The Silver Cord

"Remember Him- before the silver cord is severed, Or the golden bowl is broken;
Before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
Or the wheel broken at the well."
-Ecclesiastes 12

So what really prompted me to start this blog and become serious about understanding and utilizing my dreams was what I think might have been my first out of body experience. This occurred about a month ago, completely out of the blue.

I became aware of my body while sleeping, and sort of knew that I was dreaming. It was like I was dreaming that I was sleeping and just lying there on the bed where I'd fallen asleep. Since I had been so stressed out lately, I decided that it would probably be a good idea to give myself some Reiki, so I sort of gave myself a little blast of energy, and at that I found myself floating maybe three feet above my body. Whereas before I was in a very dream-like state, this sent me into full-blown acuity, although this acuity didn't last long.

The reason that it made me suddenly so sharp and lucid is because, in all the years that I've been sleeping and dreaming, I've never once floated and flown in any of my dreams. Oddly enough, although I can't swim very well and could probably count the number of hours I've spent submerged in water, I regularly swim in my dreams. Flying or floating has been completely unheard of for me. And what was more, I was floating above my body. What a trip.

I then, of course, panicked, as is often the case with my lucid dreaming experiences. I spent what felt like the next hour tearing through my apartment in what felt like a big emotional blur of confusion. I remember my boyfriend being there and trying to calm me down. I'm not sure if I went back to dreaming or if that was my astral body moving around, but I think I went back to dreaming because I can't remember it as well as I feel I would have otherwise. When I woke up, I thought that the episode of me panicking throughout the apartment was completely real, and I felt confused and ashamed to have made such a scene. It felt kind of like a bad drug trip. When I woke my boyfriend up, he didn't know what I was talking about.

I wonder what the fuck happened. Either way, now I know that astral travel is possible for me, even if I was only able to do it briefly. I've also once again recognized that I seriously need to work on being less of a spaz.

Dream Journal - #1

Phase of Moon: Waxing Gibbous
Position of Moon: Pisces

"The way I see it, you should live every day like it's
your birthday." -Paris Hilton

Last night's dreams seemed pretty random and nonsensical...

I was borrowing Daniel's truck for some reason in the middle of the night, but knew that I had to get it back to him before the morning because he had an interview the next day. Unfortunately, it broke down in some dark alleyway. I got out of the truck and started searching the alleyways for something that I could use to fix it.

Instead of finding something to fix it with, I found Paris Hilton, who turned out to be very kind and sincerely charming. We really hit it off, and we took a series of photos with my camera phone. We parted ways when we realized that the police were looking for people to arrest in the alleys, and when I got back to the truck, it worked and I drove home.

I felt like I needed to relax when I got back, so I drew a bath (which wasn't my bath at all, but some other bath in a larger bathroom). Daniel woke up and came in, and I grabbed my phone from somewhere to show him my absurd pictures only to drop it in the tub. It was reminiscent of a time last year when I really dropped my phone in the toilet.

Ah, too many bad celebrity gossip programs on TV.

Pinch Me to Waking

"I must be dreaming or
We're onto something
I must be dreaming for
I don't fall in love lawlessly
I must be dreaming or
Pinch me to waking
So undeniably yours
As long as I'm losing it so completely"
-Frou Frou, "Must Be Dreaming"

One of my favorite songs, as well as one of my favorite music videos. I feel like it really captures the essence of a dream. Enjoy!

Ravage of the Incubi

"Unfortunately, the balance of nature decrees that a super- abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares." -Peter Ustinov

Sleep paralysis is:

"A frightening form of paralysis that occurs when a person
suddenly finds himself or herself unable to move for a few minutes, most often upon falling asleep or waking up. Sleep paralysis is due to an ill-timed disconnection between the brain and the body."

A couple of years ago, I began experiencing the always unpleasant and often frightening effects of sleep paralysis. The first time it happened, I didn't have an inkling of what I was experiencing. I laid down to take a nap and when I drifted off to sleep, my dream came in the form of a long string of rapid-fire images, each of which only lasted a brief moment. The images were all of people, places, and things that were presumably from this world, and I believed them to be from the past, present, and future. It was as though someone was quickly flipping through an infinity of satellite television stations. There were sounds that accompanied each picture too, but each was so brief that they blended in with one another and an overwhelming static that made it sound like I was trying to tune into a radio station where I could barely get any reception. One of the images that especially stood out in my mind was the Statue of Liberty, which was missing its nose much in the same way as the Egyptian sphinx.

The strangest thing of all about this experience was the sensation that accompanied it. I was aware of my body, and knew myself to be either sleeping or in some other altered state of consciousness, but I was absolutely unable to move. I then turned 110% of my willpower toward trying to make myself move, which resulted in what felt like every inch of my body being able to move about a millimeter, but very, very quickly, back and forth. I couldn't seem to move my body beyond that limit, yet it was doing everything it could to cause as much movement despite that. It basically felt as if I was shaking from head to toe, and when I woke up I was convinced that I had had a seizure while I was asleep. Although I'm not very interested in science fiction at all and never have dreams within that genre, it really did feel as though I was receiving some sort of digital signal from some alien life form. It was bizarre. After researching the phenomena later on, it was easy for me to understand why many people who experience sleep paralysis believe themselves to have been abducted by aliens.

I did not have sleep paralysis again for a few months afterwards, until I had a couple of distressing interactions with a disturbed individual who I suspect might have been possessed (yeah, I know it sounds crazy). Soon afterwards, I began experiencing sleep paralysis fairly regularly, where I would become aware of a dark figure above me that I believed to be feeding off of my energy. This would often occur after waking myself up out of nightmares only to discover that the nightmare wasn't over yet. I would technically be awake, but would fall into what is called hypnopompic hallucination.

A hypnopompic hallucination is:

"A vivid dreamlike hallucination that occurs as one is waking up. "

Basically, every time that I wake myself up from a nightmare, I get stuck for what feels like anywhere between two and three minutes of fear and panic. I'm not sure what is better, staying in the nightmare or experiencing the sleep paralysis.

After a couple of sessions with a Reiki master, I was no longer troubled by the incubus that was bothering me, but almost two years after I still experience sleep paralysis, but without the accompanying presence that is so common.

I'm posting this because I would really love to figure all this out, to understand scientifically, psychologically, and paranormally what is happening. I want to know if the explanations that come with each contradict each other, or if it's possible for them to coexist.

Diving In

"Reality can destroy the dream; why shouldn't the dream destroy reality?"

-George Edward Moore

While I've always been intrigued by the world of dreams, and even began my attempts at lucid dreaming a good decade ago, I'm a long way off from being an expert. In fact, my success with lucid dreaming has been fairly inconsistent, and my experiences come and go without much notice. My intention with starting this blog is to force myself to focus my energies, pay attention to my dreams, and acquire new techniques. If you've taken a look at any lucid dreaming tips, you probably know that starting a dream journal and familiarizing yourself with your dreamscapes is a great first step toward lucid dreaming. So I will use this as a dream journal, a log that charts my success with various techniques, and hopefully a place to provide resources, links, art, and videos that inspire the contemplation of dreams. On the flip side, I hope that other dreamers can use this blog as a tool to keep dreams fresh in their minds and to share their much-appreciated insights!