Underhill’s Three Stages of the Mystical Life

as Reflected in My Lucid Dream Experiences

G. Scott Sparrow, EdD, LPC, LMFTDreamStar Institute

www.dreamanalysistraing.com

Overview of My ChapterRyan Hurd and Kelly Bulkeley (Eds). Lucid Dreaming: New Perspectives on Consciousness in Sleep. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, (forthcoming).

Title: A Non-Dual Perspective the Question of Dream Control

In the chapter, I review the contrasting positions on dream control, and trace some of the historical debates.

I believe it’s one of the most important things I’ve written.

Overview of My ChapterPerhaps the most controversial question that begs to be answered in the field of lucid dreaming is, Should we try to control our dreams and dream characters?

In the early years of lucid dream research, many believed that lucid dreaming offered a virtually unlimited arena for personal experimentation. Whatever you wanted to do was okay, because it was all yours.

Others started to question this approach.

Aren’t we transpersonal beings?

How do we know who or what we are encountering?

Will our actions in the lucid dream translate into a morally and ethically defensible approach to life?

Overview of My ChapterThe debate heated up and a series of letters published in the Lucidity Letter revealed highly polarized opinions.

The exchanges divided the community, leaving an impact that can still be felt.

Based on my own experience, I eventually took a conservative position, and urged caution.

The Back Story

How did I come to this position? Not from the outset.

I was blessed by an abundance of experiences of light and ecstasy in my late teens and early 20s.

My initial orientation was to view the lucid dream as a form of spiritual practice, or yoga.

I initially viewed the dream as an illusory “veil” between myself and the ultimate Reality.

So I was initially on a transcendent quest to pierce the veil of illusion.

I was largely unconcerned in the content of the dream, and sought to circumvent it to experience the veiled splendor of our radiant source.

The literature from Tibetan Buddhism seemed to support this approach by saying that our true nature and our destiny (i.e. the dharmakaya or “body of truth”) was veiled by our mistaken belief in the reality of the dream.

The Back Story

This approach “worked” for a while, but problems began to develop.

Dream characters began confronting me, or became threatening

In some lucid dreams, I could not dispel the deep fear that arose in me.

The Back Story

I should have seen it coming

Mark and I were flying around the interior of a new building in order to consecrate the space. I saw Mark talking to someone through an open door at the back of the auditorium. I knew it was Jesus! Aware that I was dreaming, I walked quickly toward the open door, hoping not to miss him. Passing through I saw him--a most beautiful man standing in a field of white light. His love was intense and hard to bear, even though he looked sober, even stern. As I stood unable to speak, he asked me, “Are you ready to leave the earth yet?” I said (thinking that he meant that I would die if I was ready), “No.” He replied, “Then go out and do what you know to do.”

I should have seen it coming

I am with an unknown woman who holds a large book in her hands. I know it’s a record of my lifetimes. She says, “I have followed you through all of your sojourns. And I am angry!! She then reaches up and scratches my face. I awake, startled and fearful.

I should have seen it coming

I am lucid and trying to see the Light. Wherever I look, I see the Light in various things that are around me, including a bicycle. But when I concentrate on the radiant bicycle, the object loses its luster and becomes dull and ordinary. An unknown woman walks up and says, “You have to learn to love the form in order to see the Light within it.”

I should have seen it coming

I am trying to get the ghost of a monk out of my next-door neighbor’s house. We decide that we have burn down the house, but as we do, he flees and disappears in the darkness.

I should have seen it coming

Benny (deceased friend) pulls a knife, and says, “I’m going to show you my new knife,” and begins walking toward me, brandishing the knife with an evil smile. Aware that I was dreaming, I say, “Go away. You are only a dream.” He laughs and keeps coming. I pull my own knife and began defending myself. I eventually disarm him.

A Panoply of Complainants

Female figures in my lucid dreams turned controlling, even demonic.

Powerful male figures attacked me in spite of my lucidity.

I discovered could not claim the “high ground” of the transcendent lucid assumption (i.e. this is only a dream) in order to prevail. The dream characters ignored me.

My outer life began to destabilize.

I had my first panic attack just before I was supposed to get married. I broke off the engagement.

I stopped meditating for almost two years as the anxiety continued.

Clouds on the Horizon

What helped me

My spiritual teacher at that time was Hugh Lynn Cayce, a man of extraordinary passion, psychic awareness, and mystical depth.

Early in our relationship, he introduced me one of his favorite books––Evelyn Underhill’s book Mysticism.

It became a beacon through a protracted, difficult time for me.

Underhill’s thesisThe first stage of the mystic’s journey––the illumination––represents a preliminary phase in which the self glimpses the ultimate reality, but cannot be sustain the awareness.

The second stage––the dark night of the soul––is usually considered a “fall” or a curse, but is actually a necessary process of humanizing the spiritual quest.

The third stage––the unitive way––commences once the self has faced, accepted, and integrated the repressed or neglected dimensions of life.

The lucid dreams and countless kundalini awakenings activated unresolved memories.

The individuating “agenda” of the higher self forced me resolved repressed conflicts so that there would be nothing standing in the way.

I experienced this as a fall, but looking back, it was a gift of the highest nature.

Higher Power’s Agenda

The last 40 years have revolved around a “real-life” spiritual journey, leading to a more grounded and embodied spirituality.

As my therapist once said during this difficult time, “Scott, you have had plenty of out of body experiences. Now you need to have an in-the-body experience.”

I discovered I had to enter into a fully engaged relationship with the dream characters, and never to treat them as “unreal” or “self-created.”

I had to learn to love the form of my dreams, and of life, in order to experience higher consciousness. A paradox.

Underhill’s thesis

I eventually discovered in Mahayana Buddhism the concept that everything is empty, and thus equally valid.

Thus the quest for transcendence, or nirvana (i.e. “snuffing out” of attachment) is valid.

The Doctrine of Emptiness

But I also discovered that involving oneself in samsara (i.e. the eternal cycle of rebirth) is also valid!

So my apparent “fall” from grace was simply the assertion of the other half of my journey. There was no error!

The Doctrine of Emptiness

A Non-Dual Orientation Emerges

Knowing that invasive dream characters could represent split-off parts of myself led me to accept the importance of integrating them (transcendent quest).

But accepting that they could also be real persons made it possible to enter into a “true relationship” with them (Tarnas, 1993), characterized by free, reciprocal exchanges (incarnational quest).

This non-dual perspective allows for the felt-autonomy of dream characters, as well as for our transcendent union/reunion with them.

A Non-Dual Orientation EmergesThe paradox of lucid dreaming is:

It too easily leads us to concluding that the dream characters are “unreal.”

This can prompt the dismissal of threatening characters.

The dismissal of the dream characters as unreal or unnecessary deprives us of developmentally necessary responses.

If we wish to make progress toward wholeness, we must also preserve the “otherness” of dream characters, so that we can engage them in dialogue and eventual integration.

Forty years later, I believe I have begun to enter Underhill’s third phase––the unitive way.

I believe that there’s nothing dramatic about it--that the evolving seeker simply becomes more acceptant of his own humanity, and by implication, more acceptant of the limitations of others.

While I still “struggle” with real life issues and with real people (ask Julie!), I believe I am less divided psychodynamically.

I have entered a new phase of lucid dreaming, characterized by greater darkness, less fear, greater intimacy, and “embodied” luminosity (i.e. objects of beauty and art are lit from within).

The Unitive Way

There is a much greater sense of relatedness in the lucid dream state, of connections with ostensible strangers that seem timeless and momentous.

I look forward to meeting and learning from the people I encounter as much seeing the Light. I ask them questions!

There is less of a sense of an externalized higher power.

The Unitive Way

I am with a friend, and we suddenly realize that we are dreaming. Remembering the dream I’d had many years earlier, in which the woman told me that I had to learn to love the form before I could see the light within it, I say to my friend, ‘Meditate on the form of anything you see!”

Dream of the Unitive Way

It is important for us to create a larger “container” in which disturbing experiences are not seen as bad, but part of a balancing act toward integration and wholeness.

There is no need to worry: If one pursues control (as most of us will as younger men and women), then the deeper self will simply assert itself, forcing us into a more accepting approach.

We don’t need to devalue the “fall” into the dark night, because it’s part of the journey toward wholeness.

A True Non-Dual Approach

Underhill’s Three Stages of the Mystical Life

as Reflected in My Lucid Dream Experiences

G. Scott Sparrow, EdD, LPC, LMFTDreamStar Institute

www.dreamanalysistraing.comgscotspar@gmail.com

LOVE THE FORM TO SEE THE LIGHT WITHIN ITLOVE THE FORM TO SEE THE LIGHT WITHIN IT