Dreaming and Conscious sleep

As far as I am concerned, the only potential that I have is to make every single moment useful to educate my mind and to communicate with the infinite as my source of pure existence. My time does not start when the sun comes up and it does not finish when I fall asleep.  The time that is given to me needs to be understood in two states: the waking state and the dream state.

 

Even though this statement looks simple, I will go deeper into the understanding of each one.  All your life you may have thought that the waking state belongs to the fulfillment of a routine that supports your basic needs.  From this point of view your life is going to be very boring, very flat and very predictable. It is imperative for the freedom of your mind that you bring your waking state into a more mindful perception. 

Simple mindful routines

You can perform simple routines or challenging tasks

with a supportive sadhana (a training practice) to align your mind towards the realization of the greatest part of you. For example, I can be driving my car and tap into an exercise of trust and surrendering by imagining that the car is actually taking me to the place I am going. The car is ‘driving me’. In this way, I am using my conscious awareness towards a discipline.  Every activity goes beyond the activity and supports the spiritual path.

You can also use your dream state in this way. It is necessary to educate your dreaming state to be completely aware that you are dreaming. The introduction towards your dreaming state is not about recording your dreams or trying to figure out the iconography of them but to remove the relationship between the actors and the elements from yourself. To bring yourself into a global understanding and experience that you are watching the dreams as you watch a movie.

Close your centers

You can start this process by breathing through certain chakras before going to sleep. You can breathe from your lower chakras and recollect all of that energy towards your third eye. Close all of the other gates and remain vigilant only in your third eye.  This requires practice and attention as you move from one state to another. 

Something you can practice

You can even start with something simpler by realizing that in your waking state you are still dreaming. One of my favourite exercises that I give to students for this is to make them sit in a room and look around randomly.  Landing two to three seconds on each object or subject, while mentally repeating the phrase “This chair does not mean anything to me”, “This photo does not mean anything to me”, “This person does not mean anything to me”.  Do this for ten to eleven minutes daily.  After six months you will start noticing that you will remain more neutral and centered and that objects and subjects may lose their importance and attachment.

Another way to realize you are in a dream is by looking at objects and mentally or aloud repeating “You are just a dream and I have given you all the meaning that you possess for me”. You may find yourself meeting this exercise in terror because everything will start evaporating and dissolving and you will have nothing to hang onto or identify yourself with. This is the final awakening from your dreams.

You are always dreaming

On another level, you also need to realize that the dreaming state does not stop in your waking state. If you close your eyes and have a moment of quietness you will see that dreamlike images may still be there. The dream state and waking state happen at the same time.  This is why sometimes during meditation you may see images that don’t necessarily make sense.  They are coming from the dream state.  This is why you may have heard me say that you are always dreaming.

Conscious sleep brings true rest

Conscious sleep has no dreams. Conscious sleep can be used to heal yourself, to heal others and to modify realities beyond the visible.

You may not relate to this concept right now because you might not have applied a conscious discipline towards making all of the stages of your existence useful for your freedom. You may perhaps be thinking that you require a certain amount of time to follow a spiritual path. I say to you - all of your time needs to be used to cross the deep forest of the mind and all states of the mind need to be somehow explored and educated. It needs to be put into a perspective where you realize that it is not you.  It is an indispensable part of you but it is not you. It is a part of you that is at your service to help attain the ultimate goal of aligning with the absolute.