LUCID DREAMING: GATEWAY TO THE INNER SELF
Dreams Gave Me the First Hint of My Inner
Author
For this blog tour I
was asked to answer four questions about dreaming and writing. Check out the questions and my responses below:
What Am I Working On Now?
Recently co-author,
Caroline McCready and I completed a manuscript for a new book on lucid
dreaming, which has been accepted for publication (Conari Press) and release at
the end of 2014. See here for details or
to pre-order a copy. pre-order a book. As you can see,
this book, Lucid Dreaming: Plain and
Simple, focuses on helping beginning and intermediate lucid dreamers
understand how to lucid dream and manipulate within the vastness of
dreaming. We’re very excited about it!
Also, I
worked with a Finnish co-author, Anna Riihimaki, to complete the first lucid
dreaming book in Finnish, which will be published in the fall of 2014 by
the Finnish publisher, Gummerus. Anna
did an excellent job in making this book accessible to all Finns.
Finally I am
planning a third book for advanced lucid dreamers to explore some of the deeper
aspects of lucid dreaming, which can literally transform your view of reality.
As always, I
continue to co-edit the free, on-line magazine, Lucid Dreaming Experience, with co-editor Lucy Gillis, and do
various workshops in person and on-line with GlideWing.
How Does My Writing Process Work?
If you can
imagine this, first I try to clarify my intent about the book. Why am I writing this? Why bother?
Answering
that question can remove all sorts of obstacles and make writing so much
easier, fun and clear.
When I worked
on my first book, I literally spent months looking at a blank sheet of paper
before I had a dream in which a Voice suggested, “Just start writing.” As I began to write, I realized that I needed
to understand my intent. I wrestled with
this in my mind, and finally it came to me: this first book, for me at least,
was my song of love to the world.
Once I
understood that my intent was to express my love for this world through helping
others see the depth and potential in lucid dreams, then things went very
smoothly. What aligned with that intent
was included; what did not, fell to the side.
A few years
ago I was in London giving talks and a workshop on lucid dreaming. One evening while out with others, a young
guy from Italy told me, “What I like about your book is that it has a lot of
love.” He told me that reading it, he
could feel the love I have for lucid dreaming and the reader.
How Does My Work Differ From Others In
The Genre?
Each year new
writers appear in the field of lucid dreaming, and I sincerely wish them the
best, since there are 7.2 billion people to educate about lucid dreaming. It’s a very big pie!
My work
differs often in the depth of perspective.
Since I taught myself how to lucid dream in 1975 (before lucid dreaming
was scientifically validated), I learned the ‘lessons of lucidity’ very deeply
and through personal experiments. I felt
blown away when I realized other pioneering lucid dreamers had learnt similar
lessons, since it suggested lucid dreaming and the psyche had common
features.
Yet even
then, the depth of lucid dreaming seems so profound that it takes time to
comprehend it, and put it into words. I
recall hearing a lovely lucid dream pioneer, Fariba Bogzaran, say that it took
her 25 years to grasp lucid dreaming.
Twenty-five years! That seems the
kind of perspective that most of us need to write thoughtfully about lucid
dreaming.
Thankfully I
had 30 years of lucid dreaming experience before I started writing J. The value showed in the first Amazon reviews
of my book in which people with many hundreds of lucid dreams and decades of
lucid dream experience wrote that my book was the first one to give ‘words’ to the
depth of lucid dreaming. To hear
experienced lucid dreamers tell me that I had given words to what they too had
discovered made me feel that this ‘song of love’ would touch millions.
Why Do I Write What I Do?
It’s what I
know. It’s what I care about.
On one level
it seems completely about lucid dreaming, but on other levels, it covers the
beauty of experience, the beauty of awareness, and on the deepest levels, it
goes to the realm of the inter-connected Oneness.
I write about
this, since it contains extraordinary transformational potential. Not only for me or even for you, but for the
world – for science, for culture, for society, for everything. To ‘wake up’ within the dream has profound
implications that touch all aspects of life and living.
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I also need
to thank author and blogger, Justina Lasley at www.DreamSynergy.org for the offer to be
the next stop following her Blog Tour report.
Justina and Tzivia have both been big supporters and done wonderful work
in the field of dreaming. Learn more
about Justina’s DreamSynergy™
process, certification
program and books at the website above and also on twitter and facebook, accounts.
I hope to
send this Tour to Sheila Asato next.
Sheila is a wonderful artist, dreamer, blogger, who has a deep and
profound respect for the Japanese perspective after living there for many
years. Sheila has developed an award
winning, Healing Collage process for dreamwork and assists various medical
providers in the Twin Cities with using dreams to promote healing.
∞
Thanks for
taking the time to read about me and my thoughts on lucid dreaming and the
writing process. You can check out my
first book, Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to
the Inner Self, at www.lucidadvice.com
and sign up for our free magazine, Lucid Dreaming Experience at www.LucidDreamMagazine.com
