Late one summer morning several years ago, I was lying quietly in bed, reviewing the dream I had just awakened from.

A vivid image of a road appeared, and by focusing my attention on it, I was able to enter the scene. At this point, I was no longer able to feel my body, from which I concluded I was, in fact, asleep. I found myself driving in my sportscar down the dream road, perfectly aware that I was dreaming. I was delighted by the vibrantly beautiful scenery my lucid dream was presenting.

After driving a short distance further, I was confronted by a very attractive, I may say a dream of a hitchhiker beside me on the road ahead. I need hardly say that I felt strongly inclined to stop and pick her up. But I said to myself, "I've had that dream before. How about something new?" So I passed her by, resolving to seek 'The Highest' instead.

As soon as I opened myself to guidance, my car took off into the air, flying rapidly upward, until it fell behind me like the first stage of a rocket. I continued to fly higher into the clouds, where I passed a cross on a steeple, a star of David, and other religious symbols. As I rose still higher, beyond the clouds, I entered a space that seemed a vast mystical realm: a vast emptiness that was yet full of love; an unbounded space that somehow felt like home.

My mood had lifted to corresponding heights, and I began to sing with ecstatic inspiration. The quality of my voice was truly amazing--it spanned the entire range from deepest bass to highest soprano--and I felt as if I was embracing the entire cosmos in the resonance of my voice. As I improvised a melody that seemed more sublime than any I had heard before, the meaning of the song revealed itself and I sang the words, 'I praise Thee, O Lord!'

Upon awakening from this remarkable lucid dream, I reflected that it had been one of the most satisfying experiences of my life. It felt as if it were of profound significance. However, I was unable to say in exactly what way it was profound, nor was I able to evaluate its significance.

LaBerge suggests that after some experience of 'wish-fulfilling' dreams, lucid dreamers may weary of dreaming the same dreams, and equally of being the same self, night after night. LaBerge writes,

It is at this point that the need for self-transcendence may arise. Such lucid dreamers no longer know what they want, only that it is not what they used to want. So they give up deciding what to do, and resign from deliberate dream control. Having recognised the limitations of goals determined by the ego, the lucid dreamer has surrendered control to something beyond what he or she knows him or herself to be.

SOURCE: Lucid Dreaming: the Paradox of Consciousness during Sleep by Celia Green & Charles McCreery, 1994, pp.49-50. Primary source: LaBerge's Lucid Dreaming, 1985, pp. 270-1 (dream) and 259 (comment). Original passages untitled.

EDITOR'S NOTE

Surrender control? That's been my instinctive position all along. Don't be bossy. Notice you're dreaming? Fine. Got a strong urge to explore something? Fine. But most of the time, let the dream explore you. You may find you're more than you think.

--Chris Wayan

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