Although I tend to be too much of a pragmatist to embrace New Age strategies for personal development, I have been interested of late in the growing knowledge surrounding the practice of lucid dreaming, or LD.
What I had once imagined was an impossible exercise now turns out to be an achievable goal for many of us; the ability to literally create a dreamscape that has no limits other than our imagination. We can, the latest research shows, train ourselves to be able to create quite lucid dreams that we plan and then remember, to utilize sleep in productive and joyful ways.
Practitioners of LD often suggest that you start out with flying, literally dreaming yourself into a clear pattern of flight over lands in which you specifically wish to pass. You can wear anything you like, have a sandwich available, or not, but best not to bring friends for your first solo off a mountaintop. It makes concentration harder.
I am aiming to join Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road on one of my first trips, followed by a flyover of the largest migration of humans in history, which just took place in China several months ago.
Sad to report, I have not yet flown in any manner of LD experience. But I was able to dictate the scenario of several recent dreams, and so I feel I am making progress.
Now friends might say that my desire to travel at night during deep REM sleep is just another manifestation of the workaholic addictions that both plague me and bring me great joy.
My most vivid LD experience occurred two evenings ago, when I tried to relive the days of my early employment in travel and my first sale.
I had recently moved from Tuscany back to the U.S., landing in San Francisco for no other reason than its stirring beauty and its reputation as a land of simmering everything. I fell in love with the city by the second day, a feeling that has never subsided.
But I needed to work. So, in 1976, I took my first job as a consultant at a thriving travel firm on Union Street. I was working up on the second floor of a modern building with a coffee shop just below our office.
Nothing would have pleased me more than taking a midmorning coffee break for the cappuccino that I required while living in Italy. But at a salary of $650 a month, I couldn't afford anything fancier than a decaf. During my second day of employment, I went downstairs, ordered a coffee and started chatting with the young waitress.
She asked me what I was into, which I naively took to mean job, and I explained that I was a "travel agent" and had been in the profession for a "short time."
"Great" she said. "You can help us plan a trip. My friend and I will come up to see you when my shift ends this afternoon."
That is how I made my first sale on my second day of work. But it wasn't exactly the kind of vacation I am planning these days. These two young ladies, attractive and young in my dream, had decided to travel overland from London to the lands of the Great Silk Road. They wished to travel by truck with a group of 10 strangers from around the world with whom they would share their truck, their driver and their guide. They would sleep in tents and splurge on the occasional youth hostel, a concept that was not unfamiliar to me at all.
Given that this was pre-Google, the planning was long and involved. I received calls from their parents who, having a rather typical San Francisco mindset, were nothing but enthusiastic about two 19-year-old girls traveling by the seat of their pants to Iran, Afghanistan and the Hindu Kush. It was what one did in those days, overland on the cheap.
Overland trips were new to me. I had done hosteling throughout Europe and portions of Asia, but I had never committed to traveling by truck with a group of vagabonds. I did not know anyone who had ever traveled in this way.
My boss was only slightly impressed with my sale. The commission was far less than the value of the time I spent on it. But he was kind enough to let me handle the trip. The girls returned home safely, to my enormous relief. There were truck breakdowns, one or two insurrections, a near-arrest, multiple cases of food poisoning, two minor hospitalizations and an attack on their campsite. But, as one of the girls put it, "nothing out of the ordinary."
I remember a call from my father, who wanted to know how my new job was going. He did not believe in travel, so he thought my efforts were folly. When I told him about my first trip, he explained I was insane for accepting the "liability." He refused to believe that people would choose to travel through Third World countries by truck. I can never be accused of going into travel to please my family.
My dream went well, and I relived the experience in lucid detail. I don't know if I got the colors right, but they seemed appropriate, as best I can remember.
It left me wondering if overland trips, the ultimate travel for young people who refuse to accept boundaries, are still being offered. I soon learned that they are, and London is still where most of the companies that offer them are based. It is, I suppose, a way for the wayward young to keep in touch with the former colonial outposts of their relatives.
A company called Oasis Overland is offering a two-week trip to Kyrgyzstan and China.
Participants, the brochure states, will "swim in the mighty Lake IssyKul, hike to the edge of glaciers and stay in a Yurt by the banks of Lake Song Kol. Finally, travel over 4,000 meters on the Torugart pass into China and explore the ancient Silk Road Trading City of Kashgar."
In the pictures, the truck looks solid, and the tent sites are in the cradle of some fine-looking mountain ranges. But to really gain an understanding of why this kind of truly "authentic" travel is still the rage in certain quarters, you need to know that the price tag for the entire two-week journey is about $850.
Another popular overland company, Odyssey, is offering a more substantial three-month journey from Kathmandu to the Himalayas, followed by Tibet, China, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. From there, the group will trace the ancient Silk Road through Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, ending in Georgia and Turley.
I have a great deal of admiration for these travelers. They do not care about accommodations or gourmet dining. Daily showers and private toilets are not a necessity. But, day-for-day, they experience more authenticity arriving via expedition truck than the pampered travelers who expect Ritz-Carlton standards at the end of the dirt road.
The price for the three-month journey with Odyssey is about $3,500. And there is no single supplement.
I've been poring over some of the routes and reading the fine print. The company explains that "this is our intended itinerary. ... This is a guide only; due to the nature of transcontinental expeditions, things may change due to unexpected circumstances beyond our control. Such may include a bridge being washed away, a pass closed due to landslides or some silly border official having his day's fun with us."
I am going to read the three-month itinerary carefully. And with any luck, one night soon, I will try to take this trip before I awaken. I will, however, be carrying a personal rain shower in my ruck sack and four or five, as yet unwritten, novels by John Grisham.
Senior Contributing Editor Richard Bruce Turen was named a Superstar Generalist in Conde Nast Traveler's most recent list of Top Travel Specialists. He is the owner of luxury vacation firm Churchill & Turen and also owns and edits TravelTruth.com. Contact him at rturen@travelweekly.com.