The earliest example of language having an effect in one of my dreams was when I made mention to someone that all I had to do was think of someone being made of sand, and they would be. Just by saying this, the person I was referring to was made into sand. It wasn’t like they turned into sand either. It was more like they had always been made out of sand. Their form was still human, but their material was now sand, which collapsed unable to hold it’s shape.

Several months later, I decided to revisit that odd little quirk in a fight I was having in a dream. Combat is fairly common in my dreams and I like to use my lucid dreams to try and discover how things work. So I tried to turn my assailant into sand. I said “you will turn into sand” and nothing happened. I said, “you are turning into sand” and nothing happened. I said “you turned into sand” and nothing happened. I said “you are sand” and it was as if he had always been sand. It seemed that framing things in the present tense was necessary for this effect to take place. Also note the simple independent predicate form of the sentences. This seems vital to getting this to work.

Subsequent tests also illustrated that framing things in the negative does not work. So saying “the monster will not find me” is essentially the same as saying “the monster will find me” the subconscious seems to ignore the “not”. In dreams, if you concentrate on what you do not want to happen, it is practically guaranteed to happen. Instead of saying what you do not want to happen, focus on what it is that you want to happen. For example, instead of saying “I can not fall” say “I am like a ninja.” It will make all the difference in the world.

The thing is, I’ve known this for quite some time. But I never explored it in depth until this morning. I actually found out that this isn’t just some random parlor trick, it can be used rapid fire and with reckless abandon to momentous effect. Let me give you an example “the monster is a buffalo. The buffalo is happy. The buffalo allows me to ride him. The buffalo can fly. The buffalo flies to the moon. The buffalo is asleep.” Worth pointing out is that the buffalo farted rainbows such that it was sort of like riding nyan cat to the moon, except that nyan cat was actually a buffalo. In any case, I managed to turn a nightmare into something completely awesome and wrap it up with moon explorati0n. You can also say things like “I’m on a boat” or “I know kung fu” and it will simply be as if it always was the case.

An interesting thing worth pointing out is that there is no transition from one state into another. A person does not turn into sand, the monster does not turn into a buffalo, a boat does not materialize underneath you. It is as if these things where simply always true but you just didn’t really notice. The thing is, it could be a dramatic change. The monster could have been thirty feet tall and looked like it was completely made of teeth and claws. When you say “the monster is a buffalo” it simply IS a buffalo. It doesn’t change shrink or lose it’s teeth and claws. It’s sort of like when you mistake something for something else. “Before I thought that was a dog in the hallways, but now I see that it is really just a floor fan.” It is as if you simply thought it was a thirty foot tall monster made of teeth and claws, but now that you look more closely, it’s really just a buffalo.

For this reason I have decided to coin this technique “redefinition” because that seems to be the best explanation for what is occurring. What is happening is that a dream symbol is being redefined. What you say is incorporated into that definition. This also allows us to bypass belief to produce the desired effect. That is, I do not have to believe that saying something makes it so. What it does is bypass belief altogether and redefines the thing itself. You do not have to believe the thing will change because the thing never changes, it simply is as if it had always been so.

Now, why is this so useful? First, as you’ve noticed, it allows the dreamer to change the nature of other dream characters. This is very important because dream themes rely very heavily upon the roles of the actors. For instance, if you have taken on the role of prey and a monster has taken upon the role of predator, then you’ve got yourself a chase dream. If you can redefine the monster such that they can no longer fulfill the role of predator, then you’ve successfully ended that theme. A pile of sand cannot chase you, and if it does you simply say “the sand is inert.” This is probably the easiest method I’ve found for changing the role of someone else.

There are a few last things worth pointing out. This can be very useful for visualization as well as the controlling of daydreams and hypnagogic hallucinations. So if you find that your meditation is being disturbed by irrelevant and distracting imagery, just use redefinition to take control over what you are seeing. Also, I also suggest that you never use the phrase “x is nothing” because it will produce one of two effects. The first is that “nothing” being unimaginable will produce no effect at all. The second is that it will turn into a void which will behave somewhat like a black hole and attempt to devour you. In the later case, you can still recover from it by saying “the void is x” and thereby turn it into something solid which will not try to devour you.

The basics are as follows: Anticipation/Expectation/Preparation, then Escalation and finally Resolution/Distraction/Transition.

The interesting thing is that this happens on at least two levels, almost as if dreams are fractals. They follow the same structure if you’re looking at a little moment within a dream, or in several dreams across a single night. Our dreams are very cyclic in nature, with every moment we experience feeding back into the next moment. Our expectations are met more often than not. If we suspect that someone may be a vampire, they usually turn out to be one. If we think we can fly, then we usually can. Because dreams are so cyclic, they follow an pattern of escalation where each moment is an escalation of the previous moment. Finally, we have resolution/distraction/transition. This happens when a dream event ends. It either ends through a natural resolution, such as defeating the giant, by distraction, such as randomly being told that your sister was in a car accident, or even by simple transition, such as transitioning from a dream of being chased to a violent dream when cornered. Interestingly, the lull right after a proper resolution opens the door for a distraction. I personally think the reason why distraction is so easy in dreams is because short term memory is king there. That is, it’s very difficult to remember very far back and we have difficulty planning for the future in dreams. Temporally speaking, we live very much in the moment while we dream. In any case, both resolution and distraction are transitions in their own right.

Simplified, we have Preparation, Escalation and Transition. Which gives us a nice and adorable acronym of PET.

Another feature of dreams lies not in this basic structure but in the structure of the themes themselves. Dream themes seem to be based on polar opposite roles such as hunter/prey, familiar/unfamiliar, known/unknown, aggressor/victim, restraint/freedom, and the list goes on. Often, these dualities exist in terms of the internal vs. the external. For instance, are you hunting or are you being hunted? Often I have found that the existence of the opposing figure relies on the existence of it’s opposite. That is, the hunter would not exist if it were not for the prey and vice versa.

This is interesting because it gives us ways to perform a theme shift. We simply use the transition phase to take on a role that we want to play. Otherwise, we may just abandon a certain role and find that our opposition disappears. The perfect example of this was  dream I had as a child. A monster was chasing me and continued to do so even after I flew away. It grew wings and just would not stop chasing me. Eventually I landed, it landed behind me. I turned to face it, I still remember it’s snarling mouth being full of needle-like teeth. I simply asked “why are you chasing me?” it replied “I don’t know” which I followed with “then leave me alone.” It promptly said “alright” and then flew away. By refusing to act like prey, I could no longer be treated as prey, I no longer fulfilled that role. The monster may have still been a hunter, but it could not hunt me because I was no longer prey. This allowed for a resolution and transition to another dream theme. This is why I call this sort of thing a Theme Shift.

In my previous post, I talked about finally being able to maintain a meditative state within a dream without waking up. However, I was only able to do it for a few minutes. I also proposed that I might be able to use my teleportation trick to meditate for longer. The trick to maintaining meditation in a dream is to engage your senses but quiet your mind. In this instance, the sensation of motion did an excellent job of keeping me asleep. In fact, I had no problems with staying asleep during this in-dream meditation which lasted for at least an hour. This is a HUGE improvement over my previous attempt which only lasted a few minutes before transitioning into another dream.

Let me outline the process a bit. To teleport or time travel in a dream the easiest way to do so is close your eyes, fall backwards and think of where/when you want to be. You should fall through the ground and perhaps even tumble a bit. When you feel the ground beneath you, you should be very close to where you wanted to be. This works for several reasons. First, you close your eyes and fall backwards because perception is everything in dreams so you have to cut off your perception of your current location/time and fall into an area that you weren’t perceiving before you did so (behind you). The perception of motion and the mental fixation on the location/time you wish to be tricks your brain into thinking that you’re moving there.

To meditate in this state all you’ve got to do is clear your mind instead of fixating it on a location/time. It helped me to maintain the lotus position once in free fall. Occasionally, I would come into contact with things that felt solid. All I had to do was maintain and I would sink into and through them as if I were doing the teleportation technique again. This is the cool thing. Unlike regular meditation, where I am clearing my mind but am still located at a specific place and time, this is not so with this technique. I just woke up from meditation which lasted a while (felt like at least an hour) that took place in no place in time or space while happening completely inside my own mind. I must say, it was quite the experience.

The reason why I think this worked so well is that the sensation of motion is very strong in dreams. Unlike my previous attempt, where I was engaging my sense of touch, feeling as if I were moving produced a drastically better result. One technique for staying asleep when you begin to realize you’re actually laying in bed is to spin around in a circle until you can’t feel the bed anymore. The disconnect between your in-dream sensation of motion and the reality of your stillness keeps you anchored in the dream world. This technique engages your sensation of motion far before you ever start to wake. As such, it holds you firmly in the dream world despite the fact that none of your other senses are being activated. You see nothing, hear nothing, smell nothing, taste nothing, there is no sensation of temperature difference, there is only the perception of falling and your perception of yourself. It’s like falling through an infinite abyss outside of time and space where only you and your mind resides. I must admit, this is the most epic meditation I’ve ever performed. In fact, I was able to meditate longer in this state than I have ever been able to meditate in the waking world.

When I felt I had meditated enough, I opened my eyes into an extremely vivid dream. The interesting thing was that I had drastically increased ability to control the dream. I played around mostly with telekinesis (my oldest and strongest dream ability) and managed to do things like pull the water out of a shirt without pulling the shirt. I was also able to bake bread in my hands by creating a high heat, but not a flame in my palms. Both instances illustrate a level of fine control which I’ve never before been able to accomplish.  On top of that, when I control my dreams it usually starts to wake me up. This was not the case this time. I had no problem staying asleep despite the increased control I had over the dream. The most interesting thing, however, had nothing to do with lucid dreaming. I witnessed a thunderstorm so vivid and brilliant that I had to just sit and watch it until it subsided. It was like dreaming in high-def. The clouds were heavy, dark and low. The rain poured down heavily on the streets and buildings around us. I could feel each individual drop as it struck my skin, trickling downward, merging with each other to form little rivulets before falling from me in streams to finish their journey to the ground. The lightening crashed above my head in bright flashes of white, blue and pink accompanied by booming thunder that I could feel resonate through my body. To be honest, I’m surprised that being drenched with water and startled by thunder didn’t wake me up. I am, however, glad I was able to stay asleep, the sight was just plain spectacular.

It seems as if the trick was actually a simple one. I needed to create a sort of “white noise” effect within the dream to keep my senses occupied and distracted from reality while not distracting my mind from the meditation. The solution I came up with is to meditate under running water. In the dream, since I didn’t feel like searching out a waterfall with an appropriately placed stone, I decided to try meditating in the shower. I sat facing away from the shower such that the water cascaded down my head and back. I payed particularly close attention to the fact that water was running over my closed eyes.

The results were pretty impressive. Instead of instantly waking as I normally do when attempting meditation, I managed to maintain what felt like 2-5 minutes before continuing the dream (falling out of lucidity momentarily). What happened was that my point of view shifted to third person and I became aware of a mirror in front of me. Through the mirror I could see into myself. As my focus shifted to the images in the mirror, I became less and less aware of the water flowing over my eyes and more and more entrenched in the new dream.

I consider this a massive success and intend to keep trying to increase the amount of time I can stay in this state. The way I see it, this is the single most difficult thing to do in a dream and even being able to maintain a few minutes of in-dream meditation is quite the accomplishment.

It actually felt as if the dream within the mirror was somehow different from a normal dream. Almost as if it were deeper. It certainly was full of much more symbolism than my normal dreams. In this new dream, I spent my time finding past selves, fighting them, overcoming them, consuming them and then accepting them as part of myself. It was particularly interesting because these past selves had many of the same abilities that I possess in my dreams, meaning we where very closely matched. This created some rather epic battles.

In any case, my hope is that should the same thing happen again, and my point of view shift to third person, that I will be able to settle it back down again. At the very least, the deeper-level dream should also be set into a meditative state. Now that I think about it, I may try to accomplish meditation while falling since I tend to fall through the ground, space and time when I use this strategy to teleport. I’m not sure but it sounds that much more epic to have a dream where I’m meditating outside of time and space.

**UPDATE: I’ve since learned how to sustain meditation long-term in a dream. Click here for details.

It seemed strange at the time that any living person would want to do this. However, upon further reflection, I’m fairly certain that should a zombie apocalypse occur, there would indeed be cults of undeath just as I’ve described. They might not last long, but I am certain that there would be those who would seek to spread undeath to as many people as possible in an attempt to realize the zombie apocalypse to its fullest potential. I would not such a person, but I assure you, I will keep their existence in mind should I ever be confronted by the walking dead.

I was at a part that was taking place in a large mansion. I noticed that a door seemed odd to me and realized that it could only be opened by a spirit. When I separated from my body to investigate further, I was aware of both my body and my spirit and could still control them both. This was apparently something that was out of the ordinary, but I didn’t think much of it because apparently I had trained to do so. In any case, I opened the door and immediately realized that if I closed the door, that my spirit would become trapped inside the room. I had my body hold the door open for me while I investigated.

Inside the room was an alter and various trinkets. There were also odd little spells scribbled onto strips of paper that lined the walls. It was obviously a room put together by the girl who lived there and it was designed to trap spirits so that she could use them as her play things. It was at that moment, that the door swung closed, flinging my body away from it. I knew I was trapped. I saw, however, a portion of the barrier preventing my escape was missing from a small area in the ceiling. I jumped up towards it, reaching through the ceiling to grab a cross beam to pull myself up.

The girl was apparently alerted whenever someone entered the room and immediately began pursuit. She realized that I had escaped, was astounded, and followed after me through the ceiling. I ran along various beams, trying to get away, but she was fairly quick. For some reason, I could see through the walls. I suppose the spirit senses are different from the senses of the body. I saw my father doing masonry in one of the rooms and decided to take refuge with him, perhaps she wouldn’t try to attack or detain me if there was a witness. I fell through the ceiling, landing next to my father. I became visible and immediately started helping him lay the masonry.

We were having a trivial conversation that I can’t remember when she fell through the ceiling and also became visible. I pointed her out to my father, saying “you see that gorgeous blonde girl over there? Well, she’s absolutely head over heals for me because I was able to break through some barriers of hers. The only problem is that she’s completely bat-shit crazy.” My father replied with “Nathaniel, you need to stay away from the crazy ones, but you are right, she is good looking.” She didn’t hear any of this. She then approached us and said “Hey, keep in mind that we’ve got that thing going on in thirty minuets, so you better get ready.” I winked at her and she strode off. I then followed after her.

She cornered me and attempted to do bind me with a spirit rope. The rope passed through me. I told her “There is nothing you can do to effect me in this form.” She seemed annoyed an interested at the same time. As we turned a corner, we were confronted by a large man, at least eight foot tall and built like a line backer. He wore a suit and looked very serious. It was her father. He looked down at us and realized that we were holding hands.

He saw me and my slight frame, decided that I was weak and asked his daughter while looking straight at me “Who is this weakling? Are you now taken to picking up strays?” I responded to him, “There is nothing you can do to affect me in this form, we’ll see who is weak.” This apparently enraged him, so he attempted to punch me. It was as if he were punching a force field around me. Green light rippled from were he struck the field. His spirit separated from his arm such that his spirit could not breach the shield and his arm only breached the shield a few inches before coming to a stop. He pulled back in shock, looking at me with contempt and disbelief.

I then noticed something out of the corner of my perception and rushed forward at him. With my left hand I seized what was flying straight at him, a flaming arrow made of shadow. All he saw was that I rushed him, and that my left hand appeared to burst into flames. He thought I was threatening him. He looked at me with contempt, and a hint of fear, then strode off quite angrily. He didn’t notice the arrow in my hand, or the note that was attached to it. As he walked off, I woke up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think this has potential to become a series of books/games/movies. Such abilities could produce some interesting dynamics as well as cool fight scenes. On another note, I’ll be looking out for cute blondes just in case. @.@

I just had an amazingly vivid and detailed dream. In the dream I went to some sort of gryphon tour. Monks in an old abbey nestled in a cliff that overlooked a lake raised gryphons. They would hold gryphon rides around the cliffs and a little ways over the lake for a few gold pieces. All proceeds went to the care of these amazing creatures and any excess went to maintaining the abbey.

When saddling up, I was told that my gryphon liked to fly high and fast and didn’t particularly like staying in the line. I was told that it was alright because he was the best flyer of the bunch and no harm would befall me. He needed a strong rider, however, to keep him from wandering. We where also told that the lake was full of magical creatures and that it was also part of a vast strip of troll warring ground. If we where to see a troll, we should alert the entire group so that we could return to the safety of the abbey quickly.

I remember flying next to the cliff face with craggy rocks below and a large shallow lake to my right. As promised my mount preferred to soar higher than the rest, who maintained a set distance from the surface of the water for safety reasons. I decided to enjoy it. It really was a spectacular experience.

My gryphon soared higher, riding an updraft, but we fell back from the rest of the group. The riders that where behind me passed below and began to fill the gap in the line that my absence created. After climbing some distance into the air, my mount decided to dive. We didn’t go straight down, but at a steep angle back towards the group whose heads we would then fly over at more than twice their speed.

I glimpsed something out of the corner of my eye towards the center of the lake. Amongst some trees that grew in a particularly shallow area of the lake was a white flash of light, as if someone had pointed a mirror towards me. I decided to investigate.

I turned the reins and my mount and I began to approach the trees. We had to fly very low in order to get under the sparse canopy of these trees. As we rounded the largest of these trees I saw something amazing, a unicorn! It looked me directly in the eyes but as we rounded the tree and a trunk blocked it from view, it seemed to vanish. All this time my attention was to right, not in front of me. As a turned forward again I saw a low hanging branch and immediately ducked.

I remember this so vividly, I could feel the feathers of the gryphon pressing against my face, the smell of dust, straw… and a bit of manure that such stable animals tend to smell of. My mount dove and turned slightly to dodge the branch. We had to go so low that the gryphons legs and portions of its right wing went under the water. I even remember feeling the water splash over my right shoulder and the cold created by the wind that was passing through my clothing as we flew higher once again, returning to the group.

A few of my fellow riders had apparently thought it seemed like a good idea to ride out above the lake as I had. Two women glided over the surface of the lake laughing as they coaxed their mounts into skimming the surface with their feet. I was flying over to join them as I passed what looked to be a small grey moss covered boulder to my left. However, I realized that it was no boulder the moment it began to move, raising from the water to reveal a massive 50ft tall troll. It saw the two women, bellowed a deep and angry cry and bounded straight for them with a large wooden club, which it had obviously dredged from the bottom of the lake, brandished wildly above its head.

I snapped the reigns and my mount dove quickly by the trolls head, whipping around its face. This diverted the troll’s attention to me and the women where free to fly back towards the abbey screaming to alert the others. They didn’t really need any warning, however, as the troll was more than big enough for everyone to see.

The massive beast took a wild swing at me, which only glanced my right shoulder. The force behind it was still amazingly powerful and a large splinter of the club had broken off and pierced the skin, embedding in my shoulder parallel to the surface. The troll thought he had done me in and was now off again after the women and the rest of the group. I folded my right arm into my lap and took on steering with my left hand as blood trickled down my elbow. I directed my mount to once again dive at the head of the troll.

This time we immediately rose high into the air after the dive. The troll crouched down into the water to about shoulder level and then jumped high into the air, flailing this massive tree trunk like it was a twig and we where mere flies. This time he missed and we continued the strategy. We would fly down by his head and immediately soar upwards. The troll couldn’t jump up fast or high enough to catch us and he was sufficiently distracted to allow the rest of the group to fly to safety.

We continued this process several times until the troll apparently came down upon some submerged trees. One pierced his foot and calf which immediately stained the water black with his blood as he fell into the lake. He did not resurface while I watched and I supposed that he swam away towards the shore. I didn’t much care, now that my adrenaline was waning, I could feel my arm throbbing with pain and my eyes becoming blurry from the loss of blood which had now stained the gryphons feathers crimson in a trail from its wing down its right flank.

As I approached the abbey, everyone was cheering until they saw my ashen face and the trail of blood on my mount. When we landed the gryphon lie down and thrust his wings out to allow me to dismount easily. I still found it difficult to remove myself from the saddle because I was quite week. From there I stumbled through the abbey, seeing all the horrified faces was worse than the injury itself.

I finally collapsed on a wooden bench when a fat friar approached me. He took my wet jacket and folded back my clothes to reveal the wound on my shoulder. The piece of wood from the trolls club had completely submerged into the skin, leaving a long bulge along my shoulder at least two inches wide and four inches long. A few splinters remained lodged in my clothing and I remember smelling them to see what they where.

I recognized the odor at once as Yliewh-Yliewh, or BaneShot (of course that’s something the dream just made up). This particular tree, when submerged in a swampy environment harbors moss and algae growth that somehow petrifies the tree, hardening it. It also imparts powerful antiseptic qualities into the wood. Actually, it just about killed everything, including people in large doses. In small doses, however, the toxins worked quite well at fighting infection. The trolls often used these petrified trees as weapons due to their amazing strength, not realizing that they could heal as well as harm. Generally speaking, if you could survive the toxic effects of the stuff, you could survive the injury.

I asked the friar to fetch me some clean linen, some gray moss, boiled water and two bottles of brandy. Luckily, they where about to make some soup and a large pot of boiling water was brought out to me quickly, as where the linen and brandy. They sent a young monk down to the cliffs to gather some moss which hung thick from the trees that grew along the cliff side paths.

I took several large gulps of the brandy. I could feel it stinging my throat as it warmed by cold body. I ripped my right sleeve completely off, then wrapped it around my shoulder above the wound, pulling it tight with my teeth. The friar looked at me in horror, I knew he thought I was as good as dead. I remember him saying “the swamp water has gotten into the wound, you’ve lost too much blood, and the fever is already setting in. Whatever you’re planning will just hasten your end.” I yelled at him to leave me and not disturb me unless it was to give me the moss.

I awkwardly poured the steaming hot water over my shoulder, which quickly washed away the blood and muck from the area. I then took several more gulps of the brandy before pouring it over my shoulder which burned much worse than the stinging in my throat.

I then loosened my belt and wrapped that around my shoulder as well, right over the torn sleeve. This would make a tourniquet that I would tighten with my teeth. The leather belt in my mouth also served a dual purpose, I would have something to clench my teeth on for the next part. I pulled a dagger from my boot, dunked it in the hot water then took several more gulps of brandy before pouring the spirit over it as well. I then took the belt in my mouth, pulled it tight and after a few sharp breaths I made a clean cut just above the entry wound and at least twice as big. I then took the blade and inserted it into this wound to push the splinter deeper, then prying it so that the tip would now come out of the incision I had made. With the butt of the dagger, I pushed the top of the splinter until I had enough to grab with my hand. I then slowly pulled it from my shoulder, my teeth straining under the force of my bite. I could feel every last bit of it, as I often do in my dreams. Even as I write this, my arm still aches.

Just then the young monk arrived with the moss, saw all the blood that was now quite profuse and immediately passed out. I gathered up the moss, placed it over my shoulder, and then wrapped the whole thing up tightly with the linen. I also used some of the linen as a sling to keep my arm in place. The Baneshot fragments that where surely still in my arm would hopefully help stave off any infection from inside and the moss should help prevent infection from the outside. I then took the splinter that I had just removed from my arm, rinsed it in the hot water and cut a small piece of it off to crush into powder against the stone floor. I mixed the powder with the remaining brandy, swirled it around and drank the rest. The remaining unopened bottle I would save for later. I then propped myself up against a wall, closed my eyes and immediately fell unconscious. When I opened my eyes, I was awake in my own bed, my arm aching from such a realistic and vivid dream.

A few things fascinate me about this dream.

1. I was able to ride a gryphon, that was pretty cool.
2. I saw a unicorn!
3. I fought a troll.
4. I was actually able to think clearly enough in the dream to at least seem to know what I was doing when tending to the wound.
5. I was able to stay asleep through being splashed with water, attacked by a troll, and the pain of cutting a large chunk of wood out of my shoulder.
6. I can’t believe that I was able to deal with all of that blood. I’m hemophobic (afraid of blood) in waking life and normally wake up from dreams of blood because it manages to access a deep and primal part of my brain that screams for action. Not this time.

All in all, a very cool dream, and an interesting story. It might make a good part of a larger novel… perhaps if the gryphon flight wasn’t for tourism… although I’m not sure what else it might be for.

As far back in the dream as I can remember, my wife and I were doing detective work somewhat like the TV show Psych. We where investigating something having to do with a movie and had been given free run of the set. So in order to get where we needed to go, we basically stole a car from the set, a big Hummer. I don’t think we where going anywhere in particular, just trying to find out what was down this one highway. While driving up the road we came up on odd cloth screens, suspended by thin metal frames, that blocked the road. However, you could drive straight through them because they where only connected to the metal frame at the top. I specifically remember them being red, but reflecting orange as they ruffled in the wind, almost as if they where made out of velvet.

Then from the other side of the highway, we saw one of those screens moving in our direction. It was connected to a small vehicle that had a camera on the other side, filming cars from straight ahead as they moved down the road. I said to my wife, who was driving “Crap! We’re running onto a closed set for a movie, in a stolen car! And it’s their car!” We also happened to pass several police officers who seemed to be talking about the movie. Luckily, they didn’t seem to notice that we where really out of place. I suppose a lot of strange things where happening in the town with the movie being shot there.

We passed through another one of those screens immediately turned off onto a side road and ditched the car. We began walking as casually as we could so as not to draw attention to ourselves or our stolen vehicle. As we walked we passed by several strange shops on our right. One of these shops happened to be a pet shop specializing in snakes, specifically pythons. Looking through the window, we could see large clear plastic tubs that contained bright green and yellow pythons that just sat there lazily, sometimes shifting positions slightly almost like a person who is asleep would shift to get more comfortable.

The next shop was a rattle snake shop. I remember having a discussion with my wife about the snakes. She didn’t like them and mentioned something about them laying eggs inside you like in the movie aliens. I plainly told her that they didn’t lay eggs in people and even if they did, the eggs don’t eat anything… but the snakes might, once they hatch. We then went into the rattle snake shop, which I suppose was what we where looking for. It was rather dark and dusty inside with a concrete floor and wood paneled walls. Sunlight streamed through a few sparse windows showing the sheer amount of dust in the air.

Upon entering the store, we saw the store owner, a plainly dressed guy with dirty blonde mullet, sat on an old wooden chair, handling a very thin, but long, rattle snake (it was about as big around as a little finger, but about four feet long). To his right, was a dark green tub full of adult rattle snakes and in front of him was a tub which I knew contained baby rattle snakes. However, they looked like just the adult snake rattle and pure white. They just sat in the tub rattling occasionally and writing around like very large maggots.

I jokingly asked my wife if she where afraid of snakes, knowing full well that she was. In a somewhat defiant move, she grabbed the snake from the shop keeper. We where both very surprised by this, myself and the shopkeeper, and he was about to say a few words when the snake writhed around and leaped down to the ground, slithering away. The shop keep ran after it with a pole (the kind with the funny bent end for catching snakes) and a net. However, he only managed to chase it back to me. The snake ran around my leg and climbed up me. It went around my neck and then down inside the collar of my shirt. After running around my stomach area for a few seconds it turned back upward, opened its mouth to put its fangs against my throat right at my jugular (but it didn’t puncture the skin). The shopkeeper asked me if I had anything to eat. I asked why. He said that she could smell that I had low blood sugar and that she didn’t like it. If I didn’t eat something, she might bite me. None of us had anything, so the shop keeper had to slowly sneak up on the snake and snatch it away.

I then turned to leave but my wife pointed out that I had something on my face and neck. The snake had left venom on my face and neck like ink splotches from an exploded pen. In fact, they looked exactly like that, large black splats on my neck and a few streaks on the side of my face. The area where they touched my skin felt numb and tingly. My wife produced some napkins from her purse and handed them to me to wipe myself off. It was while I was wiping myself off that the snake leaped from the mans arms, turning into a cat before it landed. The cat had a medium length gray coat with brown diamond spots on it’s back and bright red eyes. The shopkeeper was a little afraid, because it was coming towards me again. Although, this time, it merely rubbed against my leg. The cat looked up at me and mewed, revealing two long and thin fangs amongst it’s regular cat teeth. The shopkeeper told us that the snake was magic. He wasn’t sure why she was able to transform or what she really was, but she did have those two forms and could change at will. I rubbed the cat’s head and scratched under it’s chin before we left the shop.

My wife wanted to go back to the car, but I reminded her that we couldn’t and that it was probably swarming with police officers by now. As we walked past the shopkeeper’s two cars that where parked out front a black sedan drove slowly down the road, rolled down its windows and a man with a machine gun began firing at us from the moving vehicle. I crouched down and immediately began to chant (as I often do in my dreams to stop an advancing threat), my right arm outstretched, my left arm around my wife, who I had forced to the ground. I now realized that the scene, which had been a desert scene before was now covered with snow. I only noticed this because the bullets kicked up snow in front and to the sides of us as I whispered to my wife “not a single bullet with touch you.”

I remember thinking that we where on the right track if someone was trying to kill us. The car began to drive away but as we stood up, unharmed they noticed and backed up to try again. The man with the machine gun produced a rocket launcher now. My wife was rather flustered and didn’t notice that they had come back with bigger weapons. She mumbled something like “you’re right, I wasn’t hit. How did you do that?” I really only had enough time to tell her to stay down as I began the chant again, in the same protective pose as earlier. The rocket was shot directly at my head and I swatted it away with my right hand, my left never leaving my wife. There was an explosion off in the distance behind me, but I didn’t turn around. I remember thinking “at least it was far enough away that it didn’t hit the shop”. My gaze was locked on the man with the weapons. He threw the launcher down and picked up another one.

This time, several men stepped out of the car, some with rocket launchers, some with machine guns, all aimed at us. They all began to fire their weapons at us, bullets and rockets coming at us faster than I could think. I dug deep to find the energy to pull this next stunt off. This part I saw from third person, as if I where watching a movie. all the rockets and bullets were diverted upwards, their paths curving as they neared what seemed like a protective shield around us. The men attacking us looked up in astonishment, seemingly bewildered by their new direction, some dropped their weapons. My right hand, this whole time was moving as if it was directing this flock of deadly projectiles. As they moved upwards, so did my hand extend towards the sky. Then, I moved my hand down sharply and their path curved to changed course again, this time coming straight down, right towards the bewildered attackers.

They didn’t have enough time to react, the projectiles hit their car and the surrounding area with lighting speed and explosive force. There was no trace of the men, just the charred wreckage of what used to be their car. The rest of the dream is really fuzzy. I remember talking with the snake hander again. He had been bitten by one of his snakes on the neck. His skin was flushed red from his head to about halfway down his chest and he couldn’t feel anything but the searing pain. But he assured us that he was immune to the venom because of the number of times he had been bitten and he would be alright. He was staying with my wife and I because he was sure those same men would go after him as well. It wasn’t long before I woke up.

The things that I thought where particularly interesting where as follows:

1. There was a lot of color in this dream. Apparently color dreams are rare and I never thought about it until recently, but I dream in full color all the time and can specifically remember the colors therein. I made a point of mentioning the various colors for this reason.
2. The transforming snake was really cool and an interesting idea.
3. The way I deflected all those deadly projectiles as if they where nothing was really cool. I would love to see something like that in a movie. All I knew was that they were going to kill me and my wife and I wasn’t going to allow that. I didn’t want to kill them either, but they didn’t seem like they where going to stop until either we where dead, or they were. Such cool abilities aren’t anything new to me, however, as I can do stuff like this all the time. Although, usually not as cool and cinematic. That was my “Knight in shining armor” complex showing through. I have control over my dreams, so of course I would control them such that my wife wasn’t harmed in them… and that means deflecting bullets, swatting away missiles and blowing up a car full full of mobsters.
4. The most surprising thing however was that my wife handled a snake! Never, in a million years would Mary EVER handle a snake like that, let alone a poisonous one!

I hope you enjoyed that, I know I sure did. I’ll try to at least post my dreams more often. Even if I can’t come up with substantial posts, I still have dreams almost every night. They’re usually fairly strange and at least entertaining.

The blade of Venom’s Bone:
The first dream I can remember where I pulled a sword from myself was one where I was running away from a giant spider, through some caves trying to save my brother. I lost my brother but I got out of the caves where I met some strange guy who specialized in demon weaponry. He showed me a fang a demon spider and said it had great power. I held it and swished it around in the air a bit but I accidentally pricked my leg with it. I pulled up my pant leg to see the damage. It was a tiny purple spot; I knew I had been poisoned. I have magickal powers in my dreams so I attempted to solve the problem. I put my right hand above the wound and began to focus energy at it. A light started in my palm and blood began to come to the surface of the wound. But then the wound began to grow and something started to come out of it. Slowly and quite painfully a gray sword was coming from my leg. It started at the tip of the blade and slowly worked its way out. The hilt was particularly painful but after that the rest was easy. It was a long sword made of something very similar to bone. It was grey and shiny, like slate, I knew it was made out of my own bone growth. It was both light and strong. I made a few cast iron blades materialize, I just grabbed them off my back. In my dreams all I have to do to make something is to concentrate on what I want to get, reach into a place beyond my vision and grab that object. I could use shadows or just move other objects out of the way but I prefer reaching behind my back for small items. I gathered these weapons and decided to find my brother. I remember a ghost town and I remember fighting a huge demon with my sword but that’s it. This particular blade had the ability to cause rampant demonic bone growth around the area of whatever it cuts (assuming that it’s an animal its cutting). Essentially if you cut someone with it, their bones would grow spikes that would shoot out from an area. The area affected was proportional to the depth of the cut. Of course, I was immune to it as where the spider demons from which the original fang came from.

Void Rapier:
The second dream that I remember pulling a sword from myself was one where a creature from the void attacked my family. At one point it sent a void tendril through my heart… intending to kill me. However, it did no such thing. After the tendril was removed I placed my hand over the wound and immediately pulled out a thin dark rapier. It was no thicker than a blade of straw but it managed to be able to cut through walls, pillars and pretty much everything it touched by absorbing all matter that it came into contact with. I forget the rest of the dream.

Cyber blade:
This particular weapon I pulled from my heart without being attacked first. It had the power to transform anyone it cut into a giant fighting robot… Voltron style.

The Genesis Blade:
In this dream I learned of an entire mythology that surrounds me. I don’t remember the actual dream… but I remember the mythology just fine. Apparently, the first true swordsman also created his own swords. As it is considered by the samurai, the soul of the swordsman is his sword. The first sword ever created was the genesis blade, which was also this man’s soul. After the swordsman’s death, the blade disappeared never to be recovered. When I was born, my soul was actually a reincarnation of that sword. In my head, between the two halves of my brain, lies a dormant version of the genesis blade. It grants me the ability to transform any injury into a blade. Also, my body acts as sheath to countless blades as well as to the genesis blade. Essentially, I am master of all bladed weapons and can control them at will. My soul is a sword, my body the sheath. When I use the abilities of the genesis blade to their fullest, the blade will grow and protrude from my forehead like a giant unicorn horn… with the hilt of the sword protruding out from the base of my skull like a rigid pony tail.

Bloodleter:
During the same dream where I learned the mythology of the blade, I was commissioned by a vampire to craft a blade specifically for him. I required that he give me a single fang. I simply took that fang, pressed it into my own neck and as before I placed my palm over the wound, pulling from it a dagger which I named the Bloodleter. This small dagger had a very organic and boney appearance with little skulls and bones and things around the hilt and guard. From tiny holes in the guard and blade flowed a trickle of blood. Essentially every time the blade drew blood it would create a magical connection that caused the victim to bleed from the blade. The victim would essentially be wounded for life and no matter how far they where from the blade, the blade would drip with their blood until their death. I scooped up a handful of sand, blew some fire into it and molded the resulting glass into a flask that acted as sheath for the blade. This caused the blade to slowly collect blood to help curb the vampire’s thirst.

Generic Energy Blades:
Here recently, I’ve been able to draw generic energy blades from myself. That is, the blades are made of pure energy and their color represents the element they are made from. The most common elements that I work with are those of the void (black) which absorb all energy and matter that it touches, the well (white) which is pure and massive amounts of energy which pretty much burns and obliterates everything it touches, and venom (green) which makes whatever it touches rot and disrupts it’s energy. All the generic energy blades look like a combination of fire and lightening in the shape of a sword. They grow when I focus more energy into them and they disappear if I let them go.

Those where the major blades that I’ve created. There have been others but they’re not much worth mentioning. If I have any more dreams of my pulling blades from my own body… trust me, they’ll make it in here. This is a particularly odd ability of mine… quite frankly, I’ve never heard of anyone else doing this in their dreams. I’ve also never seen a TV show or movie that featured such an odd ability. I might end up writing something about this… or perhaps adapting it to a game idea. In any case, I think that accurately covers everything I’ve got to say on the subject.

Type to you later,
~Nathaniel

The only prerequisite to being able to control your dreams is that you realize a few things:
1) that you realize that you are dreaming
2) that you realize that everything that occurs in this world occurs because your mind invents it
3) that you realize that you have control over this world because this world was built by your mind.

Essentially once you realize that its all in your head, you realize that you can do whatever you want. Often the only limitation is your ability to suspend your own mind’s concept of reality. For instance, we all know that walls are solid. If you run straight at a wall you brain will expect you to hit it and it will react on instinct. In the dream world, you must override that instinct in order to run through that wall.

For a relatively comprehensive list of my dream abilities, see this page. There are a ton of other abilities but that list can give you the basic idea of what can be accomplished through lucid dreaming. These abilities grow and change every day and quite often I acquire a completely new ability that is added to my repertoire. In the world of our minds, we can possess all the power of a god because we have completely control over that world. In other words, there is no limit to what you can do in your dreams once you learn to control them.

Tips for realizing you’re dreaming:
The first hurdle you’ll encounter in lucid dreaming is the ability to realize that you are dreaming.

Dream Recall: First, if you can’t remember a dream, you won’t be able to tell whether or not you where able to control it. Keeping a dream diary can be extremely useful for this. When you wake up, do not move a muscle. Find your last memory from the dream and ask yourself “how did I get to that point?” This will trigger you memory to sift through the dream backwards. Run through the story several times, seeing if you can remember anything more. Then get out out bed and write it down immediately! If, like many, you take a shower immediately after waking, this is also a good time to think over the dream before committing it to paper (or in my case, a blog). I certainly suggest using a blog as a dream diary, it’s just easier than writing it down… and you can share it with everyone, which is even cooler.

Common themes: Often there are common themes in dreams. For me, I am lost and confused in many of my dreams. When I become extremely lost or find myself overly confused I stop and think about it for a while. Often I can realize that I’m dreaming simply by this theme. Lately, death, fighting, and conflict have become common themes. Since these things do not occur very often, or to the extreme degree that they do in my dreams, I can often realize I’m dreaming when I begin to fight.

Recognizing oddities: In your dreams you may experience odd things such as meeting Jesus Christ, or being chased by zombie turtles. If you realize that you are trying to find a magic kumquat for your gorgon employer… you might be dreaming.

Reading: For most people it is extremely difficult to read in your dreams. A simple dream test is to attempt to read a book. If the words make no sense… or the sentences read something like “monster pink turgid monkey mass flared my inner most quantum pizza”… you might be dreaming. This particular trick doesn’t work on me however… because for some odd reason, I can read just fine in my dreams… or at least the dream does well enough to convince me that I can. This particular technique was actually used by Batman in eppisode 26 “Perchance to Dream” It works well for many people.

Associations: You can also make mental associations. For instance in Star Trek Voyager “Waking Moments” the character Chakotay uses lucid dreaming techniques to combat an alien that has invaded the dreams of the crew. He uses the image of Earth’s moon to allow him to realize he is dreaming. Essentially with this technique you simply choose a common object and produce an idiosyncrasy associated with it. Every time you see this object, you ask yourself “am I dreaming?” once it becomes habit, you will begin to do the same thing in your dreams. The only difference is that you will realize you are dreaming in those cases.

Another tip is to constantly remind yourself as you are falling asleep that you want to control your dream. Repeat in your mind “I am going to lucid dream tonight. I will control my dreams.” and just keep thinking this over and over again. You will fall asleep with it fresh in your mind and hopefully this will aid in your remembering to attempt controlling the dream.

A search on the net for “reality tests” will also reveal quite a few other techniques for realizing that you are dreaming.

Tips for controlling the dream:
It is important to note that it is very difficult to override your natural instincts. We are all hard wired to understand certain things about the world. Most surfaces are solid. You cannot walk through walls. Bugs are icky. Fire burns. etc… You must find ways around this in order to get what you want.

For example, I have found that I cannot make items appear from thin air. My mind cannot seem to convince itself that items can materialize from nothing. So in order to accomplish the same effect, I will reach beyond my field of vision (like behind me, behind an object, or into my pocket) and pull out the item that I’m looking for. In this instance it is important not to think “I want to get this object.” or even “I will get this object”. You must be certain that the item is already there and when you close your hand, that it will be grasping the specific object you’re looking for. Another good example is that I cannot walk through walls in my dreams. If I can see it, then I know I can run into it. So if I walk backwards towards the wall, while concentrating on passing through it, I can do just that. When I want to teleport from one location to another or one time to another, I simply close my eyes, concentrate on where I want to be, and fall backwards… through the ground. I usually land on the ground in the place I was thinking of.

The tip here is that your mind works on a few basic principles. The thing to remember is that ALL reality is filtered through your perception. When you dream, it is a world built by pure perception. You must find ways to alter your perception to achieve the desired results. For instance, If I look through a hole in a fence I can see to the other side. Once am can “perceive” the other side of the fence, I can shift my perception so that I am actually on the other side of the fence. This is why I must reach out of my “perception” to pull something into my line of sight. It’s all about shifting your perception.

It is often quite useful to use skills you’ve seen on television in order to accomplish your goals. When watching television/movies your mind temporarily suspends reality and you learn to accept the rules and laws of that universe. It is then easier to copy, for instance, the energy blast techniques from Dragon Ball Z than to invent your own moves. Some of my favorites are taken from wrestling and kong fu movies like Crouching Tiger Hidden Less is more, more or less:
When controlling your dreams it is important to realize that the more conscious you are of your state, the more awake you will become. If your consciousness becomes too strong you will not only be aware that you are dreaming, but that you are laying on a bed asleep. Dreams don’t “want” to be controlled. Your subconscious might even fight back against the control. there are two ways to combat this. The first is to stop controlling the dream and just let it go. This does tend to work, but isn’t entirely satisfying to the lucid dreamer. Whether you give complete control back to your subconscious or not, you should “loosen the reigns” a bit. Too much control isn’t going to get you a very creative or interesting dream. Ideally, you should play a balancing act between your conscious and subconscious minds to find the perfect harmony between the two. One method that works particularly well for me at keeping me asleep even though I’m controlling a dream is movement. Obviously, if I am starting to wake, I am becoming more aware of the fact that I’m laying still on a bed. However, if I can create a sensation of motion which is stronger than the sensation of just laying there (which isn’t hard) then often I can hold on to the dream state. The easiest way to accomplish this is to spin around in a circle. I do this by planting the heel of one foot on the ground and kicking my other foot as if I were riding a skateboard. I used to do this as a kid as you can attain fantastic speeds when combined with socks on linoleum. In any case, the spinning sensation will draw your attention away from reality and back into the dream, which is what you want. If you want to fully master your dreams, however, I suggest you master the art of stillness. If you can control your dreams to the point to where you can sit, perfectly still, with your eyes closed and not wake up (effectively meditating in your dream), then you’ve truly mastered lucid dreaming. Even I cannot do this for extended periods. Flying, healing wounds, walking through walls, shooting energy blasts, transforming into animals, it’s all kids stuff in comparison to sitting there doing nothing.

Why Control a dream?
1) To adjust the outcome (escape from the monster, date the hot chick, heal a wounded friend)
2) Explore your own mind. Your subconscious hides quite a bit in there, it’s fun to poke around.
3) Experience things you couldn’t in waking life (I personally have killed myself several different ways just to find out what death might be like… Groundhog’s Day Style).
4) Act out your fantasies. If you always wanted to go to some tropical island and have a romantic fling with a well tanned local… by all means, go for it.
5) Overcome phobias. Fight back against those giant spiders, torch some zombie clowns, etc…

That’s about all I’ve got for now. Hopefully, this is of at least some help to someone out there. I have spent quite a bit of time learning how to do this on my own only to find out that there are tons of resources online for lucid dreaming techniques and the like. If you like to dream, this is definitely something worth checking out. If you’ve got any comments or questions on this article or on lucid dreaming, feel free to comment on this post. If I don’t know the answer, I can find it out.

Thanks for reading,
Type to you later,
~Nathaniel