Reforming a Bad Dream
I’ve been having the same nightmare since I was in my early 20s. I am driving a dark-colored sports car along a winding highway overlooking a steep drop. Think Pacific Coast Highway north of Big Sur or the Blue Ridge Parkway as it enters the Great Smoky Mountains.
Usually I’m enjoying the drive, zipping along way too fast, when I encounter a sharp turn, yank the steering wheel to correct and careen over the side of the cliff. I wake up while in mid-air, still in the car, falling to my certain death. Not fun.
When this dream first showed up, I was terrified it was a sign that I was going to die in a car accident.
I don’t live near any crooked roads overlooking cliffs. I don’t drive a sports car, and although my family has often accused me of having a lead foot, my past is not littered with speeding tickets or accidents.
After a few years of monthly (and sometimes weekly) experiences with my own dead man’s curve dream that never materialized in real life, I assumed I wasn’t literally going to die in a fiery crash off the side of a cliff, and I began looking for other answers.
If the message was a metaphor, then maybe the horrifying dream symbolized my frenetic, overscheduled, stressful calendar of daily activities. Did I have to launch myself over a cliff in order to chill out?
I was anxious to make the nightmare go away, so when a friend invited me to a yoga class, I said yes. Something happened in that class that was extremely positive. I cried like a baby in corpse pose after 90 minutes of vinyasa yoga in a heated studio, and I had no idea why. Even if it didn’t make my nightmare go away, it was a beneficial change that I was going to continue.
Unfortunately, yoga didn’t eliminate the nightmare. I still had the same dream, but now it was full of dialogue between the driver (me) and an unembodied voice (apparently also me).
I still woke up before hitting the ground, chiding myself for letting it happen again.
For years I tried to interpret it, learn from it, dissect it, or wrangle meaning out of it, to no avail. Waking up terrified in the middle of the night, sweaty, and not wanting to get in a car the next day was just something that I learned to live with.
Until I read Michael Pollan’s 2018 book entitled How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence.
One of the consistent messages from Pollan’s eye-opening book, which explores different ways of experiencing consciousness, is that when we are faced with fearful circumstances (such as in my recurring nightmare), we should lean into them.
Pollan’s research shows that the mantra “Trust, Let Go, Be Open” permeates the positive experiences people have had in exploring the limits of their own consciousness.
If you see a door, open it; if you see a staircase, climb it. Don’t be afraid. The researchers that Pollan interviewed called these recommendations “flight instructions.”
“Trust, Let Go, Be Open.”
I devoured the book -the research is fascinating. Days after I read the last page, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Lean into fear? That’s just crazy. Who would do that?
But Pollan himself recounted several positive experiences following the flight instructions, and reported that the love he felt for his wife and family was more powerful than he had ever known.
The next time I had the dream, I launched over the cliff as usual, sports car nose-diving toward the Pacific Ocean, and I leaned in. It had never occurred to me to do that before reading the book, but for some reason now it seemed like a natural reaction.
I pushed myself through the car window, kicked away from the car, and thrust my arms out wide. Immediately, my arms transformed into two gorgeous wings of soft coral, pale yellow, and lavender. I flicked them up and down, and they were incredibly powerful as they lifted me up and far above the rocks and beach below.
I glided out over the ocean and felt an amazing feeling of flying, with the sun shining and the wind in my face. The sun glittered on the bright blue water, and everything felt perfect. I realized that I could go anywhere I wanted, that my wings would never tire, and there were no limits to what I could see and do.
Thanks, Michael Pollan!
I thought I would share my experience with all of you, because my bad dream plagued me for a long time, and I’m not sure how/when/if it would have been reformed without a shift in perspective, which came in the form of a book (as it often does for me). If you have a recurring nightmare, try leaning into your fear and see where it takes you!
P.S. I have not had that dream since I read the book, but I now have lots of dreams about flying wherever I want to go with my beautiful ombré wings.
