Lucid Dreaming: #8 (REM And The Void)
Day 87: sourdough rye, deep meditations and deeper, darker caves in the mind
Timing is everything right now. I have an experimental sourdough rye loaf in the oven and it’s just about ready. I’ll have to be right on the money if I don’t want it to overcook, which of course I don’t. All this begs the question: ‘why the hell did I begin to write this article right now?’ ‘Surely our chat could’ve waited just another few minutes?’
Well, it could’ve but then I’d be all wrapped up in being a baker and assessing how the loaf had turned out and putting things away, wiping surfaces down and washing up and setting the loaf to one side to cool, savouring the wonderful aroma of freshly baked sourdough rye…
…And we might never have got around to this little natter. And that would be unforgivable as it’d mean that these words never had the chance to fall out of my mind and across the interverse to your mind.
The timer says ‘17 seconds’. (Excellent track. If you don’t know it, check it out, (The Cure)). I’ll be back, to quote yet another overused quote.
…and here I am again. Interestingly, at least it’s interesting for me, none of those predicted activities took place aside from extracting the loaf from the oven, setting aside to cool and savouring the, it has to be said, fabulous aroma.
I wonder if that’s why I started this chat first? Perhaps I’ve unknowingly harnessed the Oviankina effect and commandeered my inbuilt hatred of unfinished tasks to force myself to return quickly to the keyboard and carry on talking with you, (at you?). I strongly suspect this is the case. What a fabulously clever unconscious mind I must have. Or luck. It could be luck.
I’m going to try out a new way of managing links today, which I kind of began yesterday, though yesterday was a half-and-half attempt. When I checked back over a handful of articles to see how many links were actually clicked, it was sadly very few indeed. I wonder if that might be because mid-sentence link clicking would interrupt the flow and by the time you’ve got as far as the end all thought of interesting links has passed into the realm of things in the past that never quite happened.
So today, and who knows, maybe on other days too, I’m going to add some links at the end for you to play with after we’ve finished out chat, (or you’ve listened to my monologue?, (or in reality, read to the end of this article)). I just went to the bottom to add one for the Oviankina effect but it took quite a while to do so any further ones are going to have to hang on until the editing phase, which, to be fair, is when I normally add links anyway.
Moving right along to today’s meditation. There has been some progress, on two fronts.
Firstly, all you Lucid Dreaming fans will be delighted to know that there was some further attempting attempted today and, I’m pretty sure, with some measure of improvement. The Jhana level 4 stage, ‘neither pleasure nor pain’, is pretty relaxing, very inward focussed and engenders an extremely calm mind. Exactly the mindset needed for Wake Induced Lucid Dreaming, which I’ve been trying on for size both because it sounds interesting but mainly because it’ll most likely be a brilliant meditation skill-enhancing exercise .
I had yet more of the ‘am I falling asleep and waking up because I’ve started to dream?’ and/or ‘am I upskilling from hypnogogic to REM, (more vivid dreamstate), and popping out of it when I notice that that’s what’s happening?’.
Given that this is now, I think, the third time I’ve been playing in the shallows of this particular pond, I’m beginning to favour the latter explanation. Whilst it does still feel like I’m falling asleep, the more I’m getting used to it, the more I suspect that what I’m recognising is the physical and mental sensations that happen when you begin to fall asleep. Hopefully, as I get more used to it, I’ll be able to hold onto the sleep/dream effects without popping out of them so quickly. Hopefully.
There were a couple of points today where I was sure that I was experiencing some sleep paralysis sensations. You know, that bit where you can’t move because if you could, you’d act out all your dreams. (It’s often the cause behind being in a nightmare that you know is a nightmare but you can’t move to get away from the scary whatever it is. You become aware of the effect of sleep paralysis because you’re trying to wake yourself up from the dream by moving, but you can’t move because you’re not yet awake. A viscous sleep cycle indeed. (Do you say ‘vicious cycle’ or ‘vicious circle’? I usually do the circle version but for some reason ‘cycle’ seemed to fit better).
Aside from all the maybes and what ifs, I was hanging around in this sleep-not-sleep space for longer than usual and so was well entrenched in this mindstate when I decided to jump up to level 5, the first of the non body centred levels. It was much easier to do this today. I suspect because practicing the lucid dreaming deepened my mindstate in the previous level.
Which brings us nicely to the second bit of potential progress.
I did manage to get to something which I believe might be ‘The Void’. It was akin to being in a very large, but not infinitely large, utterly dark cave. No light at all. Pitch black. But not frighteningly so. It was surprising that it wasn’t. It felt very odd and unusual but was more of a warm hug than a scary unknown.
As I was hanging around there, I was certain that I should be feeling cold and damp and scared. Except I wasn’t. It was pleasant and warm and, whilst not welcoming, certainly no sense of not belonging or being rejected.
I’d thought I was calm and peaceful and very relaxed when I was sitting in the level 6 bit immediately beforehand. Highly unexpectedly, this was a significant drop into yet deeper levels of calm and quiet and stillness and peace.
Deeply relaxed. Yet wide awake at the same time.
I am intending to head back there soon.
On top of all that, I was able, for the second time, to walk my way back up, (or is it down?), through the stages I’d passed through to arrive there. I skipped the lucid dreaming side show and only spent around a minute in each layer, (that’s a guess, by the way, because time wasn’t, well, time).
And as if by magic, (Mr Ben reference for those in the know), the Pomodoro timer has timed its timing timer to let me know it’s time.
Do check out those links, won’t you?
Useful stuff to read
Oviankina Effect: My Favourite Task Management Mind Hack - The Pomodoro
Lucid Dreaming: a page with all the articles about Lucid Dreaming to read at your leisure
The Void: The Tastiest Peach That Ever Existed - Or A Reality Boosting Meditation?
Photo by Michael Behrens