I have been practicing lucid dreaming lately. I've always thought, in the past and even now, that maybe I could figure some things out if I just got inside of my own head... Walked around a bit, you know, take in the sights...
When I go to sleep at night-- not every night but at least 50 percent of the time-- I've attempted to lucid dream. So far I haven't been able to (I think); but I come close... I often do fall into sleep paralysis so there's a start. The problem seems to be right as I reach the edge of awareness, something very dark, very scary.... very unnerving lashes out at me and I sit straight up in my bed. When I say sit up I mean 90 degree angle, heavy breath; racing heart. If I'm not too terrified I do a reality check to make sure I'm not dreaming.... I never am; though once I may have been... When I started I didn't do reality checks and only recently realized without doing so, I might not be able to tell if I was awake or dreaming. It's not necessarily an image or a creature, but whatever it is frightens me.
There are other ways to reach lucidity though. Once I had fallen to sleep listening to binaural beats, that music that changes your brain wave pattern. I can't remember much about that experience out side of seeing the purple moon from the video and then the words, "You are dreaming!" blaring into my sub-conscience. I immediately sat up in my bed (there's a pattern in that it seems) and took my headphones off. Why was it so loud? I listened to the music ahead of time to make sure it was low.... I assumed I was just dreaming and managed to infiltrate my own dream with music. Truth is the song wasn't even playing anymore and I had turned down my screen brightness so it was dark, so... yeah confusion.
I fell back asleep fast and dreamt of biting into a boiled egg only to find a tiny half alive half dead baby chick inside. I had taken a little piece out of its body, a little pink line formed where my teeth had been. I spit it out upset, and had a string of baby chick flesh stuck in my teeth that I had to manually dislodge. As gruesome as that image might seem... It wasn't so much while I was dreaming. It was more comical than anything else. Disturbing... but comical.
I guess I'm looking for answers; I'm always working towards self improvement. Every time I think I've built myself a steady foundation, I later find it to be missing key pieces I thought it had. I want to fix it. I want to fix me.
A few people have told me I should be looking to religion for help. I say, it's not my time to discover that. God and I already have an understanding; a spiritual connection and it has been an integral part of my survival thus far. Other people say it's all in my head. I kind of agree with them.... (duh! that's why I'm trying to get in there!). I just feel... that if I can manage to get off of my self loathing rear and do a few things with my writing, I could be...
I bet you would like to know how that sentence was suppose to end. Just know I wrote it; rewrote it and rewrote it again. There was no possible way for me to write that sentence, without giving it a morbid ending. How terrible of me.