THE DREAM-CONSCIOUS STATE: A PERSONAL JOURNAL OF INNER EXPLORATION
Bruce G. MarcotTHE EARLY PERIOD (1972-1985)
These journal notes build upon my previous notes on my lucid dreaming experiences and experiments. These "early period" notes were brief and hand-written. I had collected the most interesting of these previous journal notes and sent them to a lucid dream psychology researcher, who invited me to submit them as a paper for their journal. I wrote them up into a paper, which was published:
Shortly after the publication of this issue, I was contacted by a reporter from Time magazine who interviewed me on my seemingly rather unique experiences. He probed intently for some mystical explanation. I offered nothing of sensationalist interest, but the descriptions of my experiences. I don't know if he ever published his article. I never heard from him again. I probably flagrantly threw away my one golden opportunity to exaggerate and sensationalize my experiences, and become Crackpot of the Year in Time magazine.
My earlier journal notes covered the period of approximately 1972-1985. Prior to about 1982, I had no knowledge of the "correct" term "lucid dreaming" -- I called it the "dream-conscious state," which I actually think is more descriptive for some of the phenomena I have experienced (but not all; see below). I also had no knowledge that entire journals, institutions, and new age voodoo had grown up around the concept. So my work was done in isolation and blissful ignorance of adverse influence. I think this "isolation" was very good, from a scientific standpoint.
And what I discovered on my own was rather astounding.
During that early period, my experience with lucid dreaming and dream control included determining the best way to induce and maintain a lucid dream: intense meditation and concentration at sleep time; finding my hand in a dream; spinning and interlocking my fingers in a dream; concentrating on changing the dream image while dreaming, sometimes called "Stopping the World" by the popular author Castenada; and other similar methods.
I also carried out a number of experiments while in the lucid dreaming state, including:
- different means of inducing and maintaining the lucid state
- recalling the number pi to as many places as possible, having memorized it when awake to 21 significant figures (in my dream-conscious state, I could only recount it to about 12 places, and then began to wake up or drift into regular, unconscious sleep, as if the mental strain of "regular" memory or dianoetic concentration disturbed the delicate conscious-subconscious lucid state)
- forcing my dream environment to radically change to a different, desired scene (a test of my "personal power" of mental concentration and dream control; I greatly succeeded in this)
- forcing other people in my dream to change persons or fade out (who was it who said, no matter who you dream about, you're always dreaming about yourself? I did find I could cultivate, through practice, an ability to change "other people" in my dream to my will)
- forcing my body to change shape or to defy the laws of physics (usually by flying or by passing through solid objects such as walls)
- closing my eyes in a dream (the dream image going entire black while I was still in the dream-conscious state ... asleep, dreaming, completely conscious, and "seeing" or "sensing" absolutely nothing)
- meditating in a dream (closing eyes, counting breaths, focusing on my own breathing)
It was the last of these experiments -- meditation in a dream-conscious state -- that brought me into an entirely new level of awareness and being. What happened is that I was able to become at least partially aware of my physical body sleeping and in bed, as I dreamt in the lucid state. That is, I was asleep, dreaming, but mentally conscious and alert, aware that I was asleep and dreaming ... and then consciously aware of my body in bed, still while dreaming and asleep.
Eventually, over repeated trials, I was able to feel myself breathing, feel my body touching the bed, even feel my arms raise and lower. This was no mere "sleepwalking" type incident; I was conscious, alert, and lucid. These periods typically lasted only for short intervals before I lapsed back into unconsciousness. But for quite a time, I was able to concentrate on inducing them in a number of lucid dream events.
This state startled me. I didn't have any idea where it would lead, and didn't know if it was psychologically harmful. Think of it -- what is the difference between being awake, conscious, aware that you're conscious, aware of your body's position and movement ... and being asleep, conscious, aware that you're conscious, and aware of your body's position and movement?
Eventually, I began to wonder, when regularly awake, if I was really just in a dream-conscious state. But I realized that, when in a dream-conscious state, I always know I'm asleep and dreaming. Yet that doesn't necessarily mean that when I don't realize this, I'm not asleep and dreaming. In fact, isn't that the usual, unconscious, dream state!
The involution of it all, the self-referential and mutual conditioning of wakefulness, dream experience, lucid dream experience, and dream-self-awareness, began to get confused. Eventually, I abandoned this line of experimentation. (But I later took it up again, with even greater success and no fear as to effects, as my notes below will review.)
Other experiments I had carried out in this early period included doing self-harm in a lucid dream state, including the ultimate experience of suicide ... thus suggesting the title to my publication mentioned above. The answer to the question posed by the title -- Can You Kill Yourself While Lucid? -- seemed to be: no. I cannot kill myself while lucid. I hurled myself off cliffs, rammed my car headlong into a tree, and other dream-attempts, but each time the pace of the dream scene slowed or changed in spite of my dream "actions" so that I did not get "physically" injured in the dream. I speculated at the time that perhaps my subconscious was acting to prevent the dream-image from completing the grisly act.
Yet, previously, I have indeed experienced several non-lucid, regular dreams in which I had died; one in which I fell off a tall cliff and hit bottom with bones cracking and blood spurting, and me blacking out to death; and other dreams of me being shot by a shotgun, and feeling the bullets enter my flesh, cracking bones, and blood flowing until blackness and death, thinking that I'm dying, I'm dying, this is it. In each case I was met by blackness, not the bright white light reported by others. Even recently, I have had a number of intensely vivid, recurring dreams of being caught in tsunamis on the coast or in floods along inland rivers (see below for elaboration), and drowning, knowing I was dying, and blacking out, dead. None of these dreams was a particularly terrible nightmare, but rather interesting, even amazing experiences.
Eventually, during the early 1980's, my attention turned to worldly matters of completing a doctorate, beginning a committed relationship with my eventual wife, and continuing my career as a research wildlife ecologist, and I devoted far less energy to lucid dream experimentation. My lucid dreams decreased in frequency from perhaps several per week down to maybe one per few months, or fewer.
Until the next part of my story.
