I used to be terrified of going to sleep. Everyone has a nightmare once in awhile, but starting when I was six years old, I’d have them almost every night. I couldn’t just fall asleep, I’d read until the book would fall out of my hands and my eyes closed involuntarily.

I would dread if my parents went to bed before I fell asleep because that would just make things more terrifying, I’d be facing entering the dream world alone. And my dream world hated me. It would find ways to torture me every night with monsters chasing me, child killers cutting me up, or zombies chewing my body parts. After awhile, I just expected it, I felt like the teenagers in A Nightmare On Elm Street, desperate not to fall asleep, because I knew who was waiting for me there, even though I wouldn’t see that movie myself until I was much older.

It wasn’t something that I talked about much because I didn’t expect other kids to understand it. Everyone has bad dreams, but not everyone has them every night. I didn’t want to seem weird or crazy, so I kept it to myself most of the time. And when I had a chance, like when I was at the library, I would look for books on how to control your dreams. I knew there had to be a way.

We discussed this all the way back in our second episode, “Lucid Dreaming: A Beginner’s Guide for Psychonauts” about how I became obssessed with finding ways to escape my nightmares. “Lucid dreaming” means that you know you’re in the dream world and therefore you know that the things you’re seeing in your brain cannot hurt you. I eventually found a way to manage my nightmares through lucidity, but it took several years to get there. It was never as dramatic as the Dream Warriors for me, but it really wasn’t that far off, at least in the dream world.

We spend one-third of our lives unconscious. That’s a long time to be inside a world where everything is trying to kill you. And as I learned, you can’t escape sleep. Once a day, our minds need to be rebooted to function properly and that means that a major portion of our already too short existences are spent doing nothing. Most of the time, dreams don’t make sense, they don’t seem to mean anything. It’s just random synapses firing off little stories in your head.

Sometimes those stories are wonderful, and sometimes, like in my case, they’re horrific. But what if you could control those stories? What if you could do something useful with the hours you’re not awake? Wouldn’t that be awesome? And what if, sometimes in the dream world, you can leave your body behind?

Author, artist, and psychonaut, Ian Jaydid, had his first lucid dream when he was nineteen years old. Then, involuntarily, he started having those dreams every night. While he was always interested in the paranormal world, the experiences that he would have in his dreams would change how he fundamentally views existence.

He calls it “The Narrative”. In the real world, we all share certain beliefs about what is true and what is physically possible. You can’t walk through walls, you can’t fly, etc… In the dream world, “The Narrative” can be completely different. You might be able to talk to cats, you might be able to jump 10 feet high, people who you thought were dead are alive, etc… The rules are different. What’s possible is completely different.

In fact, one of the first things that regular lucid dreamers suggest to do is to try flying in your dreams. We’ve probably all done it involuntarily in a dream at some point, but when you do it purposefully it’s even more amazing. ( Some people theorize that witches and broomsticks even come from them using hallucinogenics to simulate the fyling experience! ) But we can’ t fly in real life, we don’t have ET helping us out with his psychic powers. It’s impossible. But that’s the kind of thing you can do in your dreams. You can transcend our physical limitations inside a lucid dream.

Ian was lucid dreaming so much that he started testing the limits of what he could experience. He started visiting his friends in his dreams and found out the things that he was seeing weren’t necessarily just in his dreams. His dream encounters changed his “Narrative” and altered what he believed to be possible.

His first book, Tripping the Field: An Existential Crisis of Ungodly Proportions ( click here to check it out ), is a fiction novel, but it contains the philosophy of what he’s learned in his nocturnal explorations.

In this interview, we talk with Ian Jaydid about his experiences and what inspired his novel and cover these topics:

• Ways that you can try lucid dreaming tonight
• How can you stop yourself from waking when you know you’re in a dream
• Does lucid dreaming make you tired?
• The evidence that caused him to believe he was doing more than just dreaming
• Is it possible to astral travel in your dreams?

You can find more of Ian’s original artwork and writing at his website, ianjaydid.com

For the song this week, we were interested in how lucid dreaming can reframe what Ian Jaydid calls “The Narrative”. It’s like that old cliché, “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.” Anything is possible in your dreams, the physical limitations in our material universe don’t exist there, anything goes.

There’s a movie from the late 90s called Mumford and there’s one scene that I think about often. In the movie, a man is describing one of his erotic fantasies to his therapist. In the fantasy, the male character is a stunning example of romance novel cover machismo who easily woos beautiful women, but in real life, the man is a total schlub. You think that the guy, Henry Follett, has a totally delusional sense of himself until the doctor is thinking about it later and says this:

“ In these fantasies, Henry Follett is played by a handsome guy with biceps. Can you imagine that? Where your self-esteem has to be? Man, I’d just like to move the guy to the point where he gets to appear in his own fantasies.”

Welcome to See You on the Other Mike, where the world

of the mysterious collides with the world of entertainment.

A discussion of art, music, movies, spirituality,

the weird and self discovery. And

now, your hosts, musicians and entertainers

who have their own weakness for the weird, Mike and

Wendy from the band, Sunspot. Episode 274,

Tripping the Field with Ian Jaded. Now Ian is an author

who just released his own book, Tripping the Field in an Existential Crisis of

Ungodly Proportions. And there, his character, professor Michael

Huxley, and that professor's best friend, Eden Jessup, they

go on adventures all over the country. It touches on

philosophy, physics, hallucinogens, addiction, and religion.

It's an interesting novel, and we're going to touch on some of the

things he talks about in that novel, his inspirations today, including

a lot of what I'm interested in, lucid dreaming and paranormal

experiences like that. Ian, welcome to CU on Other Side. How are you doing

today? Fantastic. Thanks for having me. So happy to be here.

Yeah. Whenever it comes to lucid dreaming, you're

usually gonna catch me on that because I am a fan from way

back. Since I was a little kid, I think I read about

lucid dreaming in Omni Magazine. Oh, okay. Alright. And so

that's, I was trying to make it happen and control my dreams. And Mhmm.

You know, we talk about this in in episode 2 of the podcast

where we discuss lucid dreaming because I had a major problem with

nightmares as a child. Oh, yeah. And I figured that the best way

to control those nightmares is to control the dreams, realize you're in

there, and then, you know, change the the kind of outcome

there. So just to get everybody started,

what is your weirdo origin story? Alright. So I

started lucid dreaming spontaneously. I did not

use any sort of tricks and or anything like this.

I'm now 47 years old. This happened to me right around

after I graduated high school. So this is many years ago before

before really the Internet was a thing, so I had never really heard terms

like lucid dreaming. And, so this started just

happening to me all on its own. I was I had no

knowledge of this practice, and apparently, now now that I've

been studying this for years years, of course, these this dates back

for 1,000 and thousands of years with shamanism, Buddhism,

all many different religions practice some type of lucid dreaming.

But let me let me first explain very clearly,

before I we go into this conversation what Sure. Lucid dreaming

is, because so many people get confused. They say, oh, lucid dreaming. Yeah.

Because I had a really intense dream once, and it was really

realistic. That that does not qualify when

we are talking about capital l, capital d, lucid dreaming. When

we say lucid dreaming, we're talking that you

become fully aware of the fact that you are

dreaming while the dream is taking place. You are

there is no doubt. There is no and I'm gonna be specific

here. There is no narrative going on

anymore. You don't believe any storyline. You know, your dreams dreams

get pretty weird. Right? I mean Mike my dreams

particularly. Oh, yeah. Everyone. I I've got weird dreams

myself. I was just talking to my father who's, you know, kind of a

Wendy master outside of Chicago, and, maybe I picked up some of this from him.

I'm not sure. But, he's he's also now kinda getting

into some of these these fields. But, this happened to me spontaneously

where I just suddenly became fully aware in the

middle of a dream that, oh my gosh, this

is absolutely not real. I'm I know I'm asleep. I know

it's about 6:30 in the morning or so. I could even kinda tell

what position my body was laying in, and I and

at that time, when you go into REM, your body goes into what's called

sleep paralysis. People I'm sure there's a there's

a lot of discussions about sleep paralysis that can become it's an it's

a a hurdle that some people have to get in kinda get over when they're

practicing Yeah. We've talked about we we talked about sleep paralysis a good deal

because, you know, the demons of sleep paralysis when you wake up.

And and I discussed I had my own experience while I was reading the book

Communion by Whitley Strieber. I had a sleep paralysis

moment where where I thought I was being

abducted, and then I woke up 10 seconds later. I'm Mike, oh, I'm act I

actually had the experience that they did. Right. It's it's terrifying,

and you know what? I've had it now 100 and hundreds of times.

So I and I would say that I'm still it still freaks me out when

it happens. And really what's happening is let me be clear. Sleep paralysis is something

that the this is a natural thing. I mean, your body does not you

don't want to act out your dreams. Right? So your your muscles

kind of go into this type of paralysis. There's actually a chemical

that your body releases so that you are not flailing around,

moving around when you're when you're in REM sleep. Right?

But when you become lucid, you sometimes become very aware

that your body is in this state, and you and you

become very aware that you can't really move anything and

that your mind will flip out. That's what you know, that's the

that's where the the the horror comes in. But, again, most of the

time, 99% of the time, you're you go into sleep paralysis,

and then you go into a dream state, and you, basically,

you buy, you become attached

to a storyline, whatever that crazy storyline might be.

And for whatever reason, the you know, some people

say lucid dreaming is weird. Well, I say that regular dreams are

weird because how how weird is it that you suddenly

find yourself in some crazy scenario and you

never doubt it for a second. We never stop and go, well, this

doesn't make any sense. I you know, I I'm not this character. I'm not

dealing with, you know, whatever these crazy supernatural things that are

going on or whatever might be happening in the storyline. Well, I tell

you, one Mike, I I had a dream where, and this is this just goes

to the fact that the things that happen in your dreams are,

Mike, you just go along with it seemingly. Like, I had a dream that my

mother had died and that my father had remarried Bea Arthur.

And I just was like, okay. I guess Bea Arthur's my mom

now. And and that was it. And you're just going along with it.

And, like, we don't know Bea Arthur. Right. Mike, she's just someone that I saw.

That's crazy. She's just just Maude or whatever. And then now she's and now

she's in my Mike. And it's those little things like that that are really

unusual. So what I wanted to see about you, Ian, is before you had this

experience, you said you mentioned that your father was a Zen master.

Is this something that, you know, have you been open

to these kind of things, these kind of experiences? You know,

like you said this happened right after high school. Like what kind of high school

kid were you? Were you because when I was in high school that's when I

was going to see if a place was haunted or you're breaking into old places

and things like that to see if we could have a a paranormal experience. Was

that something you were into? Or Absolutely. Was this okay. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

I was always fascinated. Ever since I was very small, I

was fascinated with ghosts and the idea of the Loch Ness

Monster and Bigfoot. I would read anything that I could on these subjects. I

was fascinated with these subjects, but now that I see it in a

larger perspective, it makes sense. So I

think what we're getting at is, is there a kind of mindset

that is more attuned to lucid dreaming? First of all,

I'll say that I think that this is something that anyone

can pick up. I don't think that anybody's magic. There's

nothing that is in your DNA, so to speak, but I do

think that if you have a genuine curiosity, if your mind

is set to these things, and I'll be more specific about what that

means, then you are gonna be more open to these

experiences. Wendy. I've always been an

artist, and artists now will give you my

website to all my all my work and whatnot. I work with a lot of

abstract stuff. I write a lot of abstract stuff. So,

yeah, my I've always been I've always been the weird kid who's always, you know,

thinking outside the box. So definitely, it it there there's definitely

a thing, but what I'm saying is for people who I think are

fascinated with this subject, like, if you're if you're listening to this

podcast, there's already something about you that you're

curious. You have a there's something that you're drawn to, and what I would

suggest is is that what you're drawn to

is liberation from the

narrative that you've been indoctrinated in with.

You have been sold a storyline on some level

about how things are, and I can you know? And that

takes place on many different levels for people individually,

culturally, religiously, philosophically. I you know, you go on

and on. But we're talking about some of us are

more fascinated with breaking outside of

the the context that we've been told is right. You know?

You have a you, for whatever reason, have a fascination with these things, and you're

looking for there's obviously something about you, for example, that

knows. I know that there's something more than the story line I've been

sold. And so the reason that that connects to lucid dreaming

is because that's the mentality that it takes. You need the mentality

of, I don't believe the story line that I'm being sold.

And what happens is is if you can bring that awareness

into your nightlife, then there's a point where you

go, you are able to stop and say, wait a minute.

None of this makes sense. Like you said, B. Arthur is not someone I

know, and it occurs to you that nothing is right. So now

here's my suggestion. Once you even

suspect, if you get to a point and we can get to

we'll we'll talk about some techniques about how you can get to this point. Yeah.

It sounds good. But if you yeah. But once you if you can get to

a even a subtle sensation of, you

know, none of this is right. I feel that the story line's not

right. None of this is correct. I'm gonna give you a trick. And if

you can get to this, it's the simplest thing that you could ever

do, but it might take you months or even years

of practice, and that is if you suspect you're dreaming,

lift your hand in front of your face and stare

at it. Yes. It's that simple. If you can do

that, it will be mind blowing to

you, and I'm gonna tell you why. Alright. Well, I wanna hear about it. I've

never heard this trick before. I always did the trick where, like, you look at

a you look at a clock and then you look away and look back at

the clock. And if the time's different, you're dreaming. Sure. Or you read something, look

away, and look back again. You're like, oh, hey. It's different now because the words

just don't change on the page in regular life. You're dreaming. So all of

that's true. And, and the reason I don't mention those specifics is

because, I've been in now thousands of lucid dreams, and you know

what? The problem is is that sometimes you don't sometimes there's not

clocks around you. Sometimes there's not words around you. Sometimes there's sometimes

there are not but here's the thing. The reason I say your hand

is because for some reason, this seems to be universal. At least

to everyone who was

born with hands, and they they manipulate your hands

are the main tool that you use to manipulate your

world. So for some reason, your hands are always going to be there

in some form. They might not look like your hands, but that's the whole

that's what we're actually getting to. Lift your hand in front of your face

and just hold your attention to it. And

here's a universe another universal that seems to be true for

everyone I've ever read, everyone I've spoken to, everyone I've

talked to online and whatnot for

years years. Your hand will be there, but if you stare at it if you

stare at any object in a lucid or in a dream long

enough, if you hold your attention to it, it will shift Mike

you just said. You know, you look at a clock and you

look back at it, it's gonna be different. You look at some numbers, it's

gonna something's not gonna be right when you look back at it because

there's a fluidity that, there's a sort of a chaos, if you will,

in dream states, and we have to learn a certain

level of, you have to be

disciplined to stay focused in those realms.

So lift your hand in front of your face. What will happen after you hold

your attention to your hand after a few moments, it will

shape shift in some fashion. You will

suddenly find that you have more fingers. Your skin might

change colors. Your hand might turn

invisible. When that happens What I'm picturing is the American Werewolf in

London. Yeah. Yeah. Staring his head and his hands spun turning into

the paw. Like, that's that's all I could think about when you say that. Now

that's gonna happen to me tonight. It might. And and what I'll tell you is

absolutely it's gonna freak you out a little bit. But beyond, that's

part of the trick of getting over this. There's a lot of fear that you

have to get past because, suddenly, your mind once you see your

hand, your own hand shape shift, you are

now you there's not a shadow of a doubt in your

consciousness that you are you know that you're dreaming. You a

100% know that you're dreaming now. There's not, like, a a subtle sense of,

you know, none of this is right. I don't know, be arthur. I don't know

yeah. I don't know these you know, yeah, or whatever. There now you're a

100% clear, and now you have a tool. You have

a tool because you can now look at your hand, and now you can look

away. What I would suggest is then look away. If you can hold the dream

state longer, now look away. Maybe look at your other hand or

some other object in your dream. Now hold your attention

to that for a few moments, and once again, it's going to

shift in some way. Did you ever have the problem where you're,

like, once you realize you're dreaming, you start waking up? Yeah. You get

kicked out is kinda what I is what I call it. You start getting kicked

out of your your lucidity, and there's a lot of different

explanations for it. I I feel that it's

it's such a fragile state that as soon as we get

freaked out a little bit, it's like our our

animal instincts kick in a bit. You start getting an adrenaline rush of

like, woah. This is not right. I I may be in danger. Something

is not going on here. You know? Chaos

freaks us the heck out. Right? I mean, it freaks us out, so you start

getting a little bit off balance. And, unfortunately,

to really maintain a lucid state, you you

gotta maintain that cool as a cat sort of Buddha like

mentality where it just you're you let it slide off of you. And the

more experience you have with this sort of stuff, it will. I mean, you'll start

getting used to this fact of, like, there goes my hand again. It's doing that

twisty thing, or it's freaking out. So but, you know, you start

you start using these tools, and you start focusing on

some of the objects, and what you'll find is long you'll be able to hold

your attention longer and longer where things will not shape

shift as long you know, you'll be able to hold your attention and things will

kind of stay solid if that makes sense. And

then it's playtime. I mean, then once you've kinda got a solid a

solid focus in your dream state, well, then you have

a full access to anything that your mind can dream up.

And, yeah, then it's playtime. Then Well, one thing I'm interested

in is, a couple of things here. Number 1, how

long after that first lucid dream, because a lot of people will speak, you know,

will experience spontaneous lucidity and then they

will, you know, it won't happen again for a couple of years or, you know,

and it happens a few times in their life. Mike is it

something that you were Mike, okay. I did this. This is really cool.

I Mike being in control in the dream state, and now I wanna

do it again, and now I'm gonna figure out how to do it again. And

that's actually part of the problem which actually keeps

people from lucid dreaming. Once you know, the mind wants to

attack every new adventure as if it's something

that's taking place in our world. And in our world, in our daily

world, you know, if you wanna learn how to,

jet ski or if you wanna learn how to, you know, do some skill, you

have to practice, and there's all these steps. There's step 1. There's step 2.

There's step 3. Unfortunately, what we're talking about with this is

almost the opposite of that. You have to I'm gonna

sound like Yoda here for a second. You have to unlearn that narrative that

you've been handed. It takes it takes the ability to for you

to go, I you have to foster a

mentality that you are not accepting the storyline

that you are being handed, and there's a lot of different ways that you can

do that. So you think conspiracy theorists are great lucid dreamers?

They could be. Yeah. But, again, conspiracy theorists are

also jumping from one narrative sometimes into

another narrative that is sometimes equally as implausible.

So that's the only thing I would I would say to that. Just

because that you've broken away from one narrative doesn't mean that

you're not just gonna suddenly attach yourself to another one. I mean, essentially, that is

what's happening in our normal dream states. You're going from your daily

life story line, falling asleep, and then you're going into

some you're buying some other new story line and going, oh, yeah. You know,

aliens are chasing me. That seems reasonable. So it's not

just about breaking away from a narrative and then jumping to

another one. It's about being able to be comfortable

with there not being a storyline that you're

immersed in. And there are practices, but they get

they're they're abstract. You know, they're a little bit esoteric,

but there are things to do. One of the things I would suggest is,

number 1, is that you and your listeners in

many ways are already doing it. You're you're you're curious about this

topic. For whatever reason, you wanna immerse your mind

into this I into this kind of thinking that

I'm talking about, and and that's

kinda what inspired me to write this book. The book that I wrote, Tripping the

Field, is not an autobiography. In fact, it's pure

nonsensical science fiction fantasy. But what the book

does is that it it the more the longer you read the

book, it starts immersing you into this new way of thinking

about the world, and that's what you that's what's helpful,

listening to podcasts like this, talking about these subjects. I found

that once I started lucid dreaming, what kept me lucid dreaming

was my thirst for more, my thirst for okay. Now I

wanna understand this, and I started studying it. I started reading about it,

and my my head was immersed in these ideas all the time. So

when I did fall asleep, you know, there was a part of me that's going,

oh, look at your hand. You know? Like, find an object that you can stare

at. You know? And I started doing these practices, and it just snowballed

from there. And I you know, it just it started coming very naturally. Do you

find that Wendy you lucid dream, do you find that it's as,

restful as regular sleep kind of thing? Because we before, you mentioned something

about chaos. Yeah. And you said and and that really, you know, a

lot of dreaming is, like, chaotic neurons

firing and things like that. And and it seems like your body needs to

have that kind of brain reset every

night, Or, you know, we go crazy, the plaque that develops in our brains

so we don't get enough sleep. And I'm a guy that I used to work

at a TV station at 4 o'clock in the morning. Mhmm. And I still play

my Mike. And I go out and just Mike sometimes go direct to work. And

I spent, like, Mike and a half years being tired all of the

time. And I can tell you it made me stupider Yep.

Which is and I didn't have that far to go. But

but the thing is is that, you know, do you find the same amount of

sleep? Do you think that, like, trying to control your dreams

almost, does it negate the restful aspect at all? For

me, it did after a while, but I was

kind of thrown into the fire. When when my lucid dream started,

it's like they wouldn't stop. These would go on

every night almost, and sometimes these things would go on for

hours on end. And I was still sleeping. I was still going into you know

what they say is that it's not it's not just about the the REM state,

to you know what they say is that it's not it's not just about the

the REM state. It's also there's a point before that where you

just seem to go into total blackness, total emptiness,

where there really is not thinking going

on. And that is I'd say that is

very important. That's ex that's extremely important for And the calving or

whatever? Yeah. What I I think it's it might be. Yeah. I don't know my

waves exactly. I have messed with binaural beats and all that sort of

stuff. Sure. Yeah. I believe that is I think that's I think you're right that

you need to go into those, those delta waves for at least a

few moments or whatnot, but you can also induce that through

meditation. Now I didn't know anything about meditation when I started

lucid dreaming. I was not meditating. I was just lucid

dreaming almost every night, and, yes, it definitely wore

on me after a while. I was feeling Mike, you're saying, like, man, I am

feeling nuts. And not only was I feeling

nuts and edgy, I was also starting I was also taking in so

much information because each each experience

asked a new level of questions about

reality. I mean, each time I would go into these states, it

started forcing me to go, okay. Well, what does that mean? Alright. So

that's that's another thing that I can click off my list that, the

world doesn't work the way I thought it did. I could give you lots

of examples. Example. Mike could because I can't talk about some weird stuff. Yeah. Well,

we talked about lucid dreaming a lot in the podcast before. We've discussed the different

things you can do, the flying, the the creative aspect, the conquering

problems, and then those kind of things. And that's something we all

expect. It's Mike, the idea of what we can do in our dreams, like what

would happen if you had a couple extra hours to work or to sit through

things or to fantasize or to, you know, to let your mind wander into new

realms and let it go. That's something that doesn't even seem paranormal

to me. That just seems like it's a skill that we have to

develop over time and that we don't, like you

said, the current narrative doesn't put a lot of value towards, so we don't work

on it. Right. But what you know, when was the first time you

had an experience inside of your dreams that you're like, hold on

a second. This doesn't jive with what I thought was even possible.

Exactly. So for most of my lucid dreaming, I started to suspect

that some of these places I was going to

actually existed in the present moment,

either on earth or somewhere else. I

am not gonna answer that question about multiple dimensions. I don't have

those answers. I think that, if we wanna get into the theoretical

physics, there's a there's some good there's some good basis for that. But,

specifically, what started happening is that I started being

able to in my loose in my lucidity, I'd start

finding people I knew, like my mother. Like, hey. What's

what let's go see what my mother's doing. I would know that and and, again,

I was very I'd be very aware of what was actually going on in the

real world. I'm like, yeah. I know it's probably around 7 AM, somewhere around there.

I you can sense it. You know how you can always kinda, like, get in

have an idea about what time it is? Well, that's the same thing that, you

know, in your in your lucid dreams. You're as awake and aware as you

are right now. So I go find a friend of mine,

and and I just sort of say, oh, what are they doing? And they might

be, in reality, 100 of miles away.

Okay? So for example, this one girl I was

dating, I want I wanted to go see what she was doing, and I found

her. She was on her

couch with an Afghan over her watching

television, and, you know, I I turn. I I can see the clock on the

wall. I'm like, okay. It's about 7:30 in the morning. And I and I

take a look at the television, and I'm seeing this this

cartoonish, like, dog, this orange dog that's

kind of, like, talking and whatnot. And I'm like like, what am I what am

I seeing? I I've seen this image before, but it was kinda distorted and everything.

So, so she was watching Marmaduke? She was watching Scooby Doo

is what I found out later. And and so when I called her later,

again, I I'm I'm not the religious type. I I come from a

fairly I would say an atheistic sort of mentality.

I I don't care for the the woo woo sort of explanations. I don't think

they really do us any good. I I like to I wanna know exactly what's

going on. Like, what what what's happening as far you know, as much as we

can. So I would call people after I'd wake up. You know, I'd call my

mom and go, ma, you need to tell me exactly, blow by

blow, what were you doing at this time in the morning and walk me through

it. And so what would start happening is that they would

start describing exactly,

like, in the most terrifying detail of of

of exactly what I saw. And this happened

so many times that after a while, I'm like, okay. This

isn't coincidence anymore. Well, I I it's irresponsible to call it coincidence

because I had so many details after a while built up,

dozens upon dozens of I'm Mike, I'm I'm seeing what's

going on with people I know. I'm able to I'm able to at least prove

it to Mike, if nothing else. I mean, of course, I can never prove it

to them. Like, yeah. That's exactly what I saw. Like, yeah. Sure. I'm like, well,

that's, you know, whatever that's good for. So

I think that to some people at first, they go, oh, that sounds

that sounds exciting. And I'm not saying it wasn't exciting, but

when your context that you have been

dealing with and you've been told this idea that, you know, your

consciousness stays inside your body, you know, that that's part of the

that's part of our basic idea of what logic is. You know? That's that's how

that's part of our definition of being rational that, well, whatever

consciousness is, and we don't really know what it is. It's something that

stays inside of you, and then maybe some people have an idea, like, well,

when you die, maybe it maybe it takes off somewhere else. Well,

I was having to then face the fact that, okay. I'm going to

sleep at night, and whatever my consciousness is

is able to leave the bounds of my body.

Again, whatever that means, and I didn't have those answers either. Well, how

That's that's a that's a heavy gig, man. I know. That's right.

That's all of a sudden well, that that kind of idea, that the

astral travel aspect of it Yes. Yes. That you are now

able to lead an out of body experience. But the thing is, did it feel

like an out of body experience in the dream? Because people have out of body

experiences, they talk about the feeling of leaving the body,

Mike the vibrating sensation when they leave the body and then the cord that

you know, attaches to their physical body, and they can see their physical body.

Or were you just going to where that person was, and it felt

like you were going to where that person was? In some cases, yes. What I

started, realizing is that the more that I I became aware

of these experiences, I that, yes, I was able to

really sense when my consciousness

was leaving my body, and it actually felt

like it felt like I was as if there

was something inside of you, and I was peeling

it was like I was peeling clothing off that was wet

and heavy. I you know, but it was my body, for lack of a

better way to describe it. It's like and that's how it would always feel to

me as if I was kind of, like, peeling something off of me, and then

I was sort of free. And I I now

the all these ideas of, well, first, there's a vibrational state, and then

you, you know, you sense this, and then you can see your body, and then

there's the silver cord. A lot of this comes from you know, there's been a

lot of dogma that has been built up around these ideas, and, I

I'm not a huge fan of dogma. I personally

I've looked I've looked around in these states. I've never seen a

silver a silver cord or any sort of, like, actual line

connecting me, but I see that more as a metaphor.

When I have been woken up, Mike, my physical body has been woken up in

the middle of these states, and I can feel a pull as if I am

being yanked by a chord. Alright. But I

don't see anything like that, and, yeah, we can talk about

vibrational states. Sometimes you sense those. Sometimes you don't. But sometimes I

would just suddenly find myself outside of

my body and going, I you know, this is more real than

somehow my daily life. I don't know how else to describe it. It's like

reality takes on a new level of reality. So

yeah. So so sometimes all of those things we're talking about

happens, but I I guess what I'm saying is don't get too hung up on

all of this stuff that you hear or you read. Like, well, I've got I

mean, I've got I have people on these groups on Facebook and Twitter, like, coming

to me all the time. Like, well, how do I get to the vibrational state?

How do I get to how do I get to this? How do I spy

on my girlfriend, you know, at night? You know, they they have all

these ideas about what they can do, and they're they're coming at

this from a a, you know, not necessarily the right attitude.

You have to have the attitude of, I'm gonna I'm I'm

willing to step outside of my narrative. I'm willing to step

outside of my comfort zone, and that's what it all it all comes back

to. And then go see for yourself. Go you you go, you know, answer

those questions for yourself. I I hear so many stories about, have you heard about

the Akashic rec records? Have you heard about this theory? Oh, yeah.

I've heard what that the Akashic records. Yeah. Right. That's the whole idea that

there's some place in a different dimension or on the different

plane that has the entire history of the

universe, whatever on it. Right. And it's got a it's got a file on

you. Yeah. It's like a giant Google or something, and I and I can't tell

how many people say, well, well, I wanna go there. I wanna look up some

sort of history. Like, it's like they're going to some search engine, and it's like

and, again, this is these words that we're using, they they they turn

into dogma, and people start taking this a little bit too literally. Now don't get

me wrong. Some people's brains might take this information that you have

access to in those states, and their your brain may picture

a sort of library, a celestial sort of amazing

library with a 1000000 levels and yada yada yada. I mean, I'm not saying that

doesn't happen, but I'm saying don't get too caught up in

these in these definitions and then try to match

your experience to what other how the way other people have described

them. My whole thing is always go have your own experience. Go find

this stuff out for yourself. Don't worry about all of those all

of these stories you've been told because, again, that's another narrative that

you're being sold. It's another story Mike, and the whole idea of lucid

dreaming to begin with is to break away from those story lines, to break out

of them and question them and go, well, what's real? What what do I think

is actually correct? Well, you made me think there for a second. Like, when people

are going to visit the, Akashic records or whatever Yeah. Yeah. It

made me think about, you know, I just I watched an episode of Sherlock the

other night that the BBC, Sherlock with I love it. I love it. And

Martin Freeman. And His mind palace. Right. That's and that's

that's exactly what I meant when you thought of, like, people going to the occasion.

It's like going to Sherlock's mind palace, or, there's a version

of Dream Catcher, Stephen King's Dream Catcher. Yep.

Yep. And the movie's the book's the book's really cool. The movie's not

great, but that's be like, they tried to get inside the mind of one of

the characters, you know, and and have it representative of these things

attacking him inside his mind. And that's a really hard thing to

represent visually for us, like a filmmaker. But,

and especially, I mean, Lawrence Kasdan is a great movie maker, but, like, he didn't

have it on that one. And but when we're talking about these different things,

you know, it's true. It feels like people need to

have some kind of physical or regular thing

they can relate it to, at least when they discuss it with other people. Because

the kind of experiences you're talking about and lucid dreaming,

the lucid dreaming experiences I've had, when you try to explain

it to somebody else, it's it's like Frank Zappa's quote where

he said, writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

Like they're so, you know, they're fundamentally

different forms of communication and they're fundamentally different forms of

experience. So when you're trying to use one kind of form of communication

to describe one kind of experience that is exclusive. Mike you have to, you

know, it's one of those things like you got to be there, guys, to kind

of feel it. So I feel when people describe these things Mike the

Akashic records or they talk about these different states they're in,

like the vibrational state and everything, it's just because they need to

explain it in a written or an oral way, absolutely to communicate

it. And it seems to be one of those things where once you feel it,

you get it, but you have to be there to to kind of get it.

You do. And that's my that's always my whole gig with any of

these talks that I do is it it's always coming back to I'm

I'm not interested in, having

creating a bunch of people who are experts at all these definitions. And, yes, these

definitions and these words that we use, they are they

are helpful, but we just have to always remember that, you know, these are

metaphor. We are dealing with a real abstract realm here. We are not dealing with

the physical realm. None of our words directly

apply, and so we kind of do end up speaking in a lot of

metaphor. It's a historical problem. I mean, every saint,

sage, shaman throughout history has always kind of spoken in

metaphor. Right? I mean, that's and and there's a reason for that because it's

hard to talk about this stuff. You know? We're limited by

our, again, we're limited by,

the words that we use, and all of our words are symbols

for this realm that we live in, which is why.

Right. So and that's exactly why I keep coming back to you have

to get away from that. You have to detach from

that storyline, that narrative, and the first narrative that you have

to detach from is your own. The the one that is running

constantly. I think that's the number one narrative that you have to get away

from is the one that that is running right now. And

by that, I'm not trying to be abstract or vague or anything like that.

I'll be I'll be as clear as I can. Everyone

who's listening to this right now, everyone who's,

you know, sitting, doing whatever you're at, on one level, you

are listening to this podcast. Alright? But there's also a

context that your brain is putting this in. And the

larger context is along the lines of, well, you know, I woke up this

morning. I was at work, yada yada, or I'm in the car now, and then

now I'm listening to this podcast. And later, you know, I'm gonna have to make

dinner, or I'm gonna have to write some bills, and there's that money thing, and

there's also the, oh, that's there's that other that one relationship problem I'm dealing

with, yada yada. And then I'm, you know, I'm gonna try to get to bed

around, you know, at a good hour or 11. There there's this whole

story line that we keep quietly running in the

background. Now I'm not saying that that story line is fake. No. I'm not saying

any particular, detail is is

false, but the question is, can you

put that storyline down for a moment? Are you

is the storyline leading you, or are you leading

it? Are you the one really in control? And if you are in control,

then you can stop talking to yourself about it for a moment, and that is

something that our culture is not good at. Silence

is not something we are good at. We are just we will do everything

in our power to to distract ourselves from

quiet. You know, any times there's just an empty space, we

immediately pick up our phones now. We are immediately tapping into

perhaps another narrative on YouTube or Facebook or

Twitter. It's another store we're we're always attaching to another story Mike.

But if we can detach from our own story line, that's

when we can start waking up. You can start waking up in your own

dreams and going, okay. I'm not buying this anymore, and you don't. You

find a space where you wake up and go, oh, this is all garbage. I'm

totally asleep right now. You know? Right. And it's It's what

what I like about this is that, you know, first first that idea

that it's connecting lucid dreaming

to, you know, creating your own

reality. And that's In a way. Yeah. That seems to be, you know,

we've talked with doctor Dean Radin about his Real Magic book.

We've talked with Gary Lachman about his various books on,

magic and, people that have you know, that

are researching into consciousness. And it's that idea

that you are recreating your beliefs in

reality. And through lucid dreaming is a way that I didn't

even thought of before, because you have to recreate your belief every time you're

in a lucid dream. Because in the lucid dream, you present it with something

ridiculous, like a different definition in the,

like laws or, you know, you have a sister that you never really

had or, you know, you have a brand like I said, a brand new family

member. All these kind of things that, like, oh, yeah. This person's just been there

my entire life, and you accept it like it's always been there. And

it's breaking that belief in the lucid dream. You could

also break that belief. You know, that can work to recreate your

own beliefs in your regular life. Now I was wondering about the

first time that you like you so you went through these things. You did some

astral travel where you saw what people were doing. Did you ever use that

for, anything Mike for work or to spy

on somebody? Did you Mike, I'm gonna try to I'm gonna try to do this,

to see if I can not that you can figure out lottery numbers, but, you

know, something like that that, you know but people would always say, like, well, if

I had a psychic power, if I was able to do this, I would walk

into the Wendy you know, walk into the Pentagon and see their UFO files. Like,

did you ever try to do anything like that? You know, you you think that

that would be something that that would be real

simple. Right? But, again, that's a it's almost a

catch 22, and I'll tell you why. On one hand, what you're doing is

taking this this value system that you have in your

waking life of what is important to you of, like, you know what? I want

I want this for for me. I want money, or I wanna

see what this person is doing, or I wanna spy on this person, or I

wanna go to the people have asked me, well, why don't you go to the

dark side of the moon? And and, you know, and and and, again, I've seen

I've been to all kinds of crazy places, but, you know, when

you're in that state, again, you are outside

of your daily narrative again. And so it's

Mike all of those things that seem to matter to you, immediately,

you realize none of that ultimately matters. All of those ridiculous

questions that you ask, you're on a whole new level at that point.

You start realizing, oh my god. I am actually

somehow surrounded by pure consciousness, and

the the possibilities are so much larger

than seeing what's going on at Area 51.

That sounds crazy if you have if you don't have direct

experience with these realms, but once you start truly tapping into

these realms, they're so much larger than your petty concerns about

what's going on in your life. All of that stuff starts falling

away. So yes. But at the same time, I will say that

there are some people who are ab I've talked to so many

people who are absolutely able to direct these things and go, you know,

I am gonna go find out what's going on at this particular location, and they've

had incredible results with that. I I am

personally you know, once I'm in that state, I don't care

about any of the same things that I cared about, you know, 3 hours

ago when I was awake. You know? It's like it all just falls off because

you have to drop it's like you have to drop all your narrative first, and

then you're saying, well, you know, it's like either you pull your narrative

into the dream or you don't. And, you know, it's like

you have to drop all of it if you're gonna wake up to begin

with. So, like, I'm saying, it does that make sense? It's like this catch Wendy

sort of spot. You're like, well, you can have all the power in the universe

as long as you don't care that you have all the power in the universe.

I mean, it's kind of it's hard to describe, but that's kind of the state

that I'm always finding myself in. So, yeah, I mean, that's it's

easy to stand outside of it and go, well, why don't you like, well,

you go into that state, and then you you answer that question for

yourself is all I can say. To see You're not gonna care. To see how

you would feel, Right. When you're when you're in that like you said, surrounded by

pure consciousness. You know, one thing I'm wondering about is that have

you ever had, a shared dream experience or

met somebody while you were traveling that was also,

like, occupying the same kind of space and maybe in the same kind

of incorporeal being? You know you know what I mean?

Like Right. Right. You like, there was somebody else traveling with you

and you recognize them? So

yes and no, but I I've never been able to

I've I've come across all sorts of entities. In fact, this used to trip

me up so much. When I first started lucid dreaming, I would find Mike, for

example, in one case, I was in a party where I

became totally lucid, and I was at this this giant party in

this huge condominium, and there was probably, like,

30 people or so. So I wake up. I become fully lucid. I

don't know any of these people, but once you become lucid,

my first question was, well, now who are these people?

Like, are they a part of my subconscious? I mean

but the you know, they're and they're all mingling with each other and talking with

each other just like just like what

would happen in any other normal party in your waking life. There's conversations going

on. People are talking about things. And then I would start engaging people in

conversations. Right? And I would start going, well, who are you? What's going on? What

what's going on from your perspective? And, you

know, I would get into these very strange conversations

where I started realizing these I don't know what's gonna

come out of this person's mouth and, you know, and that's

weird because, well, then if I don't know what this person's

gonna say next, who's writing this scene? Right. Because you know what I'm saying? A

lot of times in a dream, Mike, I'm I'm with you. That even though

Yeah. Like, kinda when you know you're dreaming and you're talking to somebody, you expect

something to happen and then it does. Or you expect someone to say something and

then it does. So you're having a premonition of someone talking because it's

your head that is doing the work when it comes to creating the story. So

if Yeah. If all of a sudden you're talking to someone and you have no

idea what they're gonna say or it comes out completely,

foreign to maybe something you would have thought, then, you

know, where is that coming from? And and this was the question that I

kept banging my head against for, you know, for 100

of times. And and some Mike in some

points, I would even, you know, start hollering at them, you know, when I was

younger, like and I would tell them, but but you're not real. And they would

fire back at me Mike, well, you're not real from my perspective. And that would

always stop me in my tracks because I'd be like, well, that's a that that's

an interesting position to take because I can't argue that. You know? Like, because maybe

it is. I don't know. But to get back to your original question, I think

you're asking, have I ever been able to communicate with some

someone on that soul level or whatever you wanna talk talk you know, whatever you

wanna call it Yeah. And then come back to my waking state, give that person

a call, right, and go, hey. Did we just talk about, you know,

you know, that football game and, you know, while we were I've never had that.

It's never happened. I've never had that experience. I've

had I've talked to hundreds of people who claim that they

have had those experiences. I personally have not, so I don't

know what to make of it. All I can tell you is that from my

experience, I have certainly come come across

characters in my dream that some of them did not appear

human. Some of them were animals. Some of them appeared quite alien,

and sometimes these people were more intelligent than I

was, which always that that would throw me for a loop too. I I I

got into a conversation one time with a couple of astrophysicists,

and I had to go look up their information later and go, my god. This

this is accurate, and I don't I don't remember ever learning this.

So, you know, but I've there's been people who have claimed that they have

learned entire foreign languages in their lucid dreams. I mean, the we

are there's so many stories like this. You

know, all I know is that we are

clearly tapping into a another level of

consciousness that we are not that we don't seem to have access

to in our normal waking life, but I don't

I don't have all those answers. I don't know what all that means. I, you

know, I want other people to experience this and, you know, figure that out for

themselves. Like, what, you know, what do you find to be true? I don't

know. Well, I do wanna get to tips for everybody on how they can

start lucid dreaming. But before we get to that though, I think it's, you know,

fascinating. You said you talked to a couple of astrophysicists that had information that

you did not think you had access to. You you saw some things.

You you had an experience of seeing your girlfriend there watching Scooby Doo

when she was watching Scooby Doo, and you could have no idea about that. Yeah.

Exactly. First of all, also, but when you watch Scooby Doo as an adult, it's

just not the same. You're like, who wrote these jokes? Sure.

It's killing me because when I was 6 years old, like, Scooter's the best. And

now I'm like, wait a second. I was I as high as Shaggy?

So but let's, go back. I wanna I'm interested in your

weirdest experience, in lucid dreams. And

the thing is, if you can't think of your weirdest one right now Oh, I

got it. I got it off the top of my head. Not a problem. That's

what I'm interested in hearing because I want everybody to know the full range. The

full range comes from being able to fly in your dreams to being able to

see things maybe to talking to people, having interesting conversations, confronting your

problems. And then it also can be, like, your

weirdest experience. So what was that? Absolutely. So, well,

let me lead up to the weirdest experience, but all everything you had just mentioned,

like, yeah, you can fly. You can do all sorts of things. You can you

can anything you can think of. I mean, once you are fully

aware, like, hey. I'm dreaming. You the the you know, all

physics is off the table all of a sudden. I mean, you're but

you're still a little bit like Neo in the matrix because you're still a

little bit you know, we're domesticated to this realm that we've been living in for

Right. However long we've been living in, so we're a bit domesticated to it. And,

so there's still a little bit of of a thing of, like, wait. Can I

can I walk on water? And so you may have to focus for a minute

and kinda get past all of that storyline again that you've got built up in

your head of, like, well no. Because, you know, the human body falls

right through it. But, you know, so, you know, you kinda have to stop and,

you know, recenter yourself and go, yeah, but none of that applies here. And then,

yes, you can go do anything. I have you know, when I have been in

arguments with these other characters in my dreams, and I've tried to prove

to them, like, look. I can do this is my dream. I can do whatever,

and I could I can pick up, you know, an object and just immediately

shape shift that object into whatever I whatever I wanted to, and it you know,

and it it's amazing to be able to do that stuff. I mean, it's it's

a it's a trip and a half because you see it. You feel it. You

know? I've I've I've been able you know, I can look at a glass table,

and I could take my hand and just, like, scoop up the glass as if

it was, like, water or something, and then I can just think for a second

and it'll resolidify back in my hand in whatever shape I want it

to be. I mean, that I mean, it's amazing. And you've and what's weird is

that you feel all of this. Right. And if you're in this stage feels real

is the instrument. Yeah. It's as real as real can get.

Yeah. You can fly. You can walk through walls. So the thing that

I actually stopped lucid dreaming for several years, and this was

probably in my somewhere in my twenties because something happened

that floored me to the point

where I couldn't integrate it. And it kinda like, I almost kinda felt

like, man, I'm gonna be in a padded room if I don't

pull back and start really focusing on myself and maybe start

grounding myself a bit more, maybe doing a bit more research. What happened was I

was I I was at the end of my college career as I as I

recall, and I was back home for Christmas, as I

remember, and I was sleeping, fell asleep. I was I was, well,

you know, it was in the morning or whatnot, and my folks were home. I've

gotta be somewhere in my twenties at this point, maybe maybe mid to late twenties.

So I'm asleep. I go into a lucid state, and I kind of

I move past that sleep paralysis that we're talked about, and I

kinda peel myself out of my body. And I

then I'm kind of standing at the foot of my bed

in Mike, whatever you wanna call it, your astral form.

I, you know, I don't like to get hung up on those terms, but, again,

I'm using the terms that they gave me. So I'm standing at the foot of

my bed right in my astral form. While I'm doing that, I'm

about to go, alright. I'm gonna, you know, maybe just walk through the walls and

go for a walk and just go see you know, go exploring, see what see

what see what's going on. Before I can do that, my

mother is in the kitchen, like, in reality. Right? In reality, she's in the

kitchen, and she's she's making breakfast or whatever. She

drops a bunch of frying pans. Alright? This is a

very loud noise, all that metal clanking and whatnot.

So what happened is is that now all of a sudden,

part of me is standing at the foot of my bed, but then my

physical body starts to wake up from this

noise. And I open my eyes

from my position in bed, and at the same

time, my astral self, so to speak, kind of

turns, and I'm a and I start watching my physical body

wake up. So I'm in this dual

perspective where I saw this moment from 2

completely different points of view simultaneously.

And now when I so that

freaked me out. I mean, it's the most it's it was freaky because

when I say that I saw something from 2 different points of view, it's

not like there was an overlap of, Mike, you

know, if you think of, like, the way they do in film, like, there's a

there's an overlap of one image over another. Yeah. Right? Or or

and it wasn't like a split screen. Like, you know, my I was seeing it

from my waking or, you know, my sleeping body in one half of the

you know, one half, and then the other half was from my astral self.

That's not what happened. What I'm saying is somehow, it was

too completely,

fully realized realities, 2 fully realized

perspectives that were happening at the same time.

It it it broke my brain because on a on a logical level,

that doesn't even make sense. In fact, my guess is that there's not even really

a way for you to picture what I just described. I mean, I you know,

I mean, I'm doing my best to describe it, but it doesn't really make sense

to the to your to your brain. Your brain just goes, well, I'm trying to

picture it, and I can't I don't know what you're saying. Right. Because it's Mike

2 consciousnesses up occupying the same Exactly. So

as soon as that happened, that it's like I've I was kind of left staring

at myself for a split second, and then immediately,

my my astral self was sort of snapped back

perhaps by that cord people talk about. Again, I never I've never seen a cord.

I was snapped back into my physical body, then I was, you know, then I

was only in 1 in 1 place. You know? Just kind of kinda sitting up

in bed, kinda, you know, woken up from the the the sound of the

pans the pans falling in the kitchen, but, but I was

also deeply, deeply shaken because I I knew

at some level beyond that narrative

that we're talking about. It's like it's like that that experience

broke my narrative at a fundamental level where I'm like,

alright. I don't know what you know, everything seemed to be on the

table at that point. Like, I don't even know it's real. I don't even know

it's possible, and it it scared me. I mean, it was like I almost felt

like I broke something at some fundamental level. You know? I'm like, oh my god.

What's what did I just do? You know? Is that and I I didn't find

out until later down the road. I started doing more research

that, you know, there have been shaman who who, that

that was their goal in some of these practices to get to that point where

they could experience 2 different perspectives at the same time. Like, that

was a well known practice in some in some traditions,

but at the time, I I had never read anything about this. It was nothing

but it was Mike kind of like having your soul ripped in half, but

yet that was that that's not what happened. There were in reality, nothing terrible

happened. It was just my fear. It was just my, you know, my my

perspective of it, like, oh my god. I broke something. At some fundamental level,

I I ripped something apart. But, It's almost like a Lovecraftian

horror, like like a cosmic horror because it's

not something you're you know, you're not scared of getting hurt. You're not scared of,

you know, of something bad happening. You're just scared of

something that's because you glimpsed something

beyond your comprehension. That was impossible because in those

states, I've been I've seen every horror you can

imagine, and you can. Like, you've talked about, you know, having nightmares and

whatnot, all sorts of things or having some, you know, or, you know, terrible

terrible things happen to you in in dreams. And when you're in a lucid state,

you know, you can start facing those things directly and start staring those things right

in the eye and going, alright. What what is what is the nature of this

monster that I keep thinking about or or whatever? And so in my

dreams, it's like it's like, you know, after a while, you get pretty used

to, you know, like, alright. What can you throw at me? Like, what terrible thing?

What, you know, creature or horrible image? You know, it's like

after a while, you start getting numb not numb, but it's like you get

used to seeing crazy things happen. But that experience was Mike, well,

that was a whole another level. I felt like now we're talking about an existential

kind of, you know, dread that I didn't even know was possible.

So, Yeah. It was, that was a that that scared me. That and that I

pulled back for, probably a couple of years where I was like, I I had

almost almost no lucid dreams for about 2 years after that because it

just freaked me out so much. I mean, it was so disturbing. Well, I I'm

looking forward to that happen to me sometime. I can't you're right. Like,

that's touching the face of God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So for but for the people who maybe have never had a lucid dream before

or every time that they've realized that they're dreaming, they wake up immediately.

We started with the tips of looking at your hand, you know, seeing

something shift, realizing you're in a dream, questioning

your reality, Am I dreaming? Is this real? What

are some tips you have for people who want to jump into

lucid dreaming and maybe take it from the level of I was up, you know,

I I had 2 minutes and I could fly for a little bit to I

wanna explore more of that world inside or

outside my head. Yeah. You know, I'm gonna

keep coming back to the source of what what I'm suggesting. I'm

suggesting you need to consciously engage in

as many experiences where you are taken out

of your normal comfort zone, of your normal

experience. And really what I'm saying is

that below that even, I'm suggesting you have to find ways

to drop the story line that you've been handed. And

now there's a lot of ways to do that. I I

hate to use the the word meditation because meditation means a lot

of different things to a lot of different people, and it's, again, one of those

subjects that is riddled with dogma. So one thing is I would

suggest is that without using the word meditation, let me say

this. Take a few minutes each day

where you just stop thinking about that that

running dialogue in your head that that we were talking about. That's the narrative

that you need to get over. Take a few minutes and and,

even do a reality check. I mean, I would start with staring at your hands

in your daily life. Some people even set they set alarms. You know, they'll set

alarms for every, like, 2, 3 hours in, on their phone or something.

So, you know, some little beep will go off, and they'll just go, okay. I'm

gonna stick I'm just gonna look at look at some object. Maybe I'll just bring

my hand up. I'll just look at it for a few moments, and I'll just

I'll deeply ask myself that question. Am am I dreaming? Is this

real? And just and don't assume that you have

that answer. Try to try to ask that answer try to ask

that question genuinely without going, well, I know I'm

awake because that's what we always think. We always think the

story line that we're we're stuck in is real, and it's what hap it's

what's happening in our dreams, so it's a matter of it's a practice. You

have to start getting yourself used to these things throughout your day, and it

and it will eventually start seeping into your nightlife.

Like I said, just listening to podcasts like this, start reading books

about the topic, start immersing yourself into these

ideas, and your mind is gonna start, you know, it's gonna

start picking up on these ideas, but reality checks are a great thing. Did

did you ever see the movie Inception? Of course. Of course. Right? So, you know,

they had the their little toys, and I Mike the idea that he had that

little that little top that he used, you know, to try to figure out what

was going on. But all I would say is that that's a great little thing

to start doing throughout the day. You know, some little trick

to just go, alright. Let's see what this thing what this thing does in

my reality. But Mike I said, in your dreams,

you don't always have your your little gadget, your little, what what do they

call? They had a word form in, their, their totem Yes. Or whatever. I forget

what they called it in the in the movie. But, you that's not always present,

but your hands are always present. So, you know, throughout the day, just look at

your hands, you know, throughout the day and just, you know, stare at it and

go, am I dreaming? You'll know because after a few moments,

if your hands don't start doing something really weird, you can

go, alright. I'm I'm in my normal waking state. Just keep

asking those questions. Keep asking those questions. And,

eventually, the idea is that you will ask that question in

your dream at one point. You'll get to that point, and then and

then everything will totally change from that point

forward. I I guarantee. My sister my sister used to have the single,

the NovaDreamer, and it was Mike a little helmet she wore. Oh,

yeah. And it would at at a certain point in the night I mean, I

don't know if it detected, REM sleep or I think it detected. Some

can. The masks can pick up when you're in REM, yes. Yeah, and then it

would flash little lights Mike red lights there. Yes. And if you could see

the lights in your dream, you would know that you're dreaming. And

so that would push you and, you would try to achieve lucidity.

I love the idea. I've never used that, those devices. I've I the the

logic holds is the best that I can tell you. That that makes sense, that

that that that practice would work. I like I said, these things came to me

spontaneously, so I didn't have to work at it, unfortunately. But the

idea, I would say, from my perspective where I'm at now, that makes

sense that that would work. One thing I think I talked about in the podcast

before, but one thing that I always heard it to

once to get avoid getting kicked out of the dream is

to start spinning around. Like, imagine yourself spinning around Uh-huh.

And that can sometimes you know, it's almost like when you're gonna barf, and

then you feel like the barf is coming up, but you, you know, you can,

and I drink too much, so this has happened. But Mike so then you're all

of a sudden just like, okay. It's and then you're all back down. Like, you

know, you could almost will it down. That's how I feel

the experience of, like, trying to override being kicked

out of your dream is. Mike when you feel sick, sick, sick, you're Mike,

it's almost there, and then, oh, you're back down and you're safe for another couple

minutes, and then you can start wandering around and exploring

the dream. Is anything else you've done to try to keep

yourself inside the dream? So, personally, I've never tried the

spinning thing. I've heard a lot. You're not the first person I've heard mention

that, but, let me let me first of all, let's be specific

about what's actually happening when you're when you're about to be kicked out of a

dream. You I would say you're what you're being overwhelmed with

is you're specifically, you're being overwhelmed with

possibility. Alright? And that is a

it's like all of a sudden, you have realized, oh my

god. I'm in a realm where I'm god, and I

can do anything. And your mind just goes,

oh, you know, everything that you've ever wanted is suddenly,

you know, accessible, and it's it's overwhelming. And you can

almost feel, it's a rush of energy that that moves through you.

Specifically, I'd say it's consciousness that's that's really increasing, and,

you know, it takes it takes time to to be able to balance all of

that out. Spinning? Hey. That sounds great. If it works for you, it works for

you. What I would do, when I would start getting overwhelmed, I would immediately

just sit down wherever I was. You know,

wherever I was in my dream state, I would sit down, and I would just

start breathing. I'm like, alright. I'm just gonna

just relax. I'm just gonna breathe. I'm not gonna think

about, oh, I can go do this, and I can go fly here, and I

could experience this and yada yada yada. I would

just sit down and just kinda, you know, take a time out basically is what

I would do. I you know, it's like it's like giving yourself a time out.

Like, alright. Sit down. Just sit down. You know? It's like sometimes we don't think

about the simplest things, like, you know, just breathe, just calm

down, and, you know, and I and that that works for me wonderfully. I

can maintain that that awareness and that focus. And

that's you you mentioned before meditation. Yep. I just finished

the Brian Holiday book, Stillness is the Key. When they talk about meditation, they

talk about Stillness is the key. You're right. You know, you do your

best work, when your mind is clear and, you

know, and I find that when it comes to writing and things like that often,

it's the times either after everyone else has gone to bed or no one else

is awake yet where no one can email you and call you and all that

kind of things. So you know what Ian, I really appreciate you taking the time

to talk today, I really enjoyed our conversation. Yeah, me too. And I'm just wondering

a little bit what specifically, you talked about in your Tripping the Field

book and it is a fictional book but you know what specifically from your

own kind of experiences did you you know

bring into that Wendy you were writing it when you were trying to write a

fictional book was it about things that you believe in reality

to be or was it just you're trying to create characters who have

that open mindedness you need to explore these realms?

So, you know, I I wish I could have all those answers of where this

story line came from. I almost don't always I don't even feel completely

Mike tripping the field even came from me.

I mean, that that sucker just was it had a

momentum of its own, and, but I will also say that, absolutely,

it is it the whole book is about me through and through. I

did not wanna write an autobiography on because I didn't feel

like you know, when you write an autobiography, you just it's like you

start getting into this repetitive state of, let me tell you about what

crazy dreams I have and, well, what good does that really do anybody? What

Mike interest was, I wanted to create a world that

took place in the parameters that I'm talking about, this

idea of, well, what happens when you really start detaching

from narrative, from your storyline, and how

crazy can it get? And that's what tripping the field is all about.

It it kind of says, well, if you can detach from

this narrative and wake up in your dreams, then how far

can that go? Why is that connected to astral projection? Why is

the and why do we see these same themes come up

through shamanism from the for the last 50000

years of, you know, of these strange practices,

religious practices, everything? So it's kind of it's

intended to kind of find a unified theory

behind all of almost everything

behind the paranormal, and I'm try I'm I was trying to attempt to

describe this through an adventure. I mean, it's and it is a

ridiculous adventure that is not to be taken too seriously,

but there's also a lot of very real physics.

There's a lot of real wisdom in it, and there's a lot of, you know,

there's a lot of truth in it as well is what is what my readers

say. They're like, you know what? I'm getting I'm learning so much out of this

even though I know this story is not true, but it's it's

making me it's like people have told me that this this book is breaking my

brain. I'm like, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to get you out

of your head. I wanted you to read this, and I wanted your head to

hurt after a while. And that's so far, it sounds like I've been successful.

That's the responses I'm getting. So people are like like, this is this is tripping

me out, man. I'm like, well, that's the idea. I'm trying to I'm trying to

mess with your head so that you can get into this. Like I said, the

book teaches you, the more that you read, the more you can start

anticipating, ah, now that I understand this

concept, I bet that this character can now do

this. Right? And you start kind of anticipating how this world works,

and it's my way of trying to submerge people into this

new way of thinking. So that's that's what trip that's what Tripping the Field is.

That's great. If you guys enjoyed our conversation and some of these ideas,

I definitely encourage you guys to check out, Ian's book, Trip in the Field.

And obviously, we have a link directly to where you can buy it and in

the show notes. Othersidepodcast.com/274 is

going to have a link right to Ian's site and the show notes. Now if

you guys wanna go there right now, where can they find your information,

Ian? You can go to ianjaded.com, and that's gonna connect you to everything.

But if you also just type in Tripping the Field, again, like

you said, there's gonna be, there there's gonna be tags and whatnot on your site

and everything. Tripping the field could be found on Amazon,

on Barnes and Noble. We we always appreciate if you go directly to my

publisher. I mean, you know, the the owners of,

Amazon do not need any more 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars. So, I mean, you

know, go go put your go put your money to you know, if you if

you buy it directly from the publisher, you know, more of the money goes goes

to the people who actually created this kind of stuff. So that's that's always my

suggestion. So my my publisher for this is it's called Glad Eye

Press. You'll be able to find that on my site and everything and,

yeah, that's that that's the best thing I can suggest. And we always suggest you

guys support the artists and the, and the producers we have on the

on the podcast as much as possible. Indeed. So, Ian, So, Ian, thanks very

much for joining us today. If you guys have questions for Ian,

especially our Patreon members, anything specific you want him to

answer, just make sure you send us an email at show@othersidepodcast.com,

or you can send us through our Patreon, and we'll send a message on to

Ian and, have him do follow-up questions for you. For

the song this week, we were interested in how lucid dreaming can reframe what Ian

Jaded calls the narrative. It's like that old cliche,

whether you think you can or you can't. You're right. Anything is

possible in your dreams. The physical limitations in our material universe don't

exist there. Anything goes. There's a movie from the late

nineties called Mumford, and and there's one scene that I think about often.

In the movie, a man is describing one of his erotic fantasies to his

therapist. In the fantasy, the male character is a stunning

example of romance novel cover machismo who easily

woos beautiful women. But in real life, the guy is a total

schlub. You think that the character, Henry Follett, has a totally

delusional sense of himself until the doctor is thinking about it later, and

she says this. In these fantasies, Henry Follett is played by a

handsome guy with biceps. Can you imagine that, where your self esteem has

to be? Man, I just like to move the guy to the point where

he gets to appear in his own fantasies. He wasn't even fantasizing

about himself. His dreams weren't his own. Now

sometimes your narrative is so ingrained that you're not even the main character in

it. That's when you have to reframe it. That's the idea

behind this song, dreams belong.

The world is ugly. The world is mean.

We're drowning in cruelty. And

there's only one place I can hide where

I feel like I am free. Your

head spins round and round, you're so trapped. Don't blow

running wheel. You gotta

It's all a fake. It's all a hoax.

We've all been fed alive.

You'll never see possibility until you

leave your shell behind. Your head

spins run and round. You're

Thank you for listening to today's episode. You can find us

online at othersidepodcast.com. Until next

Mike. See you on the other side.

It is Thanksgiving week here in the United States, and that's the perfect

opportunity for us to express our gratitude to you, the listener.

Mike and I really put a lot into these episodes, and we appreciate that

you take the time to listen to them. Now I wanna give an

extra huge thank you to the supporters in our Patreon

community, and those are the people that kick in a few bucks every

month to keep the lights on and keep the show going. And more

than that, I've gotta say they are good friends. I had no idea when we

started our Patreon community that we would be meeting people that we now consider to

be really good friends that we're always happy to see. Only wish we lived

closer so we could hang out more in person. But we do have our monthly

Patreon hangout online where we can at least catch up and talk about all of

our favorite paranormal and other topics. If you'd like to join

that community, you can do that by visiting othersidepodcast.com/donate.

And an extra huge thanks goes out to our friend Ned.

Gobble, gobble. Ned, you get an extra helping of pumpkin pie. Oh, I hope you

like pumpkin pie. This Thanksgiving because your Patreon level gets

you this special shot out every week, and we certainly do appreciate you, Ned. And

again, I just wanna thank you for listening. Please reach out to us if you

have any questions. We're always happy to hear from everyone and have a wonderful

week and enjoy the rest of your November.

Was I as high as Shaggy?