Lucid Dreaming

April 30th 2024

I sat sipping my coffee on our screened-in back patio this morning, watching the little rounded belly robin that’s been visiting lately.

He hopped side to side, picking up a leaf or twig here and there, giving it a little shake before dropping it and shopping for another one.

The rustling leaves, warm sun, and smell of jasmine blooming were so delicious I kept pausing my journaling to close my eyes and breathe it in.

On mornings like this, it’s easy to lose myself in daydreaming. Writing the imagery out like a song page after page after page.

And it’s always on a fairly average day.

Under fairly average circumstances.

But my mind and body become filled with such delight and excitement that I can’t write the daydream out fast enough.

With my ink running low and the last sips of my coffee getting cold, I went inside to join Joe and the kitties on the couch.

I’d just snuggled under the quilt when the doorbell rang.

We looked at the time.

Quarter-past noon.

It still felt early to us but then again, we’d slept in after getting home late from The Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie show the night before.

When they’d played Clark Gable, tears streamed down my face as we all sang along to the chorus,

I want so badly to believe that there is truth that love is real

And I want life in every word to the extent that it’s absurd.

Before Death Cab took the stage earlier that evening, Joe had laid back on our blanket with his arms tucked behind his head recounting all the breadcrumbs that led the way to where we are now and the dreams we couldn’t have imagined coming true so quickly.

The first time I saw Joe almost fifteen years ago he’d put the song My Name Is Mud by Primus on the jukebox, playing out in real-time the scenario I’d daydreamed only weeks before.

I had no idea the doors that it would open in my own heart and life.

And I think that’s how we cross the greatest distances.

One breadcrumb at a time.

One flash of deja vu.

One quick wink from the universe whispering, “You’re on the right track. Keep going!”

The Ring app on Joe’s phone lagged as the doorbell rang again.

Rats…

Feeling uncharacteristically social in my jammies and unbrushed teeth, I hopped up to take a gamble and answer it anyway.

I opened the door to see an older couple standing there wearing their Sunday best.

“Hi! Thank you for answering the door,” the man said, “May we have sixty seconds of your time to read a bit of scripture with you?”

He and his wife both had kind eyes. I didn’t mind a lil impromptu Sunday service.

Joe joined me as the man angled his phone toward us, reading the highlighted scripture on creating peace within ourselves amidst the chaos of the world.

I smiled to myself thinking, Amen sir, I couldn’t agree more.

They were both gracious when we politely turned down their offer for future visits, assuring them we had a good connection with God goin’, but thanked them for coming to share with us.

The man asked for our names one more time.

“Becca and Joe, and what were your names?”

“Wanda,” his wife said, leaning forward with a smile.

“And I’m Primus.”

“I’m sorry what was that?”

“My name’s Primus.”

I consider myself a professional daydreamer.

Not just cause I’m a practicing writer which involves quite a significant amount of time sitting in complete silence staring into space. But because my earliest memories are of being alone, lost in a daydream.

Sitting on a blanket in the front yard of our single-wide trailer. Watching the shadows of the baby oak tree’s leaves dance across my legs in a spring parade.

I am much older now and the oak trees casting their shadows across me stand significantly taller but the feeling is the same.

Paradise.

How can something so simple.

So ordinary.

Still bring tears to my eyes?

I think-

Is this moment just for me? Was I born just to hear the wind passing through the leaves? If so, it’s worth it.

This is one of the greatest jokes to me.

That I still spend so much time revisiting old patterns aggressively searching, studying, and sitting as still as possible in lotus pose ready to access that elation through firm intention and direction.

But as soon as I give up, it comes to me.

Curling up in my lap as I sip a cup of coffee on our patio, walk through the woods, dance barefoot at a concert, laugh with people I love or strangers in line at the post office.

The universe rests its cheek against mine and chuckles, whispering softly, “You know this is supposed to be enjoyable right? You don’t have to be good, you just have to be here right now.”

You don’t have to be good, you just have to be here right now.

I was so much better at this as a kid.

My biggest realization of this came while once again doing something as mundane as housework.

Back in 2019, we’d sold a piece of furniture online and before the couple came to pick it up I was giving it one last good cleaning.

It had been our hound dog Dilly’s favorite afternoon napping spot and as she got older and shed more of her coat each year, I vacuumed it once a week to keep her throne fresh and clean.

The Dirt Devil hummed and whined as I ran the wand over and around each velvet button and along each seem. At first, I was missing Dilly, thinking about her soft ears and long snout, and then I lost myself in a daydream.

I could smell the diesel from the boat’s motor and the heat of the morning sun bouncing off the water. I was posted up at the stern sitting on a cooler with my bag of Reese’s Pieces layed out between the rod holders.

I had my routine down to a science.

Authors Photo

I’d tear the lid back gently from the frozen box of squid and fill it with water, allowing them to separate so I could peel them apart one at at time. Pulling the head off first then removing the clear quill spine and tossing them into the water. Then I’d slide the fillet knife down the center of the body cutting strips to be laid aside for bait.

By the time I reached the bottom of the box, my dad would be pressing down on the throttle as we left the channel and made our way into the sound in search of a good spot to put our lines out.

I’d lean over the side and dip my hands into the water cleaning the squid from my fingers then brushing them off on my shirt to grab my bag of Reese’s Pieces now warmed in the sun to the perfect temperature for my morning snack.

Slowly I’d pop each one into my mouth, letting the outer shell dissolve on my tongue and the flavors of sugar and peanut butter mix with the brackish water splashing across my face.

Authors Photo

The vacuum’s hose coughed and rattled, startling me out of the daydream.

Bobby pins… I thought to myself as I kneeled to shut it off.

But when I looked at the collection container, my mouth hung open and my brain told my eyes to try blinking.

Squinting.

Look again.

There in front of a motionless cyclone of dirt and dust…

…was a pile of Reese’s Pieces.

Reese’s… Pieces y’all!

I stood up and took a few steps back to distance myself… the way you might if your bank teller leaned across the counter and pulled an extra quarter from your nose.

I need a second…what just happened?

I stared at the color faded candy so confused.

I don’t even remember the last time I ate Reese’s Pieces.

I have deep cleaned and vacuumed this chaise for the last five years… there were no Reese’s Pieces buried in there from 1994.

Now years later listening to lectures and reading books on quantum physics trying to work backward to understand what exactly has been happening in so many instances and to be able to explain the tiniest bit I grasp to clients, I continuously come across the zero-point field which is often described as… a vacuum.

I can hear my Spirit Family roaring with laughter,

“Do you get it!? It happens in a vacuum! S’good right!?”

It really can be that simple.

Our brains like to follow societal norms and separate the mystical from the mundane.

Overcomplicate things and make spiritual practices downright pretentious.

Sometimes the hardest part is actually breaking the habit of making it hard.

When you lose yourself in a daydream while sitting in the sun, painting, dancing, singing along to Depeche Mode stuck in 5 o’clock traffic...you visit that place outside time and space.

And sometimes if ya stay open and throw inhibitions to the wind just enough?

You become a lucid dreamer.

You realize everything you need is right here in this moment.

There’s nothing you have to chase.

There’s nowhere you need to go.

And the universe will come ring your doorbell on a Sunday afternoon or show up in your Dirt Devil vacuum just for the chance to play with you.

I love you, thank you for reading!