I retire for the evening, lie down, and begin internally repeating the statement “When I dream, I will know that I am dreaming”. I then imagine myself in the first-person perspective, sitting cross-legged on the ground in the middle of an empty city street. As I enter the hypnagogic state, I continue to hold the scene in my mind and fall asleep shortly thereafter.

I awake in the middle of the night and recognize the opportunity to induce dream lucidity. I imagine myself sitting in the middle of an empty city street once more and hold the scene in my mind as hypnagogia unfolds. I gradually begin to fall asleep, and within moments I find myself standing in front of my bedroom window in nearly-complete darkness.

I immediately recognize that I am dreaming and raise my hands in front of my face to begin stabilizing my lucidity. Due to the darkness, I struggle to see my hands, and at that moment, a thin, vivid, rainbow-colored beam of prism light streaks into the room through the blackout-vinyl curtains covering the window. The light allows me to vaguely see my hands and bring their details into clear focus. The dream then begins to intensify in clarity, after which my surroundings transform.

I now find myself standing in the middle of a busy city street in broad daylight and sense that I am in a foreign country. The surrounding residential and commercial buildings are tall, narrow, colorful, and structurally antiquated. Intending to locate a dream figure with whom to converse, I fly up and above the buildings in an attempt to gain a bird’s-eye view of the city. I then notice that there is an area of the city that is entirely monochromatic. Out of curiosity, I launch myself toward it and land on the ground only to discover that the environment is cartoon-like in appearance.

Having lost interest in this area, I propel myself back up into the air, though I am unable to control my momentum and enter the stratosphere of the earth. With considerable effort, I am able to regain control of my trajectory and pause momentarily to marvel at the network of lights emitting from the cities below.

I then launch back down to the city and, upon landing, enter an underground shopping center of some kind with a group of men who are speaking to me as though we are acquainted. As we walk through the shopping center, I am drawn to a stairwell leading several floors down to another area. I then peer over the railing to gauge the depth and jump straight down between the spiraling staircase. I land and immediately notice a woman staring at me intently as if she suspects something unusual about my presence in this place. At that moment, I am consumed by carnal desire which destabilizes my lucidity and causes me to awaken.

I attempt to re-enter the dream by assuming the Shavasana posture in my bed and holding the last setting in my mind but am ultimately unsuccessful and conclude the attempt.

Several hours after awakening, I open my laptop and, to my surprise, notice that the login screen depicts an image of the colorful buildings that I initially observed within the dream. I conduct a brief web search and learn that the image, shown below, depicts Gamla Stan (Old Town) in Stockholm, Sweden.

Featured image by Jr Korpa on Unsplash