Only Consciousness is Fundamental – aha!

I have had a good number of lucid dreams and out of body experiences over the last 20 years. These experiences have varied. Some short, some long, some dull, some amazing, etc. I realized something though about a month ago. I had never stopped during any of these experiences to test the realness of it. Sure, they have been very vivid and amazing, but I had never stopped inside of a lucid dream and pondered or tested just how real it was. So, I set my intent to perform a realness test during my next experiences. Fortunately, I had a span of three in one week to do this.

I will spare the details of the full dreams for the sake of time.

In the first experience, I was (at the time) following around an Asian man. He kept leading me through tunnels and stairwells. I was trying to get him to tell me what he was going to show me or tell me, but he just grinned and kept motioning me to follow him. I remembered my intent of testing the realness of the dream. I stopped in one of the hallways that I was in. There was a random piece of foam hanging from the wall. I walked over to it to focus all of my attention on the piece of foam. I looked at it, touched it, deeply thought about the fact that I was touching it, etc. Then I thought about the fact that I was even doing this test and it hit me. I'm not exactly sure of what I said or thought, but it went something like, "Holly *bleep*! This is all real! Oh.. wow..." I was truly shocked. It was the fact that "I" (consciousness) was thinking about it and experiencing it that made it real. In the past, after waking up from a lucid dream, I would still carry some of the excitement and vividness back, but this time was different. The experience did not feel as distant and foggy. I was still in a state of amazement.


In the second experience, I was driving down a winding road. I was lucid, but withholding my excitement and just going with the dream. After a while the road turned into a hallway. I was no longer in a car, but was floating along. Four walls closed in around me (not in a scary way). Then it all stopped and I found myself in a room with green shag carpet. I waited a bit, but nothing changed or happened. I took this chance to test the realness. I bent down and ran my fingers through the carpet. I focused on how the carpet looked and felt. Again, I stopped to ponder the notion that I was present at that moment in a state that felt perfectly real. Again, I was amazed. I slowly got lost in looking at the texture of the carpet. I got closer and closer, until I felt like I was a spec of dust floating through the carpet. I began to feel vibrations. From past experiences, I knew that this meant that I was either waking up in sleep paralysis, or changing states. I tried to hold onto the dream, but it slowly slipped away and I found myself in my bed waking up. Like the first test, I woke up in absolute amazement at the level of realness that I had experienced.


The third test took place as I was flying down a road. The Asian man was back, this time he was in a car and racing me. I was lucid and remembered my intent to test the realness. I was flying in a seated position with my legs out in front of me (no car, just me). I looked down at my legs. They did not look like my normal legs, but they were real, they were mine. The road zipped by underneath me. I proceeded very calmly with my thoughts. I did not want any over-excitement to stop the dream. I looked up to the side of the road. I was passing a house. I looked at each detail of the setting very carefully; there was a truck parked out front, gravel in the yard, a chain link fence. I took it all in very carefully, almost daring it not to be real. I was fully existing... testing my surroundings, thinking about the fact that I was thinking about all of this. Again the shock and excitement hit me. At this, I zoomed down the road and exclaimed, "Take me to my guides!" (this was something that I was planning to explore next). The dreamscape began to literally fall apart and vanish. I found myself zooming through thick black nothingness. I admittedly thought to myself, "Oh *bleep*! It worked." I become a little over excited at this and quickly found myself back in my bed waking up.

It is clear that things are not the same in the dream state as in this current state (sitting at my desk). The rules seem to be much different. The level of realness however is the same. As I sit here and type, the only thing that I can truly prove is that I can think and that I can experience. I can say that the process of thinking and experiencing are real; they are a result of "me" existing. It is very interesting to me that this is also the case with lucid dreams and out-of-body experiences. The state and rules may change, but the realness does not. The fact that I exist remains constant in all states. The "realness" seems to be relative to me but not the state itself. This has really made the idea that only consciousness is fundamental make a great deal of sense. I understood the logic of it before, but now I get it. Just thinking about it makes me chuckle and say, "Wow."