & Debbie Winterbourne


(Electric Dreams)  (Article Index)  (Search for Topic)  (View Article Options)

  Gillis, Lucy (2000 July). An Excerpt From the Lucid Dream Exchange -- Who is Dreaming? Column. Electric Dreams 7(7). Retrieved July 14, 2000 from Electric Dreams on the World Wide Web: http://www.dreamgate.com/electric-dreams




This month's excerpt features a group of dreams with a common theme - just who is dreaming when we dream? For many, the dreamer doesn't always feel exactly the same as the "awake" personality that we each know as "me." And what about in Out of Body Experiences, when the dreamer looks back and sees him or herself asleep on the bed? Is that an "empty" body laying there? What if that body sits up and looks around? Who is sitting up?

WHO IS DREAMING?

Debbie Winterbourne
17 April 2000
'Who am I?'

I am 'home' in an apartment in a foreign country. I want to look in a mirror, but the apartment is somewhat dark. I try turning on the light switch, but it appears to be out of order. I try two more light switches and both fail to function. It crosses my mind that electric light switches often fail to work in lucid dreams, and that I should do a reality test. There is a notice board in my bedroom, so I decide to do a reading test. As I prepare to do the test, I am thinking: "Oh my god; if this is a dream, it is going to be amazing because the scenario
is so utterly lifelike."

I read a notice on the board and then read it again. The text is different the second time, but then changes to become the same as the first reading. To be sure, I read the text for a third time. It is different. I am lucid! I am filled with elation as I try to recall my lucid dreaming agenda. I remember that I have decided to just follow what the dream offers. In order to maintain the vividness of the lucid dream, I rub my hands on my body and repeat aloud 'I am lucid.' I exit from my bedroom, and then have a thought: "Why don't I go back in my bedroom and maybe I will see myself sleeping on my bed? And perhaps this second Debbie will be the real physical Debbie asleep in the waking world."

I open the bedroom door and enter. There I am on the bed! But who is looking at the Debbie on the bed? I am confused about the nature of the real me. [part of this paragraph deleted per author's request] I decide to spin and try to find another dream scene. I do this remembering to remain lucid.

In the next dream scene, I find myself in a dark cellar at the bottom of some stairs. There is a door at the end of the cellar. I walk to the door and open it. There is clear sunlight and I am fully lucid. I am walking down a street, marveling at how absolutely vivid and lifelike everything is. I start to reflect on techniques to maintain the dream imagery. I remember that Paul Tholey had claimed that staring at a fixed point often led to a shaky dream environment, so I decide to try it for myself. The scenery becomes blurred, so instead I start to shift my gaze around from object to object. The dream imagery immediately becomes more solid. The sun is really beautiful: its rays are of a watery thin light quality. I gasp aloud with its beauty and serenity. I decide to explore the sensation of touch. On my left is a privet hedge and I run my hand along it to the end: its prickles rub against my skin and it feels totally like the 'real' thing. I awake with a jolt.

Lucy Gillis
December 29 1995

I have been chasing a small dog down a street. I meet a little boy, probably going to school, and I ask him if he saw the dog. He points down the street a ways. He says they usually go down here this time of night. I go down and there is no sign of him. I turn to the left, walking along a grassy hill which is also a roof. I then walk out to the edge, and as I look down, I can see a cat below. And as I look more carefully, there is another cat. But then, when I look straight down, I can't believe how high up I am and I am so close to the edge. SLOWLY and carefully I back away. I am so frightened about how high up I am. At that point I realize I am dreaming, but I don't let it sink in right away. I start walking back and as I begin to question if I am in fact dreaming, there is a metal object like a gate in the way. I fold it back and it sort of bounces so I have to give it a really good push. Then there are iron posts laying across my path. I think that there is nothing in front of me but these posts that I previously saw down on the ground, so I decide to fly as another reality test, the ultimate test. When I do so, I feel a strange sensation in my legs that I sometimes notice when I move to fly in a dream; like there's water running down them. Then I start to fly into a room and I can see my body on a bed. Then I just kind of hover above "me/her," I don't want to frighten "me/her," but at the same time I want to let "me/her" know that I am there. So I come around to the other side of the body and sit on a pillow. I notice that as "she" sits up "she" looks towards me, but obviously can't see me, as "she" has a kind of quizzical look on "her" face. So I start barking like the little dog from the first part of the dream, as though I was going to be the dog from "her" dream. Then I feel a shift and I wake, flat on my back. I do not wake in the body that I had been looking at, nor did I expect to. [Though it was "me" I saw in the dream, I felt it was a version of me, not the same me that is writing this.]

Mara Sand
Past Lucid Dream:
[This dream came shortly after the last mailing of LDE. I was inspired by the idea of using the activity of flying to trigger the awareness of the dream state.]

I am in a room and I realize I can fly. I say to myself that I am dreaming and decide to fly up through the ceiling. I come into contact with several people in a series of scenes that I think are probable realities. I see an older woman who reminds me of my mother. She seems worried about many of her life situations. I think she was a probable self. I am filled with a sensation of joy of the multifaceted connection to my greater self. I as a dream entity feel very connected to the learning/joy of being a multi-reincarnated-probable inner-self. I want to reach out to her and share my joy of the multi levels of learning. I attempt to explain the magic of life/lives, the exuberance of the creativity of this connectedness to so many selves. I try to say something like it is all creativity and love. I say something about how we are all connected, and awareness of this is the key. I awake exhilarated.

The Lucid Dream Exchange is a quarterly issue featuring lucid dreams and lucid dream related articles, poetry, and book reviews submitted by readers. For further information contact Lucy Gillis at lucy@turbotek.net