How I got to lucid dreaming.

Julia Xiong
Mar 24, 2021
8 min read

DISCLAIMER: This is not a How-To kind of post. I'm just retelling my experience with the supernatural and how I eventually stumbled into lucid dreaming. This will get a little creepy at most, but I am a scaredy-cat so I will keep it PG-13.

Hmong Dreams: a quick intro

Hmong people are a superstitious group. It stems from our shaman faith and belief in spirits. One of the most notable beliefs is that dreams have meanings. And I'm not kidding, I've heard of many weird interpretations that have (personally) come true. The most common ones for me are:

Losing teeth: this means you're going to lose money. This comes true. Every. Single. Time. It could be like getting a parking ticket, renewing a license, etc.
Touching poop: this means you're going to receive money. This could be finding a $20 bill on the ground, receiving your FAFSA for college, etc.
Snakes: this means that you or someone around you is pregnant. I once dreamt of a swarm of snakes and lo behold, 3 of my friends were pregnant at the same time (one had twins!)

You can read more about Hmong dream interpretations here.

In fact, Hmong folks have such a strong impression of dreams that we completely stumped Americans in the early 1980s. During the Hmong refugee relocation to the United States, around 117 healthy Hmong men died in their sleep. Doctors called it "Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome (SUNDS)".

Sleep paralysis was not only haunting these men, it was killing them.

In Hmong, we call it "dab tsuam", the rough translation meaning "ghost (or monster) crushes". You can read more about this case here.

Now, my story isn't nearly as interesting as the SUNDS case, but I had to set up some background knowledge of why I may be what I am now.

How it all Started

My aunt was suppose to move into an upstairs duplex. On moving day, a bird flew into the house. This is usually a bad omen, so my aunt refused to move in anymore. WELL... guess who decided to move us into that haunted house?... My dad.

I was about 14 years old and for roughly the 2 years we lived there I SAW things. I won't go into detail, but it definitely scarred me. Many times I would either see something scary or I would dream of something scary.

I forgot to mention that Hmong folks believe that spirits (whether good or bad) can enter your dreams as well.

I quickly became an insomniac. I honestly didn't sleep well for most of my adolescence. My poor parents didn't know what to say to help me. Keep in mind that "ghosts aren't real" isn't a thing said by Hmong people (and we're Catholic *shrugs). We literally believe in spirits and ghosts, so that was out of the picture.

Well, we eventually moved out of that house and I have yet to experience anything as traumatic as that again.

Level Up

I was a junior in college when it happened again.

***

One night while sleeping, I feel something touch my leg. And just like when I was 14, I hide under the covers. Well, this thing continues to push on my leg. That was when I knew it was a bad spirit. I could sense this bad spirit getting enjoyment from my fear. It kept pushing me, taunting me, teasing me. This went on for what felt like hours (but probably like 10 minutes). And that was when I had enough. I jumped out of my bed. Looked this spirit dead in the eyes. And I pushed him. I punched him. I kicked him. And I continued until he left.

***

I don't know how to explain it, but you just have a gut feeling in the morning. You wake up just like you normally do, a little drowsy. Until you suddenly recollect the fragments of your dream. Since this happened to me often in my teenage years, I didn't just brush this off as a weird dream. I KNOW a spirit dream when I see one. This time though, I wasn't scared. I wasn't a cowering 14 year old anymore. I literally fought my demon and overcame one of my greatest fears and I wasn't going to lose sleep from it anymore.

It was in this moment that I think I developed lucid dreaming. It's like in that movie, Inception. When threatened in my dreamscape, I become aware that I'm dreaming and know I need to wake up.

I strongly believe that beating up that bad spirit in my dream, strengthened my mental barriers somehow. Not just that, but my subconscious had leveled up to become my own dream security team. I just didn't know it yet, until 5 years later.

(photo from the 2010 film, Inception.)

Let me upgrade you.

Someone I knew from high school had passed away. Let's call this person Mai (pronouns: they/them/theirs). Rumor had it that Mai's spirit was very lonely. Mai appeared in many Hmong folks' dreams, always asking for the same thing. A location of their loved one. In Hmong culture, this is considered very bad news. The family shaman has to go into the spirit world and try to appease Mai's spirit in someway.

Well, guess who Mai also visited? Me.

***

The setting was high school. School ended and I go sit in the cafeteria (like I normally use to do). Mai shows up and very nonchalantly asks if I've seen their loved one. (We were all classmates back then.)

I say, "No." and they sit next to me, waiting for that person.

A friend, who was sitting on the opposite side of me, asks me, "Who are you talking to?"

I replied, "Mai."

"Isn't Mai dead?" my friend says. (This was my subconscious.)

My eyes go WIDE with realization. I'm dreaming and Mai is visiting me. I stare at Mai and sternly tell them, "You need to leave."

"Why?" Mai asks.

"You don't belong here, you need to leave right now." I sternly say again. Mai looks confused.

"What are you talking about?" Mai questions again. This is when I stand up and push Mai. I yell at them to leave this instant and then I literally beat them up until Mai disappears.

***

Now the difference in this dream is that previously, bad spirits had control of my dream. The setting is always in real time (in my bedroom) to set the realistic mood. And I was ALWAYS alone, which made me reluctant to fight back. However, now I had the ability to somehow control my dreams. When this bad spirit entered my dream, my mind had somehow set up the stage to have people around me. To have someone with me and inform me of what's going on. A trait that had never existed previously.

My subconscious arrived in the form of a friend, who informed me that there was an intruder. Allowing myself to figure out quickly that this was a dream and a bad spirit.

When Security is too good.

When someone passes away, Hmong Shamans believe that that person's spirit will spend the next 13 days (after burial) amongst the living. Either collecting debt or saying their final goodbyes, usually in people's dreams.

Now, what I deemed to be an issue with lucid dreaming is that my loved ones either can't visit me or it's short-lived. The former being the biggest issue. When my Grandma passed, many of our extended family members would recount their dreams and I'd be so sad to not get that experience as well. Same from a deceased uncle. No one visits me anymore.

And then of course comes the dream that inspired this blog post. As I'm writing this, it is March 23, 2021. It seems to me that my beloved Aunt M (whom we buried on March 8) had attempted a visitation on March 20th, 2021.

****

In my dream, I'm walking to my Grandma's old house. I'm on the sidewalk when a van pulls up next to me. It's my mom and she says, "Darling, come in. Let's go!" My immediate thought is.

She's a spirit... I can't go with her.

So I run into my Grandma's house and shut the door. I see my other Aunt (let's call her Aunt C). I tell Aunt C that my mom's outside.

Aunt C says, "You can't go with her. She's a spirit. If you go with her, she'll take you away." So my cousins and I are in the house freaking out about my Mom. When I creak the door open, I see my mom in the van gesturing for me to come out. She then gets out of the van and comes into the house. The whole time, my cousins and Aunt C are looking at me to kick her out. (My subconscious yet again.)

Now my biggest problem here was that this was my MOM. I didn't have the heart to kick her out, despite my subconscious telling me to do it. My mom sits alone on the sofa as everyone cowers away.

I remember looking at her and just feeling so... tu siab. Heartbroken. Here was my mom's spirit and here I am cowering away from her. So I go to sit next to her and she smiles at me.

"Mom," I ask her, "Have you already seen heaven?" She gives me an even brighter smile.

"Darling," she says, "I've already been there. Your Grandma's house is so beautiful! It's so big and so beautiful like nothing I've ever seen before." She goes on to say that our extended grandparents live about 2 miles away as well.

***

And then I woke up. My subconscious literally booted me out of my own dream, despite wanting to stay.

Big side note that my mom is very much alive still. I even called to tell her about my dream and she always tells me that dreams where someone dies means good luck for that person. Go figure.

I don't know how, but I knew right away that my 'mom' was actually my Aunt M (who was also like a mother to me.) You see, Hmong folks believe that spirits can come in different shapes and forms as well. The bad spirit that visited me in college came in the form of a classmate (who's also alive). Mai came as Mai. And I believe that my Aunt M came to me in the form of my mom. Hmong ideology says Aunt M didn't want to 'scare' me and that's why she visited me in the form of my mom. (A common belief such as animals visiting someone, because they're the reincarnation of a loved one.)

At this point in my life, I no longer need a subconscious form to inform me of intruders. I just know when it happens. Not only that, but my subconscious forms will encourage me to get rid of the spirit. So much so, that I am pushed out of my dreams regardless of my own personal choice. This reminds me of when you can't log-in to an account, because the security is too strong (even for the user). But I guess it's for my own protection?

Manifestation?

Now I know many of you might be rolling your eyes or laughing at me about my own dream interpretations. I would be too if I was on the other side. And I have to reiterate again, this is all personal for me. It's a gut feeling, which I may or may not have manifested. That being said, my ability to lucid dream is very real though. And I rely heavily on this ability to be able to tell when a spirit is or isn't visiting me. Whether or not it's actually who I think it is, may be up to my own imagination.