Dale Graff was for 17 years the leading researcher and expert in the United States Defense Department in the area of parapsychological phenomenon. He founded and served as director of Project Star Gate. Of him, former astronaut, Edgar Mitchell said “Dale Graff is one of those pioneers who risked a career and ‘respectability’ to pursue the truth”. That’s a common fate of those who dare to challenge the status quo. But like most who learn too much about the subject at hand, Dale has never been able to go home again. He’s still involved. He has a website and he’s written extensively about remote viewing. One of his books is called, River Dreams (which I highly recommend) and contains some great stories including one which I find particularly fascinating. Dale likes to remote view from the dream state and one evening he was focusing on a target before going to sleep with the intention of “seeing” it while dreaming. In his own words he said, “I woke in a few hours from a dream that was difficult to recall”. He focused once again on his intention of perceiving the target in a dream but couldn’t return to sleep. Dale said, ” After a long time, I put on my glasses and looked at the clock. It was 3:00 A.M. I did not want to be awake all night. Removing my glasses, I again held focus on the target, hoping to drift to sleep…Gazing at the opposite wall, I wondered when I would fall asleep. Then the wall disappears! I am aware of the bed, furniture and the other walls. But the wall directly ahead is not there. In its place is a thick black void. Then something like a long dark tunnel forms. In the distance, I see a small light area that expands and becomes a scene. A long row of wide, stone steps appears and comes into the bedroom. At the far end, near a large dome-shaped building, I see a small figure. It begins walking slowly down the steps toward me. As it approaches, I clearly see that the figure is a stocky man dressed in an old-style military uniform. His chest is covered with decorations, and I note a large buckle on his belt. He is wearing a flat-topped hat. As he approaches, I can clearly see his face. His demeanor is not friendly, but I feel no fear. Then he stops at the foot of my bed. I watch, amazed, as he raises a submachine gun to his shoulder and blasts it directly at me! Gunfire sound fills the room. I see the fire spit from the gun and feel the impact from at least six bullets as they tear through me. Suddenly the attack scene vanishes and I am looking at the bedroom wall”. Dale for an instant thought that he had actually been shot. He jumped out of bed and dashed into the bathroom and turned on the lights, expecting to see a bloody mess. On his chest, he said he could see, “about half a dozen reddish welts” that ” looked like burn marks”. Dale concluded that he had entered what he called a “conscious dream” state. He believes that the red welts “may have resulted from mental energy I gave to the experiment and my intense desire to know the target”. The target ended up being a photograph of the dictator Mussolini walking down wide steps in Rome. He was dressed in a well decorated military uniform and was wearing a flat box-style hat. Dale said that the experience gave him some insights into the unusual experiences sometimes perceived by people who believe they are victims of “UFO Abductions”. Dale asks the question, “Are these ‘abductions’, vivid as they are, really intense and dramatic conscious dreams”. Dales experience shows that these types of experiences can feel absolutely real to those experiencing them and can even leave behind visible physical marks but in fact be creations of the subconscious mind and not actual real experiences. But then of course, as I’ve said before..reality isn’t what it used to be :-)
Since my memory is fading fast due to old age :)…here’s another of my favorite lucid dreams which I want to record before I forget it. Prior to having this dream, I had read an essay written by my daughter wherein she wrote about photographs and how they are like time machines because they can take us back to re-live special moments in our lives. She had written about a photograph that she has of herself as a small girl playing on the beach. She said that when she looked at that photograph she could still feel the warm sand under her feet, hear the seagulls flying overhead, smell the sea breeze, and feel the excitement of running and playing on the beach. In my dream, I was back working with my father in the family business (my father and mother had, at the time of this dream long since passed away). We were doing some remodeling and were going through some old papers. My father found a photograph of my mother as a small girl (perhaps 6 or 7) and showed it to me. As I looked at her picture I was somehow transported back to the time and place where the picture was taken. I also remembered the essay and it caused me to become lucid within the dream. I found myself walking down the hall of an old building. The walls were painted blue. I entered a room and saw my Grandmother, Grandfather, my mother as a small girl of perhaps 6 or 7 and several of her brothers and sisters posing for a photographer who was about to take their picture. My grandmother looked just as she had in pictures I have seen of her when she was in her 30’s. My grandfather had a mustache…something which I’d never known him to have. The photographer snapped the picture and my mother (doing what 6 year olds do) then ran off towards the hallway. My Grandmother told Nina to go after her. Nina is one of my mothers older sisters. She would have been about 9 or 10 at the time. She looked 9 or 10 in my dream and was tall and skinny with short dark hair. My mothers hair was lighter and longer. Anyway, being lucid in the dream, I decided to follow my mother and see what she was doing. I walked down the blue painted hallway towards her and could tell that she was singing a little song to her self. I couldn’t make out the words but as I got closer, she looked up at me continuing to sing her little song and as here eyes met mine, I heard the words, “because I love you so”. She was just a little girl singing a song to herself and appeared to have no idea who I was. I however knew who she was and it startled me a bit to hear her softly singing, “because I love you so” as her gaze locked with mine. I managed to say, “Hi, you are a very pretty little girl”. She smiled at me and I woke up. I need to go pay a visit to my Aunt Nina who is still living . I’d like to see if she has any old family photographs taken when she was about 9 or 10 :)
I once read that some of the best lucid dreams are experienced by letting go rather than by forcing your own agenda. I got the opportunity to test that theory one day and in so doing experienced one of my favorite lucid dreams of all time. My body awakened me early one Saturday morning for the usual bladder drain (Heah…I drink a lot of Dr. Pepper :) ). After the bathroom visit I went back to bed and drifted off to sleep after affirming for a few moments my intention to become lucid within my dreams. When it comes to lucid dreaming…intention is everything. I did in fact become lucid within the dream state and decided to just let go and see where the dream would take me. I no sooner had that thought than I suddenly found myself standing on the stairway in a house I had lived in many years previously. In front of me on the stairway and crawling up the steps ahead of me, was my son “D” who had been about a year old when I lived in that house. He was wearing only a disposable diaper which swished and crackled as he climbed up the steps ahead of me on all fours. I followed him up the steps and when he reached the top of the landing, I goosed him in the butt. He rolled over on his back giggling and I proceeded to tickle him on his bare tummy. At that very moment I was suddenly awakened and beckoned back to the “real” world with the sound of my daughters voice. She had come into my room and was saying, ” Dad, “D” just called from the Airport and he’s going to solo this morning. He wants to know if you want to go up and watch him” . Well, “D” was now about twenty years old and was enrolled in flying lessons. I dressed and quickly drove up to the airport and watched ‘D” fly solo that day. It was a BIG day and a very special and memorable one for both “D” and for me. I hadn’t known that “D” was going to be soloing that day. I hadn’t known that this was going to be a big “D” day…but then… some part of the mind DID know didn’t it?
It was while reading Joseph McMoneagles, “The Stargate Chronicles, Memoirs of a Psychic Spy” that I first became interested in lucid dreaming . McMoneagle tells of experiments that he did with Stephen Laberge, doing Remote Viewing while in a lucid dreaming state. They were quite successful, but Joseph McMoneagle became a little spooked after having several false awakenings in a row. He would think he had awakened from his dream state only to discover after a while that he actually had not awakened and was only dreaming that he had awakened. After those experiments he stated that he either has now awakened or is in the longest lucid dream of his life :) Lucid dreaming is a state where your body is asleep and dreaming but your mind is awake and fully aware. You are dreaming but you know that you are dreaming. I wondered if such a state was really possible so I bought Stephens book, “Exploring the world of Lucid Dreaming” and learned how to do it. I actually had my first lucid dream while still reading his book. In my first lucid dream I found myself in an airport terminal. I had taught myself to ask the question, “Am I awake or dreaming?” anytime I was in an airport (which was a couple of times a week in those days). Once that habit had been established in the waking world I automatically continued asking myself that same question if I found myself at an airport in the dream world. In my dream, after asking the question, I looked up at a marquee and read the flight information. I looked away for a moment and then quickly looked back a second time . All the words had changed and now read something entirely new. This (I had learned in the book) was a method to test whether or not I was awake or dreaming (words do not remain stable in the dream state). Suddenly I became “lucid”. I was somehow awake within my dream. A man near me was ranting, yelling loudly and being very abusive towards a woman standing next to him. I said to myself, “heah…I’m only dreaming”…so I walked over to the man and punched him in the stomach. As I threw the punch, I thought to myself, “I sure hope I’m only dreaming”. The anxiety of the thought caused me to immediately wake up. I did feel that punch make contact first though and it was quite satisfying :). I’d had my first lucid dream. Cool!
Sometimes we connect to the undivided whole in our dreams so I am adding a “lucid dreams” section to this blog…a section for everything with everything in it’s section. First a comment about SECTIONS. While growing up in my family, if one was to ask, ” Where’s the peanut butter”, the likely answer one would receive was, ” It’s in the peanut butter section”. This same type of answer would be given when asking the location for most anything. Where’s the toilet paper…it’s in the toilet paper section. Where’s the beef…it’s in the beef section. Where’s my coat…it’s in the coat section?…and so on and so forth (Of course there were no sections and no one had a clue where the item you were seeking actually was). Anyway, this section will actually exist and will be for posts about dreams, the dream state and particularly lucid dreams. Here’s the first: My father (who I was very close to) died many years ago after a long battle with cancer. He died but his cancer lived on in my dreams of him. For 20 years, whenever I dreamed of my father, he was always sick…until one night I had a particularly vivid dream of him: In this dream, I was walking down a path with the expectation that I was to meet my father. After a while, I saw him coming towards me and as he neared, I saw that he was muscular, healthy and youthful looking. He was wearing a very nice fitting blue-gray suit. His hair was no longer gray and thinning, but brown and full. He seemed full of happiness, self assurance and positive energy. He stopped directly in front of me and I lifted my hand and touched his shoulder. I said, ” Hi Dad…long time no see”. He smiled broadly and replied inquisitively, ” Yes…how did we let that happen?” as if he was curious about how we could have let all those years slip by without seeing each other. And then…I woke up (shit!). Anyway, the dream was so vivid and powerful that since then, I’ve never again dreamed of him being sick.
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