I had an extremely vivid dream today. I have been practicing lucid dreaming techniques for some time in order to become lucid in a dream. My dream recall is pretty good now. I can remember moments from a dream in the same way that I can remember past moments in my life. Before, I used to feel as if there were something blocking me from memories of most of my dreams. Now, I can access my dreams just as easily as I can access my past life.
My dream was vivid in that it was detailed, long, and with very few gaps. It made sense sequentially which is rare for me. It was like living in everyday life. I didn’t question whether I was dreaming or not because I strongly felt as if I were in the waking world. I felt as I feel now typing this blog. I feel that this world is real. I feel that it is permanent and sensible. I feel the reality of my existence. I feel truly here. This here feels real.
It was odd waking up and realizing that my dream had not been real at all. I went through the dream in my head to see if I could spot anything that could have proven to my dream self that it was not real. There were a few things, but they are hard to notice when one is swept up in a dream. I meditated shortly after going through my dream in order to get over the odd feeling that I had.
I sat on the floor of my room in the half-lotus position. I concentrated on the corner of a rug while I meditated. It seemed like an easy place to concentrate on. I am including pictures in here that sort of represent my field of view at the time. The area of concentration is highlighted in yellow. It’s a little deceiving because I was concentrating specifically on the point of the red rug.
Area of Concentration highlighted in yellow
I was meditating in Shikantaza style which is a style where the practitioner is aware of his or her thoughts and surroundings in order to become one with his or her environment. I was regarding my thoughts and sensations when a curious illusion started to occur. The white carpet started to take on a red hue. I tried not to stop it because I thought that would harm the kind of concentration I was trying to induce.
The floor taking on a red hue
I thought about what was going on. I remember reading about this kind of illusion in V.S. Ramachandran’s book Phantoms in the Brain. This illusion is called “filling in”. Filling in occurs when there is a blind spot in a person’s visual field. The mind’s visual system fills in what would be a void with data from the surrounding area. By concentrating on the corner of the rug, I had made everything else become my blind spot. My mind started to fill that void with the pattern and colors that could be found on the red rug. Soon, I couldn’t even make out my shoes or the wire that was one the floor. The red rug completely dominated my vision.
The Red Rug Dominates My Vision
I delighted in the strange illusion at that moment. I thought about what was happening. Only I could see this change in the floor. If someone had walked into my room, they would see me sitting on the floor staring at a red rug on a white carpet. They would not have seen that the red rug had completely dominated one area of the floor. It dawned on me that the external world exists, but what I see is only an internal representation of it. I had read similar thoughts before, but I never really felt the validity of those words I read till I experienced this illusion.
I looked at my body and realized that I only saw an internal representation of it. I felt my foot’s pressure on my thigh and realized that I only felt an internal representation of that. All of this existed inside of my mind and all of this could easily be tampered with by some illusion that my mind could create. What other illusions exist?
I thought of how I felt about my vivid dream. I felt bothered by how real it felt because I felt tricked. I was in a dream world and it felt real. I was bothered by a dream feeling real as if a dream is not supposed to feel real. I then thought about more ways of realizing that a dream is not real while in a dream. Sounds and sights are common in a dream, but I rarely ever smell, taste, or feel things. I realize that this is usually because I am unaware of those things. I hardly ever direct my awareness toward those kinds of sensations on my own. My awareness is usually directed toward those types of sensing by a baking loaf of cinnamon streusel, or by a recently munched upon cookie, or by a foot pricked by a sticker, or any other thing like that. I am not constantly noticing smells around me. I am not constantly taking notice of what I am tasting. I am not constantly taking notice of physical sensations on my body. I am however constantly looking at something and constantly hearing something(whether it’s in my head or actually in the external world).
Smelling, tasting, and feeling sensations do constantly exist, but I am not aware of them until something out of the ordinary happens. It seems that my mind is filling these blind-spots created by unawareness with “ordinary” whatever that may be. When I’m in the dream world, I do not notice the lack of these sensations because that is what I am used to. Perhaps if I became more aware of these sensations, I would become aware of their absence in the dream world. That awareness could trigger lucidity within the dream. This is something I will try to do.
What other blind spots do I have because of lack of awareness? What am I taking for granted? What am I letting my presumptuous mind fill in for me?
