lucid dreaming | RobertLovesPi.net

Last night I had a horrible sore throat and cough, and took medicine for that, in addition to my usual nighttime meds. I then went to sleep with music playing, as I often do: Murder By Death’s entire discography, on shuffle and repeat.

This turned out to be a potent combination. Being sick, heavy sleep wasn’t possible, but REM sleep was, and I dreamed I was at a fantastic Murder By Death concert. (There is no other kind.)

This is a band I’ve seen live five times in real life; we know each other, and we’ve drank together. MBD concerts are amazing, and this “dream concert” was no exception.

There were technical difficulties in this dream concert, though. Something went wrong with Adam Turla’s guitar in mid-concert — he’s the lead singer — and he asked the audience if anyone had a nail file, which, oddly, was the tool he needed to make a quick repair and keep playing.

Nobody had one. Many, but not all, of the audience began to leave. A few fans stayed, though, and I was one of them. The rest of the band kept playing, and Adam kept singing, while he, I, and the small number of fans left searched the entire concert venue for, of all things, a nail file.

Several songs later, I found one in a small toolbox, gave it to Adam, and then had lots of fun flying around above the stage while Adam fixed his guitar, the music continuing all the while. I then briefly woke up, still heard the music playing on my computer, and thought, “This is awesome!” — and promptly went back to sleep. However, I remembered I was dreaming, so I was, by definition, lucid dreaming, from that point forward. Best of all, the band played on.

Since I could fly, I flew out briefly to find the fans who were leaving, let them know the show was back on, and we all went quickly back inside. The last song played at the concert was the one in the video posted above, “I Came Around,” and so that’s the one I can remember best, now that I’m awake.

It was one of the best dreams I’ve ever had — but real-life Murder By Death concerts are even better. I’ll next see them live on September 24, when they play my hometown of Little Rock. When do they play your city? Just check http://www.murderbydeath.com/tour-dates/ to find out. It’s updated frequently.

Also, it never hurts to buy this band a round of drinks. They like whiskey.

Have you ever been dreaming, and actually knew you were dreaming? Did you get to have at least partial control over what happened in this dream? If so, that’s lucid dreaming. If you’ve done it before, you can easily train yourself to do it again. If you haven’t, this same exercise might let you experience lucid dreaming for the first time.

You will need a visible reminder, such as an unusual bracelet or ring. I usually, based on advice I read thirty-plus years ago, simply write a “c” on my hand, a reminder to Consciously Check to determine if I am Conscious. I can attest that written “c”s can work, but there’s no reason it can’t be something else.

Next step: as you go about your day, you will occasionally see your reminder. Each time you do, stop whatever you are doing, and carefully check for consciousness. Can you remember what you’ve been doing, in sequence, for the last 15 minutes? Does gravity work correctly? I prefer to perform this last check by simply jumping up into the air, at which point I either fall directly back down, quickly, to the amusement of those present, or I flutter slowly downward as a leaf, or I hover at the top of the jump, or just keep going up — and any of these unusual results indicate, to me, that I am dreaming. If, on the other hand, my body acts consistently with Newton’s Laws of Motion, that provides evidence supporting the idea that I am awake.

If you do these checks often enough, it will become a habit, to the point where you will do such checks in your sleep, while dreaming. Once you figure it out, while dreaming, that you are dreaming, then you’re there — you are dreaming lucidly. You can then join those of us who know what it feels like to fly under your own power, or anything else your mind can imagine.