Cognitive Dreaming
By Libby
Inspired by my colleague at The Reaction, Carol Gee and her blog about dreaming, I've been working on my dream skills that I had put aside for many years. Or rather it was more my skills had vanished when I reached a point where they scared my psyche into retreat. I just wasn't able to do it anymore after a particularly cognitive dream. It's not a practice for the fainthearted. Controlling your dreams can be terrifying, or at least it has been so for me.
One of the first exercises in this practice is to conciously look at your hands in your dream. In other words to willfully recognize you are in a dream and deliberately make that conscious move. The first time I ever succeeded was in 1974, I think. I immediately went into a state where I felt like I was falling into an abyss. I woke myself up in a cold sweat and didn't try it again for a long time. Over the years, I've looked at my hands many times without those ill effects and for a while in the mid 90s became more proficient at remaining aware in my dream state. Eventually I scared myself silly again in a very vivid dream and found myself again unable to continue.
In any event, I've recently taken up the practice again and last night I successfully looked at my hands for a long time. They looked big and almost disembodied but they were clearly mine. I made a fist to sustain the image. When I opened it I found a flower in my hand. It looked a lot like this wild garlic. I tried to maintain the focus to do it again but I woke up instead.
I went right back to sleep, but I couldn't control the dream anymore. I spent the rest of the time dreaming mostly about politics. At one point, I had found a document of some sort that was going to destroy Karl Rove. I marched triumphantly into GOP headquarters, announcing I had the goods in my hand but when I went to show them, the document was gone. They ignored me. That part felt pretty much like my waking life.
Inspired by my colleague at The Reaction, Carol Gee and her blog about dreaming, I've been working on my dream skills that I had put aside for many years. Or rather it was more my skills had vanished when I reached a point where they scared my psyche into retreat. I just wasn't able to do it anymore after a particularly cognitive dream. It's not a practice for the fainthearted. Controlling your dreams can be terrifying, or at least it has been so for me.
One of the first exercises in this practice is to conciously look at your hands in your dream. In other words to willfully recognize you are in a dream and deliberately make that conscious move. The first time I ever succeeded was in 1974, I think. I immediately went into a state where I felt like I was falling into an abyss. I woke myself up in a cold sweat and didn't try it again for a long time. Over the years, I've looked at my hands many times without those ill effects and for a while in the mid 90s became more proficient at remaining aware in my dream state. Eventually I scared myself silly again in a very vivid dream and found myself again unable to continue.
In any event, I've recently taken up the practice again and last night I successfully looked at my hands for a long time. They looked big and almost disembodied but they were clearly mine. I made a fist to sustain the image. When I opened it I found a flower in my hand. It looked a lot like this wild garlic. I tried to maintain the focus to do it again but I woke up instead.
I went right back to sleep, but I couldn't control the dream anymore. I spent the rest of the time dreaming mostly about politics. At one point, I had found a document of some sort that was going to destroy Karl Rove. I marched triumphantly into GOP headquarters, announcing I had the goods in my hand but when I went to show them, the document was gone. They ignored me. That part felt pretty much like my waking life.
Labels: my life
posted by Libby Spencer at 2:53 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home