Dreams and Meditation

It's interesting... when I go deep into meditation, it's essentially like being in a lucid dream. The only difference is that I know I'm really awake and sitting in my meditation room, and if I want to come out, I can do so nearly instantaneously. Today I found myself on the same seashore, and waded in. The imagery is familiar, and I'm sure I've seen it in a painting somewhere. I went hunting on the internet for it and found some that came close (and idiotically forgot to note the artists after saving the images, so if anyone knows the artists, let me know and I'll give credit. These images are NOT mine.).
The one on the left comes closest in terms of material: large planets hanging over the sea.
The one on the right comes closer to the colors I experienced.


Neither of these shows the shoreline where I first came in. At any rate, after wading out into the waters (likely symbolic of my subconscious), I swam around. I think I saw a few fish this time. Then I came across a rift in the ocean floor (not very deep, btw. At most, 200 feet), and swam through it...into open space and surrounded by stars. This part got a bit odd. It was like I was flickering back and forth between the starry expanse and my body, and meanwhile my body was flickering between being a mirror, being its usual form, and being filled with light. There were words floating through my head: "Clear like a mirror; clear like space" and a sense that this body was merely a temporary shell... After a while, the flickering started making me nauseous, so I found my way back through the rift into the ocean, and swam up into normal consciousness.

I see these sorts of "dreams" as my mind's way of interpreting the sensations of meditation. This is one that I'll need to spend some time thinking (or not-thinking) about.