What we can learn from our dreams

[Bhagavatam class on 11.13.31 at ISKCON, Alachua, USA]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. So this verse talks about how there is unreality, which appears as reality.
And the material world, when we see disconnected from Krishna, it appears to be like a dream. It is unreal just as a dream is unreal. So today I’ll speak about what we can learn from our dreams.
This is a topic which many people, especially those who dabble in some kind of semi-spirituality, they like to understand their dreams, analyse their dreams, and they feel a lot of insights are hidden in the dreams. Now, often they go specifically into different dreams that people may have. I will not go into specific dreams.
I’ll focus generically on what dreams imply. Now, all of us, we go through the state of dream, although we don’t necessarily remember what we have dreamt. Now, what exactly happens when we dream? If we consider from the biological perspective, the body needs rest.
But while needing rest, why does the body have to switch off our consciousness? We could just lie down and rest. Resting, if it is a physical activity, why does the switching off of consciousness have to take place? And Baladevidya Bhushan, in his commentary on a verse, a text on the Vedanta Sutra, elaborately analyses what exactly dreams are. And he says that at one level, we can say dreams are unreal.
At another level, we can say dreams actually point, dreams are also reality, just as this world is a reality. So, we can compare it in two ways. We can say that just as dreams are unreal, this world is also unreal.
In the sense that Prabhupada would say that dreams last for six hours or waking state lasts for 60 years. But both are temporary. In that sense, we could say the waking state and the dreaming state are both unreal.
But another way of looking at it is that just as this world is temporary, but it is real. Similarly, the dream world is also temporary, but it is real. And he says that when we have dreams, actually, we all have different dreams.
And some people get bad dreams constantly. That’s why sometimes when somebody is sleeping, we say, have happy dreams. No, actually, to get good dreams and to get bad dreams.
Why is it that some people, when they sleep, they just get bad dreams? I know one person, one friend of mine, who is afraid to sleep. Because as soon as he sleeps, he starts getting terrible dreams. Now, sleep is a basic biological necessity and he feels extremely tired.
But as soon as he sleeps, he starts getting nightmares. So, why is it that some people get bad dreams, especially bad dreams? So, Baldev Vidyavasan explains that actually, even the dream world is real in the sense that when the soul is in the dream, the soul experiences what is going on. So, for example, if we imagine, see in a dream that we are being chased by a tiger and we start running, running, running.
And then we are running and we feel as if the tiger is about to pounce on us. And we wake up. There’s no tiger.
We feel relieved. At least there’s no tiger. But then you’ll see, maybe we are sweating, maybe our chest is, heart is pounding.
So, what we experienced in the dream has had physical effects. So, if we consider in terms of the dream having real effects, yes, we were not hit by a tiger, but were we actually running or were we not running? Physically speaking, I was in my bed, so I was not running. But my body is reacting as if I was running.
So, the same palpitation of the heart is happening, the same sweating is there. So, how does this happen? Actually, the dream experiences are also real experiences in the sense that the soul really experiences that. So, when the soul is thinking that I’m being, going to be eaten by a tiger, the soul experiences fear, terror, and that gets reflected at the level of the body.
So, Chakravartin, Maldivya Devotion says that, actually, why do different people get different dreams? Now, if we consider our dreams, in some of our dreams, we are observers. Some of our dreams, we are participants. Some dreams, you might just say, okay, this is happening over here, this is happening over there.
And we are somewhere observing everything that is happening. In some dreams, things happen to us. We are also participants.
You know, this person says this, we go here, we see this, somebody drives us there, and things happen. So, we can either be observers or we can be participants in our dreams. But even in our dreams, we are not the full controllers.
Because if we think about our dreams, even in our dreams, things happen which we had not planned. Sometimes, you know, who plans that a tiger will chase me? Tiger starts chasing me. All of us have dreams in which things happen to us, not necessarily things happen according to our plan.
So, in that sense, we are not the controllers of our dreams. So, that is why, from the philosophical perspective, sometimes we say that if something very good happens, something wonderful happens, it was like a dream come true. We say, but actually, when do we say dream come true, when all our desires are being fulfilled, when everything is working according to our plan, when we are doing everything nicely.
But actually, even in our dream, everything does not happen according to our plan. So, there is this fanciful idea that when we equate the dream state with a wonderful state. Now, dream, of course, can refer to two things.
There can be daydreaming. I can be awake and I can be dreaming. I will go here, I will go there, I will watch this, I will do this.
So, that is daydreaming. That is different. So, I will come to this daydreaming.
Sometimes, say, if some sports tournament is going on, say India, I come from India where cricket is very popular. So, what happens when the sports match is going on, you will see young boys who are going to school, they are in their own world, they are swinging a bat, throwing a ball. They are imagining, they are in the cricket team and they are hitting a sixer and the team is winning.
So, this is daydreaming. So, here what is happening? Basically, in a dream, our body is at one place, but the mind is at some other place. That is what happens in daydreaming.
And even in night dreaming, something similar happens. The body is at one place, but the mind is experiencing something else. The body is comfortable in bed, but the mind is experiencing being chased by a tiger.
So, going back to the earlier question, why is it that some people get good dreams and some people get bad dreams? So, Valdividyam here says, this is also the result of one’s past karma. He says, just as there is the gross world which we live in and here some of us may be born in wealthy families, some of us may be born in not so wealthy families, some of us may have healthy bodies, some of us may have not so healthy bodies. So, this variety in the physical world, why is it there? That is the result of our past karma.
So, similarly, the variety in the dream world that is there is also a result of past karma. So, he says, the Supreme Lord uses dreams to deliver minor karmic reactions. So, if a major karmic reaction is there, we may experience a very difficult situation in our real life, physical life.
But when a small reaction of karma is there, we will get a bad dream. So, in the Vishnu Sahasranam, which is thousand names, which glorify Lord Vishnu. So, one of the names there, which is used to describe Lord Vishnu is, this Swapna Nashanam, that that Lord who destroys bad dreams.
So, when we remember Him, when we worship Him, when we chant His names, then He destroys bad dreams. So, just like Krishna, by worshipping Him, we can become free from bad karma in this world at the physical level. Similarly, by worshipping Krishna, bad dreams can also go away.
So, those who often get bad dreams are recommended that either they chant Vishnu Sahasranam or they chant Narasimha prayers, keep a picture of Narasimha next to them. That way, Narasimha will protect them even in the dream state. So, now, this variety of dreams is because we all get our reaction to minor karmas in the dreams.
And that’s why even in our dreams, we are not in control. Just as in our physical world, it is Krishna who is in control. So, similarly, that when Krishna says, I am the controller of material nature, that means He is the controller of physical reality and He is also the controller of mental reality, which is the dream state.
Now, I’ll make a couple of little technical points, which should not be very difficult to understand. How do dreams actually occur? What exactly happens? Say, if here I have one door from which I can see outside. So, now, suppose there is one door and behind that there is another door.
And if both the doors are open, then I can see what is there outside. If only one door is open, then I can see only what is happening till the other door’s point. So, like that, the soul is here.
The soul is covered by the mind first. By mind, I refer to the subtle body. And then beyond that, there is the gross body.
So, the soul’s consciousness is rooted through the mind, through the body to the outer world. Just like, say, now, you are hearing me, I am looking at you. So, how is this happening? It is happening through three things.
The soul is conscious and the soul is observing. The soul’s consciousness is rooted to the mind. And from the mind, it goes out to the body.
And from the body, it goes out. So, for example, if you are looking at me, I am looking at you, then the consciousness of the soul is coming through the mind, through the eyes to the outer world. And that’s how we are perceiving.
So, now, when a class is going on for a long time, our mind gets bored. And then the mind goes off for a little walk. And the mind goes off for a walk.
And suddenly, there is a joke in the class. Then the mind runs back. Hey, I want to hear the joke.
What is it? What happened? So, when everybody laughs, then we ask, you know, what happened? What was spoken? What was the joke? So, what happens? The mind just jogs off. So, the mind just goes here and there. The mind, because it is subtle, you know, when we want to walk out, we might just physically go out somewhere.
But the mind can go to the other end of the world also. The mind can suddenly go very far. So, the soul, its consciousness comes to the mind and through the mind to the body.
And then it goes to the outer world. But if the mind is not there, say, if the mind has gone to some sports match that is going to take place, then the soul is here, the body is here. But the mind is not there.
Then perception does not take place. Then we don’t perceive, we don’t hear, we don’t see what is happening. And such people, we call them as absent-minded.
And school teachers often tell, pay attention. Pay attention means what? Your mind is going here and there. Don’t let the mind go here and there.
Let it focus. So, normally, we experience this, that the soul is there, the body is there, but the mind is not there. And then we get distracted.
We think of various things and we are not conscious of where the body is conscious. In the sleep state, something similar happens. The only difference in the sleep state is that the body is there, the soul is there, but the body is switched off.
That means the eyes are closed and we are not aware. And the soul, along with the mind, just streams off its consciousness somewhere else. And that’s how we perceive in the dream state.
So, in the Upanishads, four states of consciousness are talked about. There is Jagruti, Swapna, Sushukti and Turiya or Samadhi. Jagruti means it is a state of wakefulness.
So, right now, hopefully, that is the state we are in. So, Jagruti means that the soul’s consciousness comes through the mind to the body and to the wakeful state. Now, in the Swapna state, the body is resting, the body is switched off.
The soul’s consciousness comes to the mind, but not to the body. And that’s how we are conscious, but the body is not conscious. The body is not conscious when we are sleeping.
But because the soul is still in the body, there is some connection. But most of the experience that is happening is at the level of the mind. The soul’s consciousness is going to the mind and wherever the mind goes, that is what we experience in the dreams.
Because the soul is present in the body, so there are some effects. There are out-of-body experiences. In out-of-body experiences, sometimes people, so there are cases when somebody gets an accident.
When they have an accident, then they suddenly go unconscious. And when they go unconscious, there was this case in Europe described by Pim Van Lommel in his book, The Science of Near-Death Experiences. He says, there was this young man, he got a heart attack while he was in a garden.
In a park, he just fell unconscious. He was rushed to the hospital. And he was rushed to the hospital, he came in and by that time he was in a quite bad shape.
The doctors were trying to revive him, revive him. And he had dentures. So he had dentures.
So when they wanted to do resuscitation, the dentures were coming in the way, lip to lip, they took out the dentures and put them aside. And he was in coma by the time he reached the hospital itself. And he stayed in coma for 7 days.
And finally, he came back to consciousness. And when he came back to consciousness, his dentures were missing. Because in the heat of the moment, when they were rushing around, where they kept it, they forgot.
And as he was conscious, and one day, about a day after he came back, a nurse came to attend to him. And he said, oh, you are the person who kept my dentures, please give them to me. I said, what do you mean? He said, how do you know? He said, I was there, I was watching everything.
So he said that he was watching everything from above. He was watching everything from above. And he said, I was very panicky, because I could see that the medical staff was thinking that this person is not going to be saved.
And they were going to give up. So I was trying to tell him, don’t give up, I’m here, I’m here. But he couldn’t communicate.
Because sometimes, say, when we lose our voice, we get a bad throat, and we speak something. So I’ve had this time when I’m speaking, no sound only comes. So we’re trying to speak, but no sound comes.
So that is what happens in this state. Because the soul and the mind are there, so consciousness is there. But there is no body available.
The body is dysfunctional, the body is unconscious. So I couldn’t speak. So I was so panicky, please, I said, don’t, don’t stop it, don’t stop it.
Please, I’m here. Somehow, they continued. And then they saved him.
So he said, you took out my dentures. And he kept this in the medical tray that was there, a small movable tray. And you know, it had this medicine, it had, he saw that from there, he saw, he described the shape of the tray, he described the other contents that were on the moving tray, and he described who all was there, everything he described accurately.
There is no possible way in which he could have known this. Because he was unconscious before he came. And he was not just unconscious, but in coma.
And he stayed in coma after that for seven days. So how does this happen? So our, this indicates that actually the experiencer is someone different from the body. Another humorous case, where there was one elderly person who was not very liked by his family members.
And he got a near-death experience, he got a heart attack. And then his relatives are assembled. And one of them said, I hope the old man, old man dies soon.
And others said, oh, yeah, let’s hope he dies soon. And what had happened, that old man was having a near-death experience. So he had come out of his body, and he had come to the lobby.
And he heard his relatives speaking all this. And then when he came back to consciousness, the first thing, when he came back to consciousness, his relatives came and oh, they came back. He says, I disinherit all of you.
You will not get any inheritance. What happened? He said, you wanted me to die. What? How did you know? I was there.
So actually, what dreams do, you know, dreams, something similar is happening. In near-death experiences and dreams are similar. The only difference is that in near-death experiences, the soul comes out of the body, and then soul goes somewhere else and perceives some other reality.
Normally, in dream state, the soul’s consciousness at the physical level gets switched off. So the soul along with the body, soul and the mind, they go somewhere else and start perceiving some other things. That’s what happens in out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences.
In dream state, also the soul and the mind go somewhere else. But usually, they go to some imaginary area. So Prabhupada, in an example, it is given that we may see a rabbit with horns.
So often what comes in the dreams may not be very meaningful, because just two different images may be brought together and we may see something. So we need not focus too much on what specific dreams we get. What we can focus on is what dreaming in general indicates.
That, say, if I think I am the body, that’s what we normally think. People say that when I eat food, it tastes good, I feel good. When my hand is broken, I feel pain.
So whatever the body experiences, I am experiencing that. Therefore, I am the body. That’s the logical reason why we identify with the body is whatever the body experiences, we experience.
But dreams give us an example, universal example of how we experience something even when the body doesn’t experience it. The body is lying calmly in bed, but I am experiencing being chased by a tiger. Now, yes, I said the body may pass, the heart may start pounding, but that is a result of the mind’s feeling that.
I’ll come to that a little later. But the body is not in the forest being chased by a tiger. So if the experiencer were the body, then who is experiencing in the dreams? The body is not experiencing anything.
Still, the experience is there. That means the experiencer is different from the body. So presently, the body is the means through which we are experiencing.
But the experiencer is different. The experiencer is not the body, the experiencer is different from the body. And so I talked earlier about how the soul’s consciousness goes through the mind to the body and to the outer world.
So it goes to the mind, to the body, it is Jagruti. When it comes only to the mind, that is the Sapna stage. Only the mind is active and the soul’s consciousness goes over there.
So just by thinking about our dreams, we can understand that we are not the body. Or rather we are something other than the body, something more than the body. Now that I am a soul, that I am a part of Krishna, for that we have to practise Bhakti and then we realise it gradually.
But just the simple phenomena of dreams, if you just think deeply about it, not dream deeply, but think deeply about dreams. If you think deeply about our dreams, about what we dream in general, what dream means, then that can indicate that we are actually different from our body. Now, the Sushupti is a third stage, where the consciousness does not even come to the level of the mind.
It just stays withdrawn within itself. So, Sapna is when the consciousness comes to the level of the body. Sushupti is when it does not come even to the level of the body.
So, sometimes we say that, okay, I can understand I am not the body. But how can I understand that I am not my mind? So, I would like to do a simple thought experiment over here. So, can all of you close your eyes? Don’t go to sleep, just close your eyes.
So, just close your eyes. Take one deep breath. And now, you will see different things on the screen inside you.
You may see maybe some playground where you want to play. You may see some garden, you may see your home. All of us will see something on the screen inside us.
Now, try to look back, try to move back and look at the looker. You can see the screen, but try to see who is looking at the screen. You look at seeing the screen and say look back and try to look at the screen.
Look at the screen, then look at who is looking at the screen. If you try to look at who is looking at the screen, we cannot do that. Because when we move back, the seer moves back.
Try it once again. You can see various things in the mind’s eye. But look at who is seeing that.
Try to step back. You can take one deep breath. Yeah, now you can open your eyes.
So, what you can see is that there is a screen inside us. And that screen is the mind. But there is a seer of that screen.
And that seer is different from the mind. St. Augustine said 2000 years ago almost, he says, what we are looking for is what we are looking with. That when we try to look at the inner seer, we can’t catch the inner seer because the inner seer is the one who is seeing.
So, actually, there is the screen inside on which we see various things. But we as the observer of the screen is different, are different. So, in the Bhagavad Gita 9th verse, Krishna says, Krishna says that the five senses are centred on the mind and the soul uses this.
Just like I have the five fingers, they are centred on the palm. Like that, the five senses are centred on the mind. The five senses give input to the mind.
And from there, we observe. So, the we the observer is the soul. Now, to understand this, suppose there is a very important building, maybe the police headquarters or the army headquarters.
And there are five gates to come into the building. And there are five security cameras kept on that on each of the gates. And there is one central control office, where all the five cameras come in.
Now, imagine there’s a big monitor, which has many sections to it. So, on each of on five of these sections, the five cameras come in. The five cameras what is seen is displayed over there.
So, our mind is like that. The mind is like the monitor. And we are like the central security officer.
So, right now, say, you are looking at me and you are hearing. But suppose, suddenly, a scream comes from behind, we will all turn. So, what’s happening over there? Actually, there are these five cameras, like the five senses, input is coming in from there.
But among these five cameras, whenever any camera, if the security officer is watching, if anywhere the security officer is some suspicious character, this looks like a thief, this looks like a terrorist, immediately zoom, zoom that camera. As soon as you press on that camera, press on that particular window, then it pops up, it becomes big. And it occupies the full screen, everything else gets minimised.
So, like that, all from all the senses, inputs are coming to the mind. But whichever input seems interesting, whichever input catches our attention, that zooms up. And all others zoomed out.
Now, suppose, this person who is the officer who is looking at the control centre, you know, he also gets bored. So, there is one window, which is a TV. So, on that TV, something else is only displayed, none of the five control cameras.
And suppose he clicks that, say, a nice programme, he zooms on that, and that pops up. And he is so busy watching the TV that some thief comes in and does not even come to know. So, similarly, what happens for us, the mind can perceive based on the five senses, what comes in.
And which, but along with that, the mind can also remember, the mind can also recollect. So, the mind acts not just like a window or a collector of windows to the outer world, the mind also acts like a TV. So, right now, if people become absent minded, what happens? It is like, from the five senses, information is coming in, but they have zoomed in some other window.
So, when sometimes we are talking, some person just gets lost. Where are you? Come back, come back. So, what happens? In their case, their mind itself, a sixth window, that is their own recollection, that is their own imagination, that has zoomed up.
And they just get caught in that, they get lost in that. So, when we dream, what happens is, all the five windows which are there, they are like closed down. When we sleep, the five cameras close down.
And the only window that is open is, the window that is of imagination or recollection. We may imagine something, we may remember something, and we put it all together, and then some movie is shown. That is what happens in the dream state.
In the dream state, what we experience particularly is not that important. But the fact that we experience dreams is itself important. That points that we are neither the body nor are we the mind.
We are something different from both. And that different is the soul. So, is the world real or is it unreal? You could say, here the verse says that, when we see things in connection with Krishna, that is a reality.
When we see things disconnected from Krishna, that is falsehood. So, actually the world is real. I will conclude with one point.
That is, there are actually, if you go into psychology, there are different kinds of misperceptions. So, there is illusion and there is hallucination. Do any of you know what is hallucination? Hallucination means, illusion means, there is an object, but it is perceived wrongly.
That means, there is a rope on the ground. I think it is a snake. So, there is an object, but it is perceived wrongly.
That is illusion. Hallucination means, there is no object only. And still I perceive something.
There is no stimulus and I perceive something. So, sometimes when people hallucinate, I hear sounds in my head. I hear somebody speaking to me.
There is nobody speaking around them. So, hallucination means, there is no object, but somehow there is perception. So, this world is an illusion.
It is not a hallucination. There is an object. This tool exists.
Once Prabhupada gave a lecture in which he said that, actually, this world is unreal. It is just like a dream. So, one of his disciples thought, this world is unreal.
This world is unreal. So, he looked at the wall. He said, is this wall real or is it unreal? Maybe if I think it is unreal, it is unreal.
So, he said, this wall is unreal. This wall is unreal. And he walked into the wall.
Bang! He went to Prabhupada. He said, Prabhupada, you said the world is unreal, but I got a real bump on my head. He said, Prabhupada said, it is unreal means that it is temporary.
It is not unreal in the sense that it is false. It exists. It is real, but because it is temporary, we see it as false.
So, what is the reality? The reality is that it is connected with Krishna. So, hallucination means that which does not exist and we perceive it. Illusion means it exists, but we perceive it wrongly.
So, when we see the connection of things with Krishna, then this world is no longer considered illusion. It is also a reality. It is the means by which we serve Krishna.
It is the means by which we come closer to Krishna. It is the means by which we ultimately attain Krishna. So, the dreams, Baldevindra Goswami says that sometimes in the dreams, Krishna can also come.
Sometimes in the dream, the spiritual master can also come. So, in that sense, because the supreme reality can manifest in the dream, we cannot dismiss the dream as unreal. But he says, like sometimes some people will say, oh, Krishna came in my dream yesterday night.
Now, can Krishna come in our dreams? Who can stop us? If Krishna wants to come, we have no one to stop him from coming. But, once a person came to Prabhupada, Swamiji, Krishna came in my dream yesterday. So, Prabhupada replied, okay, then serve him today.
Serve him today. You know that, okay, if Krishna came in the dream, that’s wonderful. But what is the result of that? The last point which I was going to make is that, you know, the purification of the soul happens when the soul uses one’s free will properly.
And conscious exercise of one’s free will is possible only in the waking stage, not in the dreaming stage. So, if Krishna comes in our dream, that’s fortune, that’s mercy. But the result of that should be that, okay, after I wake up, I serve him.
We will get purified and we’ll get liberated, not by what happens in our dream to us. Even if Krishna comes to us in a dream, that alone will not purify or liberate us. What we do in the Jagruti stage, because in the Jagruti stage, we exercise our free will.
And when we exercise our free will properly to serve Krishna, that is when we get purified and that is when we get liberated. So, this world is the easiest, the waking state is the way to liberation. Although the dreaming state is technically speaking closer to the spiritual state, because we are at the level of the mind and the mind is close to the soul.
But practically speaking, to reach the soul, we can’t reach from the dreaming state. We have to reach from the waking state. In the waking state, when we do sadhana, when we practise bhakti diligently, then in the waking state, when we spiritualise our consciousness, then we attain spiritual consciousness, that is Turiya or Samadhi, where we actually experience spiritual reality, we perceive spiritual reality directly with our spiritual senses.
As souls, we perceive Krishna and we reciprocate with him in his personal abode in the life of eternal love. So, I’ll summarise. I spoke today about what our dreams can tell us, what we can learn from our dreams.
So, I spoke broadly about when we dream, what happens is the mind is not where the body is. So, just by thinking deeply about our dreams, we can understand that the experiencer is not the body, something other than the body. So, when we dream, are the dreams real? They are real in the sense that we really experience them.
And we have different kinds of dreams at different times. That is because the Supreme Lord gives us minor karmic reactions in the dream state, just as he gives major karmic reactions in the waking state. And the switch from consciousness, from the waking state to the dream state, that is not really needed for the body’s rest, but it is needed, it is an indicator for us that we are different from the body.
This whole arrangement of sleeping and dreaming is done by Krishna, so that by contemplating on dreams, we can realise that we are different from our body. And in the dream state, the soul and the mind, the consciousness goes somewhere else at that level. Something similar happens in outer body experiences, but then the soul and the mind come out of the body and they come to some other reality as either our physical vicinity or somewhere else.
In the dream state, the soul may not go out of the body, but its consciousness gets projected elsewhere, just as it happens when we get absent-minded. The difference is between absent-mindedness and dream state is, in absent-mindedness the body is there, but the body, we are not conscious of what is happening. In the dream state, the body is unconscious, we are sleeping.
And when we understand that we are not the body, by contemplating our, what we see when we close our eyes, that means when the body is not functioning, at that time also we see something. So, that what we see is the screen of the mind. But if we try to look at the seer, we cannot see.
The seer of the inner screen is the soul. By this thought reflection, we can understand that we are not our mind also. So, the mind is like a central monitor, which gives in five windows from the five cameras, which are the security.
But along with that, there is a sixth camera, which is like a TV. So, the mind can perceive from different senses, whichever seems interesting, that input zooms up. But sometimes, all the five can be surpassed and can be sidelined, and the mind can go into its own imaginary world.
Now, in the dreams, we could say both the dreams and the waking state is unreal, in the sense that it is temporary. But we can say it is real, because it is experienced by the soul. And we can experience Krishna in the dream state, but we can choose to experience Krishna by using our free will in the waking state.
So, the primary purification and the liberation thereof happens through using our free will in the waking state to practise sadhana bhakti. So, all the dreams state is technically closer to the spiritual state. Practically, the way to go to the spiritual state of consciousness