my vision. 1 feel deep love and surrender, and wish that
some of my friends could experience this also.
      After the Light subsides, I bound out of bed and go
searching about the house for the Master who made the
experience possible. But I see no one. Then I awaken.

     Since I was not aware at the time that I was dreaming,
this experience cannot be considered by definition a lucid
dream. Yet because the relationship between the Light
and the awakening of lucidity has been so pronounced in
subsequent dreams, I feel that this experience should be
included to provide a comprehensive picture of the
development of lucid dreaming. Also, the dream reveals
a common characteristic of my "pre-lucid" dreams—a
"false" awakening. This is when I have thought that I
was awakening from sleep only to discover later upon
actual awakening, that I had been dreaming. I have since
discovered in my reading about out-of-body experiences
and lucid dreaming that other individuals have also
noted the importance of the "false" awakening and its
potential as a springboard into the lucid dream. Since the
occurrence of this dream, lucidity has often been
triggered during a false awakening when I have found
myself in another place or in unfamiliar surroundings.
Thus, although the false awakening has not always
resulted in the arousal of lucidity, it seems to have
represented a growth in that direction.
      When lucidity began to arise with increasing
regularity in the following months, I soon noticed that it
emerged predictably after a deep or fulfilling meditation.
It became clear that when my devotional life was
intense, lucid dreaming would arise as a concomitant.
This relationship became more pronounced when I began
meditating for fifteen or twenty minutes during the
early morning hours from 2:00 to 5:00 A.M. As I would
return to sleep, dreams of amazing clarity as well as brief
periods of lucidity would occasionally ensue. I soon
discovered that if I would diligently practice meditation
in the early morning hours for the purpose of
attunement, lucid dreams would be the natural result.

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