'Dreams Are Real'
Most of us were taught to believe in two separate realities. One is our waking reality, the other is our dream reality. In this formula, when we are in a dream state, we are in a world that is unreal. We disregard dreams as a mental exercise that happens while we sleep. All of the things that we create during those dreaming hours are considered not real. Waking consciousness is considered reality, and dreaming consciousness is treated as an unreality. I suggest you reconsider this belief.
Imagine that your dreams are simply different aspects of the same reality, and that they contain teachers for you on your sacred path. Begin understanding that this is primarily a world of energy and only secondarily a world of material objects.
To know your sacred self you need to perceive energy directly. This is what you are capable of doing in your dream state. The entire basis of your perception shifts from concrete objects to energy shapes. When this is part of your reality, your dream state becomes something that you share with other spiritually attuned beings.
Eventually you can be aware that you are dreaming while you are dreaming. This is called lucid dreaming. In lucid dreaming you can control your dreams and be able to dream awake. Through the process of dreaming you perceive other dimensions of reality, which are shut out by your conditioning.
I am not writing about dream interpretation. I am talking about knowing your dream life and being aware of experiencing dimensions of a reality while you are sleeping, which will also become available in your waking moments.
Your dreams are created with the same body and the same brain as the rest of your perceptual world. It is all yours -- you do not leave every night and take on a new brain to experience your nighttime reality.
Everything that you are capable of knowing and being convinced of in your dream has a potential for being experienced at all moments of your daily life. Everything! Yes, this is a radical notion, but it leads you to know the power of your energy body.
You enter your dreaming world with a complete absence of doubt about what you can experience. With that absence of doubt there are absolutely no limits. When you awaken to what you call your waking consciousness, you will have the same body, brain and perceptual equipment, but you introduce doubt. I believe that your dreams do not reveal things about you but that they are you. They are real and they can become highly effective in helping you to experience your highest spiritual self.
Suggestions for Releasing Disbelief in Dreams
When you go to sleep, encourage yourself to be aware that you are entering your dream state. Just this awareness is the first step toward higher awareness through dreaming. As you drift off, make a mental note to yourself that you are about to enter the dream state and that you are pleased to be aware of it.
Make an effort, before you drift off, to consciously see elements of your upcoming dream. Tell yourself you will make a note of an object, a room or a specific location while you are in the dream. Experience as much detail as you can concerning the object while dreaming. If it is a lamp, for instance, bring it closer to you with the power of your mind. Examine the color, shape and intensity of the light.
You want to make direct contact with your energy body, that special body that coexists at all times with your physical body. By examining the content of your dreams you will give yourself access to this higher energy. You will prove to yourself that your mental energy is a phenomenon that you can manipulate with practice and effort. Eventually you will be able to access this energy in all moments of your life.
Your energy body has appearance but no mass. Get familiar with this appearance of your energy and know that it can transport you anywhere in the universe with your command. Sounds strange, but it is within you to make this happen. First in your sleeping dreams and then in your waking dreams.
See if you can make yourself go from one dream back to another, and then return to the same dream. As you drift off, first become aware of your upcoming dreaming state; then, while in the dream, become aware that you are dreaming, and shift to another dream. After years of experience I have been able to do this only on an occassional basis. But give it a try. It will give you practice for the ultimate key to higher awarenes: cultivating the witness. (This is discussed in detail in Chapter 5.)
Make an attempt to observe yourself dreaming. Carlos Castaneda calls this the third gate of dreaming. In "The Art of Dreaming", he writes, "The third gate of dreaming is reached when you find yourself in a dream, staring at someone else who is asleep. And that someone else turns out to be you."
This is a state of heightened awareness wherein your physical self is being witnessed by your energy self, and you are conscious of it taking place. You are conscious of simultaneously dreaming and watching yourself dream.
This is a shift -- from what you've been told about dreaming, into a new world, a world that allows you to become a sleeping dreamer and a waking dreamer and to begin to punctuate your waking life with the magic of dreaming consciousness.
Become aware of your dreams and see if you can shift to lucid dreaming each night. When you awaken in the middle of the night, note the content and objects of your dreams, then reenter them while staying conscious of your dream state.
It is in this realm of dreaming and waking consciousness that you are going to get to know the existence of the highest energy in the universe.
Excerpt from Dr. Wayne Dyer's book "Your Sacred Self"
Belief: Dreams are not reality
0 comments:
Post a Comment