One of the most significant spiritual insights of my life happened when I was asleep. I was 15, completely unaware of the life-changing impact this insight would have.
At 15, I became fascinated with dreams. Recall didn't come easily to me. Only once in a while could I remember the vivid scenes that played like movies in my subconscious mind. Some say we dream many times each night; it's just a matter of remembering. The few I could remember captured my fascination to the point that left me wanting more.
I began researching dreams, and it led me into the elusive world of lucid dreaming and OBEs (out-of-body experiences). I'd never had either, so I made that my goal.
As instructed, every morning I'd wake up and handwrite every detail I could remember. Sometimes I would remember nothing and just stare at a blank page with my eyes half shut, willing any semblance of memory to surface. This went on for days until one morning: a lion's face, a palm tree, the feeling of floating. After several weeks, my recall had improved dramatically.
I could remember entire dreams: how they began, how they ended, the darkness between one dream and the next, the order in which they occurred. I was recalling seven or eight complete dreams every morning. My Dream Jitsu was improving.
At this point, I began experimenting with techniques to trigger lucid dreams. Lucid dreams are those dreams where we "wake up" inside the dream and realize we are dreaming. We, as the dreamed character, remember that who we really are is the one who is asleep, doing the dreaming, yet we stay submerged in the dreamworld, excited to play without consequence. Like the character we play in a video game.
One technique is to look at the palms of your hands several times a day while awake. When you enter the dream state, you remember to look at your palms and notice they're distorted, blurry. This strangeness stirs the conscious mind: Something is off here. And suddenly: I'm dreaming.
Another technique is looking at clocks. Dreamed clocks look like Salvador Dalí painted them.
My favorite was the spinning technique, used to stabilize lucidity once achieved. Often, the jolt of becoming lucid wakes us up entirely. By spinning in circles as the dreamed character, you suspend the lucid state and keep yourself from waking. A few moments of spinning and the lucidity holds. I still have no idea why it works, but it worked for me many times.
Once lucid dreaming became regular, I was inspired to go deeper. The next stage is called dream weaving: designing and controlling every feature of your dream. You are not only lucid, but you become the architect of every detail. Precisely like the movie Inception.
The thought of achieving this god-like ability was the pinnacle of months of disciplined practice. All I knew was that once this otherworldly superpower was attained, I would become the master of my dream universe.
One night, it happened.
I entered a lucid state and finally broke free from the limitations of my dreamed scenes. The dream became an empty canvas. The power to create anything was mine. And I asked myself the question: What do I want to dream most?
At first, I wasn't sure what I wanted, so I made a house-sized Rolodex appear in front of me and scrolled through thousands of options: riding dragons, flying around like a superhero, having an orgy with the ten most beautiful women I could imagine.
In what felt like less than a second, I had considered thousands of options. And it was at that exact moment that the insight that would change the course of my life struck me like a thunderbolt.
It wasn't a thought. It was a realization.
The most exciting thing to dream wasn't anything I could think of on my own. What became clear was that the most thrilling dream wasn't one I designed. It was the dream that designed itself. To allow the dream to show me what it wanted to be, never knowing what would come next, was the most exciting option of all.
And what shocked me even more: I relinquished my ability to stay lucid. I realized that to lose myself in the dream entirely, to forget that I was dreaming, was the most exciting feature of experience itself.
I had worked so hard for so long to reach this moment. And once I arrived, I gave it all back.
I surrendered my lucidity and let the dream take me.
I never practiced lucid dreaming again.
At the time, the choice surprised me. But I didn't give it much thought. I had no sense of its significance.
Today is my birthday. I am 40 years old. It took me 25 years to understand the lesson that night was trying to teach me.
It wasn't "me" who made the decision to relinquish my lucidity and surrender to the dream. It was the activity of Consciousness itself.
In that moment at 15, I was shown the nature of what we are. Consciousness, the great dreamer, chose to lose itself in its own creation. Not because it had to. Because losing itself in the dream is the most exhilarating thing it could ever do.
Think about it. If you could dream anything, you would eventually exhaust every fantasy. Every dragon ridden. Every paradise visited. Every desire fulfilled. And then you'd arrive at the same place I did: the most thrilling dream isn't one you control. It's the one that takes you by surprise. And the ultimate surprise is forgetting you're dreaming at all.
That's what this life is. The greatest dream ever dreamed. Consciousness losing itself in its own mind for the sheer thrill of the unknown. The joy of being a character in a story whose ending you cannot see. The wonder of a world that feels completely real.
And here's what took me 25 years to understand: Consciousness never left. It's always here. Always awake. Always present. Even now, reading these words, the awareness behind your eyes has never once been absent. You are that Consciousness. You've always been.
So when the dream gets too big, too scary, too intense, you have recourse. You can remember what you are. You can feel the peace of the one who is dreaming, and know that none of this can truly harm you.
And then, if you're anything like me, you'll choose to dive back in.
Because this dream, the one that surprises you, the one that breaks your heart and makes it whole, the one you never could have designed yourself: this is the greatest dream ever dreamed.