(NOTE: At this time, I was really into trying to have mystical experiences. I would try to have out-of-body experiences at night. But I would also try to have lucid dreams. I would try to have lucid dreams for the experience in itself. But I also saw lucid dreaming as a means to achieving out-of-body experiences. Another way I saw to be a gateway to OBEs was spontaneous imaginations -- a kind of induced reverie I learned, partly from the paranormal books I read and partly from the works of Carl Jung. In this practice, I would try my best to let my mind wander and spontaneously create imagery, landscapes, atmospheres, etc., in which I would then wander around. I had greater and less success with this practice. In some cases, these imaginations would fade into dreams. When I had spontaneous imaginations but not dreams, I would record the imaginations in my main notebook. But, as below, when I wouldn't be sure whether I had dreamed or had a vivid spontaneous imagination, I would write the experience in my dream notebook. The dream below is also interesting, because it also seems to meld into a lucid dream.)
(Entered in paper journal at 5:40 AM at home in Harlem.)
I'm not quite certain that this was a "dream."
Dream 1
I suddenly realized I was in a "scene," like a spontaneous scene I'd have in my imagination practices at night. But I felt myself there and was really surprised at that. So I told myself to calm down, focus, and move slowly.
The scene shifted weirdly. At first it looked like a covered walkway before the huge parking lot of a barely visited strip mall I would occasionally walk past in Albuquerque. But as I walked toward the parking lot the concrete walkway and ceiling continued stretching with new columns until the place seemed more like a parking structure on the side of a road. All the time the atmosphere had a sepia-crimson tint. I didn't take much note of this.
I finally got to the road as a van (?) passed. The sky was dark grey. Now something else happened that I don't quite remember. It's like I was walking toward a busy intersection that would allow me to get my bearings in what I thought was New Mexico. But as I approached and "reached" that intersection it became something else, and a new intersection appeared up ahead.
I was a little discouraged. I tried to understand what I was experiencing. Was it my imagination practice? Was it a lucid dream? Was it an out-of-body experience? And what caused these scene shifts? I didn't know what caused them, but I was disappointed in my "lucidity power," not in my inability consistently to change things (which is what I'm usually disappointed in), but in my inability to keep things consistent and "realistic."
I walked up to the intersection. Right before I reached it another vehicle passed me slowly. I think it was an old, wide, 1970s style car. The man inside, white, fleshy, balding (I think), in a yellow t-shirt (?), flatly, blankly stared at me, as if he didn't have a face at all, but also as if his fleshy face portrayed a distinct and yet relaxed loathing toward me. But perhaps this is a wrong impression, because I also remember wanting to ask him a question, to interact with him.
I stopped walking. I was just a couple dozen steps from the intersection. But some kind of tension got me nervous. I woke up.
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