Dreams – the mysterious nightly visions we all participate in every single night, that elude our memory as soon as we wake up to start our day. They evaporate as if they never even existed. If anything at all, we’re left with a vague feeling of the experience that most people can’t recall no matter how hard they try.
Dreams have been a fascination to many since ancient times. They represent a significant part of our lives – each one of us spends nearly one third of their time sleeping and while our bodies rest, a part of us wanders in endless worlds we call “dreams”, only to forget all about the experience upon awakening. I find it curious; we all have them and yet, we know so little about them. Not many pay attention to dreams. At best, some see them as symbols our souls use to communicate with us, interpreting them and using them for navigating through their lives. Others turn to them in search of creativity and inspiration, while most of the people simply disregard them as something “not real”. It’s probably those beliefs that pushed dreams out of our minds and into the fringe of perception. Regardless of what we know today about ourselves, the world surrounding us or the incredible scientific advancements humanity has made over the past two hundred years, science still can’t provide an answer to what they are and why we dream.
But what are they, really?
To look for answers one must keep an open mind and turn to other sources, such as myths and legends of native people. Among them there are those who believe that dreams are actually a gateway into other worlds, other levels of existence and perception.
I know this might sound a bit far-fetched at first, but think about it. Our bodies rest at night; we’re unconscious of our environment and yet, there is still a part of us that roams freely, experiencing all sorts of adventures at the same time. How is that possible? Who (or what) is it that experiences these adventures? To answer this question, we need to accept the possibility, that we’re actually more than just our physical bodies. We are consciousness, which uses our bodies as a vessel for experiencing everything in our physical reality. While we’re asleep, this consciousness transfers itself to a dormant part of us – our energy body which we use in order to explore these other realms of perception.
When we first start to experience these realms by remembering our dreams, writing them down and interpreting them, they seem chaotic – we find ourselves in different situations at different places and we usually have little to no control in terms of being able to (consciously) direct our dreams or influence them by our desires. But after strengthening our dreaming attention we become able to hold the dreams for longer periods and directing them at will.
This phenomenon is known as Lucid Dreaming. I’ve been researching this field for nearly a decade now and I am fairly convinced that Lucid Dreams can be considered as a step in the evolution of consciousness. It is one of the many ways (others being Out-of-Body Experiences, Astral Projections, shamanic dreaming and shamanic rituals such as drumming, chanting or the use of sacred plants, energy practices like Qigong or Tai Chi, meditation, yoga and many more) to explore what we call “the Human Experience”. Not one is better than the other; they are just different means of exploring ourselves and the nature of our reality. Although they appear completely different (in terms of descriptions and practical applications), they are basically used for the same purpose – exploring our true nature.
This website is my contribution to this fascinating subject – the research of consciousness through dreams. It is a magical journey and I have no idea where it would lead. But I guess it doesn’t really matter; as Carl Sandburg once said:
“I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.”
Welcome, Dream eXplorer!