Lucid Diary Pt. 01

The first time I was able to achieve a lucid dream it was so amazing I woke up almost immediately. They say it's a normal response but that doesn't make it any less bullshit. You see, the trick to having a lucid dream, i.e. one where the dreamer takes control of the dream space, is to realize that you are dreaming while you are dreaming. It's one of those things, like so many in life, that is simple but not at all easy.

I'll never forget that first time. Twas the night before my 33rd birthday, which happens to be my lucky number, and the world was filled with an energy of change. Of rebirth. I had been spending time meditating, honing my physical body, channeling the energy of the desert and the full moon. Ok, I had been smoking a lot of pot and had been unemployed for months. Hell, I was probably having a midlife crisis. The point is, shit was going down, and the more shit goes down in my waking life the more I seek escape in my dreams.

In my dream I am standing in the living room of a house my father used to own. I hadn't been there since I was a child but of course it still felt like home. I'm standing in front of the fireplace that stretches all the way up to the ceiling. I look up and the dark expanse of brick and the vaulted ceiling extend on into forever. On some level I recognize that the perspective is strange. I am as tall as the exposed chimney and the room is so much smaller than I remembered. My mind struggled to place my adult body into this room seen through the eyes of a child.

But no, the perspective didn't clue me in that I was dreaming. For most of us it doesn't. We look at what's around us, sure, but really our minds are lazy creatures and they tend only to inform us of what they already expect to see. No, in that first dream it wasn't the perspective that threw me off, it was the cake.

I'm facing the massive stone fireplace, and I look down from my ceiling vantage point and notice for the first time this card table standing there. It's one of those flimsy old tables with the folding metal legs that'll pinch the crap out of your fingers if you're not careful. The kind your grandparents pulled out before big family dinners and called the kids' table. There's a tear in the black pleather top and I can see the felt lining starting to bleed through. The center is bowed in from long years of use, and in the middle of this depression sits the most beautiful pink cake.

It calls to me, this cake. It has the most lucius curved top, like a mushroom or a muffin, and it's perfectly circular. It's a delicate pale pink color, like freshly spun cotton candy, and the texture is perfectly matte smooth. Marshmallow fondant, I think and slowly I reach out to touch it. Somehow I know it's mine. It is my birthday after all, and in dreams we're always so sure of ourselves, aren't we?

I run my fingertips over the smooth pink frosting as my subconscious mind registers that I have come down from the ceiling and am now almost level with the table. I stretch out my arm and suddenly I'm holding a knife. It's green and plastic with a fat handle and a serrated edge that would struggle to cut lettuce. A birthday cake knife.

I am alone in this room, in this memory. Just me and this gift from the universe. I hesitate with the knife poised just above the sugary pink confection. I want to see the inside, the crumb structure, the layers. Is there a filling? But something doesn't compute and I'm frozen in place. 'I am the only one in my life who makes cakes', I thought. Even when I was a child, my father away on business in Europe and my mother too strung out to realize what day it was, I always tried to make something. Later, after culinary school, the cakes I made were only for customers. So where did this come from?

Still I don't recognize that this is only a dream and the desire to slide my knife into the depths of that smooth pink surface is too strong to resist. My arm reanimated, I press the serrated blade down into the cake and it gives way with the most delicious gentle pressure. To my surprise, the inside is like a cross between mochi and uncooked meringue. Snow white, it spills out of the cut I had made in perfect waves of sweet filling.

Just as seamlessly as it had appeared the knife was now gone and my hand is the thing buried in the heart of that magical white cake. It parts around my skin like a rubber ball made of shaving cream, soft and smooth, light as air but somehow solid. I can feel its weight in my hand and I cup my fingers preparing to lift up a slice.

Slowly it begins to rise, this perfectly rounded, pie-shaped piece of fondant covered dream cake, in my hand. It spills over my palm, enveloping my hand in a smooth flow of white. As I try to lift the piece free from the rest of the cake the whole thing stays together, stretching like warm Silly Putty. It's dry to the touch and lighter than air. And that's when it hits me, this is a dream.

I could feel the heart in my sleeping body start to beat faster and I tried desperately with my dream body to stay calm and concentrate only on the moment before me. Tapping into the miracle that is consciousness, while remaining in the unconscious mind.

Now in total control of my body and surroundings, I pulled my arm free of the dream cake. The pink and white cloud slid cleanly off my wrist and palm. Smiling, I watched the cake spring back to its original state of perfection and I gave it one last caress before turning away.

Where once there stood a wall, now sprung forth massive windows and I am no longer in my father's house but rather some ancient cathedral. The sun shines through a thousand panes of glass in a blinding display, as if reflecting back the radiant energy I can feel streaming from me. I raised my hands in front of me and with a motion as gentle as opening curtains, the massive paned windows separated from each other, parting with barely a rustle and flying free like pixels on a screen. I am bathed in sunlight and want to be a part of it. With feet strong and light as air I pushed off from the stone floor of the ancient space.

Instantly I shot upwards, feeling the strength of my flight and rush of the air parting around me. In one leap I rocketed past the roof, rising into warm sunshine. When my newfound feeling of weightlessness wasn't checked by the familiar tug of gravity, my spirit sang. I'm flying!

And just like that I woke up.