Dreaming Back to Life

Dreaming Back to Life

by Kim Thomas BSc Nutritional Therapy and Dream Student

Dreaming has been an escape for me.  Struggling to get out of bed and to face the day was always a challenge; I would want to disappear into my dream world to find some kind of solace from waking life.  I think we can all relate to this on some level.  But what about using the time when asleep for healing and not hiding?  My intention with these words is to describe the process of gaining lucidity and how it is aiding me on my journey to wholeness.

I have a history of lucid dreaming; so when I discovered the Academy of Dreams in Euston, London I was “over the moon”.  For sometime now I have intuitively known that the peace and understanding I sought in my existence could be found in reawakening my consciousness to the inner dreaming realms.  In the past, dreams have been a comfort during the most difficult times of my life. 

After the Lucid Dreaming seminar at The Academy of Dreams, (one of four day workshops to open our hearts and minds to the power of our dreamtime) my attention shifted to my inner world and my search to harness the healing power of dreams.  I felt truly inspired by the day of dreaming discussions.  My dysfunctional, energy robbing habits seemed to drop away instantly, to make way for enthusiasm and a newly learned dreaming practice. 

The seminar taught us techniques on how to encourage lucid dreaming abilities and  emphasised on choosing one of them and sticking with it.  I chose the Reflection Technique devised by a german psychologist, Paul Tholey.  I borrowed an old digital watch and set it to beep every half hour, with that signal I question my state of awareness “Am I awake or dreaming?”  Eventually, the questioning is supposed to carry over into your dreams and allow for an opening up of lucidity.  The watch is a cue for awareness and also plays a part in my chosen state test.  A state test helps you to determine whether you are in the waking or dream worlds.  Studies have shown there are differences between the waking world and the dream states, one of which being an inability to read digital watches.

And so I practice daily, hourly and wait.  Recently I got so close but my excitement woke me up.  An extract from my dream diary

“The scene jumped to me watching me, gazing out of a bay window overlooking a stormy sea.  Something felt different and snapped me out of my non-aware state, I knew I was dreaming.  Then suddenly I am me again shouting what’s the time?  What’s the time?  Looking around the room, I realise my eyes are open, I am lying in my bed staring into the darkness. I lost it, my dreaming energy had run out.”

The next task is to maintain lucidity, several tasks are based on energising your senses to strengthen the dream experience.  I will keep you posted…