This post is inspired by a dreamer who, while experiencing a dream showing events of her life, asked me if this is like having a near death experience where you see your life flash before your eyes. It certainly looked like it. 

The purpose of the dream was to show her that in spite of her doubts about a drastic career change, she had always successfully achieved whatever she set her heart on. Apparently she had never quite viewed her life through those lenses.

It is always fun to see how lucid dreamers react they realise that they are in the dreamscape. Some are very comfortable in the dream world and promptly set out to investigate. They become so engrossed in their adventure that I need to remind them to tell me what’s happening ‘over there’ so that we have it on record.

Others are much more tentative but will adapt to their new surroundings with gentle reassurance that I’m right here to keep them safe. And then there are those who are afraid of having to make their own choices on what to do and where to go. These ones need a bit of prodding. We sometimes forget that making choices can be a potentially stressful event, equally stressful as finding ourselves in an unfamiliar environment.

Here are some common conversations that pop up during a lucid dream session.

• Dreamer: I don’t know what’s this.
• Me: Tell me more and let’s figure it out

• It doesn’t make sense
• It’s a dream, it doesn’t need to make sense. Just enjoy the ride.

• This is a long road that I’m walking on. It’s really far.
• You can fly, you know?

• It’s really bright here.
• Make yourself a pair of sunglasses.

• It’s too dark I can’t see anything.
• Create your own light source.

• There’s this black thing. It doesn’t look nice.
• Wanna go make friends?

• There are many paths. I don’t know which is the right one.
• Take any one. If you don’t like it, come back and take a different one.

• I’m standing on a cliff. You’re gonna ask me to jump aren’t you?
• Yup. Give yourself a pair of wings, parachute, jet propellers, whatever.

Some dreamers are bewildered by the variety of choices available. Never happened before, how do I choose? They are stumped: what do I do now? They’d never allowed their creative selves to come out to play, may not even know that they have one. For many, this is the only time that there’s no fear of failure, a perfect place to try out new ideas.

When we review the dream, some dreamers realise that they’d been operating in a rather limited way. They are now aware of a wonderful world of choices and different perspectives that they could explore. They just need a good dose of imagination and courage.