Lucid Dreaming as Theater!

Dear Dreamers,

Recently, I learned that a University of North Carolina–Wilmington theater student, Sarah Burke, felt so inspired by reading my book that she created a multimedia, collaborative theatrical performance, called “The Dream Project,” which premiered in Wilmington on October 15, 2010, for a weekend run.

According to an article by Trey K. Morehouse in the student newspaper, The Seahawk, “Burke had been interested in dreams ever since she read the book, Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self by Robert Waggoner. ‘The book opened me up to the crazy possibilities of dreaming,’ said Burke. ‘It was really fascinating, and it offered a completely different way to look at dreaming.’ ”

I truly feel honored and pleased that senior Sarah Burke has created an event for herself and others to share their collective fascination with this wild and wonderful thing, dreaming. So often, dreaming (and the subconscious) is ignored or devalued as worthless or irrelevant, and lucid dreaming is seen as a mere fantasy. Yet dreaming and lucid dreaming underlie and support what we are. Without them, we would figuratively, and literally, die.

I hope Sarah continues her creative expression and produces future events—like Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self, The Musical perhaps!—and wish to publicly express my sincere thanks to her for creating this collaborative theatrical event.

Thanks, Sarah,

Robert Waggoner

PS – To read the full article, click here.

Remaking "Inception": Part II

Dear Dreamers,

As we seek to remake Inception to be that movie lucid dreamers talk about for decades, we envision a heart to heart conversation with Christopher Nolan. In it, we convince him of the spiritual nature of lucid dreaming and urge him to make Cobb’s “extracting” actions either understandable or basically ethical.

We begin to outline a new spiritual awakening version of Inception with the pitch that Cobb realizes information exists independently of us all. It waits free for the taking. He even realizes that his own information exists “out there” in some meta-web of unconscious knowledge for those who understand. It’s not a heist; it’s a lucid realization.

In this way, Cobb’s journey supports his understanding that waking reality seems dream-like and a co-creation of his larger mind within the larger spiritual system that exists beyond and before Cobb. Yet, Cobb struggles with accepting this concept fully and advancing spiritually to a more profound state of realization, because he knows to do so means losing his wife and children. His spiritual gain means their loss – and he clings to their memory.

In our new version, it is this dilemma that tortures Cobb. How can he advance, while losing those he loves? He must make a choice. So he lucidly investigates time and space, and sees their fundamentally illusory nature. Then, he tells the team that he will seek the path of an “eternalist” – voluntarily creating mental worlds in which his wife and children live, in which he can hold onto their memory and his feelings.

In the new draft’s finale, Ariadne follows him into a shared lucid dream, as he beholds the illusory forms of his wife and children. Ariadne begs him to come back or be lost forever within lucid dreaming’s reality creating complexity. Cobb turns one final time, spins his reality checking top and looks at her. “What have I to lose?” Then as if answering his own question, he murmurs, “All experience seems dream-like.”

The top spins and spins, as he disappears out the door.

Lucid wishes,

Robert Waggoner