I remember reading a little bit of the Western psychological theory about dreams activating those contents which we were avoiding and should be doing consciously in our wakeful life; for example, there was this case of a woman who was continuously dreaming of a woman who was a living a wandering, adventurous life, but she in her actual life was living a life of infantile dependence on her parents and not having the adventurous courage of launching herself into the uncertain challenges of life. How true is this observation?
Do dreams really give such hints of what we’ve been evading? And also, there were these reports of people having dreams of the future events that were about to unfold and whatnot (supposedly, there were people who had dreams of the coming war during the times of world wars). And in our own Vedantic psychology, there were investigations into dream state of spirit, dreamless state of turiya which to me are a bit enigmatic for me to understand. Please instruct a little on what’s their significance/insignificance and what I should do about them?
Dreams are a large chunk of our life given the time we spend in dreaming. Hence, a study of dreams, and eventually becoming conscious of them and mastering them, is surely something gained and won back from the realms of the unconscious.ย
Though many dreams are simply a random catharsis of unrelated elements, memories, wishes, fears, frustrations, etc. But some are about the things going on below link surface, pushing us along tracks of destiny. Yet others actually foretell us of an imminent future that can possibly be thwarted or aborted. Others can be hints about the direction we must take, like a guidance of sort.ย
The dream state of the Mandukya Upanishad is however different. It is about the subtle worlds, the dream worlds, where our future is being shaped and willed by the pressure of forces from the subtle realms hidden to our sight or our waking consciousness. Our dreams can sometimes give us hints about this by actually coming in touch with the subtle worlds.
It is always good to know and master at whatever level and to whatever degree. It is one more step towards self-mastery.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
