Beyond Lucid Dreaming

Does space actually exist in your lucid dreams?

Many of you may find this question strange. Once lucid, you fly around cities, go through walls and explore the dreamscape. In fact, some lucid dreams involve almost constant exploring. Space certainly seems to exist, since you perceive yourself moving through it.

Yet as a lucid dreamer, you may notice that you could announce, “Let me see the Eifel Tower in Paris when I turn around!” And with a sense of positive expectation when you turn around, you now find yourself looking at the Eifel Tower.

What does that say about the ‘space’ behind you?

Or as a lucid dreamer, you may have ignored the dream figures and called out a request to the non-visible awareness behind the dream, “Show me something important for me to see!” Suddenly, the previous dreamscape vanishes, and you find yourself looking at an entirely new environment.

What does that say about the ‘space’ in front of you?

Or as an experienced lucid dreamer, you could stop in the lucid dream, cross your dream legs and begin to meditate. Doing so with eyes open, you notice that the visual space in front of you begins to get torn away like a ripped screen, and a brilliant light shoots through the ever-increasing rips and holes.

What does emptying your mind say about the nature of ‘space’?

Playing with time and space in lucid dreams, naturally leads to viewing time and space in the waking world as fundamentally nonessential or non-foundational. Space and time may exist as only convincing illusions that have no fundamental reality. The eighth century Buddhist dream yoga teacher and meditation master, Dawa Gyaltsen, expressed it thusly:

    Appearance/Vision is Mind

    Mind is Empty

    Emptiness is Clear Light

    Clear Light is Union

    Union is Great Bliss.

In lucid dreams, what actually exist?

Robert Waggoner wrote the acclaimed book, Lucid Dreaming – Gateway to the Inner Self (now in its tenth printing), and co-authored Lucid Dreaming Plain and Simple with Caroline McCready. A past President of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD), Waggoner serves at co-editor of the online magazine, The Lucid Dreaming Experience, (ISSN 2167-616X); the only ongoing publication devoted specifically to lucid dreaming. A lucid dreamer since 1975, he has logged more than 1,000 lucid dreams.

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