Meeting People in Lucid Dreams

One of my unspoken resolutions this year was to develop my lucid dreaming skills. I figured it was something I could do in my sleep. (Ba dum dum tissssh….)

I’d always had lucid dreams occasionally, using these opportunities to meditate or change the landscapes around me. After I attended the Awakening the Illuminated Heart workshop and learned that the teacher went for “extra classes” in dream time, I decided to also use my lucid dreams to find spiritual teachers and classes. It’s been successful in unexpected ways; part of this was learning to deliberately and consciously travel the astral plane during lucidity. The first time this happened last year, I walked through grey mists with complete faith in my spirit guides to bring me somewhere educational and safe, until I came upon a circle of people standing and listening to an elderly man in the middle of an urban area.

I had assumed the old man was the one I had to focus on, but I don’t remember anything about his lecture now, even though I was even handed a bunch of papers that included a self-evaluation and his syllabus. The written word in dreams is notoriously changeable. What was more interesting was that a fellow student in the dream started chatting me up, and I remember that conversation much better. He was more vibrant in energy and colour than the others there, and opened with a question that confounded me: “Did you dreamwalk here?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that before,” I replied, completely unfamiliar with the term. But I realised that I did walk to get to the place, through grey mists (a first for me, and something I Googled later to confirm as astral travel) and was consciously dreaming, so it felt right. He introduced himself and I was able to see the spelling of his name in my head. He was wonderfully friendly and helpful because he next proceeded to explain how our appearances in our dreams depended on our “residual self image”, a concept that had also been explained in the Matrix movie. He also seemed pretty sure that we knew each other online, but this was something I was unable to confirm in my waking efforts later, even though I searched for the name he’d given me (a very unusual one, and also the name of a letter in the Hebrew alphabet).

I’ve learned more about dreamwalking since this first experience, and found, during awake-time, people who are almost violently against dreamwalkers, as well as others who were trying to do this with friends they knew. Unfortunately for me, my friends were either not lucid dreamers, or opposed to dreamwalking, or in parts of the world that made our sleep hours incongruous.

Until my friend Bart from an online spiritual forum moved to Australia–and we were in the same time zone–hoorah! Very recently I extended the invitation to meet consciously in dreams, and he was open. I wasn’t going to lucid dream for a couple of weeks though, until this Friday night. It was an innocuous beginning: I dreamed I was sitting at a cafe chatting with an unfamiliar but friendly woman, and then I told her I was dreaming. “How interesting,” she says, and I have to admit that raised my eyebrow. (It is my working theory that there are dreams where you’re in your own head space, and others where you’re in the astral already interacting with autonomous beings who will do things you can’t expect. I’ve had other lucid dreams where the “extras” in the dream disappear, or are mute–which to me signals they were created by myself as set dressing. Having a natural conversation is one sign I may not be alone.) This lady was conveying to me some of the circumstances and challenges in her life, which I have to admit though I was getting the mental picture, I was also raring to have fun now that I was lucid. I told her again that I was lucid and had to go. “Okay,” she said, “That’s very cool and I hope I remember the same concept when I wake up.” Words to make me smile.

Leaving the table, I remembered the agenda I had set before sleep (Find Bart!) and willed myself Down Under or wherever his vicinity was, putting his name and his energy in the forefront of my mind. I expected instantaneous travel but it seemed not to happen this time–that’s OK, I admired the pretty landscape below me (of course I was flying), and marveled at the clarity and detail of the experience. I touched down near a group of people, none of whom looked familiar, so I asked for my friend by name, twice, in vain. I was somehow certain I was in the right place, so I asked a third time, and finally an old East Asian man asked me to follow him into a bedroom, and in there was a bunk bed. The room was supposed to hold two or three young women (the old man’s daughters?), one of whom was sitting on the top bunk, bored, while the other was hidden in the bottom bunk behind curtains. The old man was scandalised, poking into the curtained area with his walking cane. There was rustling and movement in the bunk, and the certainty and reaction of the old man told me everything: My friend was  in the curtained bunk with a girl, getting it on. I wasn’t in the mood to interrupt, and had to consider what I wanted to do next.

I didn’t doubt that my dream travel was real or that finding people in this realm was possible (as long as they’re sleeping/dreaming at the same time). While I was disappointed not to connect with my friend (who admittedly didn’t do as much conscious/lucid dreaming as I did), I had the idea to check with him later what he had dreamed. If he could recall that he’d been busy bonking an Asian girl, I probably had found him. 

Fast forward to later that same day, in my waking hours: I sent Bart a private message to ask what he’d been doing in his dreams. The very  upfront reply he gave me was that he’d been “having a go” (his words!) with a girl. Asian? I asked. Maybe, he said, some Asian features. He gave me all the details he could recall but was sketchy with the place. Still, the coincidences on his activity and his partner are a little uncanny and funny. (I got his permission to blog the experience!)

This latest experience has given me more confidence and experience on how on meeting people in dream space works. Books like Dream Yoga (which I’m still reading) mention it as a natural part of the journey to enlightenment–where dream meetings with spiritual teachers are just a practical way of receiving lessons regardless of location. I’m aiming to be able to lucid dream often enough that I can nicely divide my time between meeting teachers consistently, and meeting up with my friends–if they’re not busy! As a mum working at home, any social life beyond the everyday is a welcome experience!