Hi all,

I'm new here but have thoroughly enjoyed Bruce's books. I thought I would share an odd dream I had recently while traveling away from home.

I haven't often had lucid dreams, but when I do I always seem to get excited enough to try to tell someone (in the dream) that I know I'm lucid. I'm not sure why I do this; so far nobody in my dreams seems to care.  

Anyway the most recent lucid dream I had was particularly vivid, in part I think because I remembered to look at my hands. I was a little shocked when I studied them: they didn't look like my hands at all. The skin was very rough and dirty, the fingernails were thick, and I was missing a few fingers! I had short finger stubs in places where I should have had full fingers. What fingers I did have were a bit fatter than my physical ones.

Although I was lucid at this point I don't remember taking much initiative/control. I had been brought to a place that felt like a temple, somewhat against my desire. Something then happened to my hand, and I felt like it was bleeding. It was as though someone had driven a small axe into my hand, and was dragging me along with it. I was taken to a machine or contraption of some kind that I knew would behead me, but I also knew it would restore or give me a new body at the end of it. Still, I resisted.

I was conscious during the entire trip through the machine. It was a strange sensation to "feel" my body being ripped apart, yet having no pain and really no fear. Although I didn't want to go through the machine, there was no real harm in it. My consciousness remained, and sure enough by the end of the contraption I had a brand new body. This made me happy: my fingers were restored! My hands also looked a lot more like they do in the (present) physical. My new body was purer than it was before; as though it were made of light. I felt like a slightly different person.

That's about as much as I can clearly remember. Before I went through the machine I remember telling the person who was with me (brought me?) in the temple that I knew I was lucid. I think he knew what I meant but he seemed unimpressed or uninterested.

Cheers.

Hi Ackpht,
interesting! Yes, it seems it's about renewal of some sort- personally, reincarnation-wise or whatever. Maybe your first hands is a memory of a body you had in a previous life? But could be symbolic of course.
  Coincidentally, OutOfBodyDude and me spoke of looking at our hands in his Gateway Experience Journals II thread page 3.

Spooky