Ordinary Dreams, Lucid Dreams and Mystical Experience - George Gillespie

Aug 27, 2026

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Explores how mystical experience can be understood through dreaming, especially lucid dreaming, while distinguishing the reportable features of mysticism from incidental visionary or affective events. Presents a personal account of progressing from ordinary dreams to lucidity and then to practices aimed at eliminating mental activity and dream images. Describes loss of bodily awareness, common obstacles during concentration, and phenomena such as levitation, patterned lights, and flight-like sensations that relate to out-of-body experience.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages4

Reading Time10 min

AccessFree to download

Defining mystical experience

Mystical vs incidental phenomena

Dreaming as an explanatory continuum

Ordinary to lucid dreaming

First-person method and observations

Losing memory and rationality

Achieving and using lucidity

Techniques for diminishing dream imagery

Closing (dreamed) eyes and concentrating on darkness

Entanglements and disturbances

Bodily awareness and related phenomena

Gradual elimination of body perception

Levitation and flight-like experiences

Ordinary Dreams, Lucid Dreams and Mystical Experience George Gillespie Dept. of Oriental Studies University of Pennsylvania It is difficult to give a definition of mystical experience that would satisfy every scholar. I use the expression mystical experience to mean an apparent experience of some reality greater than oneself that come by transcending to some degree awareness of one’sown physical and mental self and one’s physical surroundings. This reality may be understood as God or some other spiritual being, brahman, Being, the universe, oneness, the void, or nirvana. I would distinguish for my purposes here between the phenomenon that is seen as the mystical experience itself and other more incidental phenomena that precede or accompany the mystical experience, such as visions of disks oflight, the feeling of levitation, or bliss. I believe that the phenomena reported in mystical accounts, whether essential to the mystical experience or incidental to it, can often be understood in terms of dreaming, particularly lucid dreaming, that is dreams in which the dreamer knows he or she is dreaming. Let me be clear that I accept neither ordinary dreaming nor lucid dreaming to be mystical experience. But there is an observable continuum from ordinary dreaming through lucid dreaming to phenomena of mysticism. Just as lucid dreaming may develop out of ordinary dreaming, phenomena associated with mysti-cal experience may develop out of lucid dreaming, particularly such phenomena as visions of darkness or light, the elimination of objects of consciousness, or apparent experience of God. I base my observation on my own experience with frequent lucid dreams over a period of years. My main concern here is to show the progression from ordinary dreaming through lucid dreaming to the phenomena of mysticism, not to examine the phenomena in detail. When I fall asleep I lose perception of the external world. A combination of visions, locutions and physi-cal sensations serve as alternates to waking perception. I forget almost everything. My rationality is limited. What I know is not based on my perception or memory or rationality. I act and speak spontaneously. My dreams are often unusual, confusing, ambiguous and difficult to remember. Often a dream leaves me with a feeling of its importance, but I am unable to express what happened. Dreams are often ineffable. Ordinary dreams are not mystical experience even though they may have some of the characteristics of mystical experience-loss of perception of the exter-nal world, visions, locutions, loss of memory and rationality, spontaneous knowledge, and ineffability. I still experience images that originate in and appear in myself. Although I have apparently transcended awareness of my physical surroundings, I have not transcended myself. At times I become lucid in a dream, that is I come to know I am dreaming. This often happens in dreams in which I think a little more clearly than usual or dreams that are brighter or clearer that usual. My memory, if it improves at all, improves only slightly. I am still much closer to ordinary dream mental capabilities than to waking ones. And I am still not aware of my physical surroundings or circumstances. I may either continue acting and reacting spontaneously as in ordinary dreams, or I may purposefully make changes in the dream. Lucid dreaming is not in itself mystical, even though I can bring about many changes in the dream that make it very different from ordinary dreaming. For in-stance, once I know I am dreaming, I may proceed to fly, I may sing a hymn or pray with no inhibition, or I may hug a threatening beast fearlessly and domesti-cate it. But I have not yet transcended my mental activity or the images that I produce. When I know I am dreaming I can act purposefully to eliminate my mental activity and dream images, the two being closely related. If I can think to do so, I can close my (dreamed) eyes to eliminate visual image

FAQs

How does the author define mystical experience?

Mystical experience is described as an apparent encounter with a reality greater than oneself, reached by transcending awareness of one’s physical and mental self and surroundings. The reality may be framed in many spiritual terms.

Why does the author connect mystical phenomena to dreaming, especially lucid dreaming?

The author argues that phenomena reported in mystical accounts can often be understood as dreaming phenomena, particularly lucid dreams where the dreamer knows they are dreaming. A continuum is proposed from ordinary dreaming through lucidity to mysticism-linked experiences.

What does the author attempt to do once lucidity occurs in a dream?

Once knowing one is dreaming, the author explains acting purposefully to eliminate mental activity and dream images. A key method involves closing dreamed eyes to produce darkness and concentrating to remove remaining auditory and tactile elements.

Aug 27, 2026

Upload by Mali