Electric Dreams

An Excerpt From The Lucid Dream Exchange
Lucy Gillis, Editor

LDE Quarterly Lucid Dreaming Challenge, September 2004

"Lucid Dreaming Beyond Time and Space" Task
Tuning into Your Optimal Self/Branching Parallel Universes

Ed Kellogg


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Kellogg, E.W. III Ph.D. (2005 March). LDE Quarterly Lucid Dreaming Challenge, September 2004:
"Lucid Dreaming Beyond Time and Space" Task.
Tuning into Your Optimal Self/Branching Parallel Universes.
(An Excerpt From The Lucid Dream Exchange, Lucy Gillis, Editor.) Electric Dreams 12(3).






Beginning with issue number 32, LDE was very pleased to include Quarterly Lucid Dreaming Challenges, hosted by Ed Kellogg. In each issue, Ed provides a challenge for LDE readers to attempt, if they wish, and suggestions to help them accomplish the task. Readers are encouraged to share their results with LDE. Here is the first Lucid Dreaming Challenge. Why not give it a try and see what happens?

LDE Quarterly Lucid Dreaming Challenge
September, 2004

by Ed Kellogg


(This new feature provides an unusual lucid dreaming task for LDE readers with each new issue. Participants agree to accept personal responsibility and all risks should they choose to undertake these tasks, which may possibly bring about mental, emotional, and even physical changes. We invite those of you who attempt these tasks to send your dream reports to LDE.)

"Lucid Dreaming Beyond Time and Space" Task
((c)2004 E. W. Kellogg III, Ph.D.)

Tuning into Your Optimal Self/Branching Parallel Universes

Consider the idea that in some parallel reality another "you" made a different set of choices, so that they became your optimal self, the self actualizing your highest potentials. Your task: to tune into that alternate optimal self and their life through your dreams, either by dreaming about the life you would have lived had you made the necessary choices, or by directly contacting your optimal self in a lucid dream. For example, you might look for a dream mirror (or any other reflective surface, like a pool of water, or a polished metal surface) and use it as a scrying tool to show you your alternate self by chanting "Mirror, mirror that I see, / Show my optimal self to me!". Record your experiences and / or the information that you get in your dream journal in as much detail as possible - use illustrations to depict your experiences if appropriate. Also, look for the appearance of alternate selves or parallel universes in all of your dreams. Often, after rehearsing lucid dreaming tasks before you go to sleep, relevant information will show up even in your "ordinary" dreams - even when you do not succeed in becoming lucid.

Preparation:

Step 1. Background reading:

Those of you who seem unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the concepts of parallel universes and parallel selves, would do well to check out Dr. Max Tegmark's article on the scientific evidence for parallel universes, published in the May 2003 issue of The Scientific American. Dr. Tegmark's article begins:

"Is there a copy of you reading this article? A person who is not you but who lives on a planet called Earth, with misty mountains, fertile fields and sprawling cities, in a solar system with eight other planets? The life of this person has been identical to yours in every respect. But perhaps he or she now decides to put down this article without finishing it, while you read on.

The idea of such an alter ego seems strange and implausible, but it looks as if we will just have to live with it, because it is supported by astronomical observations. . . . "

Also, those of you who would like to explore similar concepts from a more metaphysical point of view might find the discussion of "probable realities" and of "possible selves" in Jane Roberts' book Seth Speaks (chapters 15 - 17) fascinating and illuminating. Taken together, an open minded reading of Tegmark and Roberts should help you to get a better idea of multiverse in which we may all live, and to facilitate the task by allowing your "common sense self" to let go of limiting consensus trance beliefs that might stand in the way of success.

Related Links:

http://www.hep.upenn.edu/~max/multiverse.pdf

http://brassringbooks.com/rchange/rcperm.htm#Physics

Step 2. Defining your Optimal Self

Success in tasks of this kind depends in large part upon the lucid dreamer's ability to focus on specific goals. In order for you to connect with your "optimal self", you need to first define - in some detail - those characteristics that you consider the most important. Most people would include optimal health, but not everyone cares if their optimal self can play the piano like a virtuoso, do back flips like an Olympic gymnast, or play chess like a grand master! I suggest that you come up with at least the six most important characteristics that would define your optimal self before attempting this lucid dreaming task. Remember to include those characteristics that matter the most to you, regardless of what others might think. These can include anything - mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual characteristics as well as learned skills.

OPTIMAL SELF: Core Values (Please fill in at least your top 6)
1. (Health)5.
2.6.
3.7.
4.8.

Appendix:

An inspirational example from "Michael", a lucid dreamer who accomplished this task.

3/29/04 "After slipping through several dreamscapes after taking galantamine at 2 a.m., I experienced myself as totally lucid and aware in the dream version of my apartment....... at that point I remembered the dream task, and decided to find my optimal self by spinning all the electrons in my dream body 178 degrees in order to create a door into the optimal alternate reality where I would find my optimal self. I trusted my dream self,(in the dream) to know how to do this in the dream state, having practiced it in (real life) many times. I then picked up my magic dream wand which has a counterpart in my real apartment, a double-ended crystal wand made of wood, and made seven counterclockwise ellipses to create the door..... The door appeared... (appearing as a vertical slit in the dreamscape that I was in, and I stepped through)..... I then found myself outside a house on a porch accompanied by a woman. I did not recognize her, but she was present throughout the dream as an observer. Upon turning around on the porch, I saw a male figure, and walked up to him and asked if he knew why I was there. He replied that he knew, and I replied that I was on a task to meet my optimal self . (An interesting suggestion by Ed Kellogg that I might switch bodies with my optimal self morphed into the idea that I should steal it)......... This was stopped by a set of dream morals, and I simply asked my other self if he would mind giving me some healthy DNA to replace my defective DNA having to do with Bamboo Spine. My optimal self said he did not mind extracting some, which he proceeded to do. Once in hand, my dream self remembered that some of the fastest repairing cells in the body were in the lips, so I took the DNA and inserted it into the lips with a needle-like inserter, adding the instructions to create migratory cells to take it to the spine. Upon completing this action, I asked my optimal self if I could merge with him to absorb energy and information that would help my progress, and he allowed it. After absorbing what I needed, I thanked him and stepped back through the slit into what appeared to be my dream reality and found myself lucid in my bed again..... At that point, I experienced another lucid dream where I traveled to the house of my lucid dream teacher, Ed Kellogg, who is a friend. and entered his house, went down the hallway toward his room, and attempted to enter his room...... I was unable to do this, as there was a barrier that I couldn't get through, so, at that point, I experienced a less lucid dream where I saw a brick being put into place in a garden and then saw a sink being cleaned from the perspective of the cleaner... at that point, I was fading from lucidity and awoke without other dreams to report............................."

Comment: Michael has a condition known as ankylosing spondylitis, a condition characterized by a fused spine, normally accompanied by a great deal of pain. Since accomplishing this dream task on 3/29/04, he has noticed significant improvements both in his range of pain free movement, as well as in overall spinal flexibility. He now has some limited flexibility in the entire spine, and has also experienced improvement in vertebral adjustments. Aside from these physical improvements, Michael reports improvements in telepathy and in energy mastery.

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