Theos-Talk Archives (January 2005 Message tt00085)

Jan 5 2005

Dear M:

Here are some statements on "dreams: to consider:

--------------------
	

SLEEP and DREAMS

TRANSACTIONS HPB Pp. 59 to 79

==================================================

	
Q. What are the "principles" which are active during dreams? 

A. The "principles" active during ordinary dreams -- which ought to be
distinguished from real dreams, and called idle visions -- are Kama, the
seat of the personal Ego and of desire awakened into chaotic activity by the
slumbering reminiscences of the lower Manas. 

Q. What is the "lower Manas"? 

A. It is usually called the animal soul (the Nephesh of the Hebrew
Kabalists). It is the ray which emanates from the Higher Manas or permanent
Ego, and is that "principle" which forms the human mind -- in animals
instinct, for animals also dream. (The word dream means really "to slumber"
-- the latter function being called in Russian "dreamatj." -- Ed. ) The
combined action of Kama and the "animal soul," however, are purely
mechanical. It is instinct, not reason, which is active in them. During the
sleep of the body they receive and send out mechanically electric shocks to
and from various nerve-centers. The brain is hardly impressed by them, and
memory stores them, of course, without order or sequence. On waking these
impressions gradually fade out, as does every fleeting shadow that has no
basic or substantial reality underlying it. The retentive faculty of the
brain, however, may register and preserve them if they are only impressed
strongly enough. But, as a rule, our memory registers only the fugitive and
distorted impressions which the brain receives at the moment of awakening.
This aspect of "dreams" however, has been sufficiently observed and is
described correctly enough in modern physiological and biological works, as
such human dreams do not differ much from those of the animals. That which
is entirely terra incognita for Science is the real dreams and experiences
of the higher EGO, which are also called dreams, but ought not to be so
termed, or else the term for the other sleeping "visions" changed. 

Q. How do these differ? 

A. The nature and functions of real dreams cannot be understood unless we
admit the existence of an immortal Ego in mortal man, independent of the
physical body, for the subject becomes quite unintelligible unless we
believe -- that which is a fact -- that during sleep there remains only an
animated form of clay, whose powers of independent thinking are utterly
paralyzed. 

But if we admit the existence of a higher or permanent Ego in us -- which
Ego must not be confused with what we call the "Higher Self," we can
comprehend that what we often regard as dreams, generally accepted as idle
fancies, are, in truth, stray pages torn out from the life and experiences
of the inner man, and the dim recollection of which at the moment of
awakening becomes more or less distorted by our physical memory. The latter
catches mechanically a few impressions of the thoughts, facts witnessed, and
deeds performed by the inner man during its hours of complete freedom. For
our Ego lives its own separate life within its prison of clay whenever it
becomes free from the trammels of matter, i.e., during the sleep of the
physical man. This Ego it is which is the actor, the real man, the true
human self. But the physical man cannot feel or be conscious during dreams;
for the personality, the outer man, with its brain and thinking apparatus,
are paralyzed more or less completely. 

We might well compare the real Ego to a prisoner, and the physical
personality to the gaoler of his prison. If the gaoler falls asleep, the
prisoner escapes, or, at least, passes outside the walls of his prison. The
gaoler is half asleep, and looks nodding all the time out of a window,
through which he can catch only occasional glimpses of his prisoner, as he
would a kind of shadow moving in front of it. But what can he perceive, and
what can he know of the real actions, and especially the thoughts, of his
charge? 

Q. Do not the thoughts of the one impress themselves upon the other?


A. Not during sleep, at all events; for the real Ego does not think as his
evanescent and temporary personality does. During the waking hours the
thoughts and Voice of the Higher Ego do or do not reach his gaoler -- the
physical man, for they are the Voice of his Conscience, but during his sleep
they are absolutely the "Voice in the desert." In the thoughts of the real
man, or the immortal "Individuality," the pictures and visions of the Past
and Future are as the Present; nor are his thoughts like ours, subjective
pictures in our cerebration, but living acts and deeds, present actualities.
They are realities, even as they were when speech expressed in sounds did
not exist; when thoughts were things, and men did not need to express them
in speeches; for they instantly realized themselves in action by the power
of Kriya-Sakti, that mysterious power which transforms instantaneously ideas
into visible forms, and these were as objective to the "man" of the early
third Race as objects of sight are now to us. 

Q. How, then, does Esoteric Philosophy account for the transmission
of even a few fragments of those thoughts of the Ego to our physical memory
which it sometimes retains? 


A. All such are reflected on the brain of the sleeper, like outside shadows
on the canvas walls of a tent, which the occupier sees as he wakes. Then the
man thinks that he has dreamed all that, and feels as though he had lived
through something, while in reality it is the thought-actions of the true
Ego which he has dimly perceived. As he becomes fully awake, his
recollections become with every minute more distorted, and mingle with the
images projected from the physical brain, under the action of the stimulus
which causes the sleeper to awaken. These recollections, by the power of
association, set in motion various trains of ideas. 

Q. It is difficult to see how the Ego can be acting during the night
things which have taken place long ago. Was it not stated that dreams are
not subjective? 

A. How can they be subjective when the dream state is itself for us, and on
our plane, at any rate, a subjective one? To the dreamer (the Ego), on his
own plane, the things on that plane are as objective to him as our acts are
to us. 

Q. What are the senses which act in dreams? 

A. The senses of the sleeper receive occasional shocks, and are awakened
into mechanical action; what he hears and sees are, as has been said, a
distorted reflection of the thoughts of the Ego. The latter is highly
spiritual, and is linked very closely with the higher principles, Buddhi and
Atma. These higher principles are entirely inactive on our plane, and the
higher Ego (Manas) itself is more or less dormant during the waking of the
physical man. This is especially the case with persons of very materialistic
mind. So dormant are the Spiritual faculties, because the Ego is so
trammelled by matter, that It can hardly give all its attention to the man's
actions, even should the latter commit sins for which that Ego -- when
reunited with its lower Manas -- will have to suffer conjointly in the
future. It is, as I said, the impressions projected into the physical man by
this Ego which constitute what we call "conscience"; and in proportion as
the Personality, the lower Soul (or Manas), unites itself to its higher
consciousness, or EGO, does the action of the latter upon the life of mortal
man become more marked. 

Q. This Ego, then, is the "Higher Ego"? 

A. Yes; it is the higher Manas illuminated by Buddhi; the principle of
self-consciousness, the "I-am-I," in short. It is the Karana-Sarira, the
immortal man, which passes from one incarnation to another. 

Q. Is the "register" or "tablet of memory" for the true dream-state
different from that of waking life? 

A. Since dreams are in reality the actions of the Ego during physical sleep,
they are, of course, recorded on their own plane and produce their
appropriate effects on this one. But it must be always remembered that
dreams in general, and as we know them, are simply our waking and hazy
recollections of these facts. 

It often happens, indeed, that we have no recollection of having dreamt at
all, but later in the day the remembrance of the dream will suddenly flash
upon us. Of this there are many causes. It is analogous to what sometimes
happens to every one of us. Often a sensation, a smell, even a casual noise,
or a sound, brings instantaneously to our mind long-forgotten events, scenes
and persons. Something of what was seen, done, or thought by the
"night-performer," the Ego, impressed itself at that time on the physical
brain, but was not brought into the conscious, waking memory, owing to some
physical condition or obstacle. This impression is registered on the brain
in its appropriate cell or nerve-center, but owing to some accidental
circumstance it "hangs fire," so to say, till something gives it the needed
impulse. Then the brain slips it off immediately into the conscious memory
of the waking man; for as soon as the conditions required are supplied, that
particular center starts forthwith into activity, and does the work which it
had to do, but was hindered at the time from completing. 

Q. How does this process take place? 

A. There is a sort of conscious telegraphic communication going on
incessantly, day and night, between the physical brain and the inner man.
The brain is such a complex thing, both physically and metaphysically, that
it is like a tree whose bark you can remove layer by layer, each layer being
different from all the others, and each having its own special work,
function, and properties. 

Q. What distinguishes the "dreaming" memory and imagination from
those of waking consciousness? 

A. During sleep the physical memory and imagination are of course passive,
because the dreamer is asleep: his brain is asleep, his memory is asleep,
all his functions are dormant and at rest. It is only when they are
stimulated, as I told you, that they are aroused. Thus the consciousness of
the sleeper is not active, but passive. The inner man, however, the real
Ego, acts independently during the sleep of the body; but it is doubtful if
any of us -- unless thoroughly acquainted with the physiology of occultism
-- could understand the nature of its action. 

Q. What relation have the Astral Light and Akasa to memory? 

A. The former is the "tablet of the memory" of the animal man, the latter of
the spiritual Ego. The "dreams" of the Ego, as much as the acts of the
physical man, are all recorded, since both are actions based on causes and
producing results. Our "dreams," being simply the waking state and actions
of the true Self, must be, of course, recorded somewhere. Read "Karmic
Visions" in Lucifer, and note the description of the real Ego, sitting as a
spectator of the life of the hero, and perhaps something will strike you.
...

Q. But do not our minds receive their illuminations direct from the
Higher Manas through the Lower? And is not the former the pure emanation of
divine Ideation -- the "Manasa-Putras," which incarnated in men? 

A. They are. Individual Manasa-Putras or the Kumaras are the direct
radiations of the divine Ideation -- "individual" in the sense of later
differentiation, owing to numberless incarnations. In sum they are the
collective aggregation of that Ideation, become on our plane, or from our
point of view, Mahat, as the Dhyan-Chohans are in their aggregate the WORD
or "Logos" in the formation of the World. Were the Personalities (Lower
Manas or the physical minds) to be inspired and illumined solely by their
higher alter Egos there would be little sin in this world. But they are not;
and getting entangled in the meshes of the Astral Light, they separate
themselves more and more from their parent Egos. Read and study what Eliphas
Levi says of the Astral Light, which he calls Satan and the Great Serpent.
The Astral Light has been taken too literally to mean some sort of a second
blue sky. This imaginary space, however, on which are impressed the
countless images of all that ever was, is, and will be, is but a too sad
reality. It becomes in, and for, man -- if at all psychic -- and who is not?
-- a tempting Demon, his "evil angel," and the inspirer of all our worst
deeds. It acts on the will of even the sleeping man, through visions
impressed upon his slumbering brain (which visions must not be confused with
the "dreams"), and these germs bear their fruit when he awakes. 

Q. What is the part played by Will in dreams? 

A. The will of the outer man, our volition, is of course dormant and
inactive during dreams; but a certain bent can be given to the slumbering
will during its inactivity, and certain after-results developed by the
mutual inter-action -- produced almost mechanically -- through union between
two or more "principles" into one, so that they will act in perfect harmony,
without any friction or a single false note, when awake. But this is one of
the dodges of "black magic," and when used for good purposes belongs to the
training of an Occultist. One must be far advanced on the "path" to have a
will which can act consciously during his physical sleep, or act on the will
of another person during the sleep of the latter, e.g., to control his
dreams, and thus control his actions when awake. 

Q. What part does Karma play in dreams? In India they say that every
man receives the reward or punishment of all his acts, both in the waking
and the dream state. 

A. If they say so, it is because they have preserved in all their purity and
remembered the traditions of their forefathers. They know that the Self is
the real Ego, and that it lives and acts, though on a different plane. The
external life is a "dream" to this Ego, while the inner life, or the life on
what we call the dream plane, is the real life for it. And so the Hindus
(the profane, of course) say that Karma is generous, and rewards the real
man in dreams as well as it does the false personality in physical life. 

Q. What is the difference, "karmically," between the two? 

A. The physical animal man is as little responsible as a dog or a mouse. For
the bodily form all is over with the death of the body. But the real SELF,
that which emanated its own shadow, or the lower thinking personality, that
enacted and pulled the wires during the life of the physical automaton, will
have to suffer conjointly with its factotum and alter ego in its next
incarnation. 

Q. But the two, the higher and the lower, Manas are one, are they
not? 

A. They are, and yet they are not -- and that is the great mystery. The
Higher Manas or EGO is essentially divine, and therefore pure; no stain can
pollute it, as no punishment can reach it, per se, the more so since it is
innocent of, and takes no part in, the deliberate transactions of its Lower
Ego. Yet by the very fact that, though dual and during life the Higher is
distinct from the Lower, "the Father and Son" are one, and because that in
reuniting with the parent Ego, the Lower Soul fastens upon and impresses
upon it all its bad as well as good actions -- both have to suffer, the
Higher Ego, though innocent and without blemish, has to bear the punishment
of the misdeeds committed by the lower Self together with it in their future
incarnation. The whole doctrine of atonement is built upon this old esoteric
tenet; for the Higher Ego is the antitype of that which is on this earth the
type, namely, the personality .... The mystic name of the "Higher Ego" is,
in the Indian philosophy, Kshetrajna, or "embodied Spirit," that which knows
or informs kshetra, "the body." Etymologize the name, and you will find in
it the term aja, "first-born," and also the "lamb." All this is very
suggestive, and volumes might be written upon the pregenetic and postgenetic
development of type and antitype -- of Christ-Kshetrajna, the "God-Man," the
First-born, symbolized as the "lamb." The Secret Doctrine shows that the
Manasa-Putras or incarnating EGOS have taken upon themselves, voluntarily
and knowingly, the burden of all the future sins of their future
personalities. 

Thence it is easy to see that it is neither Mr. A. nor Mr. B., nor any of
the personalities that periodically clothe the Self-Sacrificing EGO, which
are the real Sufferers, but verily the innocent Christos within us. Hence
the mystic Hindus say that the Eternal Self, or the Ego (the one in three
and three in one), is the "Charioteer" or driver; the personalities are the
temporary and evanescent passengers; while the horses are the animal
passions of man. It is, then, true to say that when we remain deaf to the
Voice of our Conscience, we crucify the Christos within us. But let us
return to dreams. 

Q. Are so-called prophetic dreams a sign that the dreamer has strong
clairvoyant faculties? 

A. It may be said, in the case of persons who have truly prophetic dreams,
that it is because their physical brains and memory are in closer relation
and sympathy with their "Higher Ego" than in the generality of men. The
Ego-Self has more facilities for impressing upon the physical shell and
memory that which is of importance to such persons than it has in the case
of other less gifted persons. 

Q. Do Adepts dream? 

A. No advanced Adept dreams. An adept is one who has obtained mastery over
his four lower principles, including his body, and does not, therefore, let
flesh have its own way. He simply paralyzes his lower Self during Sleep, and
becomes perfectly free. A dream, as we understand it, is an illusion. Shall
an adept, then, dream when he has rid himself of every other illusion? In
his sleep he simply lives on another and more real plane. 

Q. Are there people who have never dreamed? 

A. There is no such man in the world so far as I am aware. All dream more or
less; only with most, dreams vanish suddenly upon waking. This depends on
the more or less receptive condition of the brain ganglia. Unspiritual men,
and those who do not exercise their imaginative faculties, or those whom
manual labor has exhausted, so that the ganglia do not act even mechanically
during rest, dream rarely, if ever, with any coherence. 

Q. What, then, is the process of going to sleep? 

A. This is partially explained by Physiology. It is said by Occultism to be
the periodical and regulated exhaustion of the nervous centers, and
especially of the sensory ganglia of the brain, which refuse to act any
longer on this plane, and, if they would not become unfit for work, are
compelled to recuperate their strength on another plane or Upadhi. 

First comes the Svapna, or dreaming state, and this leads to that of
Shushupti. Now it must be remembered that our senses are all dual, and act
according to the plane of consciousness on which the thinking entity
energizes. Physical sleep affords the greatest facility for its action on
the various planes; at the same time it is a necessity, in order that the
senses may recuperate and obtain a new lease of life for the Jagrata, or
waking state, from the Svapna and Shushupti. 

According to Raj Yoga, Turya is the highest state. As a man exhausted by one
state of the life fluid seeks another; as, for example, when exhausted by
the hot air he refreshes himself with cool water; so sleep is the shady nook
in the sunlit valley of life. Sleep is a sign that waking life has become
too strong for the physical organism, and that the force of the life current
must be broken by changing the waking for the sleeping state. 

Q. But what is a dream? 

A. That depends on the meaning of the term. You may "dream," or, as we say,
sleep visions, awake or asleep. If the Astral Light is collected in a cup or
metal vessel by will-power, and the eyes fixed on some point in it with a
strong will to see, a waking vision or "dream" is the result, if the person
is at all sensitive. The reflections in the Astral Light are seen better
with closed eyes, and, in sleep, still more distinctly. From a lucid state,
vision becomes translucid; from normal organic consciousness it rises to a
transcendental state of consciousness. 

Q. To what causes are dreams chiefly due? 

A. There are many kinds of dreams, as we all know. Leaving the "digestion
dream" aside, there are brain dreams and memory dreams, mechanical and
conscious visions. Dreams of warning and premonition require the active
co-operation of the inner Ego. They are also often due to the conscious or
unconscious co-operation of the brains of two living persons, or of their
two Egos. 

Q. What is it that dreams, then? 

A. Generally the physical brain of the personal Ego, the seat of memory,
radiating and throwing off sparks like the dying embers of a fire. The
memory of the Sleeper is like an AEolian seven-stringed harp; and his state
of mind may be compared to the wind that sweeps over the chords. The
corresponding string of the harp will respond to that one of the seven
states of mental activity in which the sleeper was before falling asleep. If
it is a gentle breeze the harp will be affected but little; if a hurricane,
the vibrations will be proportionately powerful. If the personal Ego is in
touch with its higher principles and the veils of the higher planes are
drawn aside, all is well; if on the contrary it is of a materialistic animal
nature, there will be probably no dreams; or if the memory by chance catch
the breath of a "wind" from a higher plane, seeing that it will be impressed
through the sensory ganglia of the cerebellum, and not by the direct agency
of the spiritual Ego, it will receive pictures and sounds so distorted and
inharmonious that even a Devachanic vision would appear a nightmare or
grotesque caricature. Therefore there is no simple answer to the question
"What is it that dreams," for it depends entirely on each individual what
principle will be the chief motor in dreams, and whether they will be
remembered or forgotten. 


Q. Is the apparent objectivity in a dream really objective or
subjective? 

A. If it is admitted to be apparent, then of course it is subjective. The
question should rather be, to whom or what are the pictures or
representations in dreams either objective or subjective? To the physical
man, the dreamer, all he sees with his eyes shut, and in or through his
mind, is of course subjective. But to the Seer within the physical dreamer,
that Seer himself being subjective to our material senses, all he sees is as
objective as he is himself to himself and to others like himself.
Materialists will probably laugh, and say that we make of a man a whole
family of entities, but this is not so. Occultism teaches that physical man
is one, but the thinking man septenary, thinking, acting, feeling, and
living on seven different states of being or planes of consciousness, and
that for all these states and planes the permanent Ego (not the false
personality) has a distinct set of senses. 

Q. Can these different senses be distinguished? 

A. Not unless you are an Adept or highly-trained Chela, thoroughly
acquainted with these different states.... Science teaches us about the
phenomena of volition, sensation, intellect, and instinct, and says that
these are all manifested through the nervous centers, the most important of
which is our brain. ....

Now, it frequently happens that we are conscious and know that we are
dreaming; this is a very good proof that man is a multiple being on the
thought plane; so that not only is the Ego, or thinking man, a multiform,
ever-changing entity, but he is also, so to speak, capable of separating
himself on the mind or dream plane into two or more entities... holding a
dialogue with himself and speaking through, about, and to himself.... Man
is the microcosm of the macrocosm; the god on earth is built on the pattern
of the god in nature. But the universal consciousness of the real Ego
transcends a millionfold the self-consciousness of the personal or false
Ego. 

Q. What is the cause of that experience in dreams in which the
dreamer seems to be ever striving after something, but never attaining it? 

A. It is because the physical self and its memory are shut out of the
possibility of knowing what the real Ego does. The dreamer only catches
faint glimpses of the doings of the Ego, whose actions produce the so-called
dream on the physical man, but is unable to follow it consecutively. A
delirious patient, on recovery, bears the same relation to the nurse who
watched and tended him in his illness as the physical man to his real Ego.
The Ego acts as consciously within and without him as the nurse acts in
tending and watching over the sick man. But neither the patient after
leaving his sick bed, nor the dreamer on awaking, will be able to remember
anything except in snatches and glimpses. 

Q. How does sleep differ from death? 

A. There is an analogy certainly, but a very great difference between the
two. In sleep there is a connection, weak though it may be, between the
lower and higher mind of man, and the latter is more or less reflected into
the former, however much its rays may be distorted. But once the body is
dead, the body of illusion, Mayavi Rupa, becomes Kama Rupa, or the animal
soul, and is left to its own devices. Therefore, there is as much difference
between the spook and man as there is between a gross material, animal but
sober mortal, and a man incapably drunk and unable to distinguish the most
prominent surroundings; between a person shut up in a perfectly dark room
and one in a room lighted, however imperfectly, by some light or other. 

The lower principles are like wild beasts, and the higher Manas is the
rational man who tames or subdues them more or less successfully. But once
the animal gets free from the master who held it in subjection; no sooner
has it ceased to hear his voice and see him than it starts off again to the
jungle and its ancient den. It takes, however, some time for an animal to
return to its original and natural state, but these lower principles or
"spook" return instantly, and no sooner has the higher Triad entered the
Devachanic state than the lower Duad rebecomes that which it was from the
beginning, a principle endued with purely animal instinct, made happier
still by the great change. 

Q. What is the condition of the Linga Sarira, or plastic body,
during dreams? 

A. The condition of the Plastic form is to sleep with its body, unless
projected by some powerful desire generated in the higher Manas. In dreams
it plays no active part, but on the contrary is entirely passive, being the
involuntarily half-sleepy witness of the experiences through which the
higher principles are passing. 

Q. Under what circumstances is this wraith seen? 

A. Sometimes, in cases of illness or very strong passion on the part of the
person seen or the person who sees; the possibility is mutual. A sick person
especially just before death, is very likely to see in dream, or vision,
those whom he loves and is continually thinking of, and so also is a person
awake, but intensely thinking of a person who is asleep at the time. 

Q. Can a Magician summon such a dreaming entity and have intercourse
with it? 

A. In black Magic it is no rare thing to evoke the "spirit" of a sleeping
person; the sorcerer may then learn from the apparition any secret he
chooses, and the sleeper be quite ignorant of what is occurring. 

Under such circumstances that which appears is the Mayavi rupa; but there is
always a danger that the memory of the living man will preserve the
recollections of the evocation and remember it as a vivid dream. If it is
not, however, at a great distance, the Double or Linga Sarira may be evoked,
but this can neither speak nor give information, and there is always the
possibility of the sleeper being killed through this forced separation. Many
sudden deaths in sleep have thus occurred, and the world been no wiser. 

Q. Can there be any connection between a dreamer and an entity in
"Kama Loka"? 

A. The dreamer of an entity in Kama Loka would probably bring upon himself a
nightmare, or would run the risk of becoming "possessed" by the "spook" so
attracted, if he happened to be a medium, or one who had made himself so
passive during his waking hours that even his higher Self is now unable to
protect him. 

This is why the mediumistic state of passivity is so dangerous, and in time
renders the Higher Self entirely helpless to aid or even warn the sleeping
or entranced person. 

Passivity paralyzes the connection between the lower and higher principles.
It is very rare to find instances of mediums who, while remaining passive at
will, for the purpose of communicating with some higher Intelligence, some
exterraneous spirit (not disembodied), will yet preserve sufficiently their
personal will so as not to break off all connection with the higher Self. 

Q. Can a dreamer be "en rapport" with an entity in Devachan? 

A. The only possible means of communicating with Devachanees is during sleep
by a dream or vision, or in trance state. No Devachanee can descend into our
plane; it is for us -- or rather our inner Self -- to ascend to his. ...

Q. What is the cause of nightmare, and how is it that the dreams of
persons suffering from advanced consumption are often pleasant? 

A. The cause of the former is simply physiological. A nightmare arises from
oppression and difficulty in breathing; and difficulty in breathing will
always create such a feeling of oppression and produce a sensation of
impending calamity. 

In the second case, dreams become pleasant because the consumptive grows
daily severed from his material body, and more clairvoyant in proportion. As
death approaches, the body wastes away and ceases to be an impediment or
barrier between the brain of the physical man and his Higher Self.
 	
----------------------


Best wishes

Dallas
 
-------------------------------------

-----Original Message-----
From: Mauri 
Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 8:46 AM
To: 

Subject: re "real " Dreams ?