Bit of a random factoid post here, probably more of a mnemonic,visual use to me than it will mean anything to you, however, It’s interesting of you are a dream geek. I’m striving for lucidity in dreams again. I’ve enjoyed a few lucid dreams over the years, as mentioned in the previous post, my twenties was a time when I put more conscious attention to the matter.

After many years and countless solitary sessions of searching for the answers to life’s mysteries, I have returned to where I began. Dreams. It simply boils down to the following personal philosophy:

We spend roughly a third of our total life spans asleep and dreaming. A third.

Even in its most common state, the nightly dream is a vibrant world of limitless possibilities and personal symbology. Without  emphasis on the esoteric, it is a realm in which the living can commune with the dead, where alien life can be encountered, where one engages with archetypes, where other worlds or dimensions exist etc. Everyone experiences these things yet we do so passively, as a kind of automatic witness to frequent oddness, where the absolute strangeness is processed after the event with a shrug and a forgetting before the continuation of the day cycle.

I once read a philosophical point of view that happened to mention that the truth of who and what we are is something we will spend our lives looking for answers to and that the collective illusion is that we seek these things externally, with little consideration to the notion that these things lie within.

As I mentioned in my last entry, my first ever lucid dream had such a powerful influence upon me, I have not been able to shake off the afterglow of it even though it was nearly sixteen years ago. The problem I had after it occurred, was being able to make it happen again at will. I wasn’t self disciplined enough to stick with the assorted daily practices to help make it happen again and on the few occasions when it would, I found that I lost lucidity very quickly to become frustratingly passive in my perception of events. I stopped reality checking, I eventually stopped trying altogether. Lucid dreams pretty much concluded and now I think I was foolish to let go of them, especially with my ongoing life long fascination with dreaming.

It just seems absurd to be a passenger of dreams when you could be the driver, because if the experience is so immersive, if you wish to visit the stars, you can, if you wish to talk face to face with Buddha, you can, if you wish to talk to a long lost loved one, such as a grand parent, it is all possible and seemingly equally as real as reality presents itself. To be lucid is to be engaged in a highly unusual paradox, you are both awake and asleep. I’m absolutely intrigued by the potential for exploration and the possibilities that may accompany it. I’m seeing lucidity as a gateway to a much more profound and greater universe, without the need to ingest an external substance to have the experience.

This entry is pre-lucid, that is to say, I’m working on creating the right conditions again to invoke the state of consciousness where I realise that I am experiencing the dream. This entry contains some personal reoccurring symbols that generally seem to be significant in my subconscious based upon their frequency. Some are reasonably regular, others are a little more obscure, but they all share the common ground of being constant symbols over the course of my dreaming years. I guess as I’m doing this, I’ll flesh the images out with a little exposition.

I have lost count of the many times that an Eagle Transporter has appeared in some form during my dream sleep. It was the first space craft I ever fell in love with, even as a child I had a great appreciation of the finer points of its design. I pestered my parents for the die-cast Dinky toy version and became quite obsessed with it. Needless to say, I’m certain that  my subconscious attachment to the space craft has been the basis of its ability to turn up randomly during dreams. I mostly dream of seeing models of it, always an unexpected design variation that yields surprise and fascination. When I have looked online for a decent image of one, I have come to appreciate that my fixation isn’t necessarily unique, and that other people seem to share a love for it. Complicating matters somewhat, it would appear that the Eagle has been through many design modifications from fan designs and alternative types that were featured in the original 1970’s TV series. From a personal point of view, it stands that I really should ask myself whenever I see an Eagle Transporter “Am I dreaming?” or just give myself a good pinch. I see Eagles in my dreams at least three times a year.

R2-D2 is another reoccurring icon, although less frequent than the Eagle Transporter. Perhaps its presence in my dreams just stems from my childhood sci-fi roots as it was another object of my initial attachments during my formative years. (Thinking about it, it would probably explain why I’ve collected a few models and toys of it over the decades) R2-D2 is a slightly more stable dream object, it tends to remain relatively unmutated by my mind. Having said that, I once dreamt that I peered through a small aperture in some exotic hardware, when I clapped my eyes on the circuit board within, all the micro chips were miniature R2 units. Since the Star Wars prequels, my attachment to this little robot has waned a little, it appears in dreams once every couple of years.

Tornados are a strangely reoccurring dream phenomena. I say strangely as 1. I’ve never seen one in reality (footage doesn’t count) and 2. I don’t think they represent a weather phenomenon when they’re inside my head. I’ve had a few dreams where spiritually advanced beings have descended from the heavens using tornados as a kind of transportation. I can remember times when everyone has fled in terror, I’ve been tempted to run also but something has instinctively kept me waiting for the tornado to get closer. Each time something rather magical has happened as a result of keeping my nerve and waiting for it to arrive. Frequency of Tornado dreams: about twice a decade.

Returning to places like some kind of ghost haunting past abodes often features in my internal world architecture. One place that often springs up is one of my old flats from when I lived in Bristol, in a place called Ashley Road. The dreams are often quite unpleasant, I find myself moving back in, trying to establish a new residence. I often feel defeated by the very act of my being there again. They say that dreams of the house represent ‘self’, it seems to ring true. I see returning to Ashley road as a fear of moving backwards. In reality, times there were not particularly happy, I was still trying to find my path in life and the results were often mixed. I think it’s impossible for places to not leave their residue, good or bad, ingrained in one’s spirit.

I’d sometimes reflect upon the other characters who lived there and say to myself “We were all in the Ashley road of our lives” It was a place of transience, of self induced difficulties, of psychodrama. When we were ready, we all moved on while new people moved in to work their shit out.

Another former location of residence I periodically return to is my old bedsit at Wick Road in Bristol. Just mentioning it and bearing in mind the other previously mentioned abode make me realise that both places left quite a psychic fingerprint on my subconscious mind. I can attribute that the the extreme emotions I felt in both places. There were periods of happiness in both, there were also times of deep unhappiness and mental anguish. No surprise really that I return to them in some of my uncomfortable dreams. Historically, I lived in Wick Road, then moved on to Ashley Road, they occupy the same continuum of the period from 1994-2004 (which I generally cite as the most difficult era of my youth)

Returning to the Wick road flat tends to exhibit a very similar vibe to the Ashley Road dreams, that Is to say that, If if find myself back there, I always feel like I’ve taken some kind of evolutionary step backwards. The feeling is always one of defeat and the familiarity of the most miserable emotions I felt living in both. Now I’m bringing these icons into focus, I recognise that both places always present themselves in night time settings and they both share the same characteristics of having unexpected changes in their interior architectures. This may be due to the very nature of dreams, from the point of view of a person aiming for lucidity, if nothing else, the modified interiors should be seen as a massive indictor that a dream is occurring. I find myself back at Wick Road- at least once a year.

I can think of no other significant anchor point for comfort and security than my grandmother’s house back in my hometown. In terms of personal locations from my memories, it represents the place of consistency and stable continuity. I began my life there. Although my wonderful grandfather died in 1981, my grandmother remained living there until her own death in 1996. Throughout my life until that painful year, a visit to see her was always accompanied by a simple feeling of comfort and welcomeness. I find it no surprise at all that I still periodically find myself back there. Sadly since Nanny died, my dreams of being there have often been tainted in some way by the knowledge that she is no longer here. They aren’t nightmares as such…only the ones where I return to find the house empty, in decay or with someone else living there. At other times I return as If I have been a time traveller, I walk through the kitchen door to that old familiar feeling of comfort and peace, she is still there. I often find myself producing a camera and suddenly wanting to photograph everything I can as I can’t quite believe my luck for having the opportunity to be with her once again, my desire to photograph her environment is a need to have some physical record of how things were, solidifying visual keepsakes.When I think of achieving lucidity, a conscious, self aware return to this house is one of my primary objectives. These dreams occur on average twice a year.

OK, I could go on and I’m going to but It will be in a second entry. Part 2 will feature in the section ‘Level 2’ which requires a password. If you are interested in reading Level 2 entries, you’re going to need to make yourself known to me, either via Facebook or one of my other social media connections. Sorry, you are the faceless internet you are anyone combined with everyone. I don’t mind sharing some personal information but I like to know who I’m sharing it with.