Dream Travelling

Flying

The first thing people do upon becoming lucid for the first time is fly. And why not? But this means it needs little commentary.

I usually fly, even inside buildings. I just float a few centimetres above the ground and zoom along in an standing posture. Interestingly, if my feet are less than a meter off the ground, no one notices that I’m flying. I have no explanation, but it is quite consistent.

In a dream, flying is not more magical than walking. There is only the question of what level of detail you want to observe of your surroundings. I would only note that after flying for a very long time, usually across several dreams in the same night, my altitude slowly drops until I am scarcely above the ground. There also seems to be a kind of distance that is not spatial: There is some maximum distance I can fly in this other dimension, and when I come to the limit, it is like being at the end of an overstretched rubber band. Every little bit of further progress is possible, but increasingly effortful. I have no explanation for this. I have flown across cities and I have flown past the moon. It is not normal space that is at play.

Giving the dream a command

The most important means of travel is giving the dream a command: “Take me back to my room.” “Take me to my grandmother.” This is the most important means because it always works when it can. The dream either obeys, or if your command is impossible to carry out, I awaken. Sometimes, I experience a delay of up to a half a minute, but something always happens if I retain my intention.

Who or what is the dream? Again, no explanation. One might be tempted to think that “the dream” is some unconscious aspect of one’s own mind. But with a little experimentation, you’ll find that the dream knows things you do not and could not know. It’s much more convincing for you to do your own experiments than for me to convince you of mine.

Zooming in

Instead spending time flying, I’ll “zoom in.” I look at a distant object and concentrate on its details. When the details have filled my awareness, they fill my visual field as well, and then I find myself standing right in front of it. There is no transition or zooming effect. I just realise that my position have changed, based on my view. This reveals an important side-note. Even though the dream world appears to have space, it does not have the physics of space as we know it. I find that odd. There is no reason for it to not reflect the world we know from waking life.

Inter-dream travel

Inter-dream travel is also possible. My technique is to close my eyes and spin in place. At some point, I feel that the air has changed. When I open my eyes, I’m in the new dream. I have since read that other dreamers use the spinning technique to keep themselves from awakening. I read that too late; I already had trained myself to use it to change dreams.

I notice also that passing through a physical barrier like a wall makes it easier to change dreams. If I will a change of dream while passing through a wall or floor, I can often make the transition. This has not been 100% reliable for me.