A Fine Line

Last night I had my first semi-lucid dream since having a real interest in the whole experience. Here's what happened:

I dreamt that I was at home (my parents' house). I was sitting downstairs at their desk and feeling overwhelmed with things I had to do related to work and just life in general. I felt really yucky and just thought, why am I here doing this work? I don't want to be in Minnesota anymore. I already spent two weeks here for Christmas and though I loved it, I missed Tom a lot during those two weeks and I wanted to get back to Carolina.

The thought of Tom spurred another thought in me - wait, I was just with Tom last night. We were at John and Deb's house with the whole church. There's no way I could be in Minnesota! Even though, sitting there at that desk, I felt as real as anyone could possibly feel, I realized me being in Minnesota was a dream. I had to get myself out of it. I couldn't figure out how to pinch myself, so I started rubbing my temples in my dream in order to wake myself up. It didn't take long until I actually did awake in my bedroom in Raleigh, my body tingling.

Crazy!!

Now the next step will be to actually stay in the dream when I realize it's happening. That's the fun part. :)

What's interesting about the whole being at my parents' desk thing is that, when I was home last month... do you ever do this? .... I just sat there and stared around the room and out the windows, trying to memorize everything I could see. Location often feels like an illusion to me. I can just as easily close my eyes and be at home, as actually being there. I think this breakthrough happened because I broke the connection with absolute reality that night, if that makes sense. Lucid dreamers call this practice doing a reality check. By questioning what's real and what's not, you allow your conscious and subconscious mind to interact more playfully.

In a way, experimenting with dreams seems dangerous, but I don't exactly see how. I'm not a "life is but a dream" type person (I was raised Catholic and appreciate incarnation and the eucharist as much as anyone - the physical realm is precious), but in a way, life is a dream.... heaven is our real home, and infinitely more real than the days we spend walking on this spinning sphere. Not that our lives aren't real - they are. They're just not very real relative to our TRUE lives, if that makes sense? I know my real life is hidden in Christ. It's a mystery I love to think about. Somewhere in the half-awake stages of life (especially morning and nighttime), I catch a very tangible glimpse of Reality... God. You know what one of the coolest things is about God? He is eternal. In the context of what I've experienced in this dream, that means he is Real. I can't snap in and out of Him like time, or consciousness. He extends forever in every direction. He has dimensions I know nothing of. He is eternal! Thank God something on this earth (and in heaven) is real.