The Witch's Dreaming Brigade
By Eugene Raphael · Dream Report · Liminal Light Lab
Technique: looking around and looking away from hypnagogic imagery instead of fixing on it. Outcome: pulled into a full dream during a nap, with a group of dreamers.
In July 2024 I spent a couple of weeks experimenting with not looking directly at the imagery. Rotating my eyes, glancing away, observing around the edges. It kept pulling me into dreams. This is the run-up and the nap where it paid off, from my journal.
Looking away
The more I look "away" from things, the greater the tendency for more detail to emerge. This passive method feels more natural than attempting to forcibly fixate an object into view. It gave rise to moving dreams, then dreams. July 10, 2024
Casually looking away. Lots of dream scenes forming. As if I was pulling the assemblage point directly inward, sucking me into dream scenes briefly. Went too deep again! Passed out. July 12, 2024
It seems to me that indirect eye contact and observing "around" hypnagogic imagery is a core trigger to building dreams. July 13, 2024
The brigade
That night I'd already had an ordinary adventure:
Dream. Flying a space ship on an alien planet. Got dumped off it, aliens were chasing me. Stole some of their clothes, making my way back to safety.
Then, during a nap the next day, the looking-around practice worked:
Nap. Looking around. Saw a man's head, then nothing. Kept going. I was pulled into a dream just by maintaining looking around. There were 8 women there; the lead one yelled out gleefully "witch's dreaming brigade!" I followed the group around the corner into a city. Three of them paused on a bench to sit and look around. "You ladies … rock," I said, a compliment to their dreaming prowess. July 14, 2024
Takeaway
The head appeared and vanished, and that's usually where I'd give up. I kept looking around instead, and that alone carried me in. The brigade itself made me laugh: a dream full of dreamers, pausing on a bench to do exactly what I'd been doing, sitting and looking around. The risk with this method is going too deep too fast and forgetting everything, which happened to me more than once that month.
Related
Community: Has looking away, rather than looking at, ever pulled you into a dream? Tell us in the Liminal Light forum.
Liminal Light shares personal practice, not medical advice. Read About & Safety first.
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