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How dreams can help -Cultivating our innate ability to wake up within the dream can -
Awakening within a dream -The six yogas of Tibet -Spiritual benefit of Tibetan dream yoga -
Dreaming -The practice of Tibetan dream yoga -Daytime practice -Mirror practice -Partner 
exercise -Wake-up practice -Night time practice -Deepening your practice - The life long 
practice of Tibetan dream yoga 

His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama said: "Tibetan Buddhism considers 

sleep to be a form of nourishment, like food, that restores and refreshes the 

body. Another type of nourishment is samadhi, or meditative concentration. If 

one becomes advanced enough in the practice of meditative concentration, 

then this itself sustains or nourishes the body." 


Dreams are a significant part of our life. They are as real and unreal as life 
itself. Dreams are extremely personal - and transpersonal, too. Our dreams are 
a reflection of ourselves: in dreams, no matter how many characters appear, 
we meet ourselves. Dreams are mirrors to our soul. They can help us to better 
understand ourselves, our world, and the nature of reality. Dreams introduce 
us to other dimensions of experience. Here, time and space are much more 
liquid and plastic; they can be shaped and reshaped almost at will. Dreams hint 
of other worlds, other lives. They are a glimpse of our afterlife. Everyone 
dreams, although not all dreams are remembered equally. Fifty-six percent of 
Americans have had a lucid dream - that is, a dream in which one is aware that 
one is dreaming. Twenty-one percent say they have a lucid dream once a 


month or more. Meditators report vividly clear, self-aware dreams weekly and 

even more often. 

How Dreams Can Help Us 

Great healers have long recognized the power of dreams to inform and support 
us. Hippocrates said, Dreams are one of the most important ways to diagnose 
a patients illness." Sigmund Freud's turn-of-the-century work. The 
Interpretation of Dreams, marked the beginning of the era of modern 
psychology and psychoanalysis. Certain dreams can convey subconscious, 
valuable information to the dreamer. A week before the event, Abraham 
Lincoln dreamed that he would be assassinated. The emperor Constantine 
dreamed of radiant Greek letters spelling the name of Christ and was 
converted, leading to the dramatic conversion of the entire Byzantine Empire. 
I, myself, have received messages, teachings, and blessings through my 
dreams from the spiritual masters I have known and loved in this lifetime. 

Some contemporary psychologists consider lucid dreaming a valuable practice 
for personal growth. This model is, however, different from Tibetan dream 
yoga. The spiritual practice goes deeper, helping us work with the great 
passages of life and death. Tibetan dream yoga teaches us how to navigate the 
groundlessness of moment-to-moment existence, which typically makes no 
intellectual sense. It is at this level that we cut through the illusory nature of 
mind and truly experience our marvelous human existence. 

Cultivating our innate ability to wake up within the dream can: 

• Increase clarity and lucidity, both waking and sleeping 
• Help us realize the transparent, dream-like nature of experience 
• Free the mind 
• Release energy blockages and accumulated tension and stress 
• Loosen habits and make us more open, attuned, and flexible 
• Unleash and mobilize creativity 
• Bring repressions and denials into consciousness 
• Clarify and dispel confusion 
• Solve problems 
• Reveal the process of death and rebirth 
• Heal and relax us 
• Expose fantasies 
• Unlock aspirations and potentials 
• Facilitate direct encounters with our shadow nature 
• Provide spiritual blessings, visions, and guidance 
• Help open our innate psychic capacities 
• Remove hindrances and obstacles 
• Help prepare (rehearse) us for death and the afterlife 

Awakening within the dream 

The seminal Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu dreamed he was a butterfly. 
Upon awakening, he wondered whether he was a man who had dreamed he 
was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was a man. Chuang Tzu's musings 
underscore a fundamental truth: life is like a dream. 

Spiritual life is about awakening from the dream of unreality. The word Buddha 
itself is from the word bodhi, "awakeful." Buddhist wisdom and practice help us 
to awaken to who and what we truly are, and to recognize the difference 
between the real and the unreal in our daily life. All of our spiritual practices 
are designed to awaken us from the daydream of illusion and confusion, where 

we are like sleepwalkers, semiconsciously muddling our way through life. 

Self-knowledge through spiritual awakening helps us become masters of 
circumstances and conditions, rather than victims. This is why the Armenian 
spiritual master George Gurdjieff said: "Contemporary man is born asleep, lives 
asleep, and dies asleep. And what knowledge could a sleeping man have? If 
you think about it and at the same time remember that sleep is the chief 
feature of our being, you will soon understand that if man wishes to obtain 
knowledge, he should first of all think about how to awaken himself, that is 
about how to change his being." 

South American shamans call this awakening from the dream of life 
"shapeshifting": entering into a spiritual journey with the explicit 
purpose of transformation. Shapeshifting and other forms of conscious 
dream-work can, through regular practice, help us experience other 
realms of existence, visit our dear departed, and achieve spiritual 
mastery. 

Australian aborigines say we all live in the dreamtime: we are like dream 
characters, living out our lives beyond the illusion of being born and dying. 
Tibetan masters call this dreamtime the bardo, or intermediate stage. Bardos 
exist between the ending of one state and the beginning of another, such as 
birth and death - or death and rebirth. Dreaming, too, is a bardo, marking the 

seemingly unstructured zone between waking and sleeping. 

Tibetan Buddhism is unique among Buddhist schools in teaching us how to 
awaken within the dream and how to practice spiritually while sleeping. This is 
the essence of Tibetan dream yoga, and the focus of all the practices 
associated with it. The Yoga of the Dream State, an ancient Tibetan manual on 
the practice of dream yoga and lucid dreaming teaches that we can learn five 


spiritually significant wisdom lessons through assiduously practicing this path of 

awakening: 

• Dreams can be altered through will and attention 
• Dreams are unstable, impermanent, and unreal — much like fantasies, 
magical illusions, mirages, and hallucinations 
• Daily perceptions in the everyday waking state are also unreal 
• All life is here today and gone tomorrow, like a dream; there is nothing to 
hold on to 
• Conscious dreamwork can lead us to the realization of wholeness, perfect 
balance, and unity. 
For centuries, Tibetan masters have taught their students how to use 
dreamtime and dream space to further spiritual progress by increasing 
awareness during the dream state. Tibetan Dream Yoga brings you these same 
techniques for realizing the five wisdom lessons and reaping the benefits of 
awakening within the dream. 

The Six Yogas of Tibet

 Tibetan dream yoga is one of the renowned Six Yogas of Tibet, an ancient 
Buddhist teaching that originates with the enlightened yogic adepts (siddhas) of 
ancient India. These yogas (or practices), utilized for a millennium by all four 

schools of Tibetan Buddhism, help us to utilize the body/mind/spirit as a 

vehicle for awakening and enlightenment — by day, by night, and in the 

afterlife (bardo). 

The Six Yogas are: 

• Inner heat (mystic incandescence) yoga 
• Illusory body yoga 
• Dream yoga 
• Clear light yoga 
• Bardo yoga 
• Conscious transformation yoga 
The Six Yogas tradition was first brought to Tibet thirteen hundred years ago 
by the Indian tantric master Padmasambhava, founder of the Ancient School 
(Nyingmapa) of Tibetan Buddhism. Padmasambhava himself received the 
teachings he codified as The Yoga of the Dream State from a mysterious yogi 
named Lawapa. In ensuing centuries, as Buddhism grew and flourished in 
Tibet, Marpa the Translator and other Tibetan sages made the grueling journey 
on foot to India to study from yogic masters, then brought the teaching back 

with them. 

Through practicing the Six Yogas, we come to realize the infinite 

emptiness/openness, ungraspable quality, and luminosity that is the true 


nature of reality. Dream interpretation, the use of dreams for predictions and 
healing, and the development of psychic powers and healing abilities can arise 
naturally from the continuous practice of dream yoga and the related yogas 
(especially clear light, inner heat, and illusory body). 

The Spiritual Benefits of Tibetan Dream Yoga 

His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama has this to say about awakening 
our dream body and using it for spiritual progress and development: 
"There is said to be a relationship between dreaming, on the one hand, 
and the gross and subdue levels of the body on the other. But it is also 
said that there is a 'special dream state.' In that state, the special dream 
body is created from the mind and from vital energy (prana) within the 
body. This special dream body is able to dissociate entirely form the 

gross physical body and travel elsewhere." 

One way of developing this special dream body is first of all to recognize 
a dream as a dream when it occurs. Then you find that the dream is 
malleable, and you make efforts to gain control over it. Gradually you 
become very skilled in this, increasing your ability to control the 
contents of the dream so that it accords to your own desires. Eventually 
it is possible to dissociate your dream body from your gross physical 
body. In contrast, in the normal dream state, dreaming occurs within the 
body. But as a result of specific training, the dream body can go 
elsewhere. This first technique is accomplished entirely by the power of 

desire or aspiration. 

There is another technique that arrives at the same end by means of 
prana yoga. These are meditative practices that utilize the subtle, vital 
energies in the body. For these techniques it is also necessary to 
recognize the sleep state as it occurs.


According to sleep researchers, we typically experience four stages of sleep. 

• Hypnagogic sleep - the state of drowsiness we experience as we 
begin falling asleep 
• Ordinary sleep- here, we enter a true sleeping state, but can still be 
easily awakened 
. Deeper sleep - vital functions slow down, and we are more likely to 


sleep through disturbances 

• Deep sleep - muscles are totally relaxed, and it would be difficult to 
wake us up (we only spend about fifteen percent of our sleeping hours at 
this stage) 
It takes about an hour to cycle through all four stages; then we go back 
in reverse order to stage 1. Before beginning the cycle again, however, 
we experience rapid eye movements (REM) under our closed lids. 
Research shows that this is when we dream. We spend twenty to 
twenty-five percent of our sleep time in this state. In order to practice 
dream yoga, we must introduce awareness during the periods of REM 
sleep (which last from a few minutes to half an hour). If we can identify 
that stage while asleep -perhaps with the help of an assistant or a 
dream-light device - we can further incubate, develop, and enhance the 
awareness practice of becoming conscious and lucid within the dream 
state. 

Dreaming 

Tibetan dream yoga texts teach us that, in general, there are three 
types of dreams: Ordinary, karmic dreams, arising mostly from the day's 
activities, and from previous life activities, thoughts, experiences, and 
contacts. 

• "Clear light" dreams: spiritual visions, blessings, and energy openings 
• Lucid dreams, which are characterized by awareness that one is dreaming 
Under these three broad divisions, dreams can be divided into a further six 
categories: 

• Dreams of events that occurred while we were still awake 
• Dreams about other people, alive or dead 
• Forgotten elements emerging from the subconscious 
• Archetypal content, evocative symbols, and so on 
• Extrasensory perceptions, profound dreams, and omens 
• Radiant, luminous, spiritual dreams 
Recurrent dreams, nightmares, dreams of death, and other kinds of commonly 
reported dreams all fall within the first four dream categories. In the interests 
of developing deeper awareness of your dreams, you may find it helpful to 
identify the category that applies whenever you recall a particular dream. 

The Practices of Tibetan Dream Yoga 

It is important to create a spiritual context for the practice of Tibetan dream 
yoga. Lucid dreaming can easily be misused to perpetuate the problems we 


experience in our waking lives. For example, one might direct one's dream 
toward a gratifying encounter or a vengeful fantasy. You will find that the 
techniques on Tibetan Dream Yoga somehow don't work as well when used for 

such purposes. 

Tibetan dream yoga practice comprises three parts: 

• Daytime practice, designed to help us recognize the dreamlike nature of all 
existence and thereby prepare us to experience our dreams as vividly as we do 
our waking activities 

• Morning wake-up practices that help us recall our dreams, and confirm our 
determination to recall more of them 
. Night time practice, which prepares the ground for lucid dreaming and 

spiritual 

Daytime Practice : 

During the day, practice these four points: 

• Contemplating the body as illusory and unreal 
• Contemplating the mind and mental activities as similarly insubstantial 
• Regarding the world and all phenomena and experience as dreamlike, 
insubstantial, impermanent, and unreal 
• Recognizing the relativity and ungraspable quality such as time, space, 
knowledge, and awareness 
Reminding ourselves of these four truths throughout our waking hours helps to 
dissolve the barrier between the dream of life and the sleeping dream. As we 
become more adept at these practices, we begin to regard our nighttime 
dreams as continuations of our waking dream and we learn how to bring 
habitual awareness to both. 

Mirror Practice 

The following mirror practice is an effective way of perceiving the dreamlike 
nature of “reality”, and especially of “self”. From time to time during the day, 
take a few minutes to do it. 

1 Stand in front of a mirror and look into your own eyes. 

2. Hold up a hand mirror behind your right or left ear and look at its reflection 
in the larger mirror. Keep angling the hand mirror so as to fragment and 
multiply your image as much as possible. Let your mind fragment along with 
the image. 

3. After a few minutes, angle the hand mirror back until you return to the 
original, single image in the mirror in front of you. 
The analogy of a mirror image is, like dreams, traditionally used to describe the 
insubstantial nature of our everyday experience. The mirror practice helps 
bring that teaching to life. The fragmented image is the kind we might see in a 
dream; yet we are seeing it while we're fully awake — or are we? 


Allowing your mind to "fall apart" also helps ventilate the solidity we typically 
attribute to our world, and especially to our "self." 


Partner Exercise 

Here is a traditional dream yoga practice you can do with a partner. This is an 
immensely useful technique, not only for challenging the distinction between 
sleeping dreams and the dream of being awake, but also for applying your 
training to practical, everyday situations. 

1 - Insult, blame, and criticize your partner. Your partner should listen to 
all of this as echoes; empty sounds. 

2 – Trade places. Now have your partner disparage you, while you 
practice just hearing the sounds and not taking the words to heart 

3 – Try doing this same exercise using praise and flattery instead of 
blame. In either case, the listening partner should practice not reacting 
in any way, recognizing what is being said as a dream. At first, you may 
find it difficult to maintain equanimity while you do this practice. Stay 
with it – you will find that doing so yields rich rewards over time. 


Wake-up Practice 

The moments immediately after waking are the most fertile for recalling 
dreams. The following practices are designed to support and strengthen your 
recall. They will also facilitate a mindful transition between the sleeping and 
waking dream states. Upon waking in the morning, practice: 


• The lion's out-breath - breathing out with the sound "ah" 
• The lion-like posture for awakening and purifying - sitting up in bed with 
raised head and gazing and emphasizing the exhalation, repeating the "ah" out 
breath three times 

• Raising the energy - standing up, reaching the fingertips to the sky, and 
repeating the lion's out-breath 
• Entering into mindful reflection on the transition between the states of 
sleeping, dreaming, and waking reality - coming into the present moment, 
recording dreams. Thus, you will enter the day recognizing that all things are 
like a dream, illusion, fantasy, mirage, and so forth. 


Nighttime Practice 

After going to bed, practice these four points in order to create the conditions 
for mindful, lucid dreaming. 

• Chant the following prayer three times to remind you of and strengthen your 
resolve to awaken within the dream, for the benefit of the ultimate awakening 
of all beings: “May I awaken within this dream and grasp the fact that I am 
dreaming, so that all dreamlike beings may likewise awaken from the 
nightmare of illusory suffering and confusion”. 
• Lie on one side with your legs together and knees slightly bent. Let your 
bent arm take the weight of your torso by resting your head on your open 
hand. This is the posture of the sleeping Buddha, as he has been traditionally 
depicted at the moment of passing into nirvana (death). 

• Bringing your attention to your throat chakra, visualize your energy rising up 
out of your body. Feel it rise up from your heart chakra with your breath and 
pass into your "third eye" or brow chakra: the point between your eyebrows. 
Visualize it as a full, luminous moon behind your eyes. Go into the light. 


• Visualize the letter "A" (symbolizing infinite space) on the surface of the 
moon. 
• Notice whatever images begin to appear on the sphere of light behind your 
eyes. 
Deepening Your Practice 

To progress still further in Tibetan dream yoga, 

• Pay careful attention to your dreams 
• Record your dreams in a dream journal upon waking each morning 
• Recognize recurrent images, themes, associations, and patterns 
• Contemplate the archetypal, symbolic content and meanings of your dreams 
• Reflect on the similarities and differences between night dreams, daydreams, 
fantasies, visions, ideas, projections, and so on 
• Wake yourself up during the night to reaffirm your resolve to awaken within 
the dream and grasp the fact that you are dreaming 
• Sit up in meditation posture while sleeping to maintain continuous awareness 
while inducing and incubating lucid dreaming 
• Have a dream assistant at hand to guide you while asleep, helping you learn 
to retain conscious presence during dreams 
• Meditate alone in darkness to develop the inner clarity of the Clear Light Mind 
- the mind unaffected by illusion 
• During the day, maintain awareness that everything you experience is like a 
dream 
• Chant the dream yoga prayer by day and by night to help reinforce your 
intention to awaken within the dream. (if you want, or change the wordings) 



THE LIFELONG PRACTICE OF TIBETAN DREAM YOGA 

Like any spiritual practice, Tibetan dream yoga will reveal more substantial 
benefits the longer and more consistently you practice it. In the Buddhist 
tradition, however, discipline alone is not enough to bring your practice fully 
alive. Motivation — the reason you practice in the first place - is considered as 
crucial as technique and commitment. 

You will have noticed that the Tibetan dream yoga chant includes an aspiration 
to help free all beings of their suffering. This intention lies at the root of all 
Buddhist practice. The underlying teaching is that all living beings are 
interconnected: none of us can be completely free so long as any of us is still 
asleep. 

As you practice Tibetan dream yoga, recognize that the suffering you seek to 
alleviate through spiritual practice is, in fact, universal. Recognize, too, that the 
more awake you are, the more helpful you can be to those you care about in 
fact, to, to everyone you come into contact with. Practice with the intention of 
working with your own individual part of the whole, in order to bring all of 
human awareness to a new level. In this way, you will derive the greatest 
possible benefits from your dream yoga practice. 

Some sayings about dreams: 

“Dreams are a reservoir of knowledge and experience, yet they are often 
overlooked as a vehicle for exploring reality”- Tarthang Tulku Yoga Practice 

“All that we see is but a dream within a dream”- Edgar Allen Poe 

"A dream not interpreted is like a letter not read"- The Talmud 

“Dreams are real as long as they last. Can we say more of life?” – Henry Havelock Ellis 

“You beings on earth who are deep in slumber… Stop sleeping! Wake up! What 
are you waiting for?”-The Zohar 

“There are some who are awake even while asleep, and then there are those 
who, apparently awake, are deeply asleep” – Lalla 

“Do not sleep like an animal that mixes sleep and reality” - Tibetan 
instruction for dream yoga practice 

“Let sleep itself be an exercise in piety, for such as our life and conduct have 
been so also of necessity will be our dreams” – Saint Basil 


.A 
Note: The extracts contained here are for personal use only, and may 
not be reproduced for commercial distribution.) 
(These are excerpts from three different Dzogchen Dream Yoga books 
Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural light by Namkhai Norbu - The Tibetan 
Yogas of Dream and Sleep by Tenzin Wangyal Rimpoche - Sleeping, Dreaming, 
and Dying by the Dalai Lama ) 


Guideline 
to 
Dream 
Interpretation 


How do you relate to dreams? A framework for dreams 


Painting by Bob Venosa

 All dreams work to accomplish one of two things 

1 To solve the problems of your conscious, waking life. 

2 To present you with access to new potentials and creativity. Because 
dreams come from all levels of your being, understanding the imagery 
and type of dream is the key to understanding and actualizing the 
messages you receive during sleep. 

3 Symbols express those things for which we have no words. By working 
with them, we use both hemispheres of the brain and tap the 
subconscious mind more fully, which in turn opens the doors to our 
intuitive self 

A dream symbol could literally represent itself as well as its possible 
interpretations. The images and symbols may also represent aspects of 
your personality. When you begin to reflect on the symbols, always start 


by registering your first impressions but don’t stop with the obvious. 
Dreams are symbolic representations, not reproductions. The dream 
images always represent more than themselves, and so the more you 
work with them, the more you will understand them. 

Dreams do not come to tell you what you already know. Look at the 
dream images and symbols as pieces of a puzzle that you can put 
together only by finding out what they mean to you. 

How do you relate to the dream? 

1 Start by looking at how the dream could be reflecting something going 
on in your daily life. 

2 Then move on to the more subtle, free association with the dream 
images. 

3 What’s the first thing you would normally think about in connection to 
that symbol or image, activity or person appearing in your dream 
scenario? 

4 doing more than representing themselves. They may also represent 
qualities or characteristics that you have "projected" on them. For 
example, you may dream of your grandfather, a man who was very kind 
to you. The quality of kindness is therefore associated with your 
grandfather, so dreaming of him could symbolize kindness. (You will 
know the difference between a symbolic representation of a quality or 
characteristic and a real "psychic" contact with a loved one.) 

5 Examine the emotions within the dream scenario. What is the 
predominant emotion associated with the dream? Remember that it may 
be the emotion aroused that is the key and the scenario is simply a 
vehicle to deliver the message. 

6 When you wake up, does a particular feeling remain? For example, are 
you frightened, frustrated, happy, excited? 

Dreams often exaggerate emotions, qualities and situations to get a 
particular message across to you. This does not mean that you have that 
quality or will experience that situation to the intensity you experienced 
within the dream. When this occurs, you are often being given a strong 
thump on the head to pay attention! This is what nightmares do. They 
are dynamic calls for your attention. They show you your greatest fears, 
fears that must be confronted. 

Dreams often come in a series. Various dreams in a single or successive 
nights may be different ways of saying the same thing. The subconscious 
mind may be communicating the same message to you in different ways 


to make sure that you get it. Look for relationships and symbols that 
reoccur and notice the similarities. Ask yourself what they have in 
common. 

Proper dream interpretation leads towards greater understanding of 
yourself, but do not lose touch with your common sense in dream work. 
On the surface, dreams may seem to predict futures events or alarming 
situations, but do not jump to conclusions. With practice, you will be able 
to discern if a dream is precognitive (reflecting future events) or not. 

Dreams use symbols to make you develop and understand your personal 
symbolic language. This language comes directly from your soul and 
uses symbols and images from impersonal archetypes and from personal 
experience to make a strong or subtle impact on your psyche. This 
symbolic language is unique, given just to you, in the hope that it will 
make you conscious of your real needs and problems. This language of 
the soul also helps you to unfold your creativity and activates the 
spiritual dimension within your psyche. 


Painting by John Vega 

A framework for dream work might be: 
1 Choose a dream. 
2 Determine the dream type, issue, crisis, a block, a resolution already 


included in the dream. 
3 Make a list of the symbols in the dream. 
4 Find out the relationships between symbols. 
5 Find out the relationships between the dream ego and the symbols. 



6 Find out the similarities and contrasts in the dream. 

7 List what the dream ego is and is not doing in the dream 

8 Find out about the ego’s relationships with other items in the dream. 

9 Make a summary, and list what you have discovered. 

This is a basic method of working with dreams that helps you develop 
self-analysis, observation, and a "conscious" and "lucid" state of 
consciousness. You can follow it up with different methods. 

Dream work helps those who want to know themselves, since like a 
mirror, it not only projects who we are but also displays what we need to 
do. In other words, dreams are the best guides to reveal what you have 
on your conscience, what needs to be worked out in your life, and how to 
become a better and happier person. 

Finally, keep a dream journal that represents the "mirror of your soul" 
and helps you understand yourself better. Write your dream down as 
soon as possible, even just a few words, to remind you of your dream, 
for the more importance you give to your dream work, the more inner 
messages and intelligent guidance you will receive 

It is during my Psychosynthesis training, in London in 1984, that I was 
given this Guideline to Dream Interpretation. 

(Author Unknown) taken from a Psychosynthesis paper 

DREAM YOGA 



TEACHING IN DREAMS 

There are numerous examples in the Tibetan tradition of practitioners who received 
teachings in dreams. Often the dreams come in sequence, each night's dream starting 
where the previous night's dream ends, and in this way transmitting entire, detailed 
teachings until a precise and appropriate point of completion is reached, at which point the 
dreams stop. Volumes of teachings have been "discovered" this way, including many of 
the practices that Tibetans have been doing for centuries. This is what we call "mind 
treasure" (gong-ter).stabilize in consciousness without identifying with the conventional 
self. The practitioner whose clarity is unobscured by karmic traces and samsaric dreams 
has access to the wisdom inherent in consciousness itself. 

Authentic teachings discovered in dream do not come from the intellect. It is not like going 
to the library and doing research and then writing a book, using the intellect to collect and 
synthesize information as a scholar might. Although many good teachings come from the 
intellect, they are not considered mind treasures. The wisdom of the Buddhas is selforiginated, 
rising from the depths of consciousness, complete in itself. This does not mean 
that mind treasure teachings will not resemble existing teachings, for they will. 
Furthermore, these teachings can be found in different cultures and in different historical 
periods, and can be similar even though they do not inform each other. Historians work to 
trace a teaching back in time in order to point out how it was influenced by a similar 
teaching, where the historical connection took place, and so on, and often they find such a 
link. But the underlying truth is that these teachings arise spontaneously from humans 
when they reach a certain point in their individual development. The teachings are 
inherent in the foundational wisdom that any culture can eventually access. They are not 
only Buddhist or Bon teachings; they are teachings for all humans. 

If we have the karma to help other beings, the teachings from a dream may be of benefit 
to others. But it may also be the case, if we have karma with a lineage, for example, that 


the teachings discovered in a dream will be particularly for our own practice, perhaps as a 

specific remedy to overcome a particular obstacle. 

Imagine entering a cave and finding a volume of teachings hidden inside. This is finding in 
a physical space. Mind treasures are found in consciousness rather than in the physical 
world. Masters have been known to find these treasures both in dreams of clarity and 
when awake. In order to receive these kinds of teaching in a dream, the practitioner must 
have developed certain capacities, such as being able to stabilize in consciousness 
without identifying with the conventional self. The practitioner whose clarity is unobscured 
by karmic traces and samsaric dreams has access to the wisdom inherent in consciousness 
itself. 

Authentic teachings discovered in dream do not come from the intellect. It is not like going 
to the library and doing research and then writing a book, using the intellect to collect and 
synthesize information as a scholar might. Although many good teachings come from the 
intellect, they are not considered mind treasures. The wisdom of the Buddhas is selforiginated, 
rising from the depths of consciousness, complete in itself. This does not mean 
that mind treasure teachings will not resemble existing teachings, for they will. 
Furthermore, these teachings can be found in different cultures and in different historical 
periods, and can be similar even though they do not inform each other. Historians work to 
trace a teaching back in time in order to point out how it was influenced by a similar 
teaching, where the historical connection took place, and so on, and often they find such a 
link. But the underlying truth is that these teachings arise spontaneously from humans 
when they reach a certain point in their individual development. The teachings are 
inherent in the foundational wisdom that any culture can eventually access. They are not 
only Buddhist or Bon teachings; they are teachings for all humans. 

If we have the karma to help other beings, the teachings from a dream may be of benefit 
to others. But it may also be the case, if we have karma with a lineage, for example, that 
the teachings discovered in a dream will be particularly for our own practice, perhaps as a 
specific remedy to overcome a particular obstacle. 

(From The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep by Tenzin Wangyal Rimpoche) 



IMPORTANCE OF DREAMS IN THE MYSTICAL PROCESS 

Part : I 

Dreams are tools -Dreams and the psyche -The Inner Process of dreams -
Dreams as Teachings 


There is basically no difference between the waking state and that of dream, except 
that one seems more stable than the other. Only after there is awakening in the 
form of enlightenment is it realized that the waking world itself is indeed nothing 
but a long dream resulting from mental disposition - a movement in Consciousness 
in which what seems a solid body and its sufferings are really an illusion. 
Ramesh Balsekar 



Painting by Marica S. Lauck & Deborah Koff-Chapin 

This chapter is dedicated to readers who have proven to themselves that dreams 
are more than just dreams, that they are indeed "tools" teaching us to look at 
ourselves in an impartial and impersonal way. 

Dreams are tools 

Dreams are tools of transformation. Moreover, at a certain level of inner work, 
dreams stop being dreams and instead become spiritual levels of consciousness. 
But, in the meantime, dreams open invisible doors to subtler levels of spiritual 
growth, awakening in seekers of truth and wisdom, our permanent witness or soul 
within our conscious selves. 


Let us first introduce the symbol of the trident, the logo of the sea-god 
Poseidon/Neptune. What connection does that have with the process of dreaming? 
Poseidon, the god of seas and oceans, holds the trident as a mark of his command 



of the waters. In the context of dream work, he represents the king of the 
subconscious levels of the psyche. In fact, with his trident, Poseidon also 
commands the monsters of the deep, which reminds us of the deep waters of the 
subconscious and its own monsters and shadowy figures. The subconscious can 
therefore be compared to the abysmal depths of the ocean; the bottomless deep 
waters symbolize the subconscious and unconscious parts of our psyche where 
emotions and instincts mingle and mix without purpose or direction. 

The three menacing elongated prongs of the trident look like weapons and are used 
for penetrating, scratching and wounding, so in the symbolic context of dream 
work, the trident is a penetrating device, effectively "wounding" and scraping what 
is useless and needs to be separated and removed from the virginal aspect of the 
psyche. But this wounding opens three deep holes that allows the penetration by 
the spiritual light of the soul that nourishes and illuminates the unconscious part in 
us. Through this purification, our unconscious becomes conscious of itself. Thus the 
trident symbolically opens these three "gates" to higher levels of enlightenment. 
Let us examine these three "wounds" and three "gates." 

The three wounds have the power of transmuting our self-consciousness from its 
dualistic awareness to its source, Cosmic Consciousness. In piercing and 
perforating our "self-conscious" aspect, the prongs transmute the egotistic and 
lower psychic character traits into their spiritual perfect ideals. Thus the trident is 
an awakening device a powerful symbol for our purification and spiritual 
advancement through dream work. 

From a religious aspect, the trident and the net represent two symbols of Christ as 
"Fisher of Man." Furthermore, the trident’s prongs are of an equal length, 
symbolizing the Trinity. Hence, the trident is an effective instrument of purification 
and purgation for awakening the inferior parts of the psyche and sensitizing them 
to higher spiritual impulses coming from the psyche that are influenced by the 
permanent witness. 

Moreover, the trident, as a symbol of Trinity, impregnates and penetrates with its 
triune spiritual energies the lower and higher aspects of our self-consciousness. In 
Christian tradition, the trident is placed in Satan’s hands as an instrument of 
punishment. However, esoteric tradition and spiritual psychology tell us that we 
need to go deep within ourselves to discover the blocked energies, and then, "fish" 
them out, as it were, so as to bring them into the light of consciousness. Turning 
our attention within subtly develops the intuitive faculty of our sixth sense to help 
us understand who we are and what we need to do to reintegrate our perfect 
model. 


Tiratna 

In Buddhism, the trident is taken as a symbol of the Tiratna, or triple jewel 
(Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, meaning the Awakened One, the Truth expounded by 
Him, and the followers living in accordance with this Truth). It may also be 
regarded as the triple current of energy in man. And in our own spiritual context, 
the trident represents the instrument moving these same energies within our 
psyche. 

Top 

Dreams and the Psyche 

Dreams help us look deeper within our own psyche, to discover the Mystery of Man. 
But unless we devote ourselves and allocate time to work with the energies and 
meaning of dreams, they will always remain unsolicited and strange phenomena. 
That is why our psyche needs to dream, since dreams are a source of knowledge 
helping us in the process of releasing unwanted garbage. Dreams are given to us to 
rescue us from lethargy and unconsciousness. 

Previous chapters have compared the psyche to a mirror reflecting whatever 
preoccupies it. What is reflected in dreams are the thoughts and emotions of our 
good and bad intentions and experiences. It is in the mirror of our psyche that real 
purification and understanding take place, since we must become conscious of what 
appears on the surface of our psyche. The conscious impressions coming from a 
dream have an important role to play in the awakening process as a whole, and 
each dream, each symbol enriches this process, since spiritual dream work takes 
into account the subtle purification process of the whole man. Dreams about 
purification are given to those of us who want to awaken our permanent and 
spiritual witnesses. To do that, we must unite them in our "ordinary" level of selfconsciousness. 
Therefore, we must become aware of our unconscious traits that 
need transformation. Without this, our ego cannot continue on this journey. 

This kind of spiritual work in itself exposes the psyche to the influences and 
intuitions pouring in from the permanent witness (see About the Mystery of Man, 
parts 1 – 4). This is the first important means of access, the "key" opening the door 
of Poseidon’s mysterious palace in which are gathered all the past and present 
experiences, all the fears and stresses imprisoned since time immemorial. Those 
unconscious doubts and worries linger hopelessly in the depth of darkness awaiting 
the right moment for the thunderbolt of consciousness to penetrate them and bring 


them to the light of understanding. As a consequence of these delicate operations, 
the retrieved or "fished out" blocked energies float on the surface of dreams 
captured by our self-conscious ego. To help us understand their meaning, they take, 
in dreams, the shape of potent personal and universal symbols and archetypes. The 
ego must process these with subtlety, intuition and sensitivity, so that their 
meaning becomes clear and illuminating. 
go. To help us understand their meaning, they take, 
in dreams, the shape of potent personal and universal symbols and archetypes. The 
ego must process these with subtlety, intuition and sensitivity, so that their 
meaning becomes clear and illuminating. 

At first, these types of dreams are usually experienced as nightmares since our 
consciousness has to reorganize and focus its attention on the inner dynamics of 
dream work. With phantasmagoric, incomprehensible, and senseless dreams, we 
must try to focus our attention and use our intuition to grasp the irrational within 
ourselves. So, we should not ignore dream sequences that might have nothing in 
common with each other or appear nonsensical. It really doesn’t matter if the 
beginning of a dream doesn’t match what follows it. Analogous to a jigsaw puzzle, 
we should use our intuition to retrieve the "seed idea" and meaning of each part of 
our dreams. The expansion of the "seed ideas" and "meaning" is important, and it 
doesn’t matter if our intuition reveals different symbols or meanings to the dream. 
What counts is the effort exerted by our psyche to unravel a new dimension. Our 
ego must turn its attention to within itself, in the silent space within Being, where 
the impelling magnetic presence of the intelligence of the heart reigns. 

Thus, if dreams first appear confusing, it is because these types of dreams release 
the pressure and stressed energies blocked in our psyche. To release stress in 
dreams, the symbols are magnified so as to make an impact and emphasize certain 
aspects of a problem. Another reason for disturbing dreams is to help us become 
conscious of the nature of our stress or anxiety. We should use our intuition to look 
at the incongruous symbols in our dreams, trying to "respect" their meaning. 
Intuition assists us in "reading" what goes on in our psyche, since like a mirror, it 
reflects what goes on within us. This is how, from our permanent witness, we 
receive some practical solutions and interpretations. However, the exchange of 
intuitive ideas and feelings between our psyche and ego occurs only if our ego is 
open to change. If we are willing to work with the symbols, then a special flow of 
energy streams from our permanent witness, allowing us to understand what we 
must do to remove the problem, and transform what needs to change. 

Top 

The Inner Process of Dreams 

Spiritual psychology looks at the esoteric and intuitive aspect of dream work, and is 
based on inner guidance. However, psychology is based on the interpretation and 
analysis of psychologists or facilitators. These two approaches may sound and even 
look the same, but they are not. The first is solely based on inner revelation and the 
second on feedback and outside guidance. The first is used by mystics, those guided 
by their soul, who seek a closer relationship with their permanent witness. The 
second is used by those who are only interested in finding solutions to problems, 
new directions and meaning in times of crisis. 


Both are useful and important dream work tools to purify and transform the psyche. 
If we want to know who we are, then we should start with the psychological 
approach, either alone, in a group, or with a therapist. We should also seek the 
guidance of the inner master, or presence within. Whichever way we choose, our 
first step should always be with the psychological approach before starting any 
other kind of spiritual work, since, this approach takes us to the depth of our 
psyche and is part of an alchemical process. This is our descent into the world of 
Poseidon where our unconscious self waits. The quest to awaken our spiritual 
awareness can begin only after a certain amount of purification and transformation 
of the psyche. Our consciousness, having taken the downward journey, is 
eventually drawn towards an ascending path. Then, what we receive becomes more 
subtle and enlightening since it comes without distortion directly from the soul. 
gin only after a certain amount of purification and transformation 
of the psyche. Our consciousness, having taken the downward journey, is 
eventually drawn towards an ascending path. Then, what we receive becomes more 
subtle and enlightening since it comes without distortion directly from the soul. 

If we are serious in our work with the spiritual level of dreams, we must also 
realize that dreams are like seeds containing potential whole trees. Dreams, 
therefore, contain the seed ideas coming from the permanent witness. Their 
purpose is to transform our ordinary levels of consciousness to higher spiritual 
ones, since some dreams are in themselves examples of spiritual planes co-existing 
in our psyche that are the seeds waiting in our subconscious to be recognized and 
awakened by our ego. In other words, they are our spiritual levels of consciousness 
that permeate into our everyday consciousness. This is the grounding aspect of the 
whole process of dreams since, if we need to fathom the Mystery of Being and 
experience our own harmony and unity with it, then the nature of our dreams 
changes. Moreover, the essence and meaning of our dreams take a more abstract 
and irrational quality that cannot be shared with anyone, since they come directly 
from our permanent witness as a language of our soul, a language that can only be 
understood only intuitively. . 

The spiritual dimension of dreams could be described, at best, as delicate and 
subtle experiences given directly by our permanent witness to our consciousness in 
order to foster a healing and purifying, leading to a new level of consciousness in 
us, which we must allow to unfold in our ordinary lives. 

What really matters here is our wish for inner transformation, since strong desire to 
unfold a higher level of consciousness is an illuminating catalyst that energizes our 
psyche. This is an important element in dream work. The power of concentration 
and a strong desire to work with dreams as tools for our own transformation opens 
naturally and directly the inner path to the permanent witness. 

Top 

Dreams can become mystical Teachings 

Dream work is comparable to learning a new language. First we must learn the 
alphabet. Dreams are a new symbolic world opening up in our self-consciousness. 
Why do we say "self-consciousness"? Because, unless our self-consciousness 
awakens whilst dreaming, our dreams will have no impact and we will not 
remember anything of great importance. Thus we must gradually stimulate and 


awaken our self-consciousness during dreams so that they can be something more 

than mere stress release. 

Later, when our ego or self-consciousness "awakens" to its true nature—the 
impersonal Cosmic Consciousness—then dreams and the inner process take a new 
direction, and we see, understand and experience them in a totally different way 
since, from then on, our ego or self-consciousness realizes that it is just a vehicle 
for Cosmic Consciousness. We then perceive all kinds of dreams and astral 
projections differently, since the veil separating them from Cosmic Consciousness is 
no more. Our ego knows that it is just a reflection of the blazing light of the 
presence of God or Pure Being. When the veil is torn, and ego and soul meet and 
merge, the true identity of the Creator and initiator of our inner process becomes 
even clearer. The impersonal Cosmic Consciousness within us is the sole creator of 
dreams, and its limited self-conscious counterpart, our ego, it is seen at the other 
end of the process as the receiver of dreams. 

The mission of Cosmic Consciousness within man is to enlighten man’s ego. In 
other words, Cosmic Consciousness actively guides the process of awakening the 
ego to its true nature, hence it directs the inner world of dreams and astral 
projections during sleep. Cosmic Consciousness takes over and creates whatever is 
necessary for our self-consciousness to understand and experience our ego. That is 
why prophets, saints and disciples of all religions and philosophies have been 
enlightened and have received knowledge and wisdom through their dreams, 
visions and astral travels. The ways that our soul carries out its initiatory course of 
action to awaken our ego and open up the "rainbow bridge to infinity" is a source of 
great gratitude and awe. 

A good manual to read about a step-by -step introduction to working with dreams 
is: "The Dreamwork Manual" by Strephon Kaplan Williams - Published by "The 
Aquarian Press". 


with frames 
IMPORTANCE OF DREAMS IN THE MYSTICAL PROCESS 
Part II 


PICTURES 



The Inner Process awakens from within... 
Poseidon the God of the Sea with his Trident the Tool of the 
Awakening process from the deep unconscious self... 
Tiratna, or triple jewel 
Dolphin and Trident Keys for the inner process 
Trident of Purification 
The Three Nails symbolic 
tools for the awakening process 


(Campo de assinatura não assinado (Clique para assinar)) Campo de assinatura não assinado

1 2 
1 - In the sealed vessel sits Poseidon/Neptune, 
with his trident and the two Witnesses. 
2 - Detail of the hermetically sealed vessel with the Sun and Moon 
symbols of our Permanent and Spiritual Witnesses. 

-The 
End -
(Assinatura inválida, documento alterado) Assinado por Right The Prophet <RightTheProphet@yahoo.com> (Right The Prophet) Hora: 2007.03.22 04:05:32 +03'30'

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