I first got into lucid dreaming after reading a few pages of Carl Jung's Man and His Symbols. I'd had this recurring dream since childhood where I was in a driving down the highway that would take an exit and slide off the exit ramp and fall fall fall until I woke up thinking that I was going to die when I hit the ground. My really basic interpretation at the time of Jung's words was, your dream is your subconscious talking directly to you- don't interpret, just describe what was in the dream- you subconscious isn't going to lie to you. So I thought about my dream. Okay, I'm in a car, I'm driving down the highway, I slide and fall off the exit ramp. Wait a second! Who's driving the car!!!

Simple, eh? I didn't know who was driving, and I had no idea I wasn't driving. Never had the dream again.

Now, I've always had falling dreams. I loved falling. Hated it too since I always woke up with a start. You know, the 'Oh my god I'm gonna hit the ground and die' feeling. But I loved it nonetheless. When I had my first falling dream after realizing I wasn't driving the car, an interesting thing happened to me. Here I am falling, plummeting into the earth, and I say to myself, 'Oh my god I'm gonna hit the ground and wake up!' Wake up? Well, I did wake up. But soon after that, whenever I was falling, I started to get more and more conscious of the fact that I was sleeping, and therefore dreaming, and therefore able to do whatever I damn pleased. So I started flying.

On my way to Santa Cruz, I stayed with a family friend in Oakland who had a lovely book about the Native Americans living in the Bay Area as it was before the Spanish missionaries came in (The Ohlone Way). That land was rich with life. Streams so full of fish bears would simply hang out and eat. Skies so full of birds that the sun would disappear. Something about those images stayed with me that summer, and led me to some incredible dreams.

In Santa Cruz I was subletting a tiny bedroom in a three bedroom house. My bedroom was actually the cellar (being a couple feet below ground level, with windows looking right into a strawberry bush) and the ceilings were a magnificent five feet high. Plus it was damp, being a cellar and all. And I'd wake up in the morning with spider webs from my toes to the ceiling. And I loved it.

So there I was, a blue jay and I nibbling strawberries off the bush out my window, the spiders and I still relaxing in bed, and my head full of dreams I could suddenly control. It happened gradually. At first, I would find myself dreaming, watching myself living in that dreamy sort of obtuse mundane dream reality world. I'd try and jump in, to take control of the dream and start flying. But I'd get too excited and I'd walk up completely awake as if I'd never gone to sleep.

Then I got better at it. I started to stay awake as I fell asleep. I'd curl up inside my mind hiding from myself as darkness and heaviness took over and I'd drift into sleep. Lurking just outside, I'd watch as I started to dream, stumbling around the nether world with no clue of the limitless possibilities only a few thoughts away. And when the moment presented itself, something where I the dreamer needed to stop and pause and think, I'd sneak in and try and gently wrest control away from my unconscious self- careful not to get too excited and wake up.

Ahhh. I miss those days of staying awake while I fall asleep and then flying up and down South and North America trying to remember how to land. I miss those days of skies thick with birds that would sway and glide to the rhythms in my mind.

But hey, if I can't get back to that peaceful mental state by myself, help is on the way. Takara, a Japanese company, has a new product that might do the trick. Dream Workshop is a device that uses soft lights, sounds, images, and smells to help you dream about what you want to dream about. Sounds kinda promising I might say. Maybe we'll all be able to start populating the dreamlife soon. Hurry on over while real estate is cheap.

Sweet dreams.