Room for Imagination

Just before I awake in the morning,  I often have what I call a “waking dream,” a clear and powerful image comes to my mind.  It is a place so vivid that I think it is real, that I have been there but my rational mind knows that I have never visited such a place. Still, I stay and take inventory of every nook and cranny.  I want to remember all the details. With a little research, I realize that my “waking dream” is actually called a lucid dream. Lucid dreams come when your brain is the state between REM sleep and being awake.Some lucid dreams can influence their dreams by changing the events. Lucid dreaming is also a way to stimulate creativity and problem-solving.

During this morning’s lucid dream, I was in an old-fashion general store.  The wooden floor was rough with narrow planks. I could see some planks her well-worn and splintering. The windows were large, running from floor to ceiling, three on one die and tow on the other side of a thick wooden door.  The door had beveled glass inlays, and the room was painted white.  Light streamed in from the lace curtains, and I could see dust particles dancing in the air.

The furniture was made of dark heavy wood.  There was a large, center cabinet with an old-fashioned cash register which was silver and wonderfully ornamental.  I squatted on the floor and sorted brightly painted wooden toys from a large, wooden barrel. A man in a white work apron was in another part of the room standing on a faded red braided rug.  There was a wooden bench in front of him.  He was sorting shoes.  He asked me if I was done yet, and I replied that I was almost done with the toys.  He smiled.  He was tall and thin with dark hair and a well-trimmed mustache.  He was familiar, yet no one I knew.

I started to become fully awake.  My eyes popped open for a second, but I told myself that I didn’t want to leave the room yet.  I make myself relax and I go back to the dream room.  I have more work to do. My eyes close and I find myself standing in another section of the store.  The mustached man was still sorting shoes.  I walk over to a low shelf displaying beautiful, handmade cards. Beside the shelf, on a black metal carousel stand,  there are old, black and white photographs.  I reach out for a card.  It is blue and muted mustard gold with embossed white and silver filigrees.  I turn it over in my hand and then suddenly awoke.

I was back in my room fully awake ready to start my day.  I wonder what that room meant.  I had never been there before.  I created it from my sleeping imagination.

If you’d like to read more about lucid dreaming:

• “A Dream Within a Dream” by Edgar Allen Poe.
• Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LeBerge and Howard Rheingold
• Lucid Dreaming: Plain and Simple by Robert Waggoner & Caroline McCready
• On Dreams by Aristotle