What exactly is a dream? - An easy guide to lucid dreaming, the first step towards enlightenment

We all know that there are many kinds of dreams. In addition to the well-known "digestive dreams" (after eating too much cheese), we can simply distinguish between brain dreams, memory dreams, dreams of warnings and premonitions, and dreams of the higher self (inner soul, inner divinity) during bodily sleep , after experiencing certain things, a distorted memory dream occurs. As students of the occult, we are interested in the dreams that are presented next.

The first enlightenment of man is in a state of lethargy. In the dream, all human knowledge is opened; in the dream there is a weak bridge hanging across the endless space; this bridge connects the spirit of this world with the spirit of the higher world. — Bourvay Leighton, "Zanoni"

The "bridge" mentioned by Burwe Leighton is called "Antahkarana" in Hinduism. It refers to an imaginary bridge that connects the higher self to the lower self; that is, it sits between our immortal, spiritual self (the higher self) and our physical brain and senses (the lower self). We also strengthen this "weak bridge" when we focus our minds on spiritual rather than material thoughts. We can also compare 'Antakarana' to two separate radios that communicate with each other. Unless one set of devices (the ego) is tuned to a higher frequency from the other set (the higher ego), the communication between them will be chaotic or even impossible.

Blavatsky divided dreams into seven separate categories.

1. Precognition Dreams: The impressions the higher self makes in our memory are generally straightforward. Is hearing a word, or foreseeing an upcoming event.
2. Allegorical Dreams: hazy fragments of reality captured by the brain and distorted by our fantasies. These dreams are usually only half real.
3. Dreams implanted in your head by a white or black magician: It may also be sent by a hypnotist, usually through very powerful psychic forces, bent on making us do their will.
4. Past Life Dreams: Dreaming about events belonging to past lives.
5. Warning dream: used to warn those who are usually not alert.
6. Confusing dreams: There are many reasons for this.
7. Just fantasies and chaotic dreams: due to indigestion, some mental problem or some external cause.

We generally agree with this classification, although, as Blavatsky himself said, one could further divide these seven categories into more subcategories, and then map different aspects of consciousness to different categories. But only the first 5 categories are of interest to us, specifically categories 1, 2 and 4, namely foreknowledge, allegory and past life dreams. These have real benefits for our spiritual progress.

What we can say is that allegorical dreams leave a deep impression on us, and often have important implications for us, both in terms of the conditions in which we discover our environment, and the strong emotions aroused in our hearts. But we have to find it ourselves. When we find a dream, and its other variations, that recur over a period of days or even months, we can be sure that it contains some important message. Because this is one of the ways that the teacher of the higher soul realm communicates with the open-hearted disciple of the earth.

Blavatsky uses the following excellent metaphor to explain the workings of the first and fourth (precognition and past-life dreams).

"We can compare the real self (our higher self) to a prisoner, and the physical character (our ego) to be his jailer. If the guard fell asleep, the prisoner would escape. Or, at least escape his prison (physical). And when the jailer is half-asleep, looking out the window and dozing off, he can only glimpse his prisoner occasionally through the window, and at most only see his moving shadow. Can such a jailer really know the dynamics of prisoners? Can he know the prisoner's true behavior, especially his thoughts? 』

The answer is that he has no way of knowing. For ordinary people, it is very rare to know exactly what the higher self experiences when the body is asleep when it leaves the body. We can say that the same is true for the average occult student.

In such dreams, we may have only a fleeting impression of what our higher self experiences, like a shadow on the canvas of a tent. When we wake up, we only see these shadows. We think we are dreaming and feel as if we have experienced something, but in fact it is the experience of the higher self outside the physical body, which is vaguely perceived by us. When we are fully awake, our memories become more distorted every minute, overlaid and mixed with images projected by our ego and physical brain. And these images, through the power of associative, engage in ideas; in the end, they have little to do with the actual experiences of the imprisoned higher self during his brief liberation. This is the main reason why many dreams, to our waking ego, are often chaotic and disorganized.

Lucid dreaming and how to achieve it

In order to develop what is sometimes called 'lucid dreaming', we need to strengthen the bridge between our two 'Is', the aforementioned 'Antakarana'. One way to close the bridge gap is to keep a notepad and pen by your bed. Immediately after you wake up, write down any dreams you remember, no matter how vague, fragmentary, or meaningless. We emphasize "immediately" because unless you do so immediately, a lot of memory will be lost the moment you wake up. If you try to do this, after a few weeks, you will be surprised how much more you remember your dreams. Over time, with regular and consistent practice, you will not only find that your dreams become clearer, but you will realize which mind is "dreaming". You may also receive certain messages, symbols or knowledge that will illuminate your spiritual learning and reveal its hidden meaning. No one can tell you what form this information might take. Because as we said earlier, each of us has our own inner life, and no two people think alike.

Reference: “ Occult Studies and Meditation ” All translations on this site are for personal use only. Please contact me if there were copyright issues and I will remove the posts.

But we can say that this technique works and has been proven by thousands of men and women over the years.