The Yoga of Sleep and Dreams

2

Dreams and Dream-Experiences

It is the subconscient that is active in the ordinary dreams. But in the dreams in which one goes out into other planes of consciousness, mental, vital, subtle physical, it is part of the inner being, inner mental or vital or physical that is usually active. ³⁵

SRI AUROBINDO

*

Dreams are often only incoherent constructions of our subconscient, but others are records (often much mixed and distorted) or transcripts of experiences in these supra-physi­cal planes. When we do sadhana, this kind of dream becomes very common; then subconscious dreams cease to predominate. ³⁶

SRI AUROBINDO

*

... the dreams of most people are recorded by the sub­conscient. Either the whole thing is a creation of the sub­ conscient and turns out, if recorded, to be incoherent and lacking in any sense, or, if there is a real communication from a higher plane, marked by a sense of elevation and wonder, it gets transcribed by the subconscient and what that forms is either flat or ludicrous. ³⁷

SRI AUROBINDO

*

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Many of these dreams rise up from the subconscient and are made up of old memories, impressions etc. put together in an incoherent way. For the subconscient receives impres­sions - of all we do or experience in our Iives and keeps these impressions in it, sending up often fragments of them in sleep. ³⁸

SRI AUROBINDO

*

It often happens that when something is thrown out of the waking consciousness it still occurs in dream. This recurrence is of two kinds. One is when the thing is gone, but the memory and impression or it remains in the subconscient and comes up in dream form in sleep. These subconscient dream-recurrences are of no importance; they are shadows rather than realities. The other is when dreams come in the vital to test or to show how far in some part of the inner being the old movement remains or is conquered. For in sleep the control of the waking consciousness and will is not there. If then even in spite of that one is conscious in sleep and either does not feel the old movement when the circumstances that formerly caused it are repeated in dream or else soon conquers and throws it out, then it must he understood that there too the victory is won. ³⁹

SRI AUROBINDO

*

The physical mind (or else the subconscient) almost always interferes in the dream and gives its own version. It is only when there is a clear experience on the rnental or vital plane that it does not try to interfere. ⁴⁰

SRI AUROBINDO

*

It is only the subconscious belt that is chaotic in its dream sequences: for its transcriptions are fantastic and often mixed, combining a jumble of different elements: some play with impressions from the past, some translate outward touches pressing on the sleep-mind; most are fragments from successive dream experiences that are not really part of one connected experience - as if a gramophone record were to be made up of snatches of different songs all jum­bled together. The vital dreams even in the subconscious range are often coherent in themselves and only seem inco­herent to the waking intelligence because the logic and law of their sequences is different from the logic and law which the physical reason imposes on the incoherences of physi­cal life. But if one gets the guiding clue and if one has some dream-experience and dream-insight, then it is possible to seize the links of the sequences and make out the signifi­cance, often very profound or very striking, both of the detail and of the whole. Deeper in, we come to perfectly coherent dreams recording the experience of the inner vital and inner mental planes; there are also true psychic dreams - the latter usually are or a great beauty. Some of these mental or vital plane dream-experiences, however, are symbolic, very many in fact. and can only be understood if one is familiar with or gets the clue to the symbols. ⁴¹

SRI AUROBINDO

*

Dreams of this kind [subconscient] can last for years and years after the waking consciousness has ceased to interest itself in things of that kind. The subconscient is exceedingly obstinate in the keeping of its old impressions. I find myself even recently having a dream of revolutionary activities or another in which the Maharaja of Baroda butted in, people and things I have not even thought of passingly for the last twenty years almost. I suppose it is because the very business of the subconscient in the human psychology, is to keep all the past inside it and, being without conscious mentality, it clings. to its office until the light has fully come down into it, illumining even its corners and crevices. ⁴²

SRI AUROBINDO

*

In dreams it is usually the case that even what one has thrown out from the waking state, comes up for a long time - that is because all these things remain still in the subconscient and it is the subconscient that creates a great part of peo­ple's dreams. Thus if one no longer has sexual desires in the waking state he can stiII have sex-dreams - and emissions - with a more or less frequent recurrence: he can still meet people in dreams whom he never sees or hears or thinks of in his waking hours - and so on. All the more are such dreams likely to come when the waking mind is not free. ⁴³

SRI AUROBINDO

*

Dreams of this kind arise from the subconscient. It is one of the most embarrassing elements of yogic experience to find

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how obstinately the subconscient retains what has been settled and done with in the upper layers of the consciousness. But just for that reason these dreams are often a useful indication as they enable us to pursue things to their obscure root in this underworld and excise them. ⁴⁴

SRI AUROBINDO

*

I said this dream was an actual happening on the vital plane, not a formation. If somebody attacks you in the street, that is not a formation. But if somebody hypnotises you and sug­gests that you are ill - that. suggestion is a formation put in by the hypnotiser. ⁴⁵

SRI AUROBINDO

*

These dreams are not all mere dreams, all have not a casual, incoherent or subconscious building. Many are records or transcripts of experiences on the vital plane into which one enters in sleep, some are scenes or events of the subtle physical plane. There one often undergoes happenings or carries on actions that resemble those of the physical life with the same surroundings and the same people, though usually there is in arrangement and feature some or a considerable difference. But it may also be a contact with other surroundings and with other people, not known in the physical life or not belonging at all to the physical world. ⁴⁶

SRI AUROBINDO

*

... there is an experience, a fact. something happens - there is also its translation in your brain. When you wake up it is a sort of interpretation of your dream which you remember. It is very rarely that one is conscious at the time the experience occurs and conscious of the experience as it really is. For that one must be very wakeful during the night, quite awake in one's sleep. Usually this is not the case. There is one part of the being which has an experience: when that part of the being which had gone out of the body re-enters it, brings back the experience. the brain receives a contact with this experience, translates it by images, words. ideas. impression , feeling., and when one wakes up one catches something of this, and with that makes a ‘dream’. But it is only a transcription of something that has happened - which has an analogy, a similarity, but which wasn't exactly what one receives as a drearn. ⁴⁷

THE MOTHER

*

How can one distinguish a dream from an experience?

In a general way, a dream leaves a confused and fleeting impression, whereas an experience awakens. a deep and last­ing feeling.

But the shades of difference are subtle and many. and it is by a very attentive and sincere observation (that is to say. free from bias and preference) that one gradually learns to discern the one from the other. ⁴⁸

THE MOTHER

*

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All dreams of this kind are very obviously formations such as one often meets on the vital, more rarely on the mental plane. Sometimes they are the formations of your own mind or vital: sometimes they are the formations of other minds with an exact or modified transcription in yours; sometimes formations come that are made by the non-human forces or beings of these other planes. These things are not true and need not become true in the physical world, but they may still have effects on the physical if they are framed with that purpose or that tendency and, if they are allowed, they may realise their events or their meaning - for they are most often symbolical or schematic - in the inner or the outer life. The proper course with them is simply to observe and understand and, if they are from a hostile source, reject or destroy them.
There are other dreams that have not the same character

but are a representation or transcription of things that actually happen on other planes, in other worlds under other conditions than ours. There are, again, some dreams that are purely symbolic and some that indicate existing movements and propensities in us, whether familiar or undetected by the waking mind, or exploit old memories or else raise up things either passively stored or still active in the subconscient, a mass of various stuff which has to be changed or got rid of as one rises into a higher consciousness. lf one learns how to interpret. one can get from dreams much knowledge of the secret of our nature and of other-nature. ⁴⁹

SRI AUROBINDO

*

On the mental plane all the formations made by the mind

- the actual "forms" that it gives to the thoughts - return and appear to you as if they were coming from outside and give you dreams. Most dreams are like that. Some people have a very conscious, mental life and are able to enter the mental plane and move about in it with the same independ­ence they have in physical life: these people have mentally objective nights. But most people are incapable of doing this: it is their mental activity going on during sleep and assuming forms, and these forms give them what they call dreams.

There is a very common example - it is amusing be­cause it is rather vivid. lf you have quarrelled with someone during the day, you may wish to hit him. to say very unpleas­ant things to him. You control yourself, you don't do it, but your thought, your mind is at work and in your sleep you suddenly have a terrible dream. Someone approaches you with a stick and you hit each other and have a real fight. And when you wake up, if you don't know, if you don't understand what has happened, you say to yourself, "What an unpleasant dream i had'.. But in fact it is your own thought which came back to you, like that.
So be on your guard when you dream that someone is unkind to you! First of all, you should ask yourself. --But didn't I have a bad thought against himT. ⁵⁰

THE MOTHER

*

It is a very small number of dream: that can be so explained

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[that they arise by external stimuli] and in many cases the explanation is quite arbitrary or cannot be proved. A much larger number of dreams arise from subconscient impressions of the pa. t without any stimulus from outside. These are the dreams from the subconscient which are the bulk of those remembered by people who live in the external mind mostly. There are also the dreams that are renderings of vital movements and tendencies habitual to the nature, personal formations of the vital plane. But when one begins to live within then the dreams are often transcriptions of one's experiences on the vital plane and beyond that there is a large field or symbolic and other dreams which have nothing to do with memory. ⁵¹

SRI AUROBINDO

*

In the invisible worlds, are things seen as in the physical world or as in dreams?

We have to agree on what dreams are! There are dreams where you see things so precisely, so concretely that the material world seems rather unreal in comparison. There are dreams like that where things are so intense, so precise, so concrete, so objective and leave you with such a vivid im­pression that the material world seems rather misty, not very clear, not very distinct. So, if it is a dream like that, yes. But if it is a dream where things clash incoherently, inconsist­ently with one another, no. ⁵²

THE MOTHER

*

[Regarding a bad dream] I call that mental fermentation. As soon as your waking consciousness falls asleep or leaves your body, the brain-cells you have not taken the trouble to quiet down begin to fidget restlessly and produce what is called a dream, but it is nothing more than disorderly activ­ity. It has no meaning and can serve only one purpose: to make you aware of what goes on in your head. ⁵³

THE MOTHER

*

... nightmares? These are your sorties into the vital world. And what is the first thing you try to do when you arc in the grip of a nightmare? You rush back into your body and ha.ke yourself into your normal physical consciousness. But in the world of the vital forces you are a stranger; it is an uncharted sea in which you have neither compass nor rudder. You do not know how to go, you do not know where 10 go and at each step you do just the opposite of what should be done. Directly you enter any realm of this world. its beings gather round you and want to encompass and get out of you all you have, to draw what they can and make it a food and a prey. If you have no strong light and force radiating from within you, you move there without your body as if you had no coat to protect you against a chill and bleak atmosphere. no hou e to shield you, even no skin covering you. your nerves exposed and bare. ⁵⁴

THE MOTHER

*

Nightmares Like X's are contacts with this side of the vital

plane. Its influences are also the source of much in men that is demoniac, dirty, cruel and base. ⁵⁵

SRI AUROBINDO

*

During sleep I often get bad dreams of the vital plane. How to prevent this?

You can do it by having a will in the waking state against these things coming in the dream, before you go to sleep for instance. It will not succeed at once but it will in the end. Or else you must aspire to grow more conscious in sleep. ⁵⁶

SRI AUROBINDO

*

When we sleep, our consciousness goes out, doesn’t it? But other people have dreams in which I appear. So what happens? Does the consciousness divide itself or are other people’s dreams only their own imagination?

Most often, it is the vital consciousness that goes out of the body and has the form, appearance of the person’s body. If one person dreams of another, it means that both have met at night, most often in the vital region, but it can also happen elsewhere, in the subtle physical or the mental. There are any number of different possibilities in dreams ⁵⁷

THE MOTHER

*

When one dreams, one goes very often into his subliminal being, and there things are almost the same and yet not absolutely the same; there is a great resemblance and yet there is a difference; and usually this is greater. One has the impression of entering into something that;s vaster: and. for example. one feels that one can do more, that one knows more, one has a power and clear-sightedness which one doesn't have in the ordinary consciousness: one has the impression while dreaming that one knows many more things than when one is awake. No? Doesn’t this happen? You don't have dreams like that?.... when one dreams and knows a lot, for example, aboot the secret causes of things, about what a movement expresses... all that. one feels that one knows it. For instance, when one dreams of someone, one knows better what he thinks, what he wants, all these things, better than when one is in waking contact with him. This happens when one has entered the subliminal. Very often one dreams in the subliminal. ⁵⁸

THE MOTHER

*

... symbolic dreams are usually very coherent. one remembers everything, to the least detail: it is more living, more real, more intense than the material life, and it is fairly rare. When one returns from a symbolic dream, one remembers everything, all the details, and feels that one has lived for those moments a much intenser and truer life than the physi­cal one. And it leaves a very deep impression upon you. This does not happen very often. you know. Usually it comes. when it is very necessary. ⁵⁹

THE MOTHER

*

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There is no solid connection [between the waking and the dream states], but there can be a subtle one. Events of the waking state often influence the dream world, provided they have a sufficient repercussion on the mind or the vital. For­mations and activities of the dream plane can project something of themselves or of their influence into the waking physical state, though they seldom reproduce themselves with any exactness there. It is only if the dream consciousness is very highly developed that one can usually see things there that are afterwards confirmed by thoughts, speech or actions of people or events in the physical world. ⁶⁰

SRI AUROBINDO

*

This is an instance of a dream of exact physical prevision. The power to have such dreams is comparatively rare, for ordinarily such previsions come in inner vision but not in sleep. In dreams vital or mental formations - often take shape which sometimes fulfil themselves in essence, but not with this accuracy of detail.

It is only a particular class of dreams that do that [indicate the exact past and the future.]. Most coherent dreams are ei­ther symbolic or indicates things that take place in the mental or vital planeS rather than on the physical. ⁶¹

SRI AUROBINDO

*

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There are all kinds of premonitory dreams. There are premonitory dreams that are fulfilled immediately, that is to say you dream in the night what will happen on the next day, and there are premonitory dreams that are fulfilled over varying lengths of time. And according to their position in time, these dreams are seen on various planes.
The higher we rise towards absolute certainty, the greater the distance is because these visions belong to a region which is very close to the Origin and the length of time between the revelation of what is going to be and it. realisation may be very great. But the revelation is certain, because it is very close to the Origin. There is a place - when one is identified with the Supreme-where one knows everything absolutely, in the past, the present, the future and everywhere. But usually people who go there forget what they have seen when they return. An extremely strict discipline is needed to remember. And that is the only place where one cannot make a mistake.
But the links of the chain of communication are not al­ way all there and one very rarely remembers. ⁶²

THE MOTHER

*

Sweet Mother, what is the difference between a symbolic dream and a vision?

Usually one has a vision when one is not asleep, when one is awake. When one is awake and enters within oneself - whether in meditation or concentration - one has visions. Or at night you can't sleep... remain stretched out, remain

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quiet, don’t sleep and you may have visions.

Dreams come, when one is asleep, that is, when one has no longer the waking consciousness; whereas in vision one is in the waking consciousness, but one quietens or immobilises it, and it is another more inner consciousness which awakens; yet one is not asleep, the body is not asIeep, it is just made quiet.
One can have visions even while remaining active. Some people have visions even amidst activity. Vision is another plane of perception which awakes. It is the senses in the mind
or vital or physical which wake up and manage to pass their experiences to the outer consciousness. It is as though one had another pair of eyes behind these, eyes which could see in the vital instead of seeing in the physical. And this is always there. Only, as one is concentrated on the most mate­rial life, one doesn't notice it. But some children have the two conjointly, they see even physically all kinds of things which are not physical. Usually they are told that they are saying stupid things: so they stop speaking about them. But they don't see just this, only physically, they see other things behind. One can have visions with closed eyes, one an have visions with open eyes; while when dreaming one is always asleep. ⁶³

THE MOTHER

*

... very rarely do dreams consist of true memories of past lives, because for that one must dream in one’s psychic consciousness and there are not many who are capable of this. One dreams in the mental or vital consciousness but rarely does one dream in the psychic consciousness. That can happen, but is rare. ⁶⁴

THE MOTHER

*

Very few dreams have a meaning, an instructive value, but all dreams can show you what your present state of con­sciousness is and how things are combined in the subcon­scious, what the terrestrial influences are, what traces they leave and how they are combined. This is a very interesting subject of study. ⁶⁵

THE MOTHER