Lucid
EP
Expressing feelings through noise.
• L U C I D • A 2021 Re-Patched and Re-Mastered version of Bandcamps release from way back when i used one of those low bit tower pc’s and mono eq’s in 2011. Now 💽 10 years later this piece also find’s it’s way into my spotify collection. This dark ambient/experimental project is split into 5 tracks/phases revealing the process of lucidity. In which my perception transcended beyond the physical realm and left myself with just a vividness of consciousness. Words have limitations and feel too fixed. So does general/traditional music to a certain extent. Experimental drone and tonal clusters on the other hand have more of a space in between to leave the imagination & interpretations untamed.
RELEASE
5 Track EP, 21st of January 2021
GENRES
Drone Music, Tone Clusters, Dark Ambient, Soundscapes, Whitenoise, Experimental, Minimal Ambient
It was about four or five a.m. in the morning, as i woke up for no reason what so ever. No nightmare, no nothing. I’m an excessive long sleeper, so waking up that early after going to bed quite late, wasn’t really the norm for me. Trust me, this was a big deal. After about an hour of turning to various sides and positions, trying so desperately to fall back to sleep, i gave in and accepted to start the day. I went downstairs to pour myself a glass of water, may as well wake up all of my insides, right? Hot water and lemon usually does the trick. So after about an hour of contemplating at the kitchen table, i made my way back upstairs. This night may I add, was the first time being back at my dad’s house after a couple of years of not living at home. „Maybe I wasn’t used to my old bed anymore?… Have I grown out of it?…. Has the mattress always felt this hard?…“ It was probably something like six in the morning by now. But before i could even shower and put my clobber on, I entered my room and immediately felt sleepy AF. „How can this be, i was full of beans a second ago… Should I fight it or surrender to this lethargic feeling?…“ Regardless of what I thought of my old bed before, this was a glorious moment, to see my covers in reach. As i slowly gotten back into bed again, i could feel my mind winding down and the subconscious activating. A part of me shutting off into oblivion, another part creating some kind of a bridge to an unexplored place, whilst i’m also sort of in the middle, observing it all. When suddenly, my brain started to play tricks on me. I felt a pulling sensation of the brain. It was as if my head got pushed into my pillow with a strong force. Not suffocating but more or less of a feeling of drowning. After my head and upper body got pulled right down… Let’s say, into the bed somewhere, my legs and feet began to follow shortly. There i was falling. Deep down into the abyss of complete and utter darkness. Is there anything darker than the abyss to explain it better? Did I also mention the bizarre thing of not being „frightened“ you know the part where I got pulled into a black hole from underneath my bed? Yeah, those oddities and anomalies don’t normally happen, when I just lay-down to have a nap. I did’t even question it. It was as if im just gonna dream-along. I recall me thinking „wow, I’ve been sleeping on the surface of the ocean for all this time and no one had the audacity to tell me about this?“ Anyways, as i was falling into the deepest depths of my imagination, i was also kind of saying my goodbyes to anyone and anything that had ever mattered to me. I mean a moment ago my conscious mind was in control, I was aware that i was on a hard futon mattress and my head laying snug on a soft pillow. The next moment I felt like „your done“ sort of thing. I had about a good 5 minute long slow-free-fall of confusion, into pitch black water until I got catapulted back up to the surface within a second or so.
„It felt as if someone pushed a mental reset button by accident. Unfortunately the side effects of this sensorial shift only lasted about a Week. Once I got back to normal day-to-day reality and bureaucracy started kicking in, describing a so called OBE was almost like trying to explain color to someone born blind or a symphony to someone who’s deaf.“
As my entire body reached the surface of my bed, i immediately sat up straight. I looked around my room, left and right. My movement felt pretty slow but didn’t think anything of it. I recall it being well bright. It might of been the fact of witnessing the contrast between the dark ocean and this bright orange room within seconds. I remember it being springtime and to be honest, i’ve only been falling for 5 minutes. „The sun couldn’t of come out that quick, could it?“ I then looked at my hands and lower body. I couldn’t see them at all. I could feel them, but I could not see the palms of my hands, even though I was stretching them and moving them around. This was kind of an instant recall that I was dreaming but aware at the same time. I had a mirror hanging on the wall and just as I had imagined, i could not see my body either. But as I looked closer into the mirror, i could see myself laying in bed behind me. As I turned my vision around to see this picture for myself, I suddenly wasn’t sure in what kind of a dream i found myself, to be honest. „One in where I see myself asleep?.. Am i dead? Who is this person in my bed?“ But i knew it was me because i could really feel the presence of myself lying there. I normally could only ever feel a presence of someone else, when they walked into a room. But never did i ever feel my own. I remember having a bunch of questions and yet at the same time I was wise enough to answer them with satisfaction myself. As if all of these questions didn’t really matter one bit. I wasn’t shocked or in fear at all seeing myself dead or alive lying in my own bed. But at the same time, i was. And that feeling of being stuck between two thoughts, kind of felt good. If not, I remember feeling absolutely great. Where ever that place was, i recall me having a strong warm feeling around the heart area. But my valuation skills or any type of judgement went from whatever it was before to complete neutral mode. I didn’t feel guilty of not doing all of what i wanted to achieve in life or even sad about the people that i left behind. I had an unconditional feeling of love towards anything and anyone to do with my entire timeline. I could literally jump from one section of the room to another in a matter of seconds, i just had to think of it. For some this might of been the most boring dream of all dreams. And yes, i must of admit the storyline in this place wasn’t really action-packed. There was no plot what so ever. „Was I the antagonist lying in my own bed, not moving one bit? Well, this dream will be amusing then..“ At least I could fly or do one of those levitation moves. But still, i felt like i was only able to look around the place minding my own business. Kind of like being in an empty machine room. „Still buzzing and humming, just that all the factory workers have pissed off to their lunch break.“ Kind of a feeling. „Am I experiencing a glitch in the dream-matrix? C’mon, give me something to do. I need a reason of being here!“ This was a powerful moment though, where I could literally take full control of the dream and create anything I wanted. I noticed after a while though, that something wasn’t quite right with my face, well my doppelgängers face laying in bed. It wasn’t really as clear as it was when I first noticed myself laying there. It was as if it had been smudged with a photoshop brush. By that time i must have been flying around my room for about another 2 mins. The longer i found myself being in this virtual bedroom of mine, the more I found that my vision had gotten worse. Things started to lose their sharpness and cohesiveness.
Then out of the blue the dream scenario began to suddenly break up and my step mum is just standing there in between the doorframe of my room, „Liam, i’ve been calling you, don’t you want to wake up and get yourself something to eat? It’s lunchtime.“ As i kind of mutter something in a automated state, she goes back downstairs. I gradually sit up and open my eyes. I jumped out of bed „Dafuq, it’s one o’clock in the afternoon.. Something that felt like a maximum of 10 minutes in Cloud Coucou-Land turned out to be 7 hours in reality minutes. „Oh gee, i have a second chance. I’m alive again!“ I felt pretty relieved once I could see my real hands and body in the flesh again. After i made myself some grub, i went for a long walk by myself. I just felt an urge to reconnect with my surroundings and pretty much had a completely different view on nature. I was amazed at how loud the birds were chirping and how clear i could hear the trees whistling in the wind. As if someone amplified nature’s sounds to the max. Things started to get a little too delicate for my senses, once i spotted a sun-ray beaming through the bushes forming a beautiful abstract picture down onto the asphalt. I stoped for a very long time, just gazing at this spot on the street. I was making positive hat and hand gestures at random strangers walking by, as if i’ve just been imported out from the eighteenth century. I enjoyed holding the doors and gates open to everyone in city center for half an hour until the afternoon traffic had cleared. I could have pretty much been let out of a psychiatric clinic, if you didn’t know where I have just come from, a few moments ago. It felt as if someone pushed a mental reset button by accident. I’ve learned a lot of new things about myself, In the process of such explorations. Unfortunately the side effects of this sensorial shift only lasted about a week. Once i got back to this 9 to 5 reality and bureaucracy started kicking in, describing a so called out of body experience was almost like trying to explain color to someone born blind or a symphony to someone who’s deaf. It is in this magical instant of awakening though that everything had changed. Like simple things from my point of view. Eating habits, thought patterns. The way I judged people, the way i listened and spoke to people. A feeling of being part of everything made me look at my current life completely different. I suddenly had more understanding, more patience, more joy and more love. I Just couldn’t get my head around this dream experience for a very long time, Instead of being driven away by the abnormal constructs of a typical dream, you’re there, present and awake in knowing that there’s a world of possibilities out there beyond one’s conscious understanding. I wish I could say that I was, but sadly i wasn’t abusing psychedelics the night before. To this day, i do not know how or why this happened to me with such ease and why I cannot get myself to log back into this state again. You know like some kind of psyche-flix or something? Maybe my mind just doesn’t want to watch repeat episodes of cognitive shifts? So I kept it to myself until I could find an explanation. I thought it’ll be easier to transmit my thoughts and feelings through music, which I then did. But even then it didn’t really represent the depth of what i was going through and i didn’t want to release it. A couple of close people including my partner got to hear it and she enticed me to get it out there.
Shamans, Monks and Oneirologists have found that our dreams reveal our deepest unconscious tendencies, it accesses deep parts of our psyche. So when we shift and have the subconscious mind in the forefront, we become what is referred to as “the witness.” A part of our consciousness that neutrally observes the minds’ constructs. In other words once opened up to a state of lucidity, you can allow yourself to explore your fears, neuroses, psychological obstacles and insecurities. Another way of total manifestation, a way to heal oneself, access boundless creativity, and receive highly insightful information from our highest self.