Let's take away the political ramifications of the word freedom and take a look at the definition. How free are we in real life? We all have to curtail our actions to fit in with society's rules (unless we want to be in prison for the rest of our lives, but even prisons have rules.) And how many times have you had to lie in order to get out of a tricky situation? ("Yes, that mauve ski mask makes you look thin.")
You can't even write what you really feel like on the Internet anymore. Don't believe me? Post on Facebook that you feel like killing yourself and then wait for the police to arrive. (Just trust me on this one and don't actually do it.)
As I creak along in my 40s, it pisses me off that I have to spend more and more of my rapidly dwindling lifetime conforming to idiots. For example, I'm an atheist. Why? Because God doesn't exist, THAT'S why. And yet if I say or write that, I will be accused of everything from being "insensitive" to being a "neo-Nazi". So I have to go around my Christian relatives biting my tongue to keep my head from exploding.
Certainly I can't be alone here. Many people chafe at the harness of modern society. It's the price we pay for not having our neighbors eat us alive. But one place where we can truly be free and entirely ourselves is in lucid dreams.
And yet in lucid dreams I often find myself acting the same way as in the waking world. I'm trying not to piss off the people around me. If I'm dreaming about Peter, then I'm trying to get Peter to like me. Why am I bothering with all of this? It's a dream, for Pete's sake! All limits are gone. Take your clothes off. Rock and roll. Who cares?
But somewhere in the back of my mind, I do care about not being as free as I'd like to be among Peter, which is the dream person I love. I know when Peter is pissed off at me because he'll refuse to show up in any of my lucid dreams for weeks or months. But yet, even after very long spells, he always returns. So I face my fear of losing him again.
Lucid dreams do give you the freedom to flout all conventions -- even at the risk of making the person you love most in the world hate you or at least your guts. I have to do it or I'd wind up in the loony bin.
We need to keep on asking questions and making choices. We need to be able to say what is on our minds -- no matter how embarrassing. The only safe places to do these are in our thoughts and in our dreams. When we can get comfortable with being truly free in our nightly dreams, we can free in our thoughts during our waking hours. That can help you get through the prison of modern society.
Image of Christopher Hitchens by ensceptico for Wikimedia Commons. I chose a picture of Hitch because he was one of the few people who truly worked for freedom.
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