A very strange experience

Hello friends,

I am new to Vipassana meditation, and since starting to get somewhat serious about meditation I have had some strange experiences. I just posted the following experience on a Vipassana message board, but thought that it might fit better in the field of lucid dreaming. If anyone has any comments about my experience, please share!

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This morning after breakfast I decided to do some meditation, lying on my bed. After about 10 minutes a very strong sensation took over my whole body; it felt like I was pushed into the bed, and I could not move. I was completely awake and aware of the situation, but somehow I could not move and I kept my eyes closed.

All of a sudden I was walking along a beach - still very much aware of the fact that my body was in fact lying on the bed - and I decided to walk into the water. Once in the water, I started swimming, and I thought to myself "if I want to swim, I had better turn my body around in the bed, lying on my stomach", so I did so, still keeping my eyes closed. I swam and swam and the whole experience was very comfortable. However, I had a feeling in my mind that if I swam too far I might fall off the bed, because at this time I was not aware of what I was doing with my body; I still had a very clear notion of this whole experience being a dream, however, and that I was in fact lying on the bed.

After some swimming I decided I wanted to wake up, in case I did not have a good understanding of the passing of time. So I turned myself over again, and decided to open my eyes - I was back in bed in the exact same position I had had when the meditation started.

Wowee, nice, that was what's known as a WILD or wake-induced-lucid-dream! Somewhat the most sought-after technique for becoming lucid, since you go from wake to dreaming, without the sleep process, while making the transition through that rather exciting stage inbetween! Welldone on that, could you go into more detail about the amount of time it took for the transition, what you saw/did in your meditation etc?

Wolffe:

Thanks a lot for your reply.

Vipassana meditation is all about observing your breath, thus being able to reach a level of concentration where you have a complete understanding of the processes and sensations going on in the whole body. Since I am just a beginner (I am attending the 10 day intro retreat later this summer), obviously I have not come any further than just being able to observe my breath.

I had been meditating like this for about 10 minutes; breathing in, breathing out, breathing in, observing whatever thoughts would arise in my head, but not trying to hang on to them. After about 10 minutes the pressing against the bed began, which was not a very pleasant experience, but once the beach appeared I felt safe.

I think I forgot to mention that I am not sure about whether the turning around of the body was something that actually happened - as I think I wrote, I did not have a good sense of how my body was actually moving on the bed while I was swimming. However, I was completely aware of the fact that it was all a dream, and that I was lying on the bed. The reason I am a bit skeptical about the turning of the body, is that my clothes looked really neat when I woke up, as if I had been lying completely still.