Lucid Dream Room. Part II

Post performance; photo taken by Pia Capaldi.

​(read Lucid Dream Room. Part I)

One of the most enjoyable features of the working was putting myself into an alpha state that I felt to be akin to the experience of lucid dreaming. I attempted to project myself with the fluctuations in self-perceptions in weight/weightlessness, the transitions in time perception, etc. that seem to occur on the astral.

I have already worked with attempting to mimic the sensations of astral travel as a dancer, so the physical movement piece was not entirely new to me. However, as a dancer, I am "monologuing" with an audience that is set apart, and though I do often break the 4th wall, there are generally no exchanges of words. In this case, it was a very intimate "dialogue" of energy and movement, as well as words. 

I tried to allow my unconscious mind to take over. It is my understanding that as we dream (as part of what we know as "sleeping") we come out of "resistance" to ourselves in a different way than we generally can while waking. It was this path of least resistance to myself that I endeavored to take in this ritual space. 

I was amazed at the way that participants managed themselves in this space, and this part of the experience has been a great source of joy and wonder for me! There was of course no "wrong" way to behave, so everyone was absolutely correct in their way of experiencing it and expressing themselves. Responses ranged from careful consideration, to amusement, to freezing, to mirroring me, to easy laughter and enjoyment, to exuberant physical demonstrations--dancing, rolling on the floor, jumping, etc. Some people told me true intimate things about their dreams, some people made up stories on the spot. All the while I said out loud whatever came to mind, (freely interrupting or laughing or showing boredom or changing the subject), and moved about the room according to impulse. I also played card games with dreamers.

Part way into the performance, I put a sleep mask over my eyes so I wouldn't know who had entered the space (the priestess knocked on the door loudly to let me know someone new would be entering.)

That said, about halfway through I began to notice myself developing a pattern that "worked". As a performer, this is generally a normal and welcome process, but this case, I wanted to resist doing that. I wanted the working to spontaneously, organically unfold, and not get caught up in any kind of leaning that my ego might have toward making this "successful".