Today, I am interesting ” Why do we dream?” I narrowed my search to get some clarity about relationship between YOGA and DREAMS . Just wondering if yoga practise and dreams play some part in guiding lights for our lives.
DALAI LAMA on dreams
“In order to train in the path that would allow us to transform death, the intermediate state, and rebirth, we have to practice on three occasions:
- during the waking state
- during the sleeping state
- during the death process
This entails integrating the self with spiritual training. Now we have three sets of three:
- Death, intermediate state, and rebirth
- Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Nirmanakaya
- Sleeping, dreaming, and waking
- Excerpt from Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying: An Exploration of Consciousness with the Dalai Lama. This passage is a section from a talk given by the Dalai Lam
The Basis of Dream Yoga
Dream yoga is taught within the trance Bardos of Dream and Sleep. In the tradiditon of tantra, it’s usually passed on by a qualified teacher, once the student has passed an initiation.
It’s considered a passing on of enlightened experience rather than reading texts, and requires the student to develop sufficient self awareness to achieve conscious lucidity during sleep.
Their aim is to harness the power of the lucid dream state by “apprehending the dream”. Students are then required to complete set tasks to take them to the next level. These tasks include:
- Practice sadhana (a spiritual discipline)
- Receive initiations, empowerments and transmissions
- Visit different places, planes and lokas (worlds)
- Communicate with yidam (an enlightened being)
- Meet with other sentient beings
- Fly and shape shift into other creatures
The ultimate goal in Tibetan dream yoga is to apprehend the dream – and then dissolve the dream state.
When deprived of physical and conceptual stimulus from the dreaming mind, you can observe the purest form of conscious awareness.
Meanwhile in the west we keep using dream as well, migh be diffrently but very effectively as well.
Dr. Cohen’s 7-step process for interpreting your dreams:
1. Recall and Record
Before you go to sleep place a voice recorder or notepad on your night table. Say out loud 3 times “I will remember my dreams clearly and well.” When you awake from a dream, take time to recall the details — even if it’s in the middle of the night. You need to sit up in bed, grab your notepad, and write down every detail you can remember, even if they are just images. If you don’t do this before you fall back to sleep you will not remember that particular dream in the morning. Do this for every dream that you can recall during the night. The more frequently you practice this, the better you will become at recalling and recording.
2. Give Your Dream a Title.
Dr. Cohen suggests giving each dream a title as though it were a newspaper headline. This exercise is highly valuable. The reason for the headline title is to summarize the main points of your dream. While the title may sound superficial, it is actually shorthand for the symbols in your dream. If you get stuck, try saying the title of your dream out loud slowly and think about what the phrase or word means. I often find that once I give my dream a title, I can easily hone in on the meaning of the dream.
3. Read or Repeat Out Loud
When you are awake the next day, slowly read or repeat out loud what you have recorded about our dream. The emphasis here should be on reading or repeating slowly because when you go =too fast, you can miss the essence of your dream. Also, be sure to repeat your dream without interpretation. This exercise is like a meditation and it can help to reveal to you what your dream is about. Keep in mind your dream are always about you!
4. Link Your Dream To Your Waking Life
Most dreams are not predictive but instead are related to what is going on in your life right now. So, for example, dreams of impending disaster such as tsunamis, plane crashes r other frightening events – real really saying “wake up!” These types of dreams are telling you to look at the powerful forces at play in your life – relationships, feelings, situations – and help you prepare with to deal with them. And, because of this, dreams can help you toward constructive ends. A friend once told me that she dreamt of a terrible storm. In her dream, she saw her family members huddled around her in a room in an effort to keep her “safe.” They told her not to open the door. However, in her dream, she opened the door and stepped out into the storm. At the time of this dream, my friend was considering a career change. This dream represented to her that she was ready to leave the security of her job (and reject the conservative advice and patterns of her family) and explore a new challenge, which she did.
5. Describe Your Dream As If Talking to a Martian
Consider which details stand out the most in your dreams and describe them as if you’re speaking to a Martian. For example, if you see yourself sitting in an armchair, you then need to describe that armchair. What is it’s function? What does it represent? While this may seem odd, the ore you can simplify the images you see in your dreams, the more you will e able to understand what your dreams are trying to tell you. You don’t need to spend a lot of time describing each object in your dream. Making this process quick and easy is what makes it deeply effective. Remember, even if you see common objects such as cars, purses, wallets, or basements in your dream, your dream language is unique to you. This is why dream dictionaries don’t work.
6. Summarize The Message From Your Uncosnscious
The purpose of this step is to identify what your unconscious is trying to tell you. To do this you need to reflect on the work you did in Steps 1 through 5. Then try to summarize your dream’s content. This may seem difficult at first because you are trying to interpret the symbols from the right brain with your analytical left brain. But, once you start to understand your unique dream symbols, this will start to become easier. Remember to keep your interpretation simple. And, be careful not to modify your dream’s content.
7. Consider Your Dream’s Guidance In Your Waking Life
Messages from your unconscious are conveyed in your dream as stories – as drama! This part of the process is the most illuminating because it encourages you to look at yourself and deal with any fear or issues. Start by repeating out loud the message you summarized in Step 6. Consider the symbols in your dream and translate them into common guidance related to your life. Finally, consider one or two tangible actions you can take in response to your dream’s guidance.
3 Smart Ways You Can Work With Your Dreams
1. Get a dream buddy.
When you start to interact more consciously with your dreams, it’s a good idea to be accountable to someone else. I recommend getting a dream buddy or forming a dream circle where you routinely discuss your dreams with others. You can also talk with your significant other about your dreams every morning over breakfast. If you set aside a regular time to discuss your dreams, you’ll find that you remember more.
2. Try “dream incubation.”
A dream incubation is when you ask your subconscious to give you a particular dream for guidance. I did this over 20 years ago when I was trying to decide on which publisher I wanted to work with when writing my first book. Though the details are foggy now, I recall that one of my choices was a man who, in my dreams, was shadowy, which meant I didn’t trust him. Ultimately, I chose someone else.
3. Practice every night.
Remembering your dreams takes practice and commitment. Following these steps each night will help you to increase your ability to remember your dreams.
In doing these exercises regularly over time, I have opened up an entirely new relationship with my unconscious and my soul. And now, I often know what my dreams are trying to tell me without needing much outside interpretation.
I’d love to hear about your dreams? Tell me your way how you remember your dreams?
Thanks.
Refrence:
YOGA and TRAVEL 