The other day the topic of lucid dreaming came up in conversation. I said I had never been able to really control a dream. Every time I noticed the signs of the dream world, the spell was broken. Like seeing a magician’s true trick. If my conscious mind takes over the reverie, then the same laws of the conscious world apply; and the fantastic qualities of the dream start to disappear. I once held a brief interest in trying to learn to lucid dream after conversations triggered by the release of the movie Inception, which did not lead far. However, an emotionally deeper catalyst has rekindled my desire to plunge into psychological exploration, and discover the wonders of the dream realm.

I was 16 almost 17 when Inception was released, and dream manipulation was a popular topic while our young attention span lasted. In my sudden resolve to become a master at idea inception and dream infiltration, I learned that first step to controlling your dreams was to remember them. So I started a dream journal where I would write down what I remembered before my dream experience vanished like dew in the morning Sun.  As I did this dreams became clearer, especially in hindsight. The journal trained my mind, and I cannot remember a time before or since when I had such clear memories of my dreams, or so often. My dreams were weird and devoid of sense to me at the time. There was one marking event however, which challenged that notion. For many years we had pet fish at our house. We replaced them thoughtlessly as they died so that we could enjoy watching them swim round for 15 minutes every 3 months. One night, I dreamed that my entire extended family was gathered on some kind of pier, trying at first to kill each other with plastic utensils at dinner, then deciding to settle things with a humour contest instead. My little cousin wanted to see our fish, but they didn’t stay still and moved too quickly. Someone had the idea to freeze the water, so that they would be immobile, and then unfreeze it so the fish could go on with their lives after a brief cold induced coma. I told the dream figures it was a bad idea, but they didn’t listen to me. The water froze and thawed, the fish died, and I woke up. When I got up I saw my father cleaning out the fish tank, all our fish even the old tough ones had died during the night. I couldn’t explain that occurrence then, and I can’t explain it convincingly now either. It is an intriguing mystery to me.

For reasons I can’t remember, but that I will attribute to the return to school and the associated mental lethargy and increased tiredness, I stopped recording my dreams, and slowly I forgot them.  I even forgot that I once kept a dream journal. This fact only came back to my mind after this recent conversation about lucid dreaming. Not only could I not lucid dream, but I could not even remember any dreams I’d had in recent times. Strangely enough, a week or so after that talk, I dreamed. I dreamed, and I remembered vague small parts, at least I knew when I had dreamed at night. That doesn’t sound very impressive, but I had not happened to me in a long time. I did not document these new dreams, and now they have vanished from memory, but one detail survived.

That night, my parents were out and my grandmother who constantly worries called, as she does at least once a day, to talk to my mother. My grandmother lives far from town with her brother who needs a caretaker, and they are alone except for my mother’s help, and the occasional muscle and labour of my father and I. It has become a shameful habit of the men of the house to simply not answer if my mother isn’t home. That night she rang, and I did not answer. I hesitated as the rings echoed and died out, and felt a twinge of guilt afterwards. I knew she was worried for me, having recently lost my job and having little energy every time I saw her. My mother had warned me that she wanted to talk to me about it, and I did not want to deal with it.

The detail came from a morbid dream on that night which brought me back to that chair, ignoring the phone call, but then learning that she had passed away and that I had ignored my last chance to speak to her in favour of peace for whatever trivial thing I was doing on the computer. Troubled, I woke up next morning, and the thought did not leave my mind immediately like other dreams tend to do. She again called the next night. I was home alone again trying to enjoy the rare moment of tranquility, and I picked up. We talked longer and on a deeper level than usual. She told me she was worried and I told her not to be, that I was now heading in a more positive and assured direction than I had been up to this point. It was a nice chat, and at the end of it I told her I loved her. I cannot even remember the last time I said that to her, I must have been only a child. It felt good. I had told my whole immediate family the same thing after a similar hiatus at the end of the summer of my 18 years, which had been great and had spurred my personal growth. At that time I was high on life and wanted to continue bathing in the positivity and love, and remain at the same vibrational level. But school, work, and colder shorter days took their toll on me and I soon found myself slipping into the same familiar lethargic depressive negative state of mind. I became snappy and irritable again, and I gave my parents the same attitude they must have thought I broke free from after that nice summer. I did not, and do not, like it. I try to fight it but it is hard, as most humans know.

Anyways to tie it all back in together, that summer time love and positivity mentality, so fleeting during the school year, was jolted from inertia in part by that dream. This new wave of dreams in turn was prompted by the conversation I had with two classmates about lucid dreaming. As it happens, one of them thought I hated him, and I confess he often irritated me. We hung out as we killed time, and ended up going to smoke a bowl of weed. I violated my temporary weed hiatus in order to honour the ritual of the peace bowl, and we patched up our differences. This dream about my grandmother was birthed by conversation seated in reconciliation and in ending a small but negative aspect of my social life. It in turn spurred me on to patch things up with, at least slightly, with my grandmother.

Without going into details, my grandmother and I don’t hold the same values in more than one aspect. She is very religious and conservative whereas I believe in individual spirituality, but not strict religion or rules. This divides us, and limits conversation. Yet she is still my kin and was my caretaker for a fair amount of time in my life. We were close once, and now we are far. Experiencing her loss in dream reminded me of that fact, and overpowered the idea that we shared no common interests.

I feel silly to only be discovering now that dreams are fantastic things. They spring from our minds, and in some capacity reflect the state of affairs there. Dreams are caused by naturally produced Dimethyltriptamine  (DMT), which is used in concentrated form in shamanism and is responsible for psychedelic and spiritual experiences. Ayuhuasca is found in Amazonian tribes and its active ingredient is DMT. It is revered a teacher of mankind, and users report life-changing revelations. In some cases it will cure abusers from severe addictions, for example. Theoretically, the effects simulate intense dreams, while conscious, which help to contemplate the self. I have not yet had Ayuhuasca, but my personal small-scale reverie seems to indicate the same revelatory principle.

Now I know I want to remember my dreams. When I was documenting at 16, I was doing so to live in a fantasy world. I thought that if I controlled my dreams I could make beautiful women appear and skip along on clouds between bouts of flight, and just have fun being a 16-year-old god. Now I know, with a mind tempered by a bit more maturity (and hopefully more wisdom!) that dreams are a much more beautiful and intricate worlds than fantasylands. It would seem that dreams, like psychedelics, expose you to your inner self and the harmony, or lack thereof, between your head and your heart. I suppose this is why therapists take such an interests in dreams.

I realize now, for the first time in my life, the importance of dreams. The revelation may have been as simple as getting me to pronounce the hard to utter words “love you” but the event was significant to me, and I am sure it was significant to my grandmother. This realization is much deeper and more revealing to me than an idea produced by a Hollywood movie filled with drama and explosions, and a desire to be Leo DiCaprio.

Like so many things I took dreams for granted. My friends and I would crack jokes about the weirdness of the dream world when we visited it, but I tied little importance or even thought to it. I do not yet know if lucidity is something desirable in a realm that independently shows you what you need to see; however, I do believe only benefits can come from at least documenting my dreams to better to memorize them, to meditate on what they mean, and to evaluate my life accordingly. As I grow I realize the solemn beauty and dignity of more and more facets of life. Learning to treat various aspects of life with respect, solemnity, and arguably spirituality has been a both a pleasurable and enriching journey that I wish to continue. This seemingly insignificant dream has been the proverbial wake up call for another of these venerable aspects, and it marks the opening of a new dream journal that I have a feeling will not be so short lived.