Lucid and a little strange

[Willowy]

So I took a nap today in the afternoon and had a pretty vivid dream. I find my dreams tend to be more vivid or lucid when I get a chance to take a nap as opposed to my normal sleep schedule.

The dream was kind of interesting I was with two other women who seemed familiar to me though I couldn't place them. We were going through some sort of workshop together dealing with magick. There came a point where we were reading from a book and discussing the book and I could not get to the right page or read the words very well in the book. I became a little embarrassed and eventually had to tell the teacher I was lost. She was very understanding and appologized to me for not knowing I wasn't ready for that book yet.

Soon afterward I met with a person I know in real life who has become a real life teacher to me dealing with Native American beliefs and a teensy bit of shamanism. She asked me how the class went and I told her I had some trouble.

She said, "What couldn't read the book?"

I was embarrassed again and tried to think why I had so much trouble with the book. Finally it dawned on me, I was dreaming. I tried to shout to her, "Because I'm dreaming!" Then I became very lucid.

I noticed as I was trying to get her attention that someone was behind me holding my arms and making my movements slugish and my thoughts losing focus. I managed to wrench my arms free and turned around to see this "shadow person."

Even in the dream I wondered for a moment if I saw this thing because I had been thinking about it from another thread on these boards.

Anyway, whatever it was its touch seemed to stick to me and I had to fight to stay free of it. I ran out of the building I was in and saw it running towards me. I hopped into a moving car and it still came after me. As it got closer I pushed my arms out and yelled "Fire! Fire!" Trying to make flames appear but nothing happened. The only way I could figure out to escape in the heat of the moment was to force myself awake, so I woke up.

This whole last part of my dream I was lucid. When I opened my eyes I wondered if I had gotten free of it or if it was still stuck to me somehow.

[Serenity]

I'm getting more "well, yeah" feelings on this rather than my usual interpretation feelings, if that makes sense.

Basically, it seems to me you were on a path in your dream, and you took big steps forward on that path when you realized you were dreaming. Whatever this shadow thing was, I do feel it was a slightly negative force rather than a good force just trying to keep you from something you shouldn't be learning yet.

I'm not quite sure why I'm not getting my usual feelings on this, but perhaps it's because I'm not supposed to.

I recommend, if you haven't done so already, to share this dream with your teacher. I think that might prove useful.

[Beekeeper]

Willowy, this seems like a significant experience. I'm sad it was spoiled by the shadow person but maybe there's more to it and that will unfold with further experiences.

Interesting that you should post this today. A work friend who's had a number of psychic experiences and knows about OBEs but doesn't actively try to have them, had a similar experience last week. She was telling me about it at work. She was enjoying tremendous peace just floating out of body but a shadow person kept coming from her left. She pushed it away a couple of times but then it became manacing somehow and frightened her, ending the experience. I showed her the other thread in our lunch break. Now I'll have to show her your post.

[Willowy]

Thinking about the dream a little more, I feel like I had a little doubt in my mind that the figure was out to cause me harm. This doubt is probably why I couldn't get flames to appear. I didn't want to hurt it if it was just something out to frustrate me rather than harm me.

Mostly I felt angry and frustrated at the thing, the only time it was scary at all was when I saw it running toward me. In my dream I had a moment where I felt it was to blame for my losing focus and getting sidetracked during the "workshop" and book reading.