My Latest Lucid Dream was Last Week
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I looked over my square basket and realized I had forgotten to buy eggs, so I hurriedly walked back to the city market. The clouds were unusually red, but I paid it no mind. Sweats ran down my face but were left unattended. I was focused on the forgotten eggs. When I finally reached the egg store, I told the lady to give me a dozen. She nodded and ran to a room behind the counter. I waited... and waited… and waited until I had enough. My momma will be mad to see I haven’t cooked yet, I thought. I looked for my phone to check the time, but I couldn’t find it. I raised my head and searched for a clock on the wall and found one above the entrance door. To my surprise, I couldn’t read it! I recognized the numbers, but they were not in their proper order. Then the thought came to me with exciting energy – I was dreaming!
I put the basket down and headed to the exit. The streets were filled with people, and my skin felt sticky from all the sweat, so I decided I wanted to dream of a peaceful beach day in the summer. As I checked my surroundings, I found a big coconut tree. It is better to turn an item into a portal rather than change the whole setting in just a snap. The latter is incredibly tiresome.
A few steps before I reach the tree, I already decided that I’d find a door beneath it, and there it was! It led to a dark narrow road surrounded by big black rocks. Not long after, the reflection of the sun on the water could be seen shining through the exit. Before I stepped out into paradise, I took off my dress after imagining a yellow one-piece swimsuit underneath it. Magically, there it was, the cutest high-cut halter swimsuit I’ve ever seen both in my dreaming and waking life.
Photo by Alice AliNari from Pexels
After a short stay under the sun, I got more excited that I could turn myself into a mermaid! I went into the water, walked until the sea covered my chest, and told myself "I have a purple mermaid tail". The water glowed as light surrounded my legs. When the light was gone, I already had a purple tail gracefully moving in the sea. It had pearl ornaments on the waist and mesh-like fins of different shades of blue. I swam slowly at first, getting myself to breathe underwater. I did not want to overwhelm myself and wake up in the process. When I got the hang of it, I let the dream take me anywhere in the deep ocean. I wanted to be surprised.
I Started Lucid Dreaming When I was Seven
Lucid dreaming is the ability to dream while still being fully conscious. When you are aware you are in a dream, this gives you infinite opportunity to create, change,or control the dream.
My lucid dreaming started one scary night in my 7th year. For two consecutive nights, I had a recurring nightmare. The sky was pitch black, but it was just in time to go home from school. Doesn’t make sense right? I’d find myself walking with my head looking down at my black shoes and laced socks. Before my feet reach the tip of the school’s shadows under the moonlight, screams would be heard from behind and suddenly everyone was running away except me. I’d be frozen as I watched a black figure rise from the now-ruined school. The appearance of gigantic tentacles from the figure was my cue to escape the death spot, but it was always too late. A tentacle would swirl around my tiny body, and in an instant, I’d find myself awake, sweating, but relieved to know it was only a dream.
I could not take more of the scary place. I had to save myself or else I might die at a very young age due to the nightmare, I used to think. Because of my firm resolve to escape the monster in my dream, the next night I said to myself "Remember, it is only a dream". I closed my eyes and for I don’t know how long, I’m back to looking at the familiar black shoes and lace socks. The dream progressed in the usual order of events, but that changed when I broke free from being frozen. I did not run. Instead, I held my ground because I remembered that every element of that frightening place was just part of the dream.
Surprisingly, although I realized I was dreaming, I stayed asleep. Somehow, I knew my physical self was sleeping on my bed. I didn’t think long. I knew I wanted revenge!
I dropped my backpack, opened my hands, and concentrated on my palm. Fantasy movies were my favorite back then, so I was full of ideas as to how to defeat the tentacle monster. A fireball was my first choice. I could even make it bigger if I concentrate more. A bow popped into my hand and I thought I wanted to shoot icy arrows. Water blade? A swirl of a tornado on my command? I did everything I could think of. That night, I became a 7-year-old girl who can use the four elements. No, I became a girl who can lucid dream, although I didn’t know it was scientifically called that way.
I Had Sleep Paralysis for Five Consecutive Days
The initial years of my lucid dreaming were magical. Want to ask if I get to fly? Most of the time! Although the flying experience might be for another blog. Sleeping just became my favorite activity. I was always excited for the night to come because I’d have another adventure to go. It was like every day I get a present. I even loved my dream world more than my waking world. However, as I was growing older, lucid dreaming gradually became difficult. What I mean by difficult is that I still become aware that I am dreaming, but I cannot proceed to control my dreams. Instead, I get trapped in what they call sleep paralysis. It is like reality and dreams fight over my body. I'm not sleepy enough to dream and not awake enough to get up. When the fight gets a little longer, neither wins my consciousness. Instead, I am left in the middle where your every horrible imagination can happen.
My worst sleep paralyses happened every night for five days when I was in high school.
When I am sleep paralyzed, the setting in my dream is the same as the place where I am sleeping in real life. The only difference is that there are scary hallucinations added to my simulated world, and I could not move my body except my eyes.
On the first night, a black hairy figure appears behind my slightly open bedroom door. I was scared to close my eyes because every time I did, the figure came closer to me. On the second night, a demon covered in red and black fire destroyed the door and shouted "Worship me!" After those two, I was afraid to sleep alone even in broad daylight, so I slept in the living room to take a nap. Unfortunately, the sun did not save me from the horror of sleep paralysis. On that day, A short-haired woman in a dirty brown dress snuck into the living room to steal. She saw me and approached me with the creepiest smile. She whispered something I never understood and put a powdery substance in my ear as I was sleeping on my side. On the 4th night, my room had a big mirror opposite my bed, and there appeared a Centaur with enormous horns visible through a layer of smokey green light. He was waving his hand to say I should follow him through the mirror. For those four nights, I did not feel the urgency to do something about my sleep paralysis. I did not even tell my family about it. I was convinced I could manage...until the fifth night came. A ceramic doll sat in my closet. Contrary to most ceramic dolls I saw, this one was ugly; torn white clothes, cracked cheek, uneven eyes, and a missing shoe. She was holding a katana. The more I looked, the more I became aware that the katana is pointed at me. When I blinked, the doll vanished from the closet only to be found above my head shouting "I’m going to kill you!"
When I finally escaped from the clutch of that 5th sleep paralysis, my fear brought me to my knees. I was crying in my bed. I prayed deeply, asking the Lord for help and rebuking sleep paralysis. I clenched my fists and put them on my chest as I desperately asked for protection and forgiveness. After that prayer, the hallucinations during sleep paralysis stopped. Now I rarely experience sleep paralysis. When I do, there are no more hostile creatures, only the heavy sensation and discomfort of being unable to move.
Those are pieces of information about my lucid dreaming experience. Have you decided already which ones are true and which one is a lie? Let me reveal it then! The last two pieces of information are true. I lied at the first!
After the prayer I offered to stop the sleep paralysis from coming back, I think my ability to lucid dream went away with it. I had a lucid dream once again n my college days a few years ago, but that was it. No matter how many times I condition myself to remember I am only dreaming, it always slips my mind when I’m in the dream world.
I still do hope to lucid dream again, but if it was taken from me for a good reason, then I understand and I accept. Perhaps it was the only way to protect me from the unseen danger that is not native to our reality but only in another dimension.