I dreamed a lucid dream for the first time in my life last night.

I’ve tried to experience a lucid dream– one where you tell yourself in the dream that you are dreaming — for more than five years after reading about dream interpretations by Carl G. Jung, the eminent psychiatrist who studied with Sigmund Freud. I tried dreaming following a Kabbalah teaching approach and then a Buddhist one. I set an intent so many times I got tired and fell asleep with nothing to show for my meager efforts except run-of-the-mill dreams mixed in with a few nightmares.

And then I found myself chanting in the dream. I chanted the sounds of each vowel very slowly and ended the chant with the sound of “OM.”

“Aa . . . Ee . . . Ii . . .Oo . . . Uu . .  OM.” I stretched the sounds of each letter using a full exhalation of my breath.

I knew it was a lucid dream when I said to myself in the dream that I couldn’t wait to tell my teacher how I chanted in my dream.

I’m dreaming this and I plan to have a lot of fun!

My teacher is Natalie Bliss, who is instructing a small group on how to balance our chakras. She introduced the chant last week, and I tried it while in the sauna alone two days ago. Last night, I repeated it in the dream and I feel that a new world of dreams has finally opened to me.

What does it all mean? I believe that I can now control a part of my dreams. I can influence whatever is causing thoughts and images to appear from my subconscious. I can redirect bad things and make them less bad and, hopefully, transform them into something good some day.

That is what advanced Buddhist practitioners have tried to do while dreaming. They try to change or alter their karma. They help to create good merit while dreaming. It’s kind of like developing grace through prayers from a Christian, Jewish or Muslim background.

Just think, you can work off some of your bad karma and obtain a blessing from the Creator with your eyes closed and body slumbering away at night!

Now let’s see if I can open myself to messages from above. Let me address my better angels and set an intent to create peace and love in the world.

Who knows? I might even see you in one of the dreams. Yours or mine.

We’ll play like little kids and give each other gifts and promise to always be friends in this world as well as any others we find ourselves awakening in. And then we’ll do it again in our next lifetime or in heaven depending on your point of view or however you want your dreams to come true!