Have you ever experienced a lucid dream?

Lucid dreaming is the state that occurs when one is asleep and dreaming but rather than simply watching the movie you become aware that you are asleep and dreaming. You remain in the sleep state, but are 'awake' in the dream. Once this shift is made dreams become a creative playground; even the worst nightmare can be transformed into something positively marvelous.

The first lucid dream I experienced came as the result of a nightmare. I was dreaming that I was at my old high school and was surrounded by zombies who were closing in for the kill. As I often do when I have a nightmare, I was about to wake myself up but just before reaching waking consciousness I suddenly realized, "This is just a dream!" Instead of escaping the nightmare, I dove into it completely aware and awake with the knowledge that I could take charge of the situation. I put a force field around myself that the zombies could not penetrate. But as soon as I did this I thought, "Wait! If this is a dream and I can do anything, why have zombies at all?" The zombies immediately disappeared. Once they were dispensed with I began other dream renovations. I changed the color of the sky and took to flight in my new violet heaven.

In short, the more I understood I was in a place where there literally are no boundaries, I exercised my unlimited power and creativity doing all I could for as long as I could stay asleep.

Our lives are very much like our dreams. We often muddle along in them unaware of the creative power that pulses through every corpuscle of our being. We are Dreamers unaware that we are asleep, oblivious to the dream. Oftentimes we are living out waking nightmares believing ourselves trapped by circumstance. We are unable to wake up and realize that as a part of God, we are limitless. We are often zombies ourselves--mindlessly going about our lives. Or worse, we are surrounded by zombies--people and situations which, lacking a life of their own, seek to feed on us and our energy.

Dreams are basically foreign language films from Symboland whose theme is the state of the psyche. They are like moonlight--they reflect the psyche but are not the psyche itself. Jung always reminds us that archetypes, while extremely meaningful and powerful, are nevertheless only fingers point at the moon--not the moon itself.

We can wake up in our lives just as we can in our dreams. We can realize that we are infinitely more than what we see reflected in our outer world. We can understand that our outer world is a representation of our inner self, not the other way around. When we realize this we 'wake up' more and more. We grow into our power and begin creating the dream rather than allowing the dream to create us.

As always, sleep well and dream out loud!

*~Aisling Ireland~* is an ordained Spiritual Counselor providing dream interpretation and Tarot readings. To make an appointment check out her website at:
web.mac.com/aisling.ireland

If you are new to lucid dreaming here are a couple of books to try. They are both by the same author.

The paperback is comprehensive, the hardback more of a summary of the info in the paperback, with a relaxation cd.