OK, here's the deal.
(The taco recipe will be a disappointment, though. The entity work might be a disappointment, too.)
I started with the technique I used to use to have lucid dreams back when I was a teenager: (i) leave a piece of paper and a pen on my nightstand right before bed, (ii) tell myself "I'm going to have a lucid dream tonight," (iii) imagine myself having a lucid dream (essentially by picturing myself asleep in bed with a little thought bubble above my head showing me dreaming, and controlling my dream), and (iv) try to maintain a certain degree of awareness and control as I actually fall asleep (this is hard to describe, but comes with a little practice).
So later that night, in the middle of a pleasant dream involving Angelina Jolie, Britney Spears, and an airlock (go figure), I suddenly realize with a start that I'm fully conscious and aware. I think to myself "I'm lucid dreaming." I then look down at my hands (a traditional technique to confirm whether one is dreaming, although I've never used it before) and confirm "yep, I'm lucid dreaming."
I test to see if I'm likely to wake up. (Hard to say exactly how this works.) I confirm that I'm deep under and can do whatever I want without waking.
Suddenly and without warning, I feel intensely focused, aware, and blissful. I'm still asleep, but I feel as if two different non-material elements of my being (for lack of better terms, you could call them soul and astral body, although I have no idea if that's accurate or even meaningful) suddenly have come into harmony with each other, like two lenses of a telescope that suddenly came into focus. It's a fantastic sensation -- something I've only felt before when awake, under the influence of strong psychedelics or a profound mystical experience. For the moment, I'll call it a low-level samadhi (laja samadhi).
(This isn't something I've felt during lucid dreaming before, even though I used to do it almost daily for years.)
Then I remember -- I wanted to lucid dream so I could try some entity work.
I think, "I need someone here to talk to," and L., my lovely wife, appears. (No surprise that she's the first person I'd think of.) I ask her a few questions, and she gives the answers I'd pretty much expect her to give under the circumstances. In other words, it seems like talking to this dream entity is just another way of talking to myself.
Then, for some strange reason, she gives me a taco recipe. It doesn't actually come in words, but in images. Here it is:
For the best tacos, take cooked, spiced chicken, or better yet, pork. Cut into cubes, put in a hard taco shell, and add shredded lettuce, chopped tomato, and salsa.
That's not much of a recipe. (What's more, since L. is a spectacular cook, it doesn't seem like the sort of recipe she'd offer. Again, it looks like I'm just talking to myself.) But there you have it.
So I figure, maybe some god or other mystical entity might have something more profound to say. So I think of the archangel Raphael, and he's there before me. (Why Raphael? He's the first archangel evoked in the LBRP. Nothing more than that.) He's dressed in yellow, carrying a golden caudecus, and shining. He regards me with warmth and affection. But he doesn't say anything.
(To be fair, I didn't ask him anything.)
So I replace him with (in short order) Shiva, Chango, and the Green Lady from my Salvia experiences. None of them have anything to say either, and (with the exception of Shiva, who waves his arms sinuously) each makes much less of an impression than Raphael.
I prepare to wake up. And suddenly I'm flooded with that electric bliss again, even more profoundly than before. I feel as if my consciousness is full of light and spreading out throughout the entire universe . . .
And then I wake up.
Shortly thereafter I fall asleep again and have another brief spate of lucid dreaming and bliss. And wake up with a dog licking my ear.
* * *
So what can I learn from all of this?
Well, first of all, I got much more of a substantive response from speaking to my wife than from any of the supernatural entities I evoked. That's not surprising -- I have a strong emotional connection to my wife, but don't have any strong connection of any sort to any god or other spiritual entity. Of the supernatural entities, I'm most at home with Raphael (from the LBRP), and I had the most meaningful response from him.
Second, talking to the dream entities really just seemed to be talking to myself. That's different from my Salvia experience, where I really felt (rightly or wrongly) like I was in touch with a mind other than my conscious mind.
Third, the blissful feelings I had at the beginning and end of the lucid dream experience were much more important and profound than the entity work in the same dream. Perhaps I ought to focus on cultivating that sort of samadhi in lucid dreams in the future and see how much of it I can extend into the waking world.
So, overall, a good result for a first try, but much more work to do.
Of course, I have every night for the rest of my life to practice.
(But what was the deal with the tacos? And I can understand Angelina Jolie, but why Britney Spears?) |
