Lucid Dreaming & Other Distortions Of Consciousness

The dream world is, in many ways, a symbolic representation of waking life. Just as how our interpretation of events is largely shaped by our emotions, moods, and memories, so too are our dreams. Becoming lucid and aware whilst dreaming, 'seeing the truth' as it were, is analogous to enlightenment. By studying the nature of our dreams, we learn about the nature of consciousness itself.

This talk will open the dream world up to you for exploration.

Transcript

Distortions by Zachary Phillips My mind creates this world.

How can you say that I'm not God?

Every character,

Every scene,

Every aspect.

All a variation of myself.

Created in my image,

Created in my mind.

Both with and without intention.

The universe forever expanding,

Inwardly as it does outwardly.

Distortions of reality,

More elegant than any alternate world.

Why should I leave?

Here I am something.

Simultaneously in,

At,

And above myself.

A beautiful story of consciousness,

Played in the theatre of dreams.

Time passes,

I open my eyes.

My focus wanes and I begin to forget.

Only the feelings remain.

Glorious certainty,

A guide to my higher self.

Fragments of my truth are written and told.

Just a mere representation,

A lie.

Imagination takes hold.

Corrupting,

Corroding,

Filling the gaps.

Stop.

Let me remember.

Let me feel again.

I want the unadulterated truth.

I want to be back there again.

Where I feel divine.

Where it feels right.

Where I don't feel like a character in someone else's dream.

I want to be present,

Both creating and existing simultaneously.

Doubts creep in.

It was just a beautiful distortion of reality.

A test of faith.

Nothing to see here.

Move along.

I'm awake.

It's gone.

I'm both blessed and cursed to have a vivid and active dream life.

When I fall asleep at night,

The visions and the scenes and the actions feel real.

They feel real no matter how fantastic or mundane the dream is.

I'm in the process of actively working on developing a dream.

I'm in the process of actively working on developing a lucid dream practice,

Consisting of recognising when I am dreaming,

And then taking an active part in manipulating the dream space.

And then taking an active part in controlling the events in the dream.

And then subsequently exploring my subconscious.

But because my mind has this capacity to simply believe what is shown in the dream,

Getting lucid is quite challenging.

But ultimately the practice is very rewarding.

So in this poem I'm sharing the experiences of waking from a beautiful dream.

From waking from a vision of heaven.

From a vision of elation.

The first line says,

My mind creates this world.

How can you say I'm not God?

I'm not saying God as in the Father figure God,

But God as in the creation of the realm that I'm a part of.

When you dream,

Your dreams are an expression of you're in a world.

So therefore I am both inside of myself looking at myself,

And then acting upon myself simultaneously.

Every character,

Every scene,

Every event,

It's all a variation of myself.

Created in my image.

Created in my mind.

So this internal universe,

The people inside,

The events,

It's all me.

And it's created by a part of me that I have no control over.

My consciousness is like a thin veneer over a vast expanse that I'm mostly unaware of,

That I can't comprehend even a tenth of its underlying workings.

And I have little control over.

Yet this vast,

Unknowable,

Uncontrollable expanse is also all me.

There's an analogy to waking life here.

Whenever you interact with someone,

Or see a piece of art,

Or an event happens,

Your interpretation of the event will be different to mine,

Which will be different to another onlooker's.

Because how we observe the world,

How we see the world,

How we see the world,

How we see the world,

How we see the world,

How we see the world,

How we observe the world,

How we see the world,

How we respond to the world,

Will be shaped or twisted and based on our inner realities.

A happy person,

A grieving person,

An angry person,

A tired person,

Will all look at the same situation or event and come to vastly different conclusions about what happened.

In a way,

In waking life,

We are all sort of creating reality as it's unfolding as well.

When we wake from a dream,

Very quickly the dream world starts to fade.

It's like the memories aren't solid.

They are not set.

They simply slip away.

Now there are certain actions that you can take to maintain the grasp of those dreams.

And the best one is just by tracking them,

Like with a dream journal or a voice recorder or some other way of noting down the contents of the dream for later recall.

This could be something as small as a colour or a mood or a word that represents the dream.

Even something like that can be enough of a memory trigger to reignite the dream into clarity.

And unless you take those actions,

Your waking brain,

Your logical brain,

Will start to fill up the gaps,

Start trying to put pieces together in a logical way.

But one of the reasons why dreams are so magical and mystical and awe-inspiring is because they operate outside of the laws of our universe.

They operate outside of the laws of logical rationality.

Cause and effect operate very differently in a dream.

So the waking consciousness has a way of taking hold and corrupting and corroding the dreams and filling the gaps and sort of putting events into logical order that would fit in this world,

In waking world.

And there is a bit of a disconnect there.

There's a bit of a corruption,

A taintedness that comes over the dream.

There is a distinct difference between living the dream and remembering it.

Once again,

There is an analogy here to waking life.

When you are in the moment,

When you are living an event,

Whether it's positive or negative,

Whether it's something expected or unexpected,

The actual living of the event feels distinctly different to your memory of the event.

How you remember the event in your mind is shaped and twisted by the impact of the event.

How you remember the event is twisted and tweaked and altered by your current moods,

Who you are and how you remember what happened and how you feel about what happened.

The memory is tweaked and changed and corrupted.

Gaps are filled.

There are plenty of stories of false memories and memory tests that show how we remember events of certain things happening and even of ourselves being present at events when we weren't.

Our memory can be twisted and corrupted and changed.

So once more,

There's a distinct difference between reliving an event in memory compared to being present to the event occurring,

Whether that's in the dream space or in waking reality.

So then we go back to the feeling,

Let me remember,

Let me feel again.

I want the unadulterated truth.

I want to be back where it feels divine,

Where it feels right,

Where I don't feel like a character in someone else's dream.

I want to be present,

Both creating and existing simultaneously.

The act of becoming lucid in a dream is itself awe-inspiring.

When you realise you're dreaming,

It's like the veil of Maya is lifted from your eyes and you just have this feeling of elation,

This feeling of inner joy,

This realisation,

This awakening sensation.

And that awakening sensation is itself awe-inspiring.

And that awakening sensation is itself extremely desirable and one that should be pursued,

Because it shows you that what you're seeing,

What you are right now believing,

May not necessarily be true.

There is an obvious analogy here once again to waking life,

With enlightenment or waking up or seeing truth or finding God or whatever it is that your particular religion or spirituality practice suggests is the highest attainment.

But it's basically just a realisation of what's happening now,

A present moment realisation.

The question becomes,

Dreaming is to lucid dreaming as waking life is to what?

Dreaming is to lucid dreaming as waking life is to what?

That what is the purpose of what we're here for.

It is the why we are meditating.

It's why we're contemplating.

It's to achieve that higher state.

I strongly feel that the realisation within the dream space will directly relate to realisation in waking life,

Because really,

It's the realisation of what's happening.

Because really,

Both waking and dream spaces are expressions of consciousness.

There is a further comparison between dream space and waking life.

In both states there is a duality between creation and existence occurring simultaneously.

In the moment,

In waking life,

The more present you are,

The more you are creating and existing simultaneously.

The same is true for the dream space.

The final part of this poem,

The final verse,

Is,

Doubt creeps in,

Just a beautiful distortion of reality,

A test of faith,

Nothing to see here,

Move along,

I'm awake,

It's gone.

In every tradition there is a talk of the sages that hold the perfect mental state.

You know,

Permanent enlightenment,

Total awareness,

Complete Buddha or Godhood.

I'm not here to debate the validity of those statements.

What I am suggesting though,

Is that those feelings of centeredness,

Of oneness,

Of awakeness,

Of enlightenment,

Can come and go.

Now there's this drive to push and to cling to these feelings.

And whilst that drive to push and cling is helpful,

Because it helps us to maintain our practice,

To meditate daily,

To try to lucid dream,

To do all the practices we're doing,

It can be a little bit toxic if the craving gets out of hand.

So even in the search for awakening,

We need to temper that we need to temper that and just be here.

But even if you're not feeling it right now,

Even if you've felt it and have come back from that space,

That's okay.

That's to be expected,

At least in the beginning.

You'll feel it and then it will fall away.

So just keep going,

Just keep practicing and it will come back if you let it.

Rather than pushing too hard,

Rather than being forceful about it,

Just sit back and let it come.

There's an analogy here to the dream space.

If you're forcing things,

If you're trying to push through,

Rather than accepting what's going on with the flow,

You're less likely to be successful.

You're less likely to get lucid.

So just step back,

Embrace what comes,

Accept what comes,

Accept what comes and keep your practice going.

Distortions.

My mind creates this world.

How can you say that I'm not God?

Every character,

Every scene,

Every aspect,

All a variation of myself.

Every character,

Every scene,

Every aspect,

All a variation of myself.

Created in my image,

Created in my mind,

Both with and without intention.

The universe forever expanding,

Inwardly as it does outwardly.

Distortions of reality,

More elegant than any alternative world.

Why should I leave?

Why should I leave?

Here I am something,

Simultaneously in,

At and above myself.

Simultaneously in,

At and above myself.

A beautiful story of consciousness,

Played in the theatre of dreams.

Time passes,

I open my eyes.

My focus wanes and I begin to forget.

Only the feelings remain.

Glorious certainty,

A guide to my higher self.

Only the feelings remain.

Glorious certainty,

A guide to my higher self.

Fragrance of my truth are written and told.

Just a mere representation,

A lie.

Imagination takes hold,

Corrupting,

Corroding,

Filling the gaps.

Stop.

Let me remember,

I want the unadulterated truth.

I want to be back there again,

Where I feel divine,

Where it feels right.

Where I don't feel like a character in someone else's dream.

I want to be present.

I want to be present,

Both creating and existing,

Simultaneously.

Doubt creeps in.

It was just a beautiful distortion of reality.

A test of faith.

Nothing to see here.

Move along.

I'm awake.

Reviews

WOOOW! Thank you so much for this talk, and congratulations on the poem! Recently, my dreams have been very vivid (not lucid, as you described your experience), and it started to happen to me that in some of them I find myself both doubting certain details AND going along with what's happening, repeatedly, back and forth... Your talk gives me food for thought, it helps put my experience in an intriguing context. Namaste and thanks again 🙏🏼

Hi Zachary, simply amazing to listen to your meditations! And this one I really like a lot … Thanks again, Joe

Mind blowing

Beautiful words and insight. Coming back to this often will be a lovely reminder of the journey we are all on, simultaneously yet individually.

I love how the poetry is woven in!