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Nightmare Resolution

Flight Or Flight

Keep The Aliens At Bay

Find The Positive Alternative

Flight Or Flight ©1995 Linda Lane Magallón

How can you handle a nightmare? What can you do if you're in danger of being eaten by a monster or overrun by tidal waves or are slipping and sliding off a cliff? It helps a lot if you are a flying dreamer! First, you can use your flying ability to escape your ghoulish characters or frightening experiences. Next, you can attain altitude to overview the situation from a less emotionally involved perspective. Then, you might use your super powers to confront your enemies. Maybe even fly through them. And finally, when you are dialoguing with a scary critter, it helps a lot to know you have the power of flight. Just in case. Here's an example of flying as the antidote to a fearful dream. Diane Bick, 5/12/93 ...Suddenly there is an earthquake. I yell to everyone that it is a big one, because I know this psychically. I am upset that I am separated from Bob. I hope I can let him know I am okay. I start running to get out of the hotel. I am surprised that I can run, others can't. I see that they are falling and the building is shaking pretty badly. I am upset that my running is so slow, like it always is in my dreams. Then I day, "If this is a dream, I can fly." So I fly into the air and say, "I'll just stay here during the earthquake. This is a great place to be." I then come down and know there will be many aftershocks, so I start looking around the hotel for a safe place to be. I can't really see any. I go over to the side. There is the ocean with a retaining wall and lots of other walls that I think are unsafe. I decide to go back into the hotel and call Bob. Others are pretty shaken up. I am smiling and singing. "We're alive!" I tell everyone, "We're alive!" I start dancing and spinning and flying and singing, "I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive!"

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Keep The Aliens At Bay ©1995 Linda Lane Magallón

Have a problem with ghosts, goblins or aliens? Who you gonna call? How about calling on your own dreaming skills? That's what author Keith Thompson suggested in his book, Angels And Aliens(1). I discovered the persistence of the alien theme during my analysis of the 7 shared dreaming projects held between 1984 and 1992. It was intriguing to note how many of the lucid and archetypal dreamers in the projects could dream about aliens and UFOs, even when this was not their conscious goal. In order to put those alien dreams into a wider context, I began to researching the alien encounter literature. Soon I found most encounters describing a passive, helpless, hopeless, I'm-trapped-what-can-I-do? attitude. But Thompson changed this perspective when he considered how abductees might help themselves recover from their experiences of trauma. He made this suggestion, "Suppose they learned the shamanic art of remaining lucid in dream states." Hmm, I thought, what if they did? Then I discovered that someone was already practicing this "art" to face fear. It was Alan Worsley, famed sleep-lab subject of Keith Hearne, the pioneer of lab-induced lucid dreaming in England. Here's what author Jayne Gackenbach wrote about Alan(2). "Veteran lucid dreamer Alan Worsley...explains that occasionally when he induces lucid dreaming by lying still for up to two hours or more on his back, he too has found himself at the mercy of aliens. 'I am not given to superstition or believing in 'unnecessary entities' but perhaps the term 'dream' is a little too bland to do justice to the ultra-realism of these experiences.' he explains. "'For instance, if one 'dreams' as I have, in rich tactile and auditory imagery, of being examined in the dark by robots or operated upon by small beings whose goodwill and competence may be in doubt, or abused in various ways by life-forms not known to terrestrial biology, it can be very difficult to keep still. I have found that if I do not keep still this peculiar state of consciousness usually evaporates in a moment. That can be a very useful as an escape route but it can be annoying to lose it when the success rate is not high and each attempt takes two hours or more. I like to regard myself as a least a moderately intrepid investigator, but I have to admit that in spite of being intellectually of the opinion that what was happening was only internally generated imagery, I have flinched during these episodes on more than one occasion...I suspect that many 'UFO abduction' experiences, as well as out-of-body experiences are examples of the same kind of thing." Reading the above passage had a strong effect on me. It incubated the following dream. "Helped By Astral Hands," Linda Lane Magallón, 2/1/95, 3:00 A.M. I am lying on my left side, leaning towards my front, trying to return to sleep. I finally get myself into a particular state of consciousness that feels "plastic" and which I recognize as the precursor to the out-of-body experience. I try to separate from my physical body by rolling over. The first time I try it, I actually move my physical right arm. Then I let it collapse to its original position lying against my torso. The second time I seem to roll about a quarter way round when my husband Manny actually moves his physical body and I am pulled back to waking consciousness. I realize that my right hand is wrapped around my front. I am partially lying on it, causing a restriction of blood and slight numbing feeling which is helping me to achieve the OBE state. The third time I manage to roll my astral body clear over so it is lying on its back. But I can't seem to pull up and out. I know that I could continue rolling to the right and off the bed. But because of what I've read about Alan Worsley's experiences, I decide to try an experiment. I ask for help to be pulled upwards. Sure enough, I feel two hands. At first they are placed round my shoulders (subliminally I know that they are located "inside" where the pillow is in physical reality). Then as my torso is being lifted, the hands slip down to my waist and pull gently on me. I am raised to about a 45° angle when I think it would be better if I were to be pushed instead of pulled. Immediately, the pulling hands sensation dissipates and is replaced by a pushing hands sensation. I am pushed until my head is vertical. The whole sensation is ultra-realistic. I feel that actual hands are supporting me. And I have the strong feeling that the hands are attached to some real entity, or entities, perhaps: one in back and one in front. At the same time I know that the sensations and feelings have immediately followed my request to experience them. Are entities always hanging around just to respond to my bidding, like guardian angels are supposed to do? To have them appear on command seems just a little too convenient. At this point I think that anyone who is close enough to push me would have his head quite close to mine. Immediately I can hear the sound of breathing directly to my left. A head begins to form just inches from my face. I start becoming afraid. But then I remember that just before I'd gone to sleep, Manny had said "Good night" with halitosis on his breath. So I think "bad breath" and both the fear and the head disappear. Throughout this sequence I am virtually in the dark. So the man's form is very vague. It is time to be pushed completely out, I think. So I am, and find myself being propelled down a long corridor. It feels as though I am being pushed forward but when the visuals come up, I find myself seemingly moving backwards through the corridor. I am floating in a vertical position. Holding me is a man, to my left. He is accompanied by two other folks: a woman directly in front of me and another of indeterminate gender. I think "aliens" and the man's face begins to contort into a scarier version. I can feel my fear rising but when I halt it, so does the facial metamorphosis. I remember Whitley Strieber's Communion version of the alien and it seems that I can see those kind of traditional bug-eyed alien shapes "underneath" the two other people's forms and faces, as if I were using x-ray vision. But it is only a hint and very vague. The visuals are still quite dark because the corridor is illumined just by an eerie blue light. It is the only source of light throughout the entire OBE so I can't see very well. I begin asking question like "Who are you?" but the other folks simply look at me, mute. As I concentrate my focus on the man, the other two seem to move back and out of my line of sight. Finally the journey is at an end and the man and I walk into a room where still more people are standing, separated one from another, silent and eerie. I look around, again asking questions. But no one answers. I think about setting up a scenario in which I am lying horizontal, being examined by aliens, but decide against it. Enough for today. There is no sense of return to my body. I just awake suddenly and find my physical body in its original position. Then I fall into deep sleep until morning. Facing up to fear in the dream state is a learnable art and skill. I asked for more examples from the readership of The Lucid Dream Exchange, a newsletter for lucid dreamers. Lucy Gillis responded with three of her own dreams. Lucy Gillis, 11/2/91 I hear M and D talking. I know that I am lying in bed dreaming (though I think that I am in Boisdale, I'm actually in Halifax) but I can't wake up. M says to D that JB says the room is haunted. D says something like, "Well, that JB." Then I get the impression of either lots of people picking up JB or JB being lots of people. I get nervous. I feel a presence in the room but I know it can't be a ghost; I make my own reality so it's just my fears I am feeling, a personification of my fears. I have my hands crossed above my head and I am sleeping face down. I feel something like ankles or wrists in my hands. I thrash whatever it is around saying, "White Light" over and over. (A tactic I use in order to wake myself up). I also try unsuccessfully to open my eyes. I stop thrashing and think, "Well, I'm lucid but I still feel this thing. I don't want to hurt it though, I know it's a part of me." I then open my eyes and realize I am in Halifax. 6/30/93 I'm on my stomach and my right hand feels tingly. Then my hands are outstretched past my head and I feel like things are being held by someone. I smile. It feels kind of nice. Then my right hand starts to hurt a little. I can't break the grip on my hand. I know it is a natural sleep phenomenon and not actually someone or something holding my hands. I make noise almost like a scream in order to either make or change the scene. The scream doesn't seem to be coming from the dream body that I perceive to be mine. I wonder if my "real" body has screamed or moaned. Then I feel pressure and tingles around my lips as though I am being touched there. Fighting it I know will only make it worse. Twice I have to make an effort to relax, then finally the sensations go. I now "wake" and see I have my right hand tucked under my chin. It feels a little numb. I start to get up to write all this down. I look down at a beige couch and sandy carpet. I say to myself, "This isn't right. I'm still dreaming." I get up. I go through the house. I try to fly through a wall that has a mirror a table and a vase of flowers in front of it. The wall is brown. I say or sing what I see as I fly. I fly through it and more of the same image appears. These walls seem to stretch to infinity. I stop flying through the endless walls and tables and, changing direction, fly to another room. The place is spooky. I am not afraid and don't want to become afraid so I keep telling myself it's a dream, my dream, I've made it all. 3/22/94 I persuade I. to come with me to the back of the house, to the area of my room. I tell her we are going for a therapeutic massage; I assume the necessary scene will form there. In a quick switch of focus I seem to be lying face down, eyes, closed. I am no longer in the room but imagine that I am. Instead of humans there I "see" aliens; (as though from a few metres away, looking into a room) tall and thin with gray skin, black oval eyes and long, black, three-fingered hands. It is not a massage table I see but a lab table. I am to be studied. I imagine those fingers on my bare shoulders. I know my imagination is taking hold. I decide to wake but a part of me wants to see what the aliens will do and if they will massage my back. I hope I don't frighten myself (by creating fearful imagery.) With that thought I hear a malevolent hiss behind me and I jolt to wakefulness, knowing full well that the hiss and the sense of a small furred face nearby was produced by suggestion. I wake on my left side, not face down as I had expected. While lucid, Lucy reminds herself that she creates her own dream. She knows that sleep paralysis is a natural dream phenomenon and that the best reaction is not to struggle with it, but to relax in order to allow it to dissipate. Lucy realizes that the thought or feeling of fear can produce fearful images in the dream state. And, as a fellow flying dreamer, Lucy can also recall and retrieve the strength of flying movement to help keep fear at bay. (1) Thompson, Keith. Angels and Aliens (NY: Fawcett Columbine, 1991), 235. (2) Gackenbach, Jayne & Jane Bosveld. Control Your Dreams (NY: Harper & Row, 1989), 131.

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Find the Positive Alternative ©1998 Linda Lane Magallón

Repeatedly I ran, chased down dark corridors. Or helplessly I slipped sideways towards the edge of a cliff, unable to control the car. Yes, my recurring dreams were nightmares, and that's the norm: some sort of struggle or strife that occurs over and over again. Carl Jung thought repeating dreams indicated unresolved psychological conflict. Robert Van de Castle describes it this way, "It's as if the psyche serves as a benign bill collector who patiently sends statements about an unpaid debt until the account is settled."1 Most dreamworkers assume the conflict is from either childhood or current life. Still others stretch the time limit a bit. They factor in the repeated dream that comes true as a case of precognition. Or they acknowledge the recurrent dream that doesn't come true, because the dreamer acted to avoid the problem, and call it a warning dream. Some few will even consider that the conflict may have occurred in a past life. From future, present, near or far past, dreamworkers have developed a host of techniques to resolve the implied conflict. Gestalt dialogue, dream re-entry, dream definition analysis, lucid and Senoi dreaming: I tried all these and more to resolve my repeating dreams. But eventually I started to wonder. If a dream life full of non-repetitive nightmares can change to a dream life of neutral or positive non-repetitive dreams, what about the repeating ones? Do all recurring dreams have to be the result of unresolved conflict? At first I saw no evidence among my own dreams, so I looked elsewhere. Fellow dreamworker Will Phillips is the author of Every Dreamer's Handbook2 Will also writes a dream column for "The Tallahassee Democrat." He provided me with this dream of one of his readers. She told him that she'd been having her dream for about a year. Although it was always a little different each time, she said she really enjoyed each variation on this main theme: "I find myself flying above the earth, about as high as the space shuttle flies. When I look down, I can see the continents below me, and just by thinking about it, I'm actually able to change their shape. The feeling is just fantastic." Will advised the dreamer that she might review what had been happening in her waking life over the past year. Among other comments, he suggested that the dream might be evidence for "something going on in your life that is enabling you to feel in control of your world." That bit of wisdom hit home. She wrote Will: "As soon as you asked what I've been doing differently during the past year, I realized that it was just about a year ago that I first started taking my freelance writing seriously. Before that I was still treating it like a hobby while remaining primarily dependent on my work for the government. And yes, now that I'm getting regular freelance assignments on my own, I do feel like I have more control over my destiny than ever before!" No, this dream series did not signify an unmanageable conflict. Quite the contrary: it indicated something precious, new and special for the dreamer. It was as if the dream were saying, "Good for you! Good for you! Good for you!" Hey, now that's the sort of cheer that needs no resolution. And isn't it great to know that, instead of only sucker punches, our psyches have the power to give us positive strokes, too? (1) Van de Castle, Robert L. Our Dreaming Mind (NY: Ballantine Books, 1994), 341. (2) Phillips, Will. Every Dreamer's Handbook (NY: Kensington, 1995).

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