Transforming Fear through Dream Manipulation

Throughout this dream I demonstrate how, through lucid dreaming, one can overcome fears and nightmares.If you become aware of the fact that you are dreaming while you are dreaming, you should be able to recognize that there is absolutely nothing that can happen to you and therefore there is nothing to fear. Of course Fear will still attempt to arise, but with focused awareness you can recognize, embrace it, and in the process transform it. This is good training for our waking lives! I also show how dream images can be consciously created by your imagination from moment to moment, if your intention is strong enough. This too is training for manifesting what you want in your waking life.


The dream began in an outdoor classroom. In front of me was a large map of the world. I had blue paint and was supposed to highlight with the paint some of the major areas of the planet that have coral reefs. I dabbed the Caribbean, South Pacific, and Mediteranian. Barbara Vorrhies came over to ask me about my research question and said that she may be able to help me with my modeling. I started to explain to her that I was planning to study the social dynamics surrounding coral reef destruction.

I had to sit down because my body began to feel strange… as if I were starting to trip out on some strong drug. I think I became aware that I was dreaming at this point and decided to fly. I hovered up over the class for a moment before swooping down and picking up Kate Burrell under her arms. I flew with her to the ocean and dropped her in from a high height. I then swooped down into the water myself. Kate was climbing onto a catamaran that looked to be returning to port after some sort of Sunset Booze Cruise. I grabbed onto the back and rode it as though I was water skiing until it was pulled out of the water and onto a large boat dock. With that I got off and went into the bathroom. There was an old or overweight person in every stall… oh well… I guess that means no sexy bathroom dream sex for me. As I was leaving I glanced in the mirror. It took a moment for my reflection to catch up with my actual self. I then decided to push my hand through the mirror like Neo does in the Matrix. I did and... wow… the other side felt so powerful it was almost frightening. Consciously wanting to confront this fear I decided to just go ahead and stick my whole head into the mirror. I pushed through and felt some strong resistance. Energy was swirling about and through my head. I began to see things beyond the mirror…. A play or a television show…. Or I guess more accurately it was just random aspects of life. I began to foretell the things that I was about to see. I said to myself that I would see a bear on a unicycle with a star shaved into his ass fur. Sure enough, one went cycling by within 2 seconds. I knew everything I would be seeing before I saw it. Very cool. I kept watching and kept intuiting, until I came to the realization that everything I was watching fly by was being created moment by moment by my imagination. And so thus, how easy it was to think things into existence. I experimented with everything, and was able to repeatedly create the dream images that manifested in front of me in the instant before they arose. What fun this was. After a while I got tired of the same old random stuff. I had not yet experienced anything sinister or evil… no less than 3 seconds after having that thought, my eyes caught the eyes of a beheaded doll… the doll’s face reminded me of the evil sorcerer’s face in the book in the old school Care Bears Movie. Our eyes locked. The dolls eyes turned from playful doll’s eyes, to yellow cats eyes, to green lizard eyes, to black pools of evil intentions. I grrrred back at it, as the scenery passed by, but then realized the flaw in my approach. I went back to the doll and looked in its scary black eyes and said… “I love you” to it. The sting of its glare was greatly reduced.

After shifting toward an awareness of negative energies, the landscape of the dream that was passing before me changed. I was no longer peeing through a mirror, but was now fully inside the mind-forged mirage. I found myself in a dark ally and there were grim-reaper-like entities in shop windows looking dreadful and dreary. The scene looked like it was strait out of an 18th-century vampire movie in the back allies of some old European city. I came to a dead end. In front of me was a door. It exuded a terrible and menacing energy. I tried to open the door and was pushed backward with great force. Still very aware that I was dreaming and having the wherewithal to tell myself that there was no reason to be scared or to flee from this door, I barged through it. I then stood in a small corridor. Strobe lights flickered creating an almost fabricated haunted-house setting. I stepped into a side door and saw a picture on the wall of a werewolf. At that moment I knew that a werewolf would be jumping out at me any moment. I turned around and sure enough a gruesome looking beast with long razor sharp teeth and frothy drool sprung out from around a dark corner. There was only a fraction of a second’s worth of fear, and then I stifled the impulse to turn and run by again reminding myself that there was nothing to fear. I stood my ground and projected my thoughts to the werewolf: “Go ahead and do whatever you were gonna do… I’m not scared of you”. The beast came at me and threw out its hands and we embraced and danced a jolly jig. It was hilarious and fun and completely unexpected. It smiled through its mouth full of jagged teeth and I felt its happiness. How cool!

Ripples of nothingness between brilliant cosmic happenings

Here's a dream from a couple of years ago. It was toward the end that this one got really interesting. Also of note... this is an example of one of those rare dreams where I was able to maintain a wakeful consciousness through falling asleep, through the entire dream, and then awoke without ever breaking that constant stream.

Saturday, February 3rd 2007

Wow, just had a pretty amazing trip through my consciousness. I was listening to Ken Wilbur speak on some audio CDs I recently bought and was getting sleepy, so I laid down on my bed. I watched as I slipped into the hypnogogic. I had hallucinations of people walking through my room, steve and jessica coming in and trying to talk to me, the whole time I still heard Ken Wilbur talking. The room I was lying in became my grandparents back room, I got up and walked around, Karen and Sue were at the sink where grandma usually is, except the sink was on the other side of the room. I patted Karen on the back, she looked at me and was sad… very un-Karen like. Sue looked happier, but I could see through her façade. I told her with my mind that I knew, and understood, yet now looking back I’m not sure I know what I claimed to know. Had grandma and grandpa passed? I walked into the living room and all the furniture was different. I remember thinking that perhaps I was seeing a glimpse of some change that was going to take place in the future. Remembering some of my recent goals for my lucid dreams, I sat in the living room and meditated.

Into a bright, light-blue expanse I merged. I let energy flow freely through my body and felt myself being projected upward into the blue. I consciously reflected on Wilbur’s spectrum of consciousness, and about how it was likely that I was experiencing blue because it corresponds to my level of consciousness. Looking at his spectrum now, it makes perfect sense, as I’ve put myself at turquoise now for a few months. This is exciting, as it I’m at the uppermost portion of the second tier, which means I could be on the verge of a big breakthrough. The Dark Night of the Senses may soon be upon me.

Streams of letters and numbers materialized in the blue and ran to and fro like millions of ticker-tapes stacked on top of each other. I didn’t make any of it out… although it looked like random gibberish, I remember thinking that there was likely some complex pattern to the data flashing before me. Was I watching some higher-level computational functioning of my own mind? I floated down and out of the blue bliss. I came to rest standing on a green lawn, the bright sun shining over head in the blue sky. Was that the blue I had just come from? I let the energy flow through me and I project upwards again, I get high enough so that the blue is all that I see in front of me, but it isn’t the same. I was not engulfed in it as I had been before. Also, before there had been a feeling of unity with the blue, this time it was something I was just looking at.

I float back down and lie in the grass. I feel the blades slightly prick my skin all over.

I consciously decide it’s time to transition into formlessness… to move from subtle to causal. I pull myself down through the ground, into the darkness on the other side. I get about half my body, including my arms and head through, but am being held back by some force. I reflect that perhaps I’m not meant to go this way, and get small intuitive sparks of caution. I allow the strange force from above to catapult me back into the green dream-field. As I was projected, I can only describe the feeling as being rippley… like the ripples on a pond after a stone is thrown in.

The next thing I know I’m in a room, it feels like my room, and am standing in front of a large glass bay-window. There is bright white light on the other side. I open my arms and embrace it and it whites out everything in sight. No window, no room, no me, but only for a brief moment… it then subsides and I see some of my friends on the other side of the glass, Dave, Verillo, Daniel Delia, some other girls. They are walking and laughing. I reflect on how they look happy, yet about how it is weird that there are random girls with them.

I stop and meditate again… I’m pulled into a kaleidoscopic worm-hole… the ride is exhilarating. I consciously wonder whether this is bringing me into the causal state or if it is just another subtle dream experience. Exploding through what must be the end of wormhole, I directly experience a supernova exploding in the distance, stars and galaxies form in front of my awareness in matters of milliseconds. There are two or three brief momentary ripples of nothingness, between brilliant cosmic happenings. I’m then floating through a gravity-less junk yard of unknown treasures, objects I’ve never seen before and couldn’t describe if I tried floated by me in brilliant colors I don’t know the names to. I looked down at my hands and saw that I indeed had a dream form, but some of my finger-tips were tattered and ripped up. My nails were crooked and long… they looked like the hands of a long-time traveler, who has been through uncharted territory for untold eons. The dream fades and I am lying on my back on the bed in my room with my eyes close. I reflect on how amazing the experience was, and then open my eyes, never having lost consciousness through the whole trip. Ever-present awareness. Pretty good stuff.

In Memory of Trees

Wow.... in rereading this, I can't believe it was over a year ago that I had this dream. I can still remember every detail of it like it just happened last night!

11/1/07
I entitle this dream, In Memory of Trees, inspired by Enya's song The Memory of Trees, a song I was listening to before drifting off to sleep. The title is a strong and appropriate encapsulation of my experience. For a more complete experience with my dream, I recommend putting the song on while you read. This was one of the more profound dreams I had during my time in Belize and was certainly influenced by much of the irresponsible tourism development that I observed there. I'm sure some inspiration came from the following Alex Grey painting as well. This painting viewed in person is astounding to say the least and I recommend anyone in the New York area to go visit Alex Grey's Manhattan gallery, The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (CoSM). Unfortunately so much of the detail is lost in the representation below.



I'm floating in some lucid astral hyperspace, my vision fixed on a floating O in front of me. A zero? A circle? A hoop? A whole? This image holds deeply simplistic yet sacred significance and symbolism. The O expands… O, and contracts… o before my eyes. It changes colors, then seems to blur behind some cosmic static before re-sharpening into focus again. It then fills in and I recognize that I am looking up at a full moon. I suddenly find myself lying on the ground, arms outstretched, looking up at a magnificent night sky. The Moon shrinks to the size of a star and then streaks across the sky. Amazing! I dig my hands into the ground and pick up large fistfuls of dirt. I rejoice in the purity of the earth falling through my fingers and hold it up allowing the dirt to fall all over me. I consciously marvel at how I KNOW this is a dream, am absolutely sure of it at the very moment, yet I have never felt earth that was so... REAL… so very much real, tangible, and… almost… alive. I stand up and look around me. I am standing in a meadow surrounded by trees on all sides. As far as my eyes can see there are mountains and valleys filled with lush beautiful forest, illuminated by starlight. Standing in the center of the clearing is a tree that somehow seems to radiate a bit brighter than the rest. It is an old and wise tree, pulsing with life-energy. My intuition tells me that I have come to an incredibly sacred place… a sanctuary… a paradise. Could this be what I've heard some mystics and astral travelers refer to as the Afterlife Summerlands? I fall to my knees and cry. Recalling it now brings tears to my eyes again. My tears were tears of joy and humbled reverence. I did not feel worthy of being there, in the presence of such divinity, in the clearing at the end of the path… and yet there I was.

As I collected myself and stood up I noticed off in the distance, in the middle of the forest, a house with a light on. I felt a sick sinking feeling in my stomach. I noticed another house, and then another. As I rotated my view 360 degrees, I became aware of massive condominiums and apartment complexes in every direction. There are trees intermingled with the buildings, but only enough to give the illusion of a forest if all the houses lights were off. But now the house lights were coming on by the hundreds, the thousands even. The beautiful mountain faces and valleys were suddenly covered in human settlements. From afar, the artificial lights and structures looked like a parasitic mold, spreading over the once magical lands. Despite all this, the clearing and the one, holy, radiant tree remained. Then something caught the corner of my eye, I turned to see a spark of fire on one of the mountain slopes off to what felt like the east. Panic. It was spreading. I turned with horror to see the lone tree in the center of the clearing in flames as well. I ran to it and tried to blow out the fire. I tried to use my lucid-dream-will to conjure wind and rain, but nothing came. The fire only spread. I fell to my knees once more. A hard knot of a painful sob choked in my throat. This time the tears that came were of deep sorrow and grief. "I'm sorry", I said to the tree. "I'm so sorry". With the knot still in my throat and tears on my sleepy cheeks I awoke.

This dream raises the question in my mind: Are our sacred spiritual sanctuaries, on other dimensions and levels of being, that were once only accessible to the very few true mystics and sages, in danger of colonization, development, exploitation, and overcrowding, much the same as our earthly paradises are currently experiencing the same serious perils?

...not necessarily a comforting dream, but certainly worth contemplating.

Jonah's Dreamscapes

You're dreaming. Wake up. Seriously. Live lucidly or you will die a sheep, asleep. Dream lucidly or miss out on half of your life.

I set up this blog as a place to share my dreams with the world. I intend to keep a frequent account of my nightime (and naptime) escapades here. I've got a ton of dreams logged in notebooks and dream journals sitting on shelves in my bedroom and packed away in boxes in the attic. Periodically, I may pull out some of these classics and post them for your reading pleasure.

This excersice is a valuable one for anybody interested in self exploration. Some dreams are basically bubbles of our subconscious. As we become more aware of them and give them more attention by consistantly writing them down, sharing them with friends and family, reading and rereading them, and examining their symbology, we can become more in touch with our inner urges, desires, and tendencies. What's more, if we can become aware WITHIN the dream, we can consciously explore our own deeper layers and even ask ourselves how we really feel about the difficult questions our life presents us with.

But as we delve deeper into dream exploration, we realize that these images, these experiences, these dreamscapes are not always our own. Some dreams offer unique portals into the thoughts and intentions of others. Some dreams see vividly into the future, and are the grounds for some of the most profound prophecies ever forseen. Others connect dreamers with the energies of loved ones who have passed, bridging the worlds of the living and... whatever it is that lies beyond.

And finally, as we begin to accept the glaring truth that not all dreams take place within the cozy confines of our own minds, our paradigm of reality must shift. This paradigm shift embraces the influential dream work of western scholars of the Fruedian tradition and transcends them, integrating ancient wisdom from the east with psychological insights from the west. The new paradigm expands to allow for alternate dimensions, or shall i say, multiple levels of energetic reality.

The world we explore in the dream time is no less REAL than this world in which we stumble through in waking life, it just has a different set of rules. It is not governed by laws like gravity or thermodynamics, it is not ruled by democracies or corporate marketing, but that doesn't mean there are no coherant organizing properties. Our dream body, or astral body, is not composed of flesh and blood and bone but rather of a field of energy vibrating at a more subtle frequency than the rest of our physical body. It is connected to our physical body during the waking hours, and during dreams that explore our own subconscious, but can be freed of the physical body during astral projection, meditation, out-of-body experiences (OBEs), and death. This is when true multidimensional exploration takes place! In the words of Jake the young gunslinger of Roland Deschain's ka-tet, "There are other worlds than these". We have access to these worlds.

At some point, perhaps before I start my dream blogs (drogs?), I will post a glossary defining the dream vernacular I often use. With that said I hope that through these drogs I will be able to convey a fraction of the magical sur-reality of........... Jonah's Dreamscapes.