“To die, to sleep – to sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come…” – William Shakespeare, Hamlet
In the quote above Shakespeare may have been referring to Hamlet’s contemplation of suicide, I look into it further than that. Death is often referred to as the big sleep, a dirt nap, including witticisms such as “there’ll be plenty of time for sleep when you’re dead,” and we put our pets to sleep when suffering outweighs the quality of life.
“Sleep, those little slices of death – how I loathe them.”
Nightmare on Elm Street 3 (misquote of Edgar Allan Poe)
Why would we ever compare sleep and dreams to death and afterlife? I am of the belief that this waking life is the real dream. What we see, feel, experience in the dreamscape is actually closer to what is truly beyond. Beyond life, beyond death. The dreamscape gives us a window into the true nature of our core essence. This is why dream recall and becoming lucid is important to our personal growth, and its the reason for doing any dreamwork in the first place.
Dreamwork begins in waking life, or the collective consciousness, or the 3D co-reality we have all agreed upon existing. By this I mean things that we do in waking life are reflected in the dreamscape. What we make habit here often becomes habit there. However, not everything from the waking world runs the same as it does in the dreamscape. You can use these differences between realms to trigger lucid dreaming.
I will list behaviours that have successfully worked for me as triggers to lucid dreaming.
“Am I dreaming?”
Check the time. Look at clocks throughout your day. Most of us already do this, especially when we’re dying to get home from work, but we are not checking the time in a conscious effort. In my last Dreamwork post I stated that intention is the most important thing with dreamwork. Rotary clocks work best, but I have successfully used digital clocks too. Look at the time with intention. Mentally ask yourself if you’re dreaming. Look away from clock, back to the task you were doing, then look back to the clock. Mentally reflect on whether it’s the same time. Has only a minute or two passed, or has the clock jumped an hour ahead, three hours behind, again ask yourself, “am I dreaming?” Time is not linear in dreams, sometimes hands may disappear from a rotary clock, or digital clocks will have a messed up display.
Most times asking yourself if you are dreaming will not spawn anything spectacular, but what it does do is create the habit and intention for lucid dreaming.
Try reading or writing. A lot of us spend a fair amount of time reading and writing. Whether it be on or offline, great works of fiction, or just piles of work orders. We all do just as much writing, or typing. Whether it be filling out forms at work, or writing letters to a friend, or typing opinionated posts on social media, it’s what we do, and it’s a huge form of communication. It only takes once or twice a day to ask yourself while reading/writing, “am I dreaming?” Try to do this at a different time from when you checked the clock. Then think about the words you’ve just read, or wrote. Do they make sense? Are they solid and unchanging? Or is it a new sentence? Did you forget what you just read or wrote? If possible take what you just read and put it in your pocket, desk drawer, or cover it, then look again. Did the sentence change? Are you dreaming?
“If I was a mirror I’d find another mirror, and look each other dead in the eye – crystal clear!”
– ICP
Look in the mirror. Mirrors do not have the same logic in dreams that they do in waking life. In the waking world mirrors reflect back exactly what’s around them. In the dreamscape mirrors sometimes do not reflect back anything at all. Think of Alice Through the Looking Glass, the mirror can appear as a doorway or portal in a dream. Look in the mirror with conscious intention of “am I dreaming?” Notice whether you look as you do in waking life. Are you older? Younger? Do you appear to be a different gender? Is your features staying the same or is your facial features changing right before your eyes? Again, do this check at a different time from the clock, and the reading/writing.
These are just three things to do during your day that will eventually become part of your dream world. If you have not lucid dreamt before becoming aware in a dream may cause you to wake up immediately. This is normal and will eventually stop, it will become less jarring the more you become conscious in your dreamscape.
I am interested to hear your experiences with these techniques and what worked or didn’t work for you. Happy dreaming!
Brightest Blessings,
Phoenix Rose
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