CHAPTER 1

STEPPING THROUGH THE GATE

Like many children, I had an intense dream life. Dreams were anamazing theater of the mind featuring both glorious adventures and moments of sheerterror. In one dream, a songbird, a meadowlark, I believe, landed on my chest and sangme its simple song, which I immediately understood and woke up singing. In anotherdream, I found myself on a fifteen-foot Pogo stick bouncing down the deserted streets,almost flying. On occasion I seemed to be an animal—a dog or coyote, for example—trottingalong the dark night's sidewalks in a four-legged gait, totally at peace, seeing theneighborhood from a canine's drooping-headed, tongue-wagging perspective.

With dreams like these, I was a child who had to drag himself out of bed.

In those early years, I remember clearly only one spontaneous lucid dream. In it, I waswandering the local library and suddenly saw a dinosaur stomping through the stacks.Somehow it dawned on me: If all dinosaurs are extinct—this must be a dream! Nowconsciously aware that I was dreaming, I reasoned further: Since this was a dream—Icould wake up! I reasoned correctly and awoke safe in my bed.

That youthful experience illuminates the essential element of lucid dreaming: theconscious awareness of being in a dream while you're dreaming. In this unique state ofawareness, you can consider and carry out deliberate actions such as talking to dreamfigures, flying in the dream space, walking through the walls of dream buildings, creatingany object desired, or making them disappear. More important, an experienced luciddreamer can conduct experiments in the subconscious or seek information from theapparently conscious unconscious.

But I'm getting ahead of myself ...

In those preteen days, before I began lucid dreaming regularly, three experiences keptalive my interest in dreaming and the psyche: occasional dreams that seemed to beprecognitive, an unexpected "vision experience," and the very real sense of having accessto an inner knowing. Like many, I found life's deepest mysteries in the mind.

For me, the occasional precognitive dream often appeared as small events, like dreamingof someone making an odd statement in a dream, only to hear a real person make thesame odd statement a few hours later, or to have a voice in the dream announce anobservation that later would be proven correct. Once, the voice explained that the dreamsymbols meant the dream events would take three years to transpire. I kept track of thatdate and something incredible did indeed happen in the waking world, directly related tothe dream from three years earlier.

Precognitive dreams challenged my budding scientific worldview and disrupted mytraditional religious and spiritual views. Strange coincidences, self-fulfilling prophecies, orunknown information? How was one to tell?

One day in my preteen, church-going mind, I had a mini-epiphany. It occurred to me that ifGod was the same "yesterday, today, and forever," as they said in the Old Testament,then God must exist outside of time, apart from time, in a place where time had nomeaning. And, if that were true, then perhaps dreams were the gateway to a place withouttime, where time existed in one glorious Now. Yet my young science-educated mindbalked at this notion. A dreamt event followed by a waking event could be nothing morethan sheer coincidence and didn't necessarily entail any foreknowing. Or perhaps it waslike a self-fulfilling prophecy, in which I unknowingly helped bring about the event that Idreamt. And even when a dream voice made an observation that later turned out to betrue, perhaps my creative unconscious had simply noticed things and, by calculating thelikely outcome of those things, made a clever announcement.

As this spiritual questioning was going on, another fascinating incident occurred. OneSunday evening when I was eleven or twelve, I lay on my bed reading a book and stoppedfor a moment to think. As I absentmindedly looked up at the ceiling, my head suddenlyturned north and I began to see a vision of a Native American setting overlaying thephysical scene. I struggled to free myself from this unexpected experience while anotherpart of me took in the vision. Finally it stopped.

At that young age, what do you do with something like this? In my case, I went to thelibrary. I flipped through a number of books about the Old Testament containingcommentary on visions but found little of value for me there. I also checked out a fewbooks on Native American culture and discovered the vision quest, a traditional practiceby which youth gain insight into their lives. Normally a vision quest occurs in a ritualfashion. The young person is obligated to leave the tribe and travel alone for a period ofdays of fasting, praying, and waiting for the visionary experience. Yet why wouldsomething like that happen to me? Only years later did I discover that our family hadNative American ancestry.

Somewhere in this time period, I also recognized the presence of an "inner advisor," forlack of a better term. At certain times, when I considered things deeply, an inner knowingappeared in my mind. It was such a natural thing, I assumed everyone experienced this. Itwas like having the services of a wise old man inside. For example, after a very simpleincident that most anyone would ignore, the inner knowing would make an observationabout life or suggest the prosaic incident as a living parable. The comments seemedintelligent, even remarkable. I began to sense that all around me life had meaning, if I onlycared to look. Since I lived in the middle of Kansas, far from the centers of world power,the pace of life was slower and perhaps simpler, yet below the surface, at another level, Iknew we had everything, all the lessons of life.

Like any teenager, I'd pester this inner advisor—What am I? Who am I? To thesequestions I was given two answers and then never visited the issue again (although theanswers rolled around my mind for decades). In one instance, to my "Who am I?" theinner advisor responded, "Everything and nothing." Okay, I thought, any person in a sensehas the potential capabilities of all, but in having them also has nothing, for time or thefates will sweep it all away. In those words, too, I sensed a hidden connection between therich lavishness of Being and the complete freedom of Nothing. But still not entirely contentwith being a place marker between two extremes, I continued to pester myself and, byextension, the inner advisor with the question of identity until, one day, an answer camethat laid all further questions to rest. "You are what you let yourself become," said theinner advisor. That answer satisfied me completely: The living of life was an allowing ofself.

Altogether, the precognitive dreams, the vision experience, and my search for spiritualmeaning kept me probing for satisfying and complete answers. Obviously, my intenseinner life, sparked by thought provoking dreams, created a persistent desire to accept,abandon, or perhaps bridge one of the two worldviews: the scientific and the spiritual.Which is why in 1975, at age sixteen, I picked up one of my oldest brother's books,Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda, and embarked on myfirst lesson in lucid dreaming.

As some readers may know, Carlos Castaneda was an anthropology graduate student atUCLA in the 1960s who sought to learn from native shamans about psychotropic plants inthe southwestern United States and Mexico. According to his story, he met a Yaqui Indiansorcerer, don Juan, who agreed to teach him about hallucinogenic plants. In the process,don Juan provided Castaneda with a unique view of the world. Even more important,perhaps, don Juan supplied techniques to experience this new worldview.

The philosophy of don Juan might be summed up in these words, spoken to Castaneda:"[Y]our idea of the world ... is everything; and when that changes, the world itselfchanges." Don Juan constantly pushed Castaneda to consider new and world-changingideas and to become more mentally flexible.

Castaneda has recounted in numerous books his decade-long association with don Juan.While many have openly questioned Castaneda's veracity in storytelling, his many booksnevertheless contain a number of provocative ideas and, like many young people, I wasintrigued. I read Journey to Ixtlan and decided to try just one of the ideas, never imagininghow transformative an idea could be.

Don Juan suggests to Castaneda a simple technique to "set up dreaming" or becomeconscious in the dream state. "Tonight in your dreams you must look at your hands," donJuan instructs Castaneda. After some discussion about the meaning of dreaming and thechoice of hands as an object to dream about, don Juan continues. "You don't have to lookat your hands," he says. "Like I've said, pick anything at all. But pick one thing in advanceand find it in your dreams. I said your hands because they will always be there."

Don Juan further advised Castaneda that whenever an object or scene that he waslooking at began to shift or waver in the dream, he should consciously look back at hishands to stabilize the dream and renew the power of dreaming.

Simple enough, I thought. So, before going to sleep each night, I sat cross-legged in bedand began looking at the palms of my hands. Mentally, I quietly told myself, "Tonight, I willsee my hands in my dream and realize I'm dreaming." I repeated the suggestion over andover, until I became too tired and decided to go to sleep.

Waking up in the middle of the night, I reviewed my last dream. Had I seen my hands? No.But still hopeful, I fell back asleep remembering my goal. Within a few nights of trying thistechnique, it happened. I had my first actively sought lucid dream:

I'm walking in the busy hallways of my high school at the junction of B and C halls. As Iprepare to push the door open, my hands spontaneously fly up in front of my face! Theyliterally pop up in front of me! I stare in wonder at them. Suddenly, I consciously realize,"My hands! This is a dream! I'm dreaming this!"

I look around me, amazed that I am aware within a dream. All around me is a dream.Incredible! Everything looks so vivid and real.

I walk through the doors a few feet toward the administration building while a great feelingof euphoria and energy wells up inside. As I stop and look at the brick wall, the dreamseems a bit wobbly. I lucidly remember don Juan's advice and decide to look back downat my hands to stabilize the dream when something incredible happens. As I look at myhands, I become totally absorbed in them. "I" now see each fingerprint, each line, as agiant flesh-toned canyon that I float within and through. The world has become my palmprint, and I'm moving about its vast canyons and gullies and whorls as a floating speck ofawareness. I no longer see my hand; I see cream-colored, canyon-like walls of varyingundulations surrounding and towering above me, which some part of me knows as myfingerprints or palm prints! As for me, "I" seem to be a dot of aware perception floatingthrough all of this—joyous, aware, and full of awe.

I'm wondering how this could be, when suddenly my vision pops back to normalproportions and I see again that I am standing, hands outstretched, in front of theadministration building. Still consciously aware, I think about what to do next. I walk a fewfeet but feel an incredible urge to fly—I want to fly! I become airborne heading straight upfor the intense blue sky. As my feeling of overwhelming joy reaches maximum pitch, thelucid dream ends.

I awake in bed, totally astounded, my heart pounding and head reeling. Never had I feltsuch intense feelings of elation, energy, and utter freedom. I had done it! I had seen myhands literally fly up to face level in my dreams as if propelled by some magical force and Irealized, "This is a dream!" At the age of sixteen, I had become conscious in the dreamstate. And suddenly, like Dorothy in Oz, I was not in Kansas any more.

Well, actually, I was in Kansas for another year, until I left for college.

THE PARADOX OF THE SENSES

My first lucid dream felt like a monumental achievement. I had actually become aware in adream. Moreover, in the don Juan tradition, this first lucid dream seemed filled withauspicious symbols—becoming a speck of awareness floating through my palm prints,maintaining the dream, working on awareness outside of the "administration building"(symbol for my own inner authority, perhaps). I was excited.

Still, it seemed so paradoxical—becoming conscious in the unconscious. What a concept!Like some teenage magician of the dreaming realm, I had done what scientists at the timeproclaimed could not be done.

Little did I know, during that same time in April of 1975, thousands of miles away at theUniversity of Hull in England, a lucid dreamer named Alan Worsley was making the first-everscientifically recorded signals from the lucid state to researcher Keith Hearne. Bymaking prearranged eye movements (left to right eight times), Worsley signaled his lucidawareness from the dream state. Pads on his eyes recorded the deliberate eyemovements on a polygraph's printout. At that moment, Hearne recalls, "It was like gettingsignals from another world. Philosophically, scientifically, it was simply mind blowing."Hearne and Worsley were the first to conceive of the idea and demonstrate that deliberateeye movements could signal the conscious awareness of the dreamer from within thedream state.

A few years later, in 1978, Stanford sleep lab researcher Stephen LaBerge, using himselfas the lucid dreaming subject, devised a separate, similar experiment of signalingawareness from the dream state through eye movement. Publishing his work in morebroadly read scientific journals, LaBerge became strongly identified with this excitingdiscovery and a leader in its continued research.

Back in Kansas, each night before I went to sleep I would look at my hands and remindmyself that I wished to see my hands in my dreams. Of course anyone who tries this willsoon discover that staring at your hands for more than ten seconds is quite boring. Whenyou already feel sleepy, it takes real effort to concentrate. Your eyes cross, your hands getfuzzy, your attention wavers, within a minute or two you may even become so bored andtired as to go blank momentarily. After a few minutes, I would give up and prepare forsleep. At the time, I chastised myself for my lack of concentration and wavering focus, butlater I came to feel that these natural responses were actually the best approach, sincethe waking ego seemed too tired to care about the game my conscious mind wanted toplay. In fact, don Juan suggested that the waking ego often felt threatened by the moreprofound nature of our inner realm. Perhaps a sleepy ego would be less likely to interfere.

My next few lucid dreams were lessons in exquisite brevity. I would be in a dream, see myhands in the course of the dream (e.g., as I opened a door with my hand or as if by someinner prompting my hands would suddenly appear directly in front of me) and immediatelyrealize I was in a dream. I'd experience a rush of exhilaration, joy, and energy. As I took inthe dream surroundings, my feelings of joy rose to such levels that the lucid dream wouldbegin to feel unstable and then come to an end. I would awaken, full of joy but mystifiedby the sudden collapse of the lucid dream.

This brought me to one of my first lessons of lucid dreaming:

To maintain the lucid dream state, you must modulate your emotions.

Too much emotional energy causes the lucid dream to collapse. Years later, I learned thatvirtually all lucid dreamers realize this same lesson and as a result learn to temper theiremotions.

After reading don Juan's exhortation to Castaneda that he should try to stabilize the dreamenvironment and, bit by bit, make it as sharply focused as the waking environment, thisbecame my new goal. Don Juan advised that the dreamer should concentrate on onlythree or four objects in the dream, saying, "When they begin to change shape you mustmove your sight away from them and pick something else, and then look at your handsagain. It takes a long time to perfect this technique."

In the next dream, I was walking at night and suddenly saw my hands appear directly infront of me. I immediately realized I was dreaming. Lucid, I took a few steps and noticedthe colors were extremely vibrant; everything seemed so "real." I felt euphoric and knewthat the dream would end unless I could regulate my feelings, so I looked back at myhands to stabilize the dream and decrease my emotional upsurge.

After a few moments, I looked around at the grassy knoll on which I was standing. Iseemed to be inside a fenced enclosure that included a building, similar to a military orsecured installation. I took a few steps and looked at my hands again to stabilize thedream. There were some small evergreens ten feet away, obviously recently planted. Iknelt and touched the grass. It felt soft and grass-like. I marveled at how lifelikeand realistic everything looked and how I could think about what I was seeing and choosewhat to do next. I touched myself and, Wow, even I felt real! But I knew my awarenessexisted within a dream and I was touching a representation of my physical body, whichonly felt like a real body.