Theos-Talk Archives (March 2005 Message tt00445)

Mar 21 2005

Dear Friend:

Here are some theosophical statements on "dreams" for consideration"



DREAMS DEFINED   


PERCEIVER


"To the perceiver on any plane, perceptions are objective to him; on a
higher plane than this, would they not be his "physics," although
metaphysical to us ? From our plane, that which is metaphysical becomes
physical when embodied. "	FRIENDLY PHILOS. p. 78


"Every one of us is a Perceiver, just as much a Perceiver as we ever were or
ever will be. So is every atom of our body the perceiver. But we look
directly upon ideas; the lives below man look directly upon sensation. We
say waking, dreaming, sleeping, because our attention has not been directed
to the state of nature beyond life or man ass immortal. But there are other
names for these states of consciousness. Think of the mineral kingdom as a
state of consciousness, and the forms built in that state. Think of the
animal kingdom as life in a given state of consciousness with the
appropriate forms built in them.

Now we--in the state called the Thinker, which is our natural state--are not
any the less the Perceiver, because we are also at the same time the Thinker
and the being which feels. But neither are we the Thinker pure and simple,
nor are we the creature that is the experiencer of effects pure and
simple--nor are we the Perceiver pure and simple. It is impossible to
dissociate the three. If a man were in the state called the Perceiver, and
if he were in that state pure and simple, all this that is a mystery to us
would be just as objective in the spiritual sense as we here and now are
objective to each other in the "sense use" of the term." [J. G.]
"QUESTIONS ANSWERED AT AN INFORMAL OCEAN CLASS" T. MVT., Nov. 1952.


"As to the "we," there is but one "we," or perceiver, who perceives on any
plane through the sheaths evolved by him on each plane; his perceptions on
any plane will depend on the quality of the sheath or vehicle. Atma
(spirit) or consciousness alone, is what remains after the subtraction of
the sheaths. It is the ONLY witness--a synthesizing unity. On this
plane--and this means during waking consciousness or its dream effects--the
perceiver knows only what it knows on this plane (generally speaking), and
through the ignorance of the Real, involves itself in the cause and effect
of physical nature, identifying itself with body and sensations, and looking
at other human beings in the same light. This is a wrong attitude of mind.
The "we," at this end, is the identification of the perceiver with this
plane's perceptions--a misconception of the perceiver, a dream--a play--in
which the perceiver is so involved as to have lost sight and memory of his
real life.

The mind is both "carrier" and "translator" of both lower and higher self;
the attitude determines the quality and kind of action, for one will act
according to the attitude of mind firmly held. The great and incalculable
value of acting for and as the Supreme is that there is nothing higher in
the way of attitude, and this endeavor must by its very nature bring about
the best results.

What moves the "mind" this way or that is usually desire for the attractions
of matter, and self-interest in them; these then move and control the mind
through the brain. "We," the Perceiver, do not perceive anything but the
"ideas" which the senses and organs present. He is not fully awake on this
plane; sometimes he gets partly wakened, but drops off to sleep again,
lulled by the sounds and memories of his dream; sometimes "bad dreams"
awake him; sometimes he is awakened by the voices of those who are awake.

The "Real" and the "unreal," the "fleeting" and the "ever-lasting" are terms
which will be more fully understood if looked at from the point of view of
the Perceiver. This is the attitude of mind we should hold."	
Friendly Philosopher, 48-8



MIND


"Mind is a name given to the sum of the states of Consciousness grouped
under Thought, Will, and Feeling. During deep sleep, ideation ceases of the
physical plane, and memory is in abeyance; thus for the time-being "Mind is
not," because the organ through which the Ego manifests ideation and memory
on the material plane has temporarily ceased to function. A noumenon can
become a phenomenon on any plane of existence only by manifesting on that
plane through an appropriate basis or vehicle...The Ah-hi (Dhyan-Chohans)
are the collective hosts of spiritual beings--the Angelic Hosts of
Christianity...--who are the vehicle for the manifestation of the divine or
universal though and will. They are the Intelligent Forces that give to and
enact in Nature her "laws," while themselves acting according to laws
imposed upon them in a similar manner by still higher Powers...This
hierarchy of spiritual Beings, through which the Universal Mind comes into
action, is like an army--a "Host,"	SD I 38  	


"..."Mind" is manas, or rather its lower reflection, which whenever it
disconnects itself, for the time being, with kama, becomes the guide of the
highest mental faculties, and is the organ of the free-will in physical
man...."  
HPB Art., Vol. II, p. 13


There is a dual element in the mind of man. HPB wrote on this as follows:

"this means that he would have to admit a lower (animal), and a higher (or
divine) mind in man, of what is known in Occultism as the "personal" and the
"impersonal" Egos. For, between the psychic and the noetic, between the
personality and the individuality there exists the same abyss as between a
"Jack the Ripper," and a holy Buddha...These two we distinguish as the
Higher Manas (Mind or Ego) and the Kama-Manas, i.e., the rational, but
earthy or physical intellect of man, encased in, and bound by. matter,
therefore subject to the influence of the latter: the all-conscious Self,
that which reincarnates periodically--verily the Word made flesh--and which
is always the same, while its reflected "Double," changing with every new
incarnation and personality, is, therefore, conscious but for a life-period.
The latter "principle," is the Lower Self, or that which manifesting through
our organic system, acting on this plane of illusion, imagines itself the
Ego Sum, and thus falls into what Buddhist philosophy brands as the "heresy
of separateness." The former, we term Individuality, the latter
Personality." HPB	"Psychic and Noetic Action"  
HPB Articles II pp , 9-10, 20-1



SLEEP & DREAMS GENERAL
		

"In our dreams," says Paracelsus, "we are like the plants which have also
the elementary and vital body, but possess not the spirit. In our sleep the
astral body is free and can, by the elasticity of its nature, either hover
round in proximity with its sleeping vehicle, or soar higher to hold
converse with its starry parents, or even communicate with its brothers at
great distances. Dreams of a prophetic character, prescience, and present
wants are the faculties of the astral spirit. To our elementary and grosser
body, these gifts re not imparted, for at death it descends into the bosom
of the earth and is reunited to the physical elements while the several
spirits return to the stars..."	Isis I 170



The Dictionary classifies dreams (or imaginary visions, or a reality
suggestive of a vision - a conception of possibility), as:

1. occurring during sleep - thoughts, images, emotions, seeming
realities;

2. occurring while awake as : 
	
1.	Visions -- state of mind , while awake, lost in
imagining
2.	Reverie -- day-dreaming


SLEEPING


"...it is said, the infant lives because the combination of healthy organs
is able to absorb the life all around it in space, and is put to sleep each
day by the overpowering strength of the stream of life, since the
`preservers' among the cells of the youthful body are not yet mastered by
the other class [`destroyers'].

These processes of going to sleep and waking up again are simply and solely
the restoring of the equilibrium in sleep and the action produced by
disturbing it when awake...in sleep we are again absorbing and not resisting
the Life Energy; when we wake we are throwing it off. But as it exists
around us as an ocean in which we swim, our power to resist it is
necessarily limited. Just when we wake we are in equilibrium as to our
organs and life; when we fall asleep we are yet more full of life than in
the morning; it has exhausted us; it finally kills the body. Such a
contest could not be waged forever, since the whole solar system's weight of
life is pitted against the power to resist focussed in one small human
frame."
Ocean p. 36	[ see also WQJ Art. II 563, I 294 ]



"[ on going to sleep -- Answer by HPB ] It is said by Occultism to be the
periodical and regulated exhaustion of the nervous centres, 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. [vehicle] First comes
the Swapna, or dreaming state, and this leads to that of Sushupti. 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 various senses may
recuperate and obtain a new lease on life for the Jagrata, or waking state,
from the Swapna and Sushupti. According to Raja Yoga Turiya 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. [ follows a description of the
clairvoyant view of the atmosphere around a person tired and one refreshed
by sleep :

"...the person begins to be too strongly saturated with Life; the life
essence is too strong for his physical organs, and he must seek relief in
the shadowy side of that essence, which side is the dream element, or
physical sleep, on of the states of consciousness."	--HPB
Transactions p. 70-1
[ see also septenary nature of our senses: SD I 534 ]
	

SWAPNA -- PSYCHIC -- DREAMS


"In the dream state we lose all knowledge of the objects which while awake
we thought real and proceed to suffer and enjoy in that new state. [ see SD
I 47 ] In this we find the consciousness applying itself to objects
partaking of course of the nature of experiences of the waking condition,
but at the same time producing the sensations of pleasure and pain while
they last. [ see SD I 56 ] Let us imagine a person's body plunged in a
lethargy extending over twenty years and the mind undergoing a pleasant or
unpleasant dream, and we have a life just of that sort, altogether different
from the life of one awake. For the consciousness of this dreamer the
reality of objects known during the waking state is destroyed. But as
material existence is a necessary evil and the one is which alone
emancipation or salvation can be obtained, it is of the greatest importance
and hence Karma which governs it...must be well understood and then be
accepted and obeyed."	Echoes. pp. 41-42


"Dreams are sometimes the result of brain action automatically proceeding,
and are also produced by the transmission into the brain by the real inner
person of those senses or ideas high or low which the real person has seen
while the body slept. They are then strained into the brain as if floating
on the soul as it sinks into the body. These dreams may be of great use,
but generally the resumption of bodily activity destroys the meaning,
perverts the image, and reduces all to confusion. 

But the great fact of all dreaming is that some one perceives and feels
therein and this is one of the arguments for the inner person's existence.

In sleep the inner man communes with higher intelligences, and sometimes
succeeds in impressing the brain with what is gained, either a high idea or
a prophetic vision, or else fails in consequence of the resistance of the
brain fiber. The karma of the person also determines the meaning of a
dream, for a kind may dream that which relates to his kingdom, which the
same thing dreamed by a citizen relates to nothing of temporal consequence.
But, as said by Job: "In dreams and visions of the night man is
instructed."	Ocean, p. 143-4


"When one says "I dreamed," he is in the waking state and is surrounded by
the external conditions that go to make up that state of consciousness; he
is therefore comparing the state in which he finds himself with another
state whose surroundings are not then present or evident...in the dreaming
state, all that made up his waking state is absent from his perceptions and
he is surrounded by a world of his own creation, which for the time being is
objective and real to him; his perceptions are "awake" to the dream and
immersed in it, so he has nothing before him to compare the states of waking
and dreaming with. Should he be able to make comparisons , the dream state
would cease and he would be awake."
Answers to Questions, p. 94-5


SUSHUPTI -- DEEP SLEEP -- "DREAMS"


"Dreamless sleep is one of the seven states of consciousness known in
Oriental esotericism. In each of these states a different portion of the
mind comes into action; or as a Vedantin would express it, the individual
is conscious in a different plane of his being. The term "dreamless sleep,"
in this case is applied allegorically to the Universe to express a condition
somewhat analogous to that state of consciousness in man, which, not being
remembered is a waking state, seems a blank, just as the sleep of the
mesmerized subject seems to him an unconscious blank when he returns to his
normal condition, although he has been talking and acting as a conscious
individual would."	SD I 47


"...dreamless sleep--one that leaves no impression on the physical memory
and brain, because the sleeper's Higher Self is in its original state of
absolute unconsciousness during those hours...re-absorption is by no means
such a "dreamless sleep," but, on the contrary, absolute existence, an
unconditioned unity, or a state, to describe which human language is
absolutely hopelessly inadequate...it can be attempted solely in the
panoramic visions of the soul, through spiritual ideations of the divine
monad."	[ see also SD I 429, top ]	SD I 266


"Buddhi the Spiritual soul...because it is the direct cause of Sushupti
[deep sleep]...leading to Turiya...the highest state of Samadhi [ Meditation
]...Buddhi becomes a "causal body" in conjunction with Manas the incarnation
of the Entity or Ego..." Glossary, p. 74


"There are many kinds of "dreams"...the highest of them being recollections
of the activity and real awakens of the Inner Man, but these are not
ordinarily translatable into terms of bodily consciousness."	Ans. to
Quest. p. 95


"As a rule, all that we experience of a dream from the inner man is a
feeling, for the dream being strained through the brain is all broken and
confused. A dream that makes a profound impression...cannot be a mere
surface dream."
Ans. to Quest. 220


"In every night he enters that spiritual state, his own true nature.
Connection between the Lower and the Higher Manas must be made during life
in a body; it cannot be made at any other time."	Ans to Quest. 175


"Good resolutions are mind-painted pictures of good deeds, fancies,
day-dreams, whisperings of the Buddhi to the Manas..."	Letters from the
Masters of Wisdom (I) p 60-1

 

THE BRAIN


"We might properly speak, then, of the memory of the end-organ of vision or
of hearing, of the memory of the spinal cord and of the different so-called
'centers' of reflex action belonging to the chords of the memory of the
medulla oblongata, the cerebellum, etc." This is the essence of Occult
teaching...every organ in our body has its own memory. For it is endowed
with a consciousness "of its own kind," every cell must of necessity have
also a memory of its own kind, as likewise its own psychic and noetic
action. Responding to the touch of both a physical and a metaphysical
Force, the impulse given by the psychic (or psycho-molecular) Force will act
from without within; while that of the noetic (shall we call it
Spiritual-dynamical ?) Force works from within without. For, as our body is
the covering of the inner "principles," soul, mind, life, etc., so the
molecule or the cell is the body in which dwell its principles," the (to our
senses and comprehension) immaterial atoms which compose that cell. The
cell's activity and behavior are determined by its being propelled either
inwardly or outwardly, by the noetic or the psychic Force, the former having
no relation to the physical cells proper. Therefore while the latter act
under the unavoidable law of the conservation and correlation of physical
energy, the atoms--being psycho-spiritual, not physical units--act under
laws of their own, just as Professor Ladd's "Unit-Being," which is our
"Mind-Ego," does, in his very philosophical and scientific hypothesis.

Every human organ and each cell in the latter has a keyboard of its own,
like that of a piano, only that it registers and emits sensations instead of
sounds. Every key contains the potentiality of good or bad, of producing
harmony or disharmony. This depends on the impulse given and the
combination produced; on the force of the touch of the artist at work, a
"double-faced Unity," indeed...For the whole of man is guided by this
double-faced Entity. If the impulse comes from the "Wisdom above," the
Force applied being noetic or spiritual, the results will be actions worthy
of the divine propeller...It is the function of the physical, lower mind to
act upon the physical organs and their cells; but, it is the higher mind
alone which can influence the atoms interacting in those cells, which
interaction is alone capable of exciting the brain, via the spinal "center"
cord, to a mental representation of spiritual ideas far beyond any objects
on this material plane.

The phenomena of divine consciousness have to be regarded as activities of
our mind on another and a higher plane, working through something less
substantial than the moving molecules of the brain...Occultism teaches that
the liver and the spleen-cells are the most subservient to the action of our
"personal" mind, the heart being the organ par excellence through which the
"Higher" Ego acts--through the Lower Self."	HPB-- "Psychic and Noetic
Action" -- HPB Art. II 22-3


"...the plastic power of the imagination is much stronger in some persons
than in others. The mind is dual in its potentiality; It is physical and
metaphysical. The higher part of the mind is connected with the spiritual
soul or Buddhi, the lower with the animal soul, the Kama principle. There
are persons who never think with the higher faculties of their mind at all;
those who do so are the minority and are thus, in a way, beyond, if not
above, the average of human kind. The idiosyncrasy of the person determines
in which "principle" of the mind the thinking is done, as also the faculties
of a preceding life, and sometimes the heredity of the physical. This is
why it is so very difficult for a materialist--the metaphysical portion of
whose brain is almost atrophied--to raise himself, or for one who is
naturally spiritually minded, to descend to the level of the matter-of-fact
vulgar thought...[ Thinking to be developed in the higher mind ?
]...Certainly it can be developed, but only with great difficulty, a firm
determination, and through much self-sacrifice...This difference depends
simply on the innate power of the mind to think on the higher or on the
lower plane, with the astral...or with the physical brain. Great
intellectual powers are often no proof of, but are the impediments to
spiritual and right conceptions...The person who is endowed with this
faculty of thinking about even the most trifling things from the higher
plane of thought has, by virtue of that gift which he possesses, a plastic
power of formation, so to say, in his very imagination...his thought will be
so far more intense that the thought of an ordinary person, that by his very
intensity it obtains the power of creation...thought is an energy. This
energy in its action disturbs the atoms of the astral atmosphere around
us...the rays of thought have the same potentiality for producing forms in
the astral atmosphere as the sun rays have with regard to a lens. Every
thought so evolved with energy from the brain, creates nolens volens a
shape."	HPB-- Dialogues --	HPB Art. II 42-3


"...the human brain is simply the canal between two planes--the
psycho-spiritual and the material--through which every abstract and
metaphysical idea filters from the Manasic down to the lower human
consciousness. Therefore the ideas about the infinite and the absolute are
not, nor can they be, within our brain capacities. They can be faithfully
mirrored only by our Spiritual consciousness, thence to be more of less
faintly projected on to the tables of our perceptions on this plane. Thus
while the records of even important events are often obliterated from our
memory, not the most trifling action of our lives can disappear from the
"Soul's" memory, because it is no memory for it, but an ever-present reality
on the plane which lies outside our conceptions of space and time. "Man is
the measure of all things," said Aristotle; and surely he did not mean by
man, the form of flesh, bones and muscles ? ... As our world is mostly
formed of imperceptible beings which are the real constructors of its
continents, so likewise is man."	HPB--Memory in the Dying --	HPB
Art. II 378-9


"Occult philosophy reconciles the absurdity of postulating in the manifested
Universe an active Mind without an organ, with that worse absurdity, an
objective Universe evolved as everything else in it, by blind chance, by
giving this Universe an organ of thought, a "brain." The latter, though not
objective to our senses, is none the less existing; it is to be found in
the Entity called Kosmos (Adam Kadmon in the Kabbalah). As in the Microcosm
Man, so in the Macrocosm, or the Universe. Every organ is a sentient
entity, and every particle of matter or substance, from the physical
molecule up to the spiritual atom, is a cell, a nerve center, which
communicates." 
(see Lucifer, Vol. 7, p. 476fn)


	
MEMORY


"Our "memory" is but a general agent, and its "tablets," with their
indelible impressions, but a figure of speech; the "brain-tablets" serve
only as a upadhi or a vahan (basis or vehicle) for reflecting at a given
moment the memory of one or another thing. The records of past events, of
every minutest action, and of passing thoughts, in fact, are realty
impressed on the imperishable waves of the Astral Light, around us and
everywhere, not in the brain alone; and these mental pictures, images, and
sounds, pass from these waves via the consciousness of the personal Ego or
Mind (the lower Manas) whose grosser essence is astral, into the "cerebral
reflectors," so to say, of our brain, whence they are delivered by the
psychic to the sensuous consciousness. This at every moment of the day, and
even during sleep."	
Theos. Art. & Notes, p. 209


"...Genius--an abnormal aptitude of mind--that develops and grows, or the
physical brain, is vehicle, which becomes...fitter to receive and manifest
from within outwardly the innate and divine nature of man's over-soul."
HPB-- "Genius"	-- HPB Art. II 119

	
	
INTUITION


"...a projection of our perceptive consciousness, a projection which acts
from the subjective to the objective...awakens in us spiritual senses and
the power to act; these senses assimilate to themselves the essence of the
object or of the action under examination, and represent it to us as it
really is, not as it appears to our physical senses and to our cold
reason...omniscience." HPB Articles
I 428


"...the "Ego" in man is a monad that has gathered to itself innumerable
experiences through aeons of time, slowly unfolding its latent potencies
through plane after plane of matter. It is hence called the "eternal
pilgrim."

The Manasic, or mind principle, is cosmic and universal. It is the creator
of all forms, and the basis of all law in nature. Not so with
consciousness. Consciousness is a condition of the monad as a result of
embodiment in matter and the dwelling in a physical form.
Self-consciousness, which from the animal plane looking upward is the
beginning of perfection, from the divine plane looking downwards is the
perfection of selfishness and the curse of separateness. it is the "world
of illusion" that man has created for himself. "Maya is the perceptive
faculty of every Ego which considers itself a Unit, separate from and
independent of the One Infinite and Eternal Sat or 'be-ness'," (SD I 329)
The "eternal pilgrim" must therefore mount higher, and flee from the plane
of self-consciousness it has struggled so hard to reach."	WQJ
ART I 29


"The "Absolute Consciousness,"..."behind" phenomena...is only termed
unconsciousness in the absence of any element of personality...transcends
human conception...Only the liberated Spirit is able to faintly realize the
nature of the source whence it sprung and whither it must eventually
return...we can but bow in ignorance before the awful mystery of Absolute
Being...the Finite cannot conceive the Infinite..."	S D I 51


"the one free force acts, helped in this by that portion of its essence
which we call imprisoned force, or material molecules. The worker within,
the inherent force, ever tends to unite with its parent essence without;
and thus, the Mother acting within, causes the Web to contract; and the
Father acting without, to expand. Science calls this gravitation;
Occultists, the work of the universal Life-Force, which radiates from that
Absolute and Unknowable FORCE which is outside of all Space and Time. This
is the work of eternal Evolution and involution, or expansion and
contraction. [ Web cooling ]...it begins when the imprisoned force and
intelligence inherent in every atom of differentiated as well as of
homogeneous matter arrives at a point when both become the slaves of a
higher intelligent Force whose mission is to guide and shape it.

It is the Force which we call the divine Free-Will, represented by the
Dhyani-Buddhas. When the centrepetal and centrifugal forces of life and
being are subjected by the one nameless Force which brings order in
disorder, and establishes harmony in Chaos--then it begins cooling...Every
form, we are told, is built in accordance with the model traced for it in
the Eternity and reflected in the DIVINE MIND. There are hierarchies of
"Builders of form," and series of forms and degrees, from the highest to the
lowest. While the former are shaped under the guidance of the "Builders,"
the gods, "Cosmocratores;" the latter are fashioned by the Elementals or
Nature Spirits."	Trans 128-9


"TURIYA (Sk.) A state of the deepest trance--the 4th state of the Taraka
Raja Yoga, on the corresponds with Atma, and on this earth within dreamless
sleep--a causal condition...almost a Nirvanic state if Samadhi, which is
itself a beatific state of the contemplative Yoga beyond this plane. A
condition of the higher Triad, quite distinct (though still inseparable)
from the conditions of Jagrat (waking), Swapna (dreaming), and Sushupti
[dreamless] (sleeping)" Glos. 345-6


Best wishes, 

Dallas
 
===================================

-----Original Message-----
From: Philip N 
Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2005 6:50 PM
To: 
SubjectRe: Dream-within-a-dream

....I understand that "Lucid
dreaming is consciously perceiving and recognizing
that one is in a dream while one is sleeping, and
having control over the "dreamscape", or the
faux-reality dream world within a dream." 

That is the sleeping person is aware during his dream
that he is dreaming. In my personal experience, it
seems that there are 2 aspects which are different
from other normal dreams:

a) The person knows that he is dreaming and therefore
may act (during the dream) differently from his normal
behavior, e.g. he is not afraid of going into some
dangerous situations knowing that they could not harm
his physical body. This denotes some control of the
awake state over the dreamt state or some interaction
between those 2 states during the period of the dream.

b) After the sleep, the details of the dream could be
recalled more easily than with other normal dreams.
Probably due to the stronger-than-normal interaction
between the two consciousnesses mentioned above.

However, in lucid dreaming, it seems that there is
only "one" dream, of which the person, in both his
astral and his physical states, is aware. I can't find
any reference on the Net to research or reports on
dreams in which the person has a second dream which is
essentially "different" to the current dream, i.e. a
different-dream-within-a-dream. I would appreciate any
advice from anybody on this. My intuitive
understanding is that this dream state is different
from lucid dreaming as normally understood and has not
been studied by (modern) science before. But I may be
wrong. 

Regards,
Philip N.