Get Lucid! – An investigation into the phenomenon of shared dreaming (also an interview about a podcast)
When assigned to interview Joe Davine and Tom Smith about their lucid dreaming themed podcast “Get Lucid!” I knew that there was no way I’d be able to afford the coach ticket from Birmingham to London (not if I wanted to eat while I was there). I had almost resigned myself to the fact that I’d just have to go hungry for the duration of my visit when I was struck with a brainwave… why not just conduct the interview in a shared lucid dream? There are no travel expenses in dreamland and as a bonus, if successful, we’d be making a ground-breaking contribution to the field of oneirology (the study of dreams). Joe and Smith were well up for it so we agreed that on the night of April 19th we’d all go to sleep at precisely 12 O’clock and whilst dreaming we’d each make our way to Hyde Park and attempt to meet up and conduct the interview. What follows is an extract from my dream journal detailing what happened.
19/04/11
I’m in a dark and decrepit hospital and I’m witnessing my own birth. I have a nagging feeling that I’m supposed to be doing something important but I’m transfixed on the spectacle that’s unfolding before me. The baby doesn’t really look like me, it’s more like an action man but sort of made out of chocolate and with an emu head (this makes perfect sense at the time). The nagging feeling won’t go away so I look at my watch to see what time it is, I can’t make out any of the digits and I realise that this must be a dream. Suddenly everything comes flooding back to me and I remember that I’m supposed to be at Hyde Park. To get there I spin around on the spot whilst saying aloud, “Hyde Park” until I see my surroundings start to change. It’s very green and very bright. I look up at an enormous Ferris wheel on my left, the sun is blinding and the height of the wheel makes me dizzy and lightheaded. I feel the dream start to dissolve around me so I hurriedly attempt to stabilise it, I rub my hands together, inhale deeply, then I get on all fours and lick the floor. Following this the park comes back into focus with much greater clarity… I am ready. I instantly spot Joe and Smith sitting on a bench. Having only heard their voices before, I don’t actually know what they look like so the dream assigns them each with an image from my subconscious. Joe has the appearance of an old primary school friend of mine and Smith is Bert from Sesame Street. We congratulate ourselves on the success of our little experiment and we immediately get started with the interview because we know that either one of us could be awoken at any time.
Me: What is lucid dreaming?Joe: In essence lucid dreaming is being aware that you’re dreaming whilst you’re in a dream, but at the same time it’s quite a lot more than that, it’s like unlocking a whole new part of your life. For example having sex with Scarlett Johansson is definitely one of my favourite acts in a lucid dream but at the same time you can do crazy stuff like talk to your higher self and you know, question the meaning of life and question like, emotions or even be an emotion.
Smith: Stephen LaBerge or “DJ La B” as we call him, he defined it as… because you can do anything that your mind can conceive of and you’ve got no laws of like, the social norm, you can experience things that are impossible in waking life…
Joe: Even something simple like flying
Smith: Or having sex because I’m fucking struggling! But it’s so much more than that, you can do anything, there’s stuff in your mind that you’re probably not even aware of.Joe: People say “your mind’s the limit”… well not in a lucid dream.
Me: So how can it benefit your life?
Smith: Well look at me and Joe for instance, since we’ve been doing lucid dreaming it’s massively, massively changed the way I view the world, like you don’t get hung up on things as much. Ever since I started lucid dreaming it’s unlocked the subconscious, you can feel this passionate creative drive inside you and so… I think the advantage of it is you get to know yourself a bit more and you start to realise what you really want out of life and how to act in life and stuff, you don’t get hung up on the bullshit, you don’t get hung up on the nine to five. You think properly about life like people should do.
Joe: You take a perspective, it’s all about perspective
Smith: You appreciate things so much more, beauty and… everything really. I guess because you’re experiencing a whole new side of life that you’ve never experienced before, but it’s always been there.
Joe: I think because you’re always questioning your reality you become much more perceptive of things and you see the world differently.
It is at this point that I notice that the sky is purple… it is also at this point that I become aware of the fact that I’m not wearing any clothes. I’m startled by this revelation and briefly consider fleeing the interview to find cover. This small wave of panic soon subsides as I realise that neither Joe nor Smith have commented upon my nakedness and therefore it must be only in my own mind that I am without clothes. They probably have their own mental constructions of my appearance, just like I do of theirs. Comforted by this knowledge I proceed with the interview…
Me: So is lucid dreaming difficult? Can anyone do it?
Smith and Joe in unison: Anyone can do it.
Smith: Although DJ La B does say that if you’re mental or you’ve got psychosis then don’t do it. So if you’re in a straitjacket then lucid dreaming may not be your cup of tea… take up tennis or something.
Joe: Everyone else should do it though, it’s an easy thing to do but you do have to put a bit of effort in.
Smith: I think the difficult part is just breaking down the boundaries of your own preconceptions… or misconceptions. Because at the moment most people think that dreams are irrelevant and we’re not taught to appreciate them, so you’re actually trying to re-program the way you think. That’s what takes the time.
Joe: I mean we’ve only been doing it for fifteen to twenty weeks and I think our progress speaks for itself.
Me: Ok so tell me a bit about the podcast.Joe: Well we’re called Get Lucid! You can listen to us at www.getluciduk.blogspot.com or you can “like” us on our facebook page.
Smith: Basically the idea is to get everyone lucid in the world because why not?
Joe: Yeah, we didn’t want to moan about the fact that there was no podcast about lucid dreaming so I said to Smith, “let’s do it! Why not?” So it’s a weekly show with me and Smith chatting about lucid dreaming and topics around it. It’s basically a discussion between us about what we do in the lucid world, and I think because it’s all based on our own experiences it has a real truth to it unlike some of the bullshit that you hear where people just spiel out a load of stuff that they’ve read in a book. We’re trying to bring lucid dreaming to the masses because at the moment it’s seen as very spiritual and like… crystal skulls, mystic balls and all that, but really it’s an every day thing and it should be handled like that.
Smith: It’s just breaking down this idea that lucidity is a hard thing to obtain and something that only appeals to weird thinking people.
Joe: Yeah, like we’ve got friends who’d never heard of lucid dreaming before but they’d listen to the podcast just for the comedy factor and it’s just melded into their minds and they’ve become lucid from it! And that’s what it’s all about really.
Me: So you’ve done a season already and now you’re going on a mini hiatus and then you’ll be back with season 2 is that right?
Smith: Yeah we would just carry on but we’re going on a massive bike trip across Europe. It’s actually going to massively benefit the show because for two months we’ll just be literally cycling with no concerns or worries and we’re just gonna experiment like crazy with all these other sides of lucidity like pre-cognition and astral projection. So when we come back with season 2 I think people are gonna get a bit freaked out by some of the shit we’re gonna talk about.
Joe: I hope so… that’s the goal. Also, with season 2 we’re hoping to get video going and live sessions where people can phone in and ask us stuff. I think that interaction is a very important side of it, you need people you can talk to about it and reflect upon things with. And we’re going to have a new website which we want to make into a lucid dreaming portal because although there are forums and stuff like that, at the moment there’s nowhere that’s like a central place where people can go to post content or where people can say, “check out this video I’ve made.” It can be quite an elitist community at the moment so we just want to make it all accessible.
Smith: And it’s all free… always, always free… cos we’re sluts!
Joe: So we’re aiming for September to launch season 2 but in the meantime we’re always posting updates on our Facebook page and people can check out all our old episodes and stuff.
At around this time the perspective of the dream seems to shift from first person to third person, it is as though I’m no longer conducting the interview myself but rather I am watching it all in a detached way as though I am some sort of omniscient observer. It feels as though I’m watching a Louis Theroux documentary or something… in fact Louis Theroux has taken my place as the interviewer. Thankfully he is fully clothed.
Louis: Tell me about your most “juicy” lucid experiences.
Joe: Well there was one where I changed my appearance to look like Brad Pitt by swiping my face with my hand, I was walking down the street and loads of women were like, “oh my god! How you doing?” Or there was the time when I attempted to talk to my higher self, you know my inner being, the higher information source I guess. So I shouted really loudly “I want to talk to you!” and it was really, really weird, it was like a booming voice in my head and it said, “you can talk to me but only if you bring the seed to the blue window sill.” And I was like “What the fuck? How am I going to know what the seed is?” and he said, “You’ll know what the seed is.” So I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out this weird, fucked up thing and was like, “Well this must be the seed.” So I went downstairs and was about to put it on my kitchen windowsill (which is blue), but as I was about to do it a fit woman walked in, so it was a bit of a dilemma. I was weighing up my options on the scales of enjoyment but in the end I was like, “fuck my higher self, I’m going to get on this woman!” so that was it, I didn’t get to talk to my higher self.
Smith: You should’ve higher selfed it because you know that it’s a dream and you know that the woman is bullshit but understanding your true nature, that’s like the ultimate goal!
Joe: Yeah but it’s almost like temptation though, that’s how it works.Smith: Anyway I think my most juicy lucid moment was when…
It is at precisely this moment that there seems to be some sort of interference, as though the TV that I’m watching the interview on is losing signal (there isn’t actually a TV though). I attempt to re-tune to the correct frequency using my mind but all I can get is the Antiques Roadshow. I manage to catch the odd snippet of dialogue from the continuing interview but the only words I can make out clearly are “Dawn French”, “DILDO” and “probing”. I realise I’ve probably got enough material for my article so I wake myself up by blinking several times.
END OF EXTRACT
The next day I emailed them to confirm what I had written in my journal, they said it all matched up with their own accounts and they thanked me for giving them the opportunity to take part in such a fascinating and pioneering piece of dream research. Lastly I asked them if they had any final words of wisdom to offer any budding lucid dreamers out there and they said, “keep a dream journal, have confidence in yourself, talk about it with a friend who enjoys it as well and finally, listen to the Get Lucid Podcast!”
