Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts
By Alyce Wilson
The great thing about lucid dreams is realizing you have the power to change things. Maybe that's what we're to learn from a lucid dream, how to take control of the things around us that we thought controlled us.
It's a great feeling, realizing the world around you is malleable and that you can make things happen as you desire them.
Last time this happened, which was recently, I was outside around some
trees. I decided to warp them into artistic shapes. It was a real rush,
to have the trees respond the way I wanted them to.
I wish I could come up with something more constructive to do during these lucid dreams. Every time I've had them, I've gotten distracted by playing around. For example, trying on different outfits in a mirror, or randomly changing the things around me. I've tried to program myself (while awake) that I should try to take a journey to a predetermined place and see if there is anything more useful that I can accomplish.
After you've had a lucid dream experience, you find yourself walking down the street by a row of trees and saying, "You know, I wonder if it works in the waking world, too?" Maybe we have far more control over our lives than we believe we do. That's an encouraging thought, especially when we feel buffeted by every worldwide wrong, seemingly out of our control. Maybe there are things that we can do.
There were times in my life when I felt as if I could make things happen just by thinking about them. Not in an immediate, direct way, nothing as clearly cause-and-effect as a lucid dream, but there have been times when I knew I was going to make something happen and no matter what got in my way, I was going to find a way around it and succeed.
Many cultures consider the waking world to be as illusory as the dream world. The world of illusions, a.k.a. Maya, a.k.a. The Floating World. There is at least one obvious analogy: we walk through our daily lives just accepting everything around us, taking no responsibility for it and not believing that there is anything we can do.
No matter how strange or disturbing the Floating World is, we have total faith in its inevitability. But perhaps, as in a lucid dream, all we've got to do is realize that it is an illusion, which we have the power to control. Then perhaps we can convert violence into peace, terror into love and suffering into healing.
It may not
be as much fun as twisting trees with a hand gesture, but if we make a
concerted effort to change the nature of this earth, it can become a peaceful
dream, indeed.
Moral:
If you want to get really deep, write at 4 a.m.
Copyright
2003 by Alyce Wilson
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