When I was in my early 20’s I went through a period where I had trained myself to lucid dream. It was challenging because often, when I discovered I was dreaming, I’d get excited and wake up, ruining the experience. When it worked, it was amazing! The thing that I enjoyed doing the most was flying.

Last night I had a unique experience. I went to the spare room late at night to meditate, because I wrote for too long in the morning and didn’t have time to both meditate and exercise as part of my morning routine. I lay down rather than sat up and ended up falling asleep with my phone on my chest, moments after hearing the guided meditation end.

Shortly after dozing off I opened my eyes and my body was frozen. I couldn’t willfully move a muscle. I could see my chest rising with my phone on it. I could even see that the reflection in my turned off phone changed with my breathing. However, I couldn’t move a single muscle no matter how hard I tried, because I was still asleep. The first time this happened to me decades earlier, it was a frightening ordeal. But this time as I struggled to raise my hands, I felt them dislodge from my locked body and lift up in my dream state, despite not seeing them move. This control of an invisible body let me know that I was still dreaming. I was dreaming with my eyes open, aware of my body on the bed, phone on my chest, fingers clasped just above my belt buckle.

It didn’t last long, I sat up in my dream and visually I switched to the dream world, seeing a mirror directly in front of me, and looking at my reflection. I wasn’t sure what I should do so I tried to fly. I floated towards the door of the room, got excited to be flying and found myself looking at my waking body, suddenly no longer locked in the sleeping position.

I wiggled my fingers. I saw my phone on my chest, and could see that as my chest raised and fell with my breath, there was a reflection of a picture on the wall that moved in the dark screen. Remembering seeing this movement made me realize that while I was sleeping I wasn’t just dreaming that I could see my body, I actually had my eyes open and was aware of my body.

This was a short but very freaky experience. I was dreaming with my eyes open, simultaneously aware of seeing my physical body and also aware that I had no control over it my my dream state. I’m not sure I’ll be able to replicate this, especially since I had nodded off with the light on, but on most nights if I opened my eyes and saw the world while I dreamt, it would be dark with little detail to see.

I’m going to spend the next few nights trying to see if I can start to lucid dream again. The strategy that worked for me years ago was to tell myself before bed that if I noticed I was dreaming to simply lift my palm in from front of my face. If I could do this in a dream, that meant I had control of my dream… and that meant I could fly!

Sometimes I had to flap my arms other times I could just soar at will. Last night for a brief moment I got to float, and I want to feel the sensation of flying again. I’m not sure I can replicate the wakeful, eyes open, aware of my body sensation while dreaming again? But hopefully I can once again start controlling my dreams and taking to adventures in the air.