The sense of literally being inside our physicality can be extremely convincing. Not surprisingly, our dreams generally display much of the same sense of “within-ness.” In dreams, our waking-state body is perhaps most commonly represented -- besides as itself -- through the metaphors of dwelling-places and vehicles, with the dream’s “I” (or what we might call the dream-ego) usually appearing in such dreams more or less as a replica of our waking-state “I,” ordinarily located inside somewhere, whether in a long-ago living room or behind the wheel of a suddenly brakeless car.

A. Andrew Gonzalez ( www.sublimatrix.com )

In our dreams, our body is a perceptual convention, a bit of theater, as much a prop as anything else in the dreamscape. We could, while dreaming, view our dream-body as a metaphor, a choice, a creation, but instead we usually just identify with it in the very same way that we identify with our physical body in the so-called waking state. “I,” now taking stage as the dream-ego, is still preoccupied with being at the helm of the body, while at the same time being lost in the dramatics of the dream, taking everything therein as real. While dreaming, we may engage in activities that would be impossible or extremely unlikely in the waking state, yet we -- while dreaming -- rarely see anything unusual in this. We look, but don’t look inside our looking.

As in the waking state, all that will usually alert us -- or snap us out of our trance -- is some sort of crisis, a not-to-be-denied intensity of perceived danger, as perhaps best demonstrated by full-blown nightmares. We may awaken for a few moments within a nightmare, but ordinarily not so as to explore and make good use of it -- rather, our common intention then is still to flee, to escape, to get back to sleep or at least into a more comfortable or secure circumstance.

Even in lucid dreaming (dreams in which we clearly recognize that we are dreaming), we still generally take ourselves to be the “I” of the dream, regardless of “our” apparent freedom of choice. Much of the appeal of dream lucidity lies in the possibility of having more power and control in one’s dreams. Such power or control can be very useful when “fleshing out” the intention to turn around to face a dream adversary or difficult situation one has been fleeing, but not so useful when it merely reinforces the dream-ego.

In fact, the very desire to be lucid during a dream, to be a somebody who can lucid-dream, creates the same difficulties as the desire to be awake during the so-called waking state, to be a somebody who can meditate or be aware.

The “I” who stars in or centers a lucid dream is actually just part of the dream, no more than a convincing personification (and embodiment) of the witnessing (or self-reflective) dimension of the dream. However, when the dreamer becomes the object of awareness in the midst of his or her dream, then the dream itself, at least in my experience, usually can no longer hold its form, and all of its contents dissolve into unmappable, space-transcending Luminosity.

Short of such dissolution, there is usually some sense of embodiment in lucid dreaming (although there sometimes may be a sense of being a self without any body, existing as a point of attention in the dreamscape, a point that may or may not be personified).

For many years I experimented with intentionality in lucid dreaming: jumping from great heights; flying far and wide; dissolving my body; suffering lethal injuries; traversing space instantaneously; diving deep into solid earth; passing through walls; letting my body be as malleable as plastic; meeting various spiritual teachers; having archetypal encounters; facing adversaries with violence, love, shapeshifting suddenness. Nevertheless, however unusual or thrilling my lucid dream-doings were, they were still, probably at least 90 percent of the time, centered by the very same sense of self around which my daily activities were generally organized.

After a while, it became more interesting to leave the dream alone, to simply sit in the midst of it, and see where it took me. Dreaming or waking, lucid or not, ecstatic or depressed, the work was basically the same, to simply be as present as possible, uncommitted to - and unidentified with - the intentions of any particular “I.” And what did this do to my dreambody? Freed it, at least to some extent, from what I “normally” took it to be, thereby permitting it to more fully be a medium for simply maintaining relationship with my environment.

It is worth noting that in dreams we - as embodied dream-egos - are usually moving (or trying to move). The body as movement. Dream research has shown that during sleep the vestibular system of the brain - which is associated with waking-state spatial orientation and balance - is specifically associated with lucid dreaming. When I’ve been in lucid dreams that were fading or unraveling (clearly signaling the end of the dream-state), I’ve often been able to keep the dream-state going, albeit in a very different format, by letting my dream-body strongly spin for a few seconds. This may occur because the sensations of spinning stir up vestibular activity, which in turn facilitates the activity of that nearby part of the sleep system that produces dreams.

Thus does movement -- in a new twist of an old cliché -- keep the dream alive (see Note 1). Or how about that old -- and not so old -- dream of being in “motion pictures”? Are not dreams motion (and emotion) pictures starring us? Who enjoys movies that don’t move?

Some dreams, however, are characterized by a lack or absence of movement -- usually in painfully close juxtaposition with the intention to move -- as if stuck on a particular frame, as is illustrated by the following example:

George (in a group session) is describing a dream in which he is prone, seemingly limbless, struggling to move forward. Limbs do eventually materialize, but only as flimsy, stick-like things viewed as from a distance. His voice is low and monotonous, vaguely tinged with a remote sadness. He sits as though defeated. I listen closely, noticing no intention in myself to speak. We gaze at each other in a not-uncomfortable silence. Breathing in, breathing out. There’s a subtly increasing warmth in my belly and chest, then a sudden image of a terrified baby.

George’s eyes are a bit more open now, still distant but seeming to call from somewhere behind the distance. There’s increasing movement in me now, amorphous but gathering momentum. I don’t feel any desire to talk about the dream nor to “interview” him -- something far more compelling is inviting me to act. My breath is a little fuller now, my belly looser; the feeling of presence in the room is getting stronger.

Now the waiting-time is over.

I ask George to lie face-down on the carpet, and to attempt to move forward without using his limbs. He struggles in silence, and cannot move forward. Breathe more deeply, I whisper in his ear, and let your struggling have a sound, a sound that expresses the actual feeling of it. He groans and writhes with great intensity, looking as though he’s pinned to the spot. Or stuck. His back appears rigid yet oddly soft, his spine like a suffocating serpent. My own back is subtly writhing, my hands tingling. My intuition to touch him suddenly intensifies, and I begin to massage into his back, loosening the muscles on either side of his spine.

Soon he is crying very hard, his sounds both adult and baby-like. I feel very connected to him. I have him reach out in front of himself, but he still cannot move forward. Then I ask the group -- all of whom are very moved -- to make a kind of tunnel over him, everyone on hands and knees, alternatingly positioned (shoulders next to neighbor's hips), pressing down on him, but not so heavily that movement is impossible. Everyone knows what to do; there’s an unspoken link between all of us, centered by a deep caring for George.

He starts to panic. I have him exaggerate his sounds for ten or fifteen seconds, then tell him to move forward, using his legs, his arms, everything he’s got. For a minute or so, he struggles, moving ahead very slightly, wailing like a newborn, and then suddenly he explodes with strength, lifting up the bodies curled over him, screaming very loudly. Adrenaline races through me, not in fear, but in readiness.

I make a triangle-shaped opening with my hands and press it against the top of his head, encouraging him to keep coming. He pushes mightily, still screaming, moving forward, pushing and surging, his movements serpentine, his body feeling to me more like cascading rapids than solid flesh. Another minute or so, and through he bursts, spilling into my arms. I hold him close, while he cries uncontrollably. At this moment, I am both mother and father. And the newborn I am holding is not only George, but all of us, including me. My interpretations of what has happened pale beside the raw presence of his pain, his need, his sheer bareness of feeling, and -- when he at last opens his eyes -- his love.

George didn’t move; he was movement. Birthing-movement, so ancient and yet so nakedly now, messily precise, eventually unclouded by amniotic or psychosocial shrouding, eloquently transparent to Being. Nothing special in all this -- just a few trembling petals of the everfresh, hyperbole-transcending Wonder of being here.

There’s no need to superimpose meaning onto this; does not Life only make sense when we stop trying to make it make sense? And are we not more than we can imagine? And is not the living body not only Mystery incarnate, but also -- in the light of awakened attention -- an expression, a revealer, a magnifier, a conductor of that very Mystery?

The art here is not to explain the Mystery -- for it includes and transcends whatever might try to explain it -- but to embody and live it as fully as possible.

Every body is a dream-body.

Everybody.