My Best Lucid Dreaming Experience - Meditation, Mountains and Martial Arts

I've been thinking about lucid dreams in particular recently, since I gave a friend a copy of my dream book and I saw an article about dream TV series Falling Water, which itself prompted me to think about my various dream fiction plans again.

Lying down for an afternoon nap, I decided that I would be having a lucid dream. I was fully expecting to have a lucid dream, without question. I focussed on it, like that was the point of sleeping, not tiredness, despite being exhausted since my morning routine starts at 5.30 am these days and I still describe myself as a night person. I didn't entertain the possibility of not lucid dreaming. I also decided that I would use the dream time to meditate, since I enjoy meditation but don't always make the time.

Entering Lucidity

I kind of slipped into lucidity while dreaming. It was a fragile sort of sleep. There were people around and noises. While dreaming I became aware of my body against the mattress and realised, very happily, that I must be dreaming, since I don't normally go through life feeling my body against the mattress. At that point, I tried to work out what I should do with my lucidity.

Preparation for Lucidity

As usual, any ideas went straight out of my head. I strongly suggest working on lucid dream plans ahead of time. Lucid experiences can be fleeting and sporadic, at least when it first starts happening, and so its wise to make the most of them by having a clear plan or purpose in place, whether that be exploring, flying, talking to dream characters or meditating.

Dream Meditation

After a few seconds - precious, precious 'lost' seconds - I remembered that I wanted to lucid dream in order to meditate and so I floated up into the air, to free myself of stimuii and inspire a sense of freedom. I stretched up into mountain pose, which is basically standing on tip-toe and stretching your arms up, but I suppose my version could have been described as floating mountain pose.

On reflection, maybe I should think more about postures before dreaming. And I'd like to buy that book on Tibetan dream yoga to see if it has any of the kind of physical yoga that I know in it.

Flying

After performing this yoga pose, I practiced my flying. I flew very high and was sometimes afraid. I jumped like a computer game character I made up for the MMRGP 'City of Heroes' I played years ago. My character's name was mannikin and he was a little shadowy man who could jump very high and then float and also fly.

I matched my flying to my breathing and gained more control of my speed and direction. I tried not to overthink it, however, as flying is normally easy, but it wasn't today.

Driving

Later, I drove for a while. This was more difficult than in waking life. I drove up out of my drive and then up a steep mountain road. Steering was very loose and I had to turn the wheel multiple times to affect the wheels much. I used my breathing to control the speed. I focussed on my breathing and my exhalations increased the speed of the car. I felt rewarded by a delirious feeling of speed and the sensation of wind against my face. It was my car, an old, white Peugeot 405 estate, but in the dream it had an open top. 

Dream Fu

I drove to the top of the mountain where there was a martial arts school in a massive clearing. The sky was almost clear. I practiced sparring with a master in dream kung fu. He was wearing a white gi. We fought with our bodies and our minds. After a few seconds, I was afraid, because he was experienced and powerful. Sometimes I flew backwards to get away from his attacks. Gaining courage, I ran into one of his running attacks and surprised him with a double handed blow, even though it didn't connect.

Later, realising that I could train with anything in my dream rather than a punch bag, I punched a large wooden chair with all my might as fast and as many times as I could. The chair splintered and flew apart in a hail of wooden shards, like I was doing some kind of beserker attack in a computer game.

Waking, or not

Several times during the dream, I realised that this dream was going on and on. It seemed to occurring in real-time, by which I mean, I was awake, aware of minutes passing, and yet I wasn't losing lucidity. I was expecting to lose clarity at any moment, because I was so aware of noises around me in waking life and occasional voices and even of being touched, but I was also still firmly and securely in the dream. It must have lasted at least half an hour.

​This was definitely my most immersive, strong lucid dream experience to date.