You adore the clear blue sky above you. You are lying down in a green inflatable boat that is floating on a stream of water moving uphill. How can water move uphill? How can you be so at peace? How can you feel so in control? You move upwards- through the twist and turns of a narrow, snake-like, path, with the oscillating waves that carry you on their back. The stream opens into a lake.
Sunlight pierces through your shut eyelids and forces you to open them. Towering caves surround the lake from three sides. You gaze at the dust glistening in a sunbeam as it gently reaches out to touch the lake. The lake is shining like a crystal with crystal-like fishes circling your boat. Your progressively widening smile is interrupted by the visual of a thick, slithering, body wrapped around itself in twirls. As you move your eyes upwards, you see the
curves of its body span out into a wing-like shape. The serpent's face forms a canopy over you, shielding you from the rays of the now-setting sun. He opens his face to reveal his fangs- dripping of blood and ready to impale you.
You wake up.
(Insert audible sigh)
Let’s rewind a bit and pretend that I didn’t just use the most basic plot twist rooted in our third-grade creative writing days or binge-watch all of the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies in three days.
A few years ago, I dreamt that I was floating on an inflatable boat upstream and ended up being attacked by a snake. When I woke up in the most horror-film-esque fashion, covered in sweat and panting, I was hit by an epiphany: I summoned the snake in my dream. At one point in my dream, when I questioned the peculiar happenings, I realized that I was in a
dream. I thought to myself, “What if there was a snake here?”
Bam!
Snake conjured!
When I was in a situation that I panicked in, I consciously chose to wake myself up. So, I did what any reasonable person would do in a confusing situation- used google. As my fingers frantically typed in what had just happened, I discovered the world of lucid dreaming.
Lucid (Adjective)- /’lu;sid/
Definition- expressed clearly; easy to understand. “A lucid account.”
Unlike most lucid dreamers, I never intended or learned how to lucid dream. I just happened to start having dreams that I could control by knowing that I was dreaming. I didn’t even know when to expect it. Some nights, I would just randomly get hit in my face by the realization that I was lucid dreaming within the dream.
Being someone who constantly romanticizes their life and attempts to find poetic and cinematic value everywhere, I naturally did what any writer would. I started finding poetry and art in my dreams. My subconscious would show me situations that I was dreaming in, I would experience it, build my own experiences since I could literally control it, wake up, and use it as inspiration. My brain-writer-director might even sprinkle in a poetic voiceover which I tend to claim as my own writing (it isn’t stealing if you steal it from yourself).
“Did you ever read about the Balinese way of dreaming? They got this whole system they call dream skills. So, you have a nightmare, for instance, like falling, right? Well, instead of screaming, and getting all nuts, you say okay, I am going to make up my mind, and fall into a magical world. Make it something special, like a poem or a song. They get all their art and literature from their dreams. Just wake up and write it down. Dream skills.”
-Glen Lantz from A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
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