Waking

Characters in a dream are not influenced nearly so much by the heroic action of a fellow character, as by the consciousness of the dreamer.

Sometimes we think that the sign of being awake is that we can change our dream. We battle dream images and try to replace the terrifying ones with sweeter ones. But this is the sign that we are still asleep. The mother of all ignorance is believing that we can improve the dream.

Don't try to change the dream, just awaken! Waking up means seeing that the dream is a dream, and it's all OK. We don't need to battle dream imagery: we just need to add the quality of consciousness. Consciousness is all it takes to change the heavy weight of a nightmare into the profundity of a wisdom-myth.

Let the boundless clarity of pure awareness shine through your dream, just as blue sky shines through a mirage. Then see if you need to battle the mirage.