Lucid Dream

Color pencil and ballpoint pen on smooth 270gsm bristol paper, 9" x 12", Signed lower center — Rene Juan de la Cruz, 02/26

The mind was clear. Fully present, fully conscious, but turned inward, contemplative, watching the subconscious perform from a place of complete lucidity. What arrived on the bristol was choreographed in a way that only happens when the hand is both free and awake at the same time.

Every corner is activated. Every being has a role.

Upper left, a sideways red stroke dude moves with pure style and attitude, teeth showing cool, tongue coming through the triangulations, a suggested hairdo in the angular marks, yellow highlights bleeding into pinks and blue gradients giving him a luminous neon presence. He is not observing. He is walking. Strutting toward the edge of the paper like he has somewhere more important to be, already on his way out of the composition while everyone else stays.

Upper center, a large powerful green creature commands the top of the page, wide and ferocious and joyful at once, full teeth showing in the signature de la Cruz smile, smaller beings orbiting around it in its gravitational field.

Lower right, a red dude punctuates the corner with graphically crafted legs, feet, and fingers resolved with deliberate precision. Not loose, not accidental. Built. A signature mark that slowed down just enough to make its point before the hand moved on.

And on the right, the blue architectural dream form. Tall, arched, monumental, with eyes looking outward from inside the dream. Part figure, part structure, entirely dream. Every eye in the composition turns toward it. The green creature. The grinning central face. The small dudes on wheels along the left margin. The crowned figures. All of them looking at the same thing, something blue and architectural and just out of reach. And the dream looking back at all of them with its own eyes.

All of them, except the red dude in the upper left. He already decided. He's walking toward something else entirely.

This is what lucid dreaming looks like when the hand is the one doing the dreaming.