Lucidity - The New Frontier

Tony Crisp

Sleep is a strange country. In it we lose sense of self in unconsciousness. Or dreams take us into realms of extraordinary experience in which we are still largely unaware. But throughout history there have been individuals who have described a different meeting with sleep. They wake up in what is usually a dark, unconscious world. Or in the midst of a dream they realise the situation and relate to the dream in a new and dynamic way.

This condition, usually called "lucid dreaming" holds in it enormous possibilities and advantages unavailable in normal sleep or dreaming. To understand these possibilities and something of what takes place in lucidity, it is helpful to realise that during sleep our sensory input is largely switched off, and while dreaming the voluntary muscles are paralysed.

Usually we enter this sightless, soundless, immobilised world of sleep unconsciously. But what would it be like to travel that deeply beyond sensory input, that deeply into the substrata of the mind and bodily functions with awareness? What would it be like to enter sleep with critical faculties, with active curiosity, and some ability to direct to what we found? What would it be like to carry the bright torch of personal awareness into the depths of the usually unconscious body and mind?

Here is a frontier a few people have crossed. Like the frontiers of sea and sky that past generations conquered, this frontier of the mind holds enormous treasures and benefits. However, unlike the frontiers presented by the exploration of the oceans and space, the crossing of this frontier is open to us all.

If we use the image of a large building to represent the mind and body, the upper levels above ground depict waking awareness and physical activity. But beneath ground level, in the place of sleep and the unconscious, there is far more space than above ground.

In these further spaces of the mind people have found access to the motivations, fears and responses that lie behind their waking success or failure. They have a gateway to the roots of creativity and innovation that can enrich their everyday life. The processes of our body, usually beyond control, can be influenced to improve health.

As one lucid dreamer described, "I literally woke up in sleep, and I could observe how my body was dealing with a chest infection, and how a rigid attitude I had was creating tension in my neck, and thus interfering with the healing process."

Another lucid dreamer said that this new state is like a wonderful play area, or a gymnasium for the mind and emotions. This enabled him to stretch or enlarge his abilities, his perspectives, in a way that was difficult in waking life.

In brief, some of the possibilities of lucidity are:

The ability to do the "housework" of your mind and emotions, cleaning up old conflicts, unhelpful responses and habits that generated in childhood.
The possibility of working with the processes of healing in the bodymind and thereby enhancing your health.
The unconscious has long been recognised as being a major resource used by great artists and musicians. So lucidity opens this treasure house of creativity.
The unconscious is the generator of helpful hunches, of intuition and wider perception. This is partly because it holds the whole library of our memories and experience. It also creates new patterns of connectivity between previously unconnected pieces of gathered information. So lucidity brings a new sense organ.
Quantum physics has begun to show that the roots of our being are not in the atom -- the material object that led to our view we are only a body that lives and dies. The new view suggests that the very foundation of our being lives beyond time and space. In fact many lucid dreamers appear to experience or explore this condition. This enables them to witness events away from their sleeping body. Out of body and near death experiences are part of lucidity
Real scientific research has helped to clarify how lucidity can be accessed. There are clear methods one can use to reach toward this personal experience of crossing a new frontier into an enlargement of our world and our abilities. This need not remain something only experienced in sleep.

See Lucid Dreams: Creativity: The Lucidity Institute: Near Death Experience.

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