Lucid Dreaming Saved My Life

Bella did her best to help me but sometimes people are beyond help until something clicks and they manage to pull themselves out of a situation.

With her help though I managed to cut down drinking a bit but was still not in a good way.

She decided to take me camping for a long weekend to cheer me up.

We loved camping and always had the nicest times. Even though we were broken up it was lovely for both of us to get away, out in nature and fully relax.

Bella would usually snooze and I would read.

It was my favourite weather, thick grey clouds with intermittent sun which lit them up and heavy rain showers sweeping through creating the most relaxing and cosy sound in the world, rain patter on a tent.

Our tent was big enough that Bella would snooze on the bed with just the netted door closed so she could see out and I would sit on a camping chair in the living area and watch the storms pass whilst reading.

My book of choice that time was one on astral projection, something I'd always been interested in since I was a kid but now I wanted to really learn how to try it.

That night something amazing happened, I didn't astral project but I must have been in a certain frame of mind because I had my first ever fully lucid dream.

I've looked back through my notebooks and diaries of that time but can't find the one that has that dream written in but it went something like this:

I was walking through some fields near my house when I saw some monkeys hanging around, I thought 'We don't have monkeys around here' so this was the first little sign to myself that I was dreaming.

Then there were two wolves in front of me, walking towards me growling, I remembered thinking that I'd read that in a dream if there is something frightening then don't flee but instead move towards it. This was the second sign that I was dreaming.

I moved towards them and started growling, they were snarling back. I decided to morph down into a wolf, my body changed as sank onto all fours and I became slightly aware that I was dreaming.

They looked ferocious and I remember thinking that I'm the alpha and moved towards them and they both suddenly became submissive, I morphed back into human form and stroked them both on their heads then said 'go on' and they ran off, I became fully lucid.

When you become fully lucid in a dream it's like you wake up in the dream, I was as conscious as I am now writing this, it was the most amazing experience of my life, I could hardly believe it.

I was looking around saying 'I'm awake in my dream' then I started shouting and dancing around, 'I'm awake in my dream!'.

The scenery was beautiful and extremely colourful, it felt like the scene from the Wizard Of Oz when it turns technicolour for the first time, I was dancing along and singing to myself, little animals were dancing along with me.

I came to a river and the water was rainbow coloured. I walked along the surface of the water and decided to fly. I kept running and jumping and I'd float for a short while then land on my belly in the water laughing.

Then I thought to myself the only reason I cant fly is because I'm still believing in earthly laws and then suddenly I was able to fly. I was soaring along the river and little creatures were flying along with me.

I realised I could control the direction on my flight by moving my head and flew high into the sky and was going as fast as a jet and spinning around. I could see all the scenery clearly and felt more alive than I'd ever felt before.

I saw a lake far below me and decided to dart down into it. I grew larger until I plummeted into the water and I swam towards the bottom. I could see a glowing red box and went towards it to investigate. As soon as I touched it I woke up.

It's hard to convey how I felt upon awakening but it felt like elation.

It was like I'd visited and existed in another world, the fear of death left me, it was the most magical experience and I felt like my life was worth living again. existence was no longer mundane and a childlike wonder returned to me, it was bliss.

From then on I knew I wanted to read everything I could on lucid dreaming and I didn't want to waste my time being drunk or off my head on drugs anymore.

My life changed at this point, the lucid dreaming exercises I got from books were making me more aware during the waking hours and I started meditating every day.

I also stared exercising and felt happier about my life.

It was so strange to be this clear headed for the first time in years, I'd been pretty much stoned since I was twelve and even when I stopped drinking before I still would be stoned and taking other drugs, now I was suddenly thirty three years old and it's like I woke up from a weird dream where I'd lost twenty odd years of my life.

I always thought I'd never regret taking drugs but I kind of did, I felt like I'd wasted the best years of my life.

It was good to be clean now though.

I was worried because the last time I gave up drinking it hung over me the whole time and I could never enjoy things like meals out with friends or Christmas. I had the idea that instead of stopping drinking, I was just going to stop behaving like and alcoholic and just drink every now and then.

At first I would just have a drink every few months and not really enjoy it, then I got to the stage where I would only drink at Christmas and stay sober for the rest of the year.

I managed to never go off the rails again and even stopped drinking altogether eventually, I never touched weed or any other drug again.

I started lucid dreaming regularly, sometimes I'd have four in a night, it was a lot of fun but eventually it took over a bit as I'd wake every hour and a half to write my dreams down and I couldn't keep up with it once I started working again. I loved it while it lasted though and visited many strange and wonderful places.

I got fit, I did things I'd wanted to do when I was a child, like martial arts, I got my first two belts in Krav Maga. I taught myself how to read Tarot cards, I meditated twice a day and did Chi Gung in the evenings.

Bella and I got back together and moved into our first own home as opposed to rental flats.

I learnt how to drive (I'd always been too drunk to do that) I passed my test first time with no faults. I was catching up on things I should have done earlier in life.

I started my own little gardening business and felt happy for the first time in my life.

Soon it felt like something was missing though.

There was one thing I'd always wanted since I was a child, an unfulfilled ambition, and that was to become an artist.

I'm still working on that one.

This is 20/21 of my 'Strange and Sometimes Troubled Memories Series'

The conclusion will come soon.

Then I plan to have and exhibition where the blog posts will be displayed next to the paintings.

Thank you for reading, like and subscribe and all that.