Ethereal Rockstar Ambar Lucid Dreams Of Evolution, Vice, And Healing

A line around the block and doubled back on Brooklyn’s coldest night of the year thus far waited for Ambar Lucid. In queue, they were mostly people of color, people of different shapes, and members of various Queer communities. Her two latest singles “444” and “Ms. Moon” are servants to good listening, and for the chance of a preview, they waited. They shivered. They smiled. They sparkled. And they served.

She has half a million monthly listeners on Spotify, a nationwide tour under her belt, and she’s younger than Charles Darwin when he set sail to the Caribbean for his five-year expedition which produced significant work on something Ambar is experiencing like white-rapid personal lightening: evolution. He was only 22. There’s a certain similarity between art and science: an adventure, an exploration, a wrestling with the subconscious, and a need to share which produces life’s softest fruit – vulnerability.

It was an airy warehouse style room of cloth chairs and hanging vines, floor to ceiling windows. Ambar’s childhood friend Gabriella led a group meditation and manifestation, and Ambar sang an acoustic version of her two newest songs. The group asked the universe in unison for a successful release and to be free from subconscious judgements. In a moment of sincerity, Ambar and some fans shared stories from their childhood as the room settled into the relative lateness of the evening, emptying.

“I’ve been reading the Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents,” said Ambar. “I was raised by people, my parents, who were just not ready to have that job.”

“How, how old were they?” asked a fan twisting his beard between his forefinger and thumb.

“I believe my mom was like 22, and my dad was a couple years younger than her,” said Ambar.

Whoa, someone whispered.

“Yeah. And I was also their first child,” said Ambar.

“You have that older child energy,” said a girl. She wore gemstones beneath her eyes.

“Yes. Thank you. I’m, yeah, I’m the oldest of five,” said Ambar. “I’m the only child that my parents had, but they both had children after me.”

“Yeah. I grew up in a very emotionally chaotic household,” said Ambar hesitating. “My mom was in an abusive relationship, so she wasn’t able to be there for me. And I grew up very isolated because she was isolated because of that relationship. And, I had to spend a lot of time babysitting my little brother and my little sister once she was born.”

“I was emotionally neglected, and that has a long-term effect on a person. And I’ve actually been reading about it and reading about other people’s experience, and it’s made me feel a lot less alone,” she said. “But when you grow up emotionally isolated, like as a kid, that isolation follows you forever. That’s why I deal with the delusion that I’m alone because that version of me still exists within me.”

The audience around her related their experiences, which were moving images in life’s pond, bent reflections. And it was common thread. Later that night, she spoke on the same topic with Gabriella over the phone.

“I have to convince myself that I’m not in my childhood anymore because sometimes I will recreate that in my head – but like a present version of what I lived in the past,” said Ambar.

“I have to become more self-aware of like patterns that are self-destructive and call myself out on it,” she said. And they said they loved each other and goodnight. Ambar had a massive plate of her favorite meal: rices, beans, plantain, and chicken, and she went to sleep.

The most curious thing happened. Sleep scientists call it lucid dreaming. She awoke in her dream.

She’d read a book which taught – if you can’t count your fingers, if you can’t read clocks or poems, you’re dreaming. Her fingers were mist in a blender. The alarm clock in her hotel read like falling sand. Picking up the complimentary bible, which can be a vexing book in waking hours, it was beyond that. To Ambar’s eyes it was a racing, foaming sea devouring itself, expanding.

And at once like forever, at her side was an eight-year-old Ambar. “Where am I,” said the young Ambar Cruz, too young to have yet taken the artist’s name Ambar Lucid.

“In a dream,” came a raspy voice from nowhere, and the walls of the hotel bled and became void. And void sparked forth energy in a sudden calamitous explosion, as galaxies ballooned like hot glass around Ambar and her younger self who started at crying. But a hand reached out, followed by the grey suit the cut of an older age. And the girl was evidently comforted and grabbed Ambar’s hand to express love. A bald man with a portly beard and a smile desperate to announce itself greeted them.

“Who are you,” cooed little Ambar Cruz.

“I am Evolution,” he said, “taken the form of yours truly and constantly changing, Charles Darwin. But you can – nay I insist you call me Charlie.”

Then he spoke directly to Ambar Lucid. “Little Ambar is here to bear witness to you, so that you may see how unconditionally she loves you, and the volcanic sense of pride she feels at your adventures.”

“Now tell me,” he said, “how have you grown?”

“I was not raised with this mindset at all,” said Ambar Lucid. Under their feet flew Earth, and lava and dust gave way to plant life. The Earth was silent of words except for their conversation. They spoke softly for it.

“I feel like maybe the reason why I’m such a spiritual person is because spirituality is what got me through a lot of the childhood trauma,” said Ambar.

“I would ask a lot of questions, and I would question the things that people would do around me,” she said. “And I’d be like, why do we do this? Why is this a thing that we do? Why, why is this okay?”

“I was always shamed for asking,” she said. “And even though I was shamed for asking questions, I still, it didn’t make me agree with anybody any more if I disagreed with something.”

“And whenever I felt hopeless, like, let’s say, I don’t know, I was told, Ambar, you’re going to be a failure. I would rely on an intuitive feeling telling me that I was going to do so much more than anybody around me was capable of even imagining,” said Ambar. “And I would manifest a lot and meditate. Following my intuition is what got me out of the world that I used to live in. And that’s why I so strongly believe in spirituality – because I come from nothing.”

“Where are you from?” asked Charlie.

“I’m from Jersey,” she said.

“I’ve heard of it,” he stumbled, confusing it with Jamaica.

“My family didn’t help me with music. I didn’t really have much help at the very beginning. I just did it myself. They thought it was cute,” she said, and there was a venom to the last note.

“Patronizing,” said Charlie. Little Ambar Cruz was playing with the sea life crawling for the first time from the ocean.

“Yeah. But I just always stuck with it, and I believed in myself. And I just knew that that was my purpose always, always, always,” she said.

“I made my way into the music industry at 17, so I created a reputation for myself as a teenager, which is really frustrating sometimes. Imagine creating an image for yourself, and it’s your 17-year-old self. That’s so…,” she didn’t finish.

She was back in a hotel room, and Charlie was gone but speaking. “You’ve grown, and you have growing to do. It was a pleasure to meet you,” said her dream’s expression of evolution.

“Vice will take great care of you now. I should have been Vice too, if truth be told. I was addicted to snuff my whole life,” he said, but his words started to sound like they came from behind the pipes and water of a toilet bowl.

The last thing she heard was, “you don’t have any do you? You don’t have any snuff, huh?”

Ambar turned and her companion Ambar Cruz was aged 7 more years. She breathed a sigh of relief and tried to initiate conversation, but the adolescent Ambar shook her head to indicate she couldn’t – or even more likely for a teenager, wouldn’t –speak. And Ambar saw there was some brilliant light that escaped in the small pockets where her lips gapped but never opened. Ambar began to think the little one was carrying some valuable thing of luminescence in her mouth for a secret reason.

“To get to the garden of high affection, where days pass like dreams and nights like weddings,” said a woman’s voice, “there is but inward.” And the woman appeared. Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States introduced herself as “Vice.” “Think of me like the ghost of Christmas present,” said the dreamed semi-president.

“Your younger self is here to pass onto you a sense of forgiveness, perhaps, and dreams travel through time different than you or I. So maybe she’ll receive some lessons in a letter,” Kamala continued. “I must ask an accounting of your vices.”

The void around them became a cave of pleasures and vices of all ages and times, and as the three walked Ambar’s teenage illusion moved silently, more like an angelic statue than a girl. Ambar wondered if there was some natural difficulty in one’s mind in understand itself as a teenager which prevented her dreaming from detail or dialogue.

“Mushrooms changes my life,” Ambar Lucid started. “I love Wellbutrin, my antidepressant. It’s my favorite drug.”

“It works for you?” asked Kamala.

“Yes, it does. I also got very lucky with my psychiatrist and the medication that he prescribed. It brought my light back. It made me a lot more social,” said Ambar. “I’m not a huge fan of alcohol, but I can see why people like it. It’s literally poison, so you’re like hurting your brain and your body and then it takes days for me to recover.”

“Even if I just had like two drinks, I feel off. I should not be doing Adderall ‘cause it makes you so angry,” said Ambar.

“I started smoking when I was 15,” said Ambar, and they were walking through the park. And Kamala was lighting something, but there was no smell to the dream.

“Honestly, I have mixed feelings about weed,” said Ambar. “Weed has definitely played a lot of important roles in my life, creatively. It does help creatively, but it also, I feel like I used it as a crutch for a long time. And that’s when it started hurting me instead of helping me.”

“I just couldn’t spend a second not being high. I would wake up, and I’d be like, I need to smoke. Reality became foggy. And then I decided to go sober for two months,” she said. “It was a good reset for me, and it helped me reevaluate my relationship with weed creatively. I felt so bland. I really felt like a blank canvas.”

“I smoked again after those two months, and it reaffirmed the negative things, but it also reaffirmed the positive things,” said Ambar Lucid, her younger self shadowing behind and making sure to waft in some of Kamala’s secondhand.

“And I realized that the key is just moderation,” said Ambar. “I don’t know. Weed, honestly, just not abusing it is key ‘cause I definitely lost a lot of my light because of how much I was smoking.” And as she spoke the light in littler Ambar’s mouth opened filling space itself with luminescence larger than the void. Everything was warm, and Kamala’s presence disappeared as did all talk of vices.

“I am nameless because I am unknowable. Past reason, there is the truth. And it is beautiful. And it is the right of every wind and woman. I’ve had every name. I’ve been everyone,” said little Ambar revealing what bright thing she’d been keeping: the essential piece of existence, the spiritual piece.

“Speak to me of myself; of the truth,” said Ambar Cruz to Ambar Lucid.

“A lot of those words have negativities attached to them,” she answered. “I just, I consider myself someone that’s open to learning as many lessons from the universe as possible. I don’t know what the universe is or how to describe it. I feel it. I feel how everybody’s connected, and I feel we’re all a cell of something bigger, something that in many ways, we’re incapable of perceiving, at least physically.”

“I believe that my music is a spiritual experience. I feel like any form of art is a spiritual experience, and I believe that part of my purpose is to remind people that there’s an aspect of life that’s spiritual because I believe that spirituality is a birthright. So, anybody can practice it in whichever way they please,” said Ambar, “even if they consider going on a walk their spiritual routine or whatever. It’s an essential part of life ‘cause we don’t have the answers to everything. And sometimes, it’s important to have something that charges your soul up and gives you hope.”

“Tell me about your success,” said the void, which was the universe, which was Ambar Cruz, her family, her friends. It was all very confusing in the way that makes sterling sense only in dreaming and death.

“It’s not what I expected at all. And I think I jumped into it too quick, honestly,” said Ambar. “I thought that I was going to have to chase after my dream for my whole life. I didn’t realize how accessible it was for me.”

“It’s definitely a blessing and I feel like everything has worked out the way that it’s supposed to, but, that’s kind of what my next project, the concept, is about,” she said, “me getting something, getting the one thing that I really, really wanted and then realizing that it’s not as pretty as I imagined it ‘cause it’s, it’s a lot: living. It’s an ego wrestle.”

“To grow up really fast and, you know,” she continued. “I have so many responsibilities, and every decision that I make has a long term effect on my career, on my mental health, and it’s just a lot of pressure. A lot of people perceive me; I have influence on people.”

“Weighty,” said her companion.

“Yeah, I can be very closed off, which is a coping mechanism. Whenever I meet people, well, it depends on their energy. Most people that I meet, I just have a difficult time communicating with. This is outside of artist stuff. This is me,” said Ambar. “If somebody comes up to me and they’re like, hey. I’m like, uh, hi.” She did her best of impression of being awkward and landed on endearing.

“Tarot is one of the best decisions that I’ve ever made in my life,” she said. “If you’re not a spiritual person, it’s at least a reflection of your own psyche. It’s kind of like a puzzle piece. You pick out cards, and then you think about what the card sparks up in you. It helps you find answers, answers that are already within yourself that maybe you’re not validating.”

“Because I grew up in a chaotic household, my inner voice was shut down constantly. So as an adult, that inner voice was non-existent almost, and Tarot was a way for me to find that voice again. And Tarot inspired me to go to therapy,” said Ambar.

“I would be mad at people for not giving me what I wanted, stuff there’s just no way somebody can give,” said Ambar. “And not just in romantic relationships, but I was expecting too much emotionally and was unhappy with everybody that I dated too. And my therapist was like, your parents couldn’t give you that. Your parents couldn’t give you what you wanted, and now you’re expecting just some 21-year-old boy to?”

“She was like, do you think that’s fair? And I was like, no. Expecting anybody to fill in a void is so unrealistic; people don’t even have their own feelings figured out,” said Ambar.

“That allowed me to put into perspective my parents just being humans, and it’s okay they couldn’t give me this one thing that I really needed,” said Ambar. “They couldn’t because of this, this, and this, and this, and it helped. She helped me humanize my parents instead of seeing them as villains, and humanizing my parents helps me humanize other people in other relationships. People aren’t perfect.”

“They can’t always give you what you want, and that’s okay ‘cause they’re not supposed to give you everything you want,” said Ambar. “And if somebody can’t give you what you want, then that’s just learning what you seek in certain relationships. It helped me let go of people, and it helped me let go of expectations, particularly unrealistic expectations.”

“Last question, how do you feel capitalism influences your music?” said the being.

“The thing is, in a way, I do benefit from it because I am able to live off of making music, but at the same time, I am a true artist. And I genuinely love music. It’s an art form for me,” said Ambar. “All of my projects, they’re works of art. Before this, I was having a meeting with my label, and I was telling them what song I want to start the album with. And it’s a song called “Be Careful What You Wish For.” And it’s a f*** you to the music industry.”

“They were trying to convince me to make it shorter, and then they were also trying to convince me to not make it the first song because it’s too long. And they’re like, people are not going to stream it. And I’m like, I literally said, I get it. I hear you. I don’t care,” said Ambar.

“It gets in the way of the creative process,” she said. “I’ve learned that at the end of the day, I always get the last word. I just have to fight extra.”

“Everyone was older than me at the meeting, and these are all people that have a lot of experience in the industry. So, you know, when they talk to me, they say things very confidently, and they’re like, people are really predictable,” said Ambar. “They will give me all of the reasons to do something. And those reasons don’t always convince me because at the end of the day, I care more about the art. I care more about what I put out. I’m creating a legacy for myself, and I want to be remembered as the artist that I truly am. I don’t want details or decisions in my album to be decided on what other people will like.”

“Because one, I don’t care. The people that resonate with my music will resonate. And if people don’t, then they don’t,” she said. “There are billions of people on the fricking planet. I doubt that every single person thinks the same. So, yeah, I do a lot of arguing on the business side. I try to find a balance.”

“It is truly something special to know you,” said Ambar’s friend, just a undistinguishable voice, a treble as the dream was becoming weak liquid under the strong sunlight of waking. In her last lucid moments, Ambar thanked everyone.

“This was nice. I’m a very anxious person, so normally anxiety manifests into my dreams. And it’ll be the craziest scenarios. And it’s always distress about something. There’s a killer after me. I have to hide or somebody’s upset with me. The person I care about the most, they’re mad at me. And they’re never going to talk to me again,” said Ambar.

“The genre can get boring,” said the three ghosts, the three concepts, the three friends, each a tarot card of its own existence, each a lesson, each a reflection, and each a dream.

And she woke up. But for a moment swept away before her body dared, her mind imagined floating beneath the sun against the sweetest tapestry of open, starry space, and every cell in her body yawped and jiggled in place with strength. You can listen to Ambar Lucid’s latest art here.