The Luminous SHadow:
Spiritual NigHtmares
The shadow side of ourselves is not only made up of qualities that we view as negative or harmful and that we repress or ignore, like jealousy, fearfulness, shame, or greed; it is also made up of “positive” qualities that we deny or suppress, such as our unexplored talents, our higher potential, and our spiritual connection. The shadow is all of the parts of us that we have not yet embraced and illuminated. It’s shadowy because the light hasn’t entered yet. Nightmares reach out forcefully to show us that we need to make changes in our lives and deepen our connection with our inner light.
This final chapter of the book explores how nightmares strengthen our connection with death, the deceased, and the divine, and illuminate our journey towards spiritual healing and enlightenment. We’ll look at examples of how the luminous shadow makes itself known through nightmares and how to handle frightening experiences in “the void”—an endless dream space devoid of habitual dream imagery, where we feel ourselves to be floating, falling, spinning, or rushing through darkness or coloured light. We’ll look at how the most terrifying nightmares can spontaneously shift into the numinous. We’ll investigate nightmares that touch death and the divine. We’ll look at nightmares that arise from a dark night of the soul, and explore the wonders of the Lucid Light—the blissful light that is the baseline state of consciousness, a source of infinite healing that we can encounter in any state, including nightmares!
Let’s dive into the transformative process that spiritual nightmares can trigger by considering the powerful role of fire in dreams and nightmares.
The Transformative Element of Fire
Think about how almost every substance changes form in a fire: it melts, evaporates, burns to ashes, or explodes. Fire is a highly transformative and powerful element in any state of consciousness, so unsurprisingly it has a strong transformative energy in dreams. Fire destroys, and in doing so, it makes way for new creations. Fire emits energy in the form of heat and light. It purifies and clears. Flames can symbolise spiritual enlightenment and mysticism. Fire in the form of the burning sun represents the essence of life. Fire is a powerful archetype and can symbolise change of the highest order. It’s no coincidence that there are plenty of fire nightmares in this chapter. Psycho-spiritual transformation often involves nightmares of fiery destruction, light, and illumination.
During an intense period of introspection and spiritual seeking, one of my ocean retreat attendees, Graziano from Italy, had the following dream:
I am with a woman and there is a bullying person with us carrying a bag with him. I think there is money or something valuable inside. The man wants to know something from us, and he is aggressive. Then he becomes meek and I decide to react. He walks away to his motorbike and I see that he drops his bag in a trash can. I approach, spread gas on him and his motorbike, and set everything on fire. He doesn’t even try to escape, and he doesn’t argue or scream.
At first, Graziano felt this dream was about destroying a dark shadow aspect of himself: an old part of his personality represented by the motorbike man. But when we worked on it together, the dreamwork revealed deeper layers. During a dream reentry, he discovered that the motorbike man was seeking treasure in the form of self-knowledge, and that together, the man, the woman, and himself symbolised the three parts of the brain: reptilian, neocortex, and limbic. In the dreamwork, the three of them agreed to work together and combine their strengths to find the knowledge they were seeking.
The motorbike turned out to be powerfully symbolic: Graziano had always owned a motorbike, but for the previous two years, since the breakup of his relationship, his bike has sat unused in his garage. When he thought about the motorbike in the garage as symbolic of part of himself, he said, “It’s like I don’t want to move. A stationary bike is like a lack of energy; frozen energy. I want to shift my frozen energy.” When he imagined himself riding the bike, he spoke of power and freedom. I asked him about the act of setting the motorbike and the man on fire, and we talked about the nature of fire. Graziano said, “Fire is a way to purify, to light something up, to illuminate. I have to illuminate the free, powerful part of myself.”
It’s very powerful symbolism in a dream to set something on fire. It shows a strong wish for change, a readiness for transformation. It was interesting that the motorbike guy seemed fine about being set on fire! This indicates that it is the right time to reignite that lost power and freedom, release the frozen part of the self, and move on. The psyche is ready; the dreamer has permission from all parts of himself to reclaim his power and freedom. This is a “luminous shadow” dream, one that illuminates the dreamer’s higher potential and his readiness to reach for spiritual connection. It’s also a transformation ritual, preparing the dreamer for psycho-spiritual change.
Even the most terrifying nightmares can become symbols of strength and succour. Let’s look at how they can help us through the worst of times.
“Dark Night of the Soul” Nightmares
Nightmares can provide us with an awesome metaphor for upheaval and change during the darkest times in our lives, and can provide us with a sense of spiritual guidance. Delia shares her experience:
This “dark night of the soul” experience preceded a complete upending of my entire life—spousal abuse, divorce, family tensions, health issues, career change—but most of all, a complete revaluation and shedding of old views, values, and aspirations. The dream gave me a visual and metaphorical context that helped me grasp some kind of understanding during a time of much unknowing and upheaval. Its pervasive nature—timelessness and persistence in my awareness—helped me as a guiding presence rather than simply a symbol or message.
Delia shares her nightmare:
I am lying on my back on a bare stone altar or table, awaiting a terrible ceremony I am dreading with every fibre of my being. As much as I want to avoid it, I know it must happen, being important and inevitable. The ceremony involves a fancy, bejewelled sword being plunged into my chest, all the way through. As I wait indefinitely for the appointed time, panic leaves me breathless, sweating, with a racing heart. The altar stands in an empty room; the only presence seems to be the sword itself somehow. Although I don’t see it, I know it’s a magnificent, finely crafted one dedicated to this service. In my mind’s eye, I can almost see the coloured jewels and glinting gold.
What significantly distresses me more than anything is knowing it will shatter my rib cage. I can almost tangibly preview the felt sense, the sound and texture of the cracking bones. I sense a vague parallel between the bare, exposed stone surface of the altar and my vulnerable, waiting rib cage so prone to breakage. The longer I wait, the more I seem to become familiar with the sword. In some ways, I begin to admire it. It seems rather magnificent and elicits the kind of awe and admiration one might develop for a beloved guru, wise mentor, or omniscient being.
Reflecting on her experience, Delia comments:
The dream foretold the impending psycho-spiritual processes unfolding ahead of me; in many ways, my ego structure was shattered as I lay defenceless against these processes. By being able to focus on a majestic presence behind the unbearable processes, I was able to better recognise and grasp the holy and life-giving forces behind that otherwise unbearable phase; somewhat like realising there’s a caring, well-meaning doctor behind the dreaded jab of a needle.
Dr. Tadas Stumbrys from Lithuania shared this powerful dream with me for my Amazing Dreamers feature in the IASD magazine, DreamTime.69
I dream there is a pandemic virus that is killing all the people on Earth. Everybody around is dying in the dream. At the end, it is just me and my grandma who are the only survivors, but she is lying in her bed very sick. I am pleading with her not to die.
I have a very strong feeling in the dream that if my grandma dies, the whole world will collapse and the whole of existence will halt, because there will only be a single point of awareness/perspective left (i.e., myself), and for the world to exist, at least two perspectives are needed. Like opposites: you need darkness for light to exist, or cold for heat to exist, as one cannot exist without the other.
Then my grandma dies in the dream.
To my biggest surprise, the world doesn’t end. Immediately I have a realisation that it’s me who is creating the world. With this sense of awe and numinosity, I become lucid and with my thoughts I start to creatively shape the dream environment which readily responds. I feel empowered and in a flow.
Tadas comments:
There was obviously some emotional processing, as my grandmother died a couple of years before the dream and she was my last family member. One of the key messages of this dream was how we create our dreaming and waking realities, often not explicitly recognising that. On a deeper level, it also connected with the notions of Atman and Brahman in Hindu philosophy, of an individual “soul” and the world “soul,” and how both are essentially one and the same.
Nightmares can have a profoundly spiritual nature. They bring us insights about who we are and why we are here so that we can clarify our purpose and do the work we need to do during this lifetime. We do all co-create the world together. The knowledge that it is not only our inner world that we create but our outer, collective world, too, helps us to feel deeply connected to all others on the planet. We need each other, and we are not separate!
A pandemic forces us to realise how intimately connected we are as a species and confronts us with the mortality of ourselves and others. Death is a major spiritual transition, and awareness of its constant proximity can raise our consciousness, connecting us to the cosmic soul. When we act fearfully in the world, we generate panic, bad decisions, and feelings of separation and disconnection. But when we do dreamwork to transcend our worst fears, we become more balanced humans and can contribute more to the collective health and balance of humanity. It is wonderful to experience the support and joy of spiritual dreams during times of hardship and loss.
Let’s move on to explore a different type of nocturnal experience. Have you ever had a nightmare where there is no imagery present? This may sound strange, because we are so familiar with nightmares as streams of vivid and distressing imagery, but in fact the scary experience of floating lost in pitch blackness is one that many people write to me about. “What is this frightening dream space?” they ask. “How do I escape from it?” Let’s explore an imageless dream space that we can choose to fill with fear or wonder, a space where anything is possible. That’s right—we’re going to dive into the lucid void!
The Lucid Void: From Terror to Wonder
Have you ever found yourself falling unstoppably through infinite space at great velocity? Or floating in a universe composed entirely of dots of light? Have you ever felt lonely and bodiless in a vast black space? Or have you been sucked through a twisting wormhole of rainbow light? How about finding yourself in an entirely luminous space, or flying through endless white clouds at incredible speeds? If you’ve had any of these experiences, congratulations! You are officially a lucid void explorer and have encountered one of the most creative and meditative dream spaces out there, a space filled with infinite potential.
We are often effortlessly lucid in the void, and we may experience ourselves as not having a body, but existing as a dot of conscious awareness. The void may appear empty at first glance, but it is really more of a fullness. It may appear pitch black at first, but it is steeped in light. The void can be composed of light of any colour. It’s a great place for initiating spiritual encounters with the Lucid Light, as described later in this chapter. I call the void “the gap between dreams,” because although this is dream space, it lacks the vivid, realistic stream of imagery that manifests in most dreams.
In fact, from the creative blank screen of the void, we can have the fascinating and enriching experience of watching dreams and visions build up from scratch. We can also actively create sound, light, shapes, vibrations, and imagery. We can float meditatively and experience oneness. We can play around: we can spin, tumble, or plummet like a rock. We can shapeshift into a mermaid or a phoenix. We can seek profound healing by inviting healing light of any colour to pour into us. Of course, we can also choose to freak out, struggle to wake up, and generally have a terrible time in the void. It’s really up to us.
There’s no doubt that anybody’s first encounter with the void can be terrifying. I’ve been there too! As you know, much depends on the mental attitude we take with us into these mysterious states. If we panic when we can’t see anything we’re used to seeing, like regular people, streets, or nature, then we may feel powerless and insignificant in the void. We may think we’re about to die—or even that we have already died! Our own fear may well attract fearful visions and sensations. In the thought-responsive, creative space of the lucid void, once we allow our own worst fears to manifest, it becomes an awful lot harder to keep calm. As we’ve seen so often in this book, remaining calm is the key.
Plenty of people ask me how to cope with fear when they enter the void and how to avoid being sucked into the void ever again. Others ask me for a well-signposted map of how to reach the void, as they’re so curious to experience it. In a comment on the lucid void page of my website, Jessica reports a typical first void encounter:
I had a dream I was standing in a closet shuffling through the clothes hanging on the rack, then all of a sudden this unseen force pulled me into a black void. I was floating and feeling a bit scared, so I woke myself up.70
The sense of being pulled forcibly into another space happens often in dreams. This can be seen as an invitation for us to explore our dreams and consciousness more deeply. When I first started being ripped out of a dream and flung through space at a zillion miles an hour, I was surprised and confused about what was happening. But soon I was actively seeking these experiences, because when we relax into them and take a curious, open-minded approach, they become part of a fascinating personal journey and help us to understand life’s mysteries and the deeper questions of the cosmos. When we embrace the void without fear, we are open to incredible spiritual experiences of love, oneness, and compassion. Also on the lucid void page of my site, Nyomi shares such an experience:
I simply was in space. I wasn’t scared; I was at total peace. Below me I could see a bubble. In that bubble I could see myself walking around, talking and interacting with family. I felt the most intense love that I’ve ever felt, but it was for myself. I thought, “You just don’t know how beautiful and wonderful you are!” My consciousness felt so overwhelmed by this concept, because I knew once I was back in my body, I would have all life’s truths and past experiences and future worries on my shoulders, but it was so peaceful. I woke up thinking, “That’s the place before birth and after life: this eternal bliss and love in the void.” 71
In the void, Nyomi accessed the blissful state that we find when we enter the Lucid Light, the loving light that we emerge from at birth and reenter at death. The Lucid Light is always there because it’s an intrinsic part of us, our baseline state of consciousness, and it’s easily accessible in lucid dreams. The wonderful thing about this type of lucid experience is that we will always carry within us that inner knowledge of the oneness we share with every other living being, and the total bliss and peace we will likely return to when we die. The following practice gives tips on how to navigate the void so that we can transcend fear and make the most out of this deeply meditative experience.
how to navigate the lucid void
• Practise calming techniques during the day, or recall a moment in your life when you felt totally safe and loved. Allow this feeling of wellbeing to envelop you. In the void, bring this feeling of wellbeing into your heart. Stay calm and curious. Breathe calmly. (In the dream state, you have control over your breathing.) Say a mantra like, “I am safe, I am safe,” to remind you that there is no need to freak out.
• Following a scary void experience, it can help to reduce fear if you practise entering the void in your imagination while awake and deeply relaxed. Try a dream reentry technique such as Practice 8: Reenter the Nightmare, where you close your eyes and mentally imagine yourself back in the scene. Lucidly aware in this waking dream reentry, you could either reexperience the void without fear and see what happens, or you could take on the role of a wise dream mentor and reassure your frightened void self that they are safe and free to relax and explore this marvellous world.
• If you are scared that you’ll die during a weird sleep experience, please know that you won’t die—you will wake safely from this strange experience! If people died each time they found themselves floating fearfully in the void, thousands of healthy people would be found dead in their beds each morning. You will survive this experience!
• Plan a few exciting experiments you can try the next time you enter the void. You could manifest an object—one woman said that she manifested an apple on her first attempt. Or you could intend for something glorious to appear—you could call out, “Void, show me something amazing!” and see what it comes up with. It can be such a magical experience.
• If you’re falling through the void, smile to yourself as you recall the common expression “falling asleep.” Feelings of falling are part of the natural sensory transition we experience as we shift from the waking state into the sleep state. There will be no hard landing, so release any fear and enjoy the ride!
• Experiment with your dream body, if you have one. You can shrink to the size of a pinhead, expand to infinity, grow new limbs, or do acrobatic feats such as backflips, impossible twists, and balletic leaps. Do anything that makes you giggle—laughter is the best antidote to fear.
• Create a fresh dream: set an intention to watch a dream build up step-by-step. This may start with spinning lights or sheets of luminescent colour. It may involve sound and motion, or you may simply see a highly realistic image of something very normal, like a shiny red car. Play with your intention while allowing spontaneous manifestations, and let the dream create itself around you. Then move into it, lucidly aware.
• It can be wonderfully relaxing to chant “Om” in the void. The voice is powerful; it sends out calming vibrations that emanate through dream space and can cause beautiful ripples of light to occur. You could build up an entire orchestra of sound, as I’ve done before. It’s incredibly realistic and moving to create music in the void.
• If you’re keen to have a spiritual experience in the void, then the next time you find yourself there, meditate. In any dream state, we are able to forget the body very easily. The light, flexible, and largely pain-free dream body is easily transcended. This makes it much easier to enter a state of deep and blissful meditation. The lucid void is a gift because we are often effortlessly aware—perfect for mind-expanding experiences.
These simple techniques and ideas were ones I stumbled across through trial and error when I had a long series of intense encounters in the lucid void about twenty-five years ago. Soon, I eagerly looked forward to my time in the void, because I understood that it’s a space of infinite creative potential. If you’re seeking a lucid void experience, the most common entry points are the pre-sleep imagery of hypnagogia; sleep paralysis; lucid dreams (just do a backflip with the intention of entering the void, or dive through a portal, or meditate); non-lucid dreams (in these, you often just get sucked into the void, willy-nilly); and out-of-body experiences. Once you’re in the void, the dreamworld is your oyster.
Now that we’ve done more work on releasing fear, let’s dive more deeply into the bliss of the Lucid Light.
What Is the Lucid Light?
The Lucid Light is pure conscious awareness: the underlying oneness that binds everything and everyone together. 72 Many people assume that the waking state is our baseline state of consciousness, but my theory is that the Lucid Light is the state from which all forms and matter emerge; it is the original, alive, aware light from which all states of consciousness and all energy, matter, and physical forms emerge. As such, it is always present, and imageless dream spaces like the void and the “gap between dreams” are composed purely of the Lucid Light, which can be any colour, including black and white. We can have immersive Lucid Light experiences during meditation, in dreams where we experience luminescence, during out-of-body experiences, and in ultra-lucid waking-life moments, as well as during near-death experiences. This is the light we emerge from as conscious beings and the light we return to when we die. Experiences of the Lucid Light can be blissful, energising, and healing.
My advice to anyone interested in having a deeper and more spiritual life is to go towards the light in your dreams, in your meditations, in your heart. The luminosity is always present. When we go to the place of deepest fear, we will find light. And sometimes, the light finds us.
Let’s explore some different encounters with the Lucid Light to see how it arises in dreams and nightmares. This first example is one of my own, when a waking nightmare provoked a wonderful Lucid Light–filled dream.
Encounters with the Lucid Light
When I was twenty-one, I lived alone in the South of France. Well, not completely alone: two lizards also lived in my apartment, and soon they had a baby. I loved that baby lizard—tiny, quick, delicate, its skin nearly translucent so you could see its heart beating. It had round black eyes and a flicky tail. I was so happy that my home was his home. One boiling day, I struggled back from town with four heavy shopping bags cutting into my wrists, unlocked the front door, burst into the apartment with all my bags, and kicked the door shut with my foot. My head whipped around as I remembered that I never shut that door without checking for the lizard … I saw him scamper up the inside of the doorjamb just as the door slammed shut.
For hours, I couldn’t bring myself to open the door. I kidded myself that perhaps he’d survived. When I finally eased the door open, the baby lizard was flat as a pancake and very dead. Poor baby, poor parents! I was so sorry, and went to sleep feeling unhappy about it. Later that night, I became aware that my bedroom was illuminated by green light. I sat up, not sure if I was awake or lucid dreaming. The light seemed so real, and it was coming from the hallway, shining all around my doorframe. I rose from bed with such ease that I figured I must be dreaming. Still—there was something peculiar about this light. Slowly, I opened the door.
The entrance hall to my apartment was filled with a green luminosity, and as I looked up to the ceiling to discover its source, I saw the most enormous green lizard! She was much bigger than me, made from pure green light, and I knew this was the mother of all lizards. Immediately, and without words, I offered her a heartfelt apology for killing the baby lizard. She felt my regret and responded with such love and forgiveness, letting me know that everything was very much all right: this was a natural spiritual transition. I watched in awe as she collected the bright light of the baby lizard and brought it into her own light. Then she disappeared and the green light faded away.
I was left standing in the hallway, still with a strong sense of presence. The physical reality of my hallway was so real that it felt like I was sleepwalking. I returned to bed. This experience felt very spiritual and it helped me not to feel quite so awful about the baby lizard (but it was still tough to watch his little body shrivel and dry up over the next weeks—I couldn’t bear to scrape him off the door!).
So many times in my life, when I’ve needed it, the Lucid Light has reached into my dreams and waking consciousness to gift me with loving energy, beautiful visions, and profound insights. I’ve experienced immersive Lucid Light from yoga nidra states of deep relaxation where I’ve been recharged from exhausted to energised simply by floating in the light. The Lucid Light can astonish us by appearing from unexpected sources, as in the following nightmares, two of which feature the majestic power of a dragon.
Luminous Dragon Nightmares of Fire and Light
Keith, an artist from the US, wrote to me sharing the following transformative spiritual dream. It started out as a nightmare, but when Keith faced the danger with courage, he was gifted with a vision of a luminous universe.
Inside a European castle, I see two duelling figures and a large wooden lever next to a steel portcullis. There is a fierce and fiery demon/dragon secured inside. I don’t fully grasp the consequences of releasing such a figure. When I pull the lever, an overwhelming feeling of regret washes over me. I had no idea what I was unleashing. This demon is intelligent and all fire. Who could ever stop it? I descend the spiralling stairs with swift feet. In the car, I speed away down the road, trying to leave it all behind. And I may have gotten away, too, but I begin to hear the dragon. And the screams. A glimpse of the castle in smoky ruins flashes in the rearview mirror. I have to take responsibility for my actions. I released him. I have to go back.
I make a strong U-turn and head back. Somehow this dragon knows who I am and that I am in this car. It picks my car up in its talons and hoists me up, high in the air. I see its head. It is gesturing as if to lash out. In this moment of utter hopelessness, I feebly push my door open and vigorously flail it at my foe, as if this were some kind of weapon. What am I going to do? Bash him with the door? But Fire Dragon is actually pleased that I am fighting back. “Good!” he says, almost like a mentor.
I begin to realize that the fire is not harming me. Fire Dragon leans in close and begins to open his massive jaws. When I look into the dragon’s open mouth, I see the most awe-inspiring sight, as if looking into the center of all creation. As I peer into this luminous universe of raw creative wonder, a burst of white flower blossoms emanates in a beautiful mandala that fills my gaze, and I wake up.
In Keith’s dream, a shift from terror to courage results in the Lucid Light revealing itself in the form of a luminous archetypal image: the mandala—a sacred circle that represents unity in Jungian psychology and symbolises the universe in the Hindu and Buddhist religions. The dragon’s mouth seems symbolic of a gateway opening into the deeper mysteries of life, a glorious glimpse of the infinite.
Maomi, an experienced lucid dreamer, wrote to me from Hawaii to share a lucid dream with a wholly unexpected ending:
Near the end of my lucid dream I saw a shadowy figure. I was afraid to look on the face. And because I have been in the practice of facing those fears in dreams, I chose to go up to the figure and look upon their face. The creature was human-like with dark, long, mangled hair. The posture was crouched, hunched up in a corner of the room where there was hardly any light to see. They had their face against the wall. It took everything I had to walk up to this being. As I approached, the figure turned around and faced me. The ragged exterior of the person didn’t match what I saw.
When I looked at the face, it was pure, brilliant, bright light and its beauty was so humbling and overwhelming.
I woke up thinking, “What the F*** was that about!” I couldn’t get the whole sequence out of my mind. Was that part of my psyche? Was that something outside of myself? Where do I go when I lucid dream? Lucid dreaming feels so powerful and between worlds, like a place yet not a place.
This is such a beautiful example of the luminous shadow. When we courageously face the darkness in whatever form it takes, we are sometimes gifted with the truth in the form of blazing light. When Maomi shared this powerful lucid dream, it made me think of a quote commonly attributed to the fourteenth-century Persian Sufi poet Hafez Shirazi: “I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being!” We are all made of this brilliant light. It’s a wonder to behold and sometimes shocking to us. From my own encounters with this light, my feeling is that this is the light of the soul, the essence of all that we are.
Vivid dreamer Jessica shares an amazing, luminous dragon dream that involves a kind of baptism by fire, death, and purification.
I’m at the ocean. The water is rising and dangerous, an uninviting dark teal colour. Next, there is a deafening crack—and I mean SO loud—CRACK—and instead of lightning, a big black fork comes down from the clouds and the sky. I feel fearful and doomed, as if the end of the earth is upon us.
Out of this black fork emerge flying black creatures with hooked wings. Almost like angel wings. It’s as if they want to destroy the entire human race. They begin to breathe huge streams of fire, burning the city and town. I turn to run, but only a few steps later, a magnificent, terrifying dragon swoops out from the sky. I know this is it: I will not make it. I know it is too late. It is the end for me.
Dragon rains down fire.
His face and presence take up the whole scene—his eyes stand out, beady and intense, and he opens his mouth to release fire. The colour is a wonderful combination of yellows, golds, tinges of warm and red. I can see each individual scale on his face and the pointed horns on his snout. He wants to kill me.
The fire consumes me. I am dying.
The fear of feeling nothing is so great as I’m dying, but as the fire hits, I feel ALIVE with glowing white energy; it is blinding bright and reaches every part of my body, my mind, my existence. It is an amazing feeling. Like liberation. Purification. Cleansing. There is no fear or pain. Just being consumed by the fire and bright light, bringing with it an entirely different state of mind, a new realm.
Jessica says, “That was the beginning of a turbulent period that resulted in me finding my faith, so to speak.” This kind of transformative spiritual nightmare can give us a profound understanding of how fear can be the greatest barrier to knowledge. Look at how we dress our fears: they emerge in nightmares as monstrous, predatory creatures whose apparent goal is to annihilate us. Of course we run away at first! Yet when we face the monster, we transcend our crippling fear and enable transformation, healing, and enlightenment.
turn mythological beasts into protective allies
Sometimes the most terrifying nightmares involve monsters of mythological power and presence. In this book alone, there are nightmares that star serpents, dragons, a hideous goat, tigers, and mythological mixes of animals, such as the chimera in Chapter 4. I especially love these nightmare combo-animals, because they are transformation in progress! They embody different powers. The fire-breathing chimera from Greek mythology has the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and a serpent’s tail. It embodies the power and qualities of all of these animals, combined with the transformative power of fire. Wow! This nightmare beast could become a major ally if you take steps to merge its energy with your own and make it part of your inner power; your wilder, larger self.
• Whenever a mythological beast or any kind of powerful animal or monster shows up in your dreams, take time to consider its qualities. One man dreamed about a combo-animal that was half-crocodile, half-dolphin. If you have this kind of dream and feel the animal might represent a part of you, ask yourself, which part of me is a bit like a crocodile? And a dolphin? Look for both positive and negative attributes. These can help you identify which qualities and characteristics about yourself you would like to change, and guide you to becoming your best self. If you feel the combo-animal represents a person in your life, ask yourself why it is showing up in this form in your dream. Is there something you can learn from this person?
• Investigate the way that this nightmare creature has been portrayed in myth, its role in history, and any other associations you want to explore in order to get a vaster picture of the energy it brings.
• Look for a personal association—does anyone in your life remind you of this beast? Wanwilai, a film producer from Thailand, dreamed of a wondrous white snake wearing a crown, with diamond eyes that sparkled with da Vinci symbols. But then the snake spat poison onto the dreamer’s chest. Soon afterwards in waking life, a dear friend of hers behaved in a poisonous fashion towards her, hurting her deeply. Wanwilai dreamed again of the white snake. This time it turned black and lost its tail, indicating the ugly end of the friendship.
• Take action in your life in any way that feels right to honour your nightmare beast and bring its energy into your life. Draw it, write a poem about it, enact its movements in dance, or drum a story around it. I have dreamed many times of tigers. They often symbolise my creativity. When I felt overwhelmed by other people’s traumatic nightmare accounts at the start of writing this book and was unsure of how to organise my material, I dreamed a baby tiger let me pick him up and hold him. Our bodies buzzed together harmoniously. When I woke up, the block had shifted and I started to write at about a hundred miles per hour. Right now, a female tiger and her blue-eyed cub are eyeing me from across my desk in the form of tiny, lifelike models. They remind me to be brave as I work with all of these fiery nightmares and to let volcanic lava and creativity flow freely through the book.
• Meditate on your nightmare creature. Bring it into your mind’s eye fearlessly, knowing that this wondrous beast has entered your dreams to help and heal you. If it has destructive energy, remember that sometimes old behavioural patterns and unhealthy attachments or thoughts need to be destroyed in order to clear the path to a new, healthier way of being in the world. If you feel repulsed by the beast, either allow it to transform into something else or focus on any positive qualities it has. Play with different scenarios as you engage imaginatively with the beast, and see what resonates and brings you insights into its place in your psyche and your life. Ask your beast to protect you and share its power with you.
• Call on the powerful energy of your nightmare creature in waking-life situations. If your boss is being critical and unfair, bring Lion energy into your heart and don’t let yourself be bullied or subdued.
• Thank your beast from the heart for arriving on your path to help you towards wholeness and self-understanding. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship!
Luminous Lucid Dreams
Light and luminosity seem linked to higher states of consciousness in dreams. We’ve seen that spiritual nightmares may spontaneously morph into intense experiences of brilliant light, and super-aware dreams also tend towards luminosity. In lucid dreams over the past few decades, I have spontaneously found myself in a luminous white space where I have high-level, coherent, and illuminating conversations about the nature of consciousness, the journey of the soul through life and death, lucid dreaming, and the nature of being. Here, I have interactions with both living and deceased consciousness explorers and also meet guide-like super-conscious figures I’ve never seen before, who share knowledge with me, often in a stream of imagery. My lucidity in these dreams is effortless and unquestioned; it’s as stable as in waking reality.
There are several interesting things to note about the people I meet in these luminous lucid dreams. First, they are usually around 20 percent bigger than regular humans. Second, they appear in vibrant physical health, radiating energy and well-being. Third (and please don’t ask me why!), they are dressed entirely in white clothes. I refer to the space we meet in as a “white room” because there is sometimes minimalistic furniture in there, for example, a table and chairs (white, of course—seems it all has to match!). For someone like me who loves colour and has incredibly bright, colourful dreams, this is surprising and very different, yet these spaces feel luminous and alive. The walls are not like white-washed solid walls; this “room” seems to be a space made from white light. I think of it as a meeting place.
In one lucid dream, an old woman led me into a luminous white room with two massage-type beds in it. She lay down on one and crossed her arms over her chest and closed her eyes. I assumed the same position on the other bed and was instantly taken into the most profound state of meditation. I knew I was in the presence of a powerful meditator. I was then shown a stream of disturbing imagery that I felt tangibly in my body—one image was of a granite gravestone crushing me. I had no idea why I was being shown these multisensory images. However, despite the upsetting nature of the imagery, I felt safe, serene, and connected in this deep meditation, as if I were plugged in to a source of peace.
When the slideshow finally ended, the old woman left the room without speaking a word to me, even though I tried to ask her about what I’d seen. Shortly afterwards, in waking life, those scenes sadly came true in my life in the form of an unexpected situation of loss and grief. Amazingly, I was strong in this situation, able to connect to that sense of deep oneness and peace despite the circumstances, so that I was able to provide help and loving support for others who were affected by it too. It was as if the old woman had warned me of what was coming but had simultaneously reminded me of my inner resources so that I was able to tap into the peaceful centre we all have within us.
In another “white room” encounter, I found myself with the deceased sleep researcher and psychoanalyst Dr. Ernest Hartmann. We had met only once in waking life, at an IASD dream conference in 2005, when I was awarded an IASD student research award for my PhD work on lucid dreaming, and I’d found him to be a kind and thoughtful man. In this white space (where he was 20 percent bigger than his physical self was), we talked about the journey of the soul through life. I was saying how precious it was to be alive and experience this beautiful world in a human body, and I asked him what it was like after death. He conveyed to me that it was delightful. His eyes sparkled with health and joy. A dark-haired woman whom I didn’t know entered the room, and we had a group hug that felt marvellous, as if I were being charged with energy. Midway through the hug, I noticed my feet were not touching the ground—Ernest and the woman were carrying me! I felt so incredibly loved and supported, and returned to waking reality feeling revitalised and with a strong feeling that this had been more than just a lucid dream—it felt like an actual encounter.
In dreams, it’s good to watch for light and luminosity (also in the form of glowing colours, a shining moon, sparkling water, or vibrantly healthy dream people, plants, or animals). There may be healing there, or a gift of knowledge, or an immersive experience of the Lucid Light where you float in deep bliss and experience oneness. When you see the light in a dream or nightmare, move towards it.
Let’s take a look now at how lucid dreaming and imaginal journeying can help us to prepare for the event that so many of us fear; the ultimate transition of death.
Preparation for the Ultimate Transition: Death
We can use lucid dreaming, out-of-body experiences, meditation, yoga nidra, and imaginal journeying, such as the drumming journey in Practice 45 later in this chapter, as tools through which to explore death and prime ourselves for an experience of conscious dying. Some people might wonder why on earth anyone would want to be conscious of dying. Surely dying is an awful thing? Wouldn’t we rather just slip into unconsciousness (and therefore death) and not know about it? Well, that’s one way of doing things. Choosing to sleepwalk aimlessly through life and trip reluctantly into Death’s arms at the end of it does seem to be a fairly popular approach in some cultures. But for those who wish to wake up in their lives and ignite their own vast human potential, consciousness in all things seems a far more exciting choice.
Are you afraid of dying? Where does this fear of death come from? It’s good to make time in your life to question your beliefs about life and death. Practice 39: Question Your Beliefs, Assumptions, and Expectations in the previous chapter may help you to pinpoint the origins of your fear. It’s helpful to consider the nature of the universe and wonder what happens after death. It’s something we can all benefit from. We’ll all definitely die one day—what’s the point of fearing this natural transition? Fear can be pretty pointless, except when it kick-starts our survival instinct to help us escape from an imminent physical threat, such as a charging rhinoceros, or to keep us at a sensible distance from sheer drops. Fear in the dreamworld usually serves no real purpose, and excessive fear in waking life prevents us from living our fullest life. Releasing fear doesn’t mean we become reckless about our personal safety; it means we live a lucid, joyful, responsible, and caring life. Whenever you encounter fear, examine it, go into it, … and release it.
Lucid dreaming can prepare us for death, because when we are consciously aware in a dream, we can transcend not only the physical body but also the dream body. Freed from the body concept, we can explore pure conscious awareness. We can exist as a floating point of consciousness in a lucid dream, or move beyond even that into nondual awareness where there is no longer a sense of the ego-self, or indeed any “self” at all. Such awesome and transformative experiences free us from fear. There is so much fear about dying, but advanced lucid dreamers know that there is no need to be frightened of this natural transition from one state of consciousness to another. Fear is an incredibly potent force in life. It restricts us, it reduces us, and it creates massive intellectual and emotional blocks that cause us to live a small life. When we work to transcend fear, we free up masses of energy with which we can live more consciously and help others on their own journey through life.
Spiritual lucid dreams and out-of-body experiences can help us to prepare consciously for death. We can practise dying in a lucid dream in wonderfully imaginative ways, such as by allowing ourselves to get eaten by a dinosaur or flying into the sun. We can ask to experience death and dying—but only do this if you’re sure you really want to know! I would not recommend this for people with anxiety, depression, or mental health issues, or those who feel psychologically unstable. Some people report highly realistic experiences of drowning or being killed in some other way after formulating this kind of request in a dream. I have never had that; for me, this type of request usually results in the complete dissolution of all forms, including the dream body (or energy body), and the ego-self, and an experience of blissful white light. Whether unpleasant or pleasant, such lucid dream experiences can aid in the psychological and emotional understanding that we, too, will surely die one day! This awareness of death intensifies our life, sharpening our sense of purpose, bringing us closer to our heart’s desire, and encouraging us to live consciously, with joy and compassion.
My experiences within the Lucid Light have helped me to transcend my fear of death. I’m very familiar with being consciously aware in bodiless, seemingly infinite dream spaces and raising my level of consciousness in these states via meditation (which is easy, as there are none of the usual physical distractions when we meditate in a lucid dream!). While I’m in no hurry to die, because I love life and feel that I’m doing the work I was meant to do, I am intrigued by what death will be like. I’m so curious about this big spiritual transition and I’m determined to remain consciously aware throughout and beyond death. It’ll be a fascinating lucid adventure.
Deep meditation, yoga nidra, lucid dreaming, out-of-body experiences, and imaginal journeying effectively train us to raise our level of conscious awareness in life and prepare in reassuring and healing ways for the ultimate transition of death. In these states, we can travel towards our own death to take a clear-eyed look at our fears and register our own mortality. Such exercises often naturally result in greater clarity about our life path and a more compassionate engagement with the people in our lives. One thing I have done for decades, when facing important life decisions, is to engage in an imaginal journey where I travel forward in time to the age of eighty-five and imagine myself looking back at my life. Taking on this perspective not only makes any problems look less significant, but also reminds me of my life’s trajectory and how I want to live.
The next practice helps us to cross thresholds with ease and connect with our inner light. It can also be a beautiful way of falling asleep!
meet your inner light
This is a guided visualisation that you can change and personalise in any way that feels right and use to connect to your deeper self when you are about to fall asleep at night.
Imagine you are standing on a sunny, flower-covered mountain. Everything in this place is at the height of its beauty, and you feel happy. Ahead of you is a beautiful waterfall. It sparkles with light and vitality. You approach it and stand very close to it, enjoying the feel of the spray on your skin. Then you walk effortlessly through the waterfall, as if it were a curtain made of light.
As you cross this natural threshold, you feel an increased sense of wellbeing and aliveness. Beyond the waterfall is a spacious chamber with an aura of tranquillity. This sacred space is warmly lit with candles that cast an orange glow. Being here makes you feel like you have finally come home. You feel safe and happy because this sacred place belongs to you.
Up ahead of you, in a stone circle lit with candles, you see your inner light, your soul, your deeper, wiser self. Everybody’s soul looks different, but you recognise yours instantly. It may appear as a wise-eyed person or animal, a pool of crystal-clear water, a swirling sphere of coloured light, an ancient book, a radiant, compassionate presence, or anything else. Go up to your soul and greet it in any way that feels right. You may wish to ask a question about your life path, or listen to any message it has for you. You may choose to sit and absorb its loving energy. Take as much time as you need.
When you feel it is time to leave, thank your soul or inner light, and take three deep breaths to return to your body and your reality. You might want to write about your encounter or draw it. Bring your inner light with you into your dreams and make it part of how you see and experience yourself: I am the man whose soul is a lithe jaguar. Or, I am the woman whose soul is a healing hand.
When we maintain a connection with our inner light, we become more able to respond to life’s fears and challenges from the soul level rather than the ego level. We also become closer to death in the most positive of ways, because we develop an idea of ourselves as more than just a body and a brain. When we grow our soul connection, we become more lucid in life and in dreams. As a result, spiritual dreams may become more frequent. The most luminous and lucid of spiritual dreams can teach us to die.
One remarkable woman, Aiha Zemp, was an accomplished meditator and lucid dreamer. She was born without forearms and legs, suffered from an incurable disease, and was in pain, so she chose to die in her native Switzerland when she was fifty-eight. In the year of her death, she reported over thirty spiritual lucid dreams in which she would float in light and experience oneness. She told her Zen meditation teacher, Dr. Peter Widmer, “These dreams teach me to die.” 73 One week before her chosen time, she had the following lucid dream.
I’m lying dead in this room with the view of the Rhine. Just after I die, you five carers go out onto the balcony and are holding sparklers … You light the sparklers. Part of me leaves my body and this part is completely porous, it looks like a breath, slightly bluish, like evaporating steam rising from a humidifier, except in a different form, a sort of body form but not really; and it’s much bigger than you all are on the balcony. I float through the window without opening it and begin to pluck the stars from the sparklers out of the air as if I had hands, and start to play and dance with them. It’s wonderful. Then I go away, up into the air, and dissolve. I wake up feeling happy.74
One week later, at the time of her death, Aiha’s carers honoured her lucid dream in the most beautiful and touching way. Peter told me, “We did exactly what the dream described. We went out onto the balcony and lit the waiting sparklers.”
Lucid dreaming can provide us with a safe space within which we can transcend the boundaries of the physical body and our innate body concept to experience incredible freedom and boundless awareness within Lucid Light states. It is hard to put into words the depth and beauty of such experiences. These states prepare us for the final act of releasing our physical body with joy rather than fear.
The following practice can be used as a basis for a myriad of wonderful imaginal journeys to take you wherever you want to go, whether you want to explore death, experience the Lucid Light, encounter spiritual allies, or befriend power animals to protect you both in and out of your dreams.
drumming journey:
create your own spiritual dream
Many different cultural traditions use rhythmic drumming to enter trance states. When we listen to rhythmic beats, we can follow the sound of the drum into the imaginal world and go on a dreamlike journey where we encounter power animals and immensely beautiful nature, or experience oneness by merging with the Lucid Light. It can be wonderfully vivid.
At a Gateways of the Mind conference in London at which I was invited to speak, there was a great lineup of events, one of which was a shamanic drumming journey led by Martin Duffy. My experience as I sat with so many others was as vivid as a super-lucid dream. During my journey that day, I met a powerful Bengal tiger on a beach. We stomped our feet to the beat in synchrony, then to my amazement he raised his paw, and with his curved claws he ripped me open from throat to navel! Looking down at my body in surprise, I saw the opened flesh, within which were six shining pearls of light, suspended in a vertical line, like a row of shirt buttons. I knew they were precious and beloved things I had lost and still grieved over, so I sent them healing energy and closed my chest back together. Then I was lifted by kind, invisible beings and set down by the shore. I stood naked and gazed out to sea, feeling whole, my heart and body ringing with the beat of the drums.
After the drum sounded the recall, it was weird to return to the auditorium and open my eyes to find hundreds of sleepy-eyed people blinking all around me! (I was relieved to note that I was still wearing all my clothes.) The point being that it is easier to lose yourself in an inner vision or journey when you have rhythmic accompaniment.
• Find a drumming recording that is 5–10 minutes long, preferably with nobody speaking or giving directives on it, but just the rhythmic sound of drums. If you search on YouTube using words like “meditative/shamanic/relaxing drumming journey,” you should find something suitable. Of course, you can choose any music for your imaginal journey, from classical to chill-out ambient music or nature sounds such as ocean waves, whatever you prefer. If you do decide to go with drumming, I’d quickly skip through the recording first to check that there is some sort of “recall” signal included at the end, where the drumbeat changes slightly to let you know it’s time to return. Returning is important!
• Make sure you won’t be disturbed by anyone or by your phone. Dim the lighting to your liking. Then lie down comfortably (unless you’re someone who falls asleep very quickly, in which case, lie on a yoga mat or sit up).
• If your thoughts are all over the place, take a minute or so to calm down through deep breathing. Use this moment to set an intention for your drumming journey. This might be general, such as “I want to have a beautiful, spiritual experience,” or it might be more specific, such as “I’d like to meet a power animal who will protect me,” “I’d like help with my anxiety/my relationship,” “I’d like to heal my body,” or “I’d like to face my fear of death.” Intention is important, so take the time you need for this. You might wish to choose a luminous, spiritual aspect of a dream or nightmare to explore and deepen while journeying. This can be incredibly rewarding.
• When you feel ready, start the drumming recording and close your eyes, allowing yourself to fly free of your body and follow the beat. You may see a scene appear before you, or find yourself diving into the depths of the ocean or walking barefoot into a cave or forest. Allow the visuals to appear, and when you feel ready, remember your intention for this journey. Allow the drumming and your own imagination and dreamlike state to carry you into the imaginal world. You may receive words of wisdom or gifts. You may feel love and experience healing, or be bathed in light. You may feel an energetic shift during your journey, or waves of emotion, or a strong heart connection with one of the animals or guides you encounter. Surprising things may happen. Remember, you can guide this waking dream. You are safe and can halt the experience anytime you wish, by taking a deep breath and opening your eyes.
• When the drum sounds the recall, take leave of the animal guides, people, or spiritual spaces you have visited. Thank them and return by flying effortlessly back to your body, feeling the weight of it on the ground and taking a few deep and grounding breaths before opening your eyes. You may want to meditate to complete your journey, or write down your waking dream. You may wish to take action to honour any imagery, power animals, or wisdom you received on your journey.
In this chapter, we have explored the spiritual nature of nightmares and the movement towards transcendence that some of them naturally bring. We’ve looked at how nightmares can show us which parts of ourselves are ripe for transformation, and we’ve seen how even terrifying dreams can bring us solace during the darkest moments of our lives. We’ve looked at death as the ultimate transition and seen how lucid dreaming and imaginal journeying can help us to prepare for conscious dying. We’ve explored the Lucid Light and seen how to create a spiritual dream to carry us through the tough patches in life, fortified and supported by power animals, guides, and beautiful experiences of wisdom and transcendence.
69. Johnson, “Amazing Dreamer,” DreamTime.
70. Johnson, Deep Lucid Dreaming, “The Lucid Void,” https://deepluciddreaming.com/2015/05/the-lucid-void/.
71. Johnson, Deep Lucid Dreaming, “The Lucid Void,” https://deepluciddreaming.com/2015/05/the-lucid-void/.
72. A far more in-depth exploration of the Lucid Light can be found in Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Lucid Dreaming.
73. Johnson, Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Lucid Dreaming, 369.
74. Ibid.