Hello Dreamers,

One of my biggest blocks to lucid dreaming was the belief that consciously connecting my mind to a dream experience might make me miss out on more spontaneous or unexpected dreaming events. I secretly felt that using dreams as video‑game‑like experiences could mean I’d lose something — I never felt the need to fly or fulfil wishes in dreams that weren’t meant for me in waking life. I wanted to revel in extraordinary dreaming: prophetic dreams, self‑knowledge, and personal growth. Lucid dreaming felt like a distraction. Yet my dreams had other ideas, and they eventually unlocked lucid dreaming for me — along with a few lessons.

Self‑transcendence and self‑improvement have always been important approaches in my life, and I see them as crucial for loosening the conditioning we all carry. This unravelling brings us closer to what Jung called the alchemical Great Work, what Muslims describe as the Straight Path, what Christians call the Narrow Path, or what Lakota and Dakota peoples refer to as the Good Red Road. These concepts arise from very different cosmological traditions, but they share an emphasis on ethical living, balance, and alignment with a greater order — whether that order is understood as the universe, God, or a creator. For me, dreams offer a gateway into the unconscious, helping us understand why we act and think the way we do, so we can live more authentically in line with our deeper selves. I didn’t want to miss out on that. I knew lucid dreaming could help with skill‑building, muscle memory, and other practical benefits — but what if it meant missing dreams that felt prophetic or meaningful?

Several experiences changed my perspective, and perhaps sharing them will help other reluctant dreamers approach lucid dreaming with more enthusiasm.

My first lucid dream involved seeing a unique purple building associated with Tree Carr — something I didn’t know existed. Even more beautifully, the building was connected to dreams. It was called Dreamland, which reminded me of an episode of The X‑Files, my favourite TV show — and one Tree happened to appear in. My dreams were showing me that I could trust the process, and that I didn’t need to worry about missing out on meaningful dream experiences. This was the first lesson, but not the last.

After having dreams that later felt prophetic — often about political events that affected nations — I became fascinated by them. Not only did they feel extraordinary, but they also sparked conversations with others who wondered whether dreams might reveal something about the mysterious unfolding of life. I remember someone in the Lucid Hive telling me they hadn’t had dreams as “big” as mine. I was taken aback, because I believe all dreams are incredible. Whether they anticipate future events, reflect personal experiences, revisit the past, or appear nonsensical — they all matter. Why should a dream about a politician’s death be considered more important than a dream about a private moment, or a symbolic scene, or a fragment of memory?

Later, I had a dream that seemed prophetic — and then, in a subsequent dream, I recognised that the earlier dream’s imagery was gradually coming true within the dream itself. I felt excited and wanted to tell people, so they could see how mysterious life
can be. It made me realise that the life we experience inside dreams may be just as valuable as the life outside them. Why should a dream prophecy unfolding in another dream be considered less important than one unfolding in waking life?

This felt like a clue — a sign — that there is more to life than the linear, rationalistic, and often busy world we inhabit in the West and elsewhere. A world where we are too willing to hierarchically order forms of consciousness in our drive for control. Dreams, waking life, memory, imagination — perhaps they are all part of one continuous field of experience.

It reminds me of a line from Dune:
“Life is not a mystery to solve but a reality to experience.”

Perhaps what I came to realise was that it was my own ego holding me back — trying to solve life rather than experience it in all its wonderful heterogeneity.

Thank you for reading, and I hope this helps others throw themselves excitedly into the world of lucid dreaming.

Expergisci
— Awaken!

Daniel

Daniel J. Taylor is a Dreamer, author of Somewhere Beyond Jupiter, and a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology. If you want to wake up, go to sleep.