Lucidity as a Means of Experiencing Enlightenment
So I’m trying to write something about the connection between the sensation of escaping the physical body in both the dream world and the waking world, and the ultimate aim of such experiences. I see a parallel between activities like flying in my dreams and my desire to float in a sense deprivation tank or meditate deeply, even in simple activities like rollerskating or shooting down huge waterslides All these are means to a similar end, one in which we bend the rules governing the limits and sensation of movement, and the physical body itself, to experience something freeing and exhilarating.
It seems like so much of our culture consists of rituals that alter bodily sensation with this purpose in mind, to a lesser or greater extent. Many social and religious activities aim to take the physical sensations of the body – the sense of “I” being localized in the flesh – and alter or inhibit it. People take substances such as ketamine or LSD to remove conscious identity with the body. Common drugs like alcohol and marijuana displace the normal sensations of the body, much to the delight of their users. Religious and spiritual followers meditate or pray with the expressed purpose of losing their connection with their body and mind, replacing it with a sort of heightened mental awareness that absolves this sense of localization so much that it’s simultaneously not present at all and yet everywhere at once.
This is much of what I’m after when I lucid dream. First in the sense that my mind is already separated from it’s physical body i.e. the body sleeping in the bed, and secondly in that becoming lucid usually results in a profound ultra-awareness and connection to everything around me in the dream world. Knowing I’m dreaming and that everything - EVERYTHING! - around me, including other people in the dream who may be acting of their own accord, is all a construct of my mind puts me in a real union with everything present in the dream.
Simply becoming lucid is often associated with a deep euphoria which continues after I’m woken up. Is that euphoria the result of a deep sense of oneness in the dream, similar to what many experience when losing their sense of "I" to meditation, God, drugs, rhythmic music, etc and feeling Enlightened?
