Quivering with fear, the boy described his terrifying nightmare.  "If you see that monster again," I told him, "look it right in the eyes and tell it to GO AWAY!"  I hope that was good advice, but it might be better to first try making friends with the monster.
         It's ironic that in a culture so focused on action, many of us are completely passive in our dreams, which we think just "happen" to us--if they're painful or frustrating, then we're simply victims.  But we can actively shape our dream life, and thereby magnify our joy and nourish our growth in waking life as well.
         Remembering and reflecting on dreams can enable deeper self-understanding, and many benefit from therapeutic "dream groups" where participants share and discuss their dreams.  But even further, we can learn to literally "wake up" within our dreams, bringing conscious awareness and decision making abilities into the dream world.  Called "lucid dreaming," this is a skill that can be learned.  I'm not especially adept, but the few lucid dreams I've had (perhaps 15 or 20) include some of the most powerful and ecstatic experiences of my life.
         You "wake up" inside a dream by achieving and maintaining the key insight:  "Aha!  This is a dream."  You can then use normal conscious thinking abilities to guide the dream, much as a movie director might.  Unbound by laws of physics, possibilities are endless.  Still, authors and movie directors often say characters develop a life of their own.  Similarly, while you may actively set the scene of a lucid dream, you can't control everything--but with conscious awareness you have dramatically increased choices in responding to whatever happens.
         Dream researcher Stephen LaBerge of Stanford says these dreams are often
"extraordinarily vivid, intense, pleasurable, and exhilarating," and that lucid dreaming can also be a powerful tool for personal growth.  Not only can we have impossible and thrilling adventures in lucid dreams, but we can use them to practice skills and rehearse for peak performance, to face fears directly and overcome them, to solve problems or practice resolving difficult issues with others, to examine unconscious motivations that may be undermining our progress in life, to help make important decisions, to explore the physical body and facilitate healing through positive imagery, and to help open our minds to new possibilities and a greater spiritual whole.
         LaBerge founded the "Lucidity Institute" in Palo Alto to support research on lucid dreaming and help people use dreams to enhance their lives.  He's written a couple of books and numerous articles, and there's a wealth of information at www.lucidity.com.
         Conscious dreaming is nothing new; it only seems exotic because our culture emphasizes other skills.  Tibetan Buddhists have for a thousand years practiced "yoga of the dream state," using lucid dreams to reach deeper awareness.  Anthropological reports are somewhat conflicting, but dreams are clearly important to the indigenous and peaceful Senoi people of Malaysia, and it's likely they traditionally used conscious dreaming for personal and community improvement.  Children were reportedly taught dream skills just as our children are taught to
read.  For instance, falling is common in frightening dreams, but Senoi children learned to land gently in a nice place or turn falling into flying.  Senoi dream practices say dangers should be "confronted and conquered," but if dangers come as enemies, monsters, or ferocious animals, the research of LaBerge and German psychologist Paul Tholey indicates it's more beneficial to befriend than to vanquish them.
         Like the Senoi, we can learn and grow in our dreams, for example by developing or improving our ability to fly--many dreamers find flying incredibly blissful.  Unfortunately, by neglecting dream life we often find ourselves "running over the same old ground" and stumbling on "the same old fears."
         To achieve lucid dreaming, LaBerge offers many practical techniques.  Like any important skill, he says, it takes some effort.  It's first necessary to have or develop the ability to remember your dreams.  The moment you awaken, ask yourself:  "Was I dreaming?  What was I dreaming?"  Dream recall can be dramatically increased by keeping a "dream journal," which I've done sporadically for 20 years.  I keep pen and notebook at my bedside; half waking up, I scrawl in the dark a few key dream elements, and can sometimes then go right back into that
dream.  The wild scribblings are fascinating in the morning, and when I do this consistently I usually remember several dreams a night.  Without even a hint of lucidity, this alone helps me relish my dreams and leaves me astonished at the richness of the inner world.
         Next, we can learn to recognize "dreamsigns"--things that couldn't occur in waking life, such as a giant purple chihuahua meowing or swimming overhead.  Recognition of dreamsigns is facilitated by practicing "state testing" several times a day while awake, asking yourself:  "Am I dreaming?"  You then look for oddities that might indicate you are.  This habit carries over into dreams; if you ask this key question and then see that purple dog meowing, you can realize:  "This is a dream!"  Staying in the dream, you might then choose to fly over to work and tell your boss why you deserve that raise or extra time off...
         One can't necessarily guarantee a lucid dream on any particular night, but practicing these skills enables one to become lucid on a regular basis.  LaBerge and his colleagues have developed some technological tools that are helpful (but not necessary) for inducing lucid dreaming.  One of these, the "NovaDreamer," is basically a mask that fits over the eyes.  It senses the "Rapid Eye Movement" (REM) phase of sleep--when we have most of our dreams--and then gives off a light or sound subtle enough not to wake the person, but perceptible to the
dreamer and hopefully interpreted as a cue that "I'm in a dream."  If the dreamer maintains this insight, she or he can then "take charge."
         All this may seem strange to some, but dreaming clearly is a big part of our lives.  Our culture has a huge prejudice favoring the exploration of outer space (be it astronomic or subatomic) while sometimes barely acknowledging even the existence of inner space.  But inner space is real indeed, and I sometimes wonder if it's equally vast as the outer world; perhaps inner and outer are just two sides of the same cosmic coin.  In any case, being an adept pilot through the twists and turns of our minds can be an important key to healthy attitudes, perceptions, actions, and relations with others.  Skills for negotiating inner space aren't well taught in our culture, so it's not surprising that we're at war with the natural world, undermining
the planetary life support system while many of us are sometimes at war within ourselves and live (in Thoreau's words) "lives of quiet desperation."
         Thoreau also said that "Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake."  Through remembering and reflecting on our dreams, and through lucid dreaming, we can become "oneironauts" (oh-NIGH-ro-knots)--"explorers of the dream world."  The landscapes before us are equally vast as those faced by Lewis and Clark.
         Again, despite our culture's focus on activity and accomplishment, we're often extremely passive in the dream world.  Perhaps we'd do well to be less "driven" in our waking lives and spend more time with nature or in prayer, meditation, or contemplation--and conversely to be more active in our dreams.  In this way our conscious and unconscious minds can transcend their inner battles, and with unified souls we can point ourselves confidently into the future.
 
 
 

        Here's the link for the Lucidity Institute:  www.lucidity.com.