Lucid Dreams and the Holy Spirit

Book excerpt: In Lucid Dreams and the Holy Spirit, an autobiographical and deeply personal account, Maria Isabel Pita shares how she found her way home to God through lucid dreaming as a spiritual practice. Born into Catholicism in Havana, Cuba, during the communist revolution, Maria's family fled into exile and she grew up in Virginia. As an adult, Maria came to lead a secular life, concentrating primarily on her growth as a writer. The author of several successful erotic romances, and an epic fictional biography of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut-Maatkare, the happily married Maria never expected God to personally enter her life. In mid-life, Maria began experiencing lucid dreams. In those early days, she called them "flying dreams" because flying felt fantastic, and she could think of no better way to make use of them. But as her skill and control improved, a new overwhelming love introduced itself into her life when she began meeting with a male character in the dream space who seemed even more awake and aware than she was, and who she came to think of as her Guardian Lord. Lucid Dreams and the Holy Spirit is a compelling contemporary story of the age-old mystery of God's pursuit of Man, charting Maria's journey through the extraordinary experiences she recorded, and the insight and direction she drew from them as she was led to the works of Saint Theresa of Avila. Dream by dream, Maria discovered that she was being guided along a path, in keeping with Christian mystical tradition, of spiritual espousal.