The Significance of Dreams

Yogi and mystic, Sadhguru, looks at the significance of dreams and their various kinds, from ones manifesting unfulfilled desire, to aspects of tantra where dreams crystalize into reality.

Question: What is the significance of dreams? Are they a sort of warning or indication of something?

Sadhguru: Most of the dreams people go through in their day-to-day life are because there is an unbridled sense of desiring. Most human beings are not conscious of most of their desires. If they look at something, they desire that unconsciously. If they look at something else, they desire that. This is happening all the time for most human beings. Whatever they see, they desire it a little bit, but not consciously.

These desires build up in a huge way. If they have to be fulfilled in your life, you would need a hundred lifetimes – you have desired so many things! It is impossible for these to be fulfilled during the day, during the course of your life. So, dreams will find expression and you will not remember most of these dreams. Unfulfilled desires getting fulfilled in dreams is what ninety-five percent of human dreams belong to I would say.

The second state of dreaming

The second state of dreaming may have something to do with your subconscious, where sometimes you would not see exactly that situation, but a certain parallel situation which refers to some aspect of your life. Since the subconscious does not function within the realm of logic or the realms of time and space, you could already be seeing what could be tomorrow, but maybe not clearly. Usually, it may be a parallel vision. Let us say for example, you find that you are climbing a mountain and your legs are hurting but still you are not getting anywhere. Tomorrow morning you may go to the office and face an uphill task. Two to three percent of the dreams could be something like this.

Tantra – Crystalising dreams into reality

There are other kinds of dreams with which you can create. The whole aspect of tantra is just about using your imagination in such a systematic way that you go on creating. If you take your little finger and with your mind, draw a line along the outline of the finger without missing a single point, it will take a lot of practice and slowly, if you can do it 100% – for every point, you can actually create what you visualize. You can crystallize it into reality simply because you are using your mind in a certain way. The whole tantric procedure is just that – using your imagination and creating everything, point by point, and after some time you can breathe life into it.

If you go on trying to sieve every dream that you get, you will waste your time and life. So don’t pay any attention to dreams, pay attention to life.

Even today this is true, occult practitioners in India will make a doll out of cooked rice or some dough. They will work it up with all kinds of things and then make it actually walk – like a robot. It takes two, three steps and cracks up and falls apart. This is simply by using the power of the mind. If you train yourself just using the imagination, your dream process can become like that. You may have heard of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa feeding Kali and all these stories? They look like mumbo-jumbo but for him it was a reality. There were any number of people like this for whom it was a reality. Whether Kali comes or not, he makes it happen for himself. His mind is so crystallized on this, he actually creates the form. You can crystallize reality simply by using your mind.

Dream states can also be like this, but do not start wondering about the significance of dreams or imagining that every dream you get is going to happen. It will drive you crazy. Most of the dreams are just unfulfilled desires being fulfilled. If dreams are significant, they will manifest. But if you go on trying to sieve every dream that you get, you will waste your time and life. So don’t pay any attention to dreams, pay attention to life.

Dreams and Karma – Part 1

In the first of two parts, Sadhguru looks at the nature of dreams, and how they tie in with the unwinding of karma.

Sadhguru: When an individual dreams, it is called a fantasy. When a group of people dream, it becomes a society. When the universal dreams, it generally passes off as reality. A dream is a certain reality, and reality is a certain dream. The best thing about a dream is, when you wake up, it’s over. So it is with the so-called reality – when you wake up, it’s over. Medically, if we check the parameters of your body in sleep, it is just in a slightly lower state – you could be meditating. So sleep is just a more relaxed state of wakefulness, or wakefulness is a more agitated state of sleep.

Is this some kind of play of words, some kind of entertainment that we can think, “Okay, dream and wakefulness are the same, reality and dream are the same?” It is not so. You know reality only the way your senses interpret it for you. You do not know it the way it is. So what you call “reality” is an interpretation of your mind, what you call “dream” is also an interpretation of your mind. Whatever happens in your mind is another kind of reality. We can call it “psychological reality.” For most people, their dream is far more powerful than their thought process. Unfortunately, they don’t remember most of it.

The unwinding of karma

The process of life can be interpreted as an unwinding of that which has already been done. When we say, “Your life is the way it is because that’syour karma,” it simply means, your life is an unwinding of that which has already been done. But life situations may not collaborate very well with the karmic substance that you have. If you are trying to do a dream with eyes open and seek the cooperation of the world to do your dream, it is a hopeless way to live because the world will not cooperate with your dream. They have their own stuff. In a dream, you are able to create a conducive atmosphere for the kind of winding that you have. Only if life has gone beyond the unconscious unwinding of karma and it has become a conscious process, then, wakefulness is more meaningful. If life is limited only to unwinding of that which has already been done, a dream isdefinitely a better space to do it.

Can you accumulate karma in a dream? The accumulation of karma is not in the activity that you perform. It is in the volition or the intention of one’s action.

In the yogic culture, Shiva, the Mahadeva, is described either as utter sleep or absolute wakefulness. This is the state of a fully conscious one: either he does not exist, or he is on. There is no in-between reality for him because if there is nothing to unwind, there will be only stillness and awakening. There will be no dream state. When I say “dream,” I’m not only talking about the scenery that happens when you are asleep, even when you have your eyes open, you are in a dream state. Right now, how you are experiencing the creation is completely dreamy. It is not the way it is.

The power of the dream and the flimsiness of the dream are simultaneously present. For one who is lost in the dream, it is a powerful thing. For one who is looking at it from a little distance it is such a flimsy thing. It just depends on how you have positioned yourself in relation to your dream.

So can you accumulate karma in a dream? The accumulation of karma is not in the activity that you perform. It is in the volition or the intention of one’s action. Are you capable of an intention in a dream? Can you decide, “Today, I am going to have this kind of dream?” No. There is no volition in a dream. So a dream is only a process of unwinding. Even during the day, most of the time you are only unwinding that which has already been done. Your anger, your ambition, your frustration, your love, your passion, your hatred, most of this is only unwinding of karma, not your doing. You will realize this only when you try to stop it. Let’s say you got very angry with someone yesterday, and today, you are determined, “I don’t want to get angry with this person.” But when you meet him you will see, once again you get angry. Obviously it is not your doing. Most of the time, you are only doing the reverse of what has already been done. Only when you try to transform yourself, you will realize this. This unwinding of the karmic process seems so real, seems like it is you who is doing this. When we say “karma,” we are saying, it is your doing. When one believes that whatever he is doing, he is doing out of his intentions, it is a very basic state of ignorance.

Losing self-interest

There is a chant that says, “It’s all you, Mahadeva, it’s all you. My evil is my mind’s doing, my actions are my body’s doing – where am I? I don’t even exist. It is all yours.” If a true devotee says this, then it is a very beautiful state of realization. If the mind says this, then it is a very gross level of cunning. Most human beings have learnt to pass the buck to someone else or something else whenever things that are happening are not to their liking. Only if you are willing to pass that which you like and that which you do not like, that which is failure and that which is success to someone else, it is okay. If your wellbeing and your distress both are being passed to someone, that’s okay. If you are only willing to pass your distress, not your wellbeing – you are trying to make a bad deal with someone. No one is going to buy this deal unless he is an absolute fool.

Even the dimmest person is very clever when it comes to his self-interest. Only when human beings get more and more intelligent, they are less and less concerned about their self-interest. The dimmer they are, the shrewder they are about their self-interest. Have you noticed this? Being interested in the limited self is a foolish thing. It’s a terrible loss that is happening to an individual human being and to humanity as a whole. When he could be interested and involved in the grandeur of the cosmos, he is interested in one little person who is not worth anything. When intelligence expands and starts looking at a variety of things, a human being is not so concerned about his self-interest. If one’s intelligence truly flowers, he has no self-interest.

Dreams and Karma – Part 2

In the second of two parts, Sadhguru looks at the nature of dreams, and how they tie in with the unwinding of karma.

Sadhguru: Karma is many things. We talk about the same karma on different levels, according to one’s perception right now. Karma means action. Whose action? “My action.” The first thing is to realize, “This unwinding is happening only because the winding has been done by me.” The unwinding looks oh so automatic. “It doesn’t even take my involvement. It just happens. My anger just happens, my thoughts just happen, my emotions just happen.” It does not even take an intention or involvement to make this happen. It is simply happening. It almost looks like it is some other creature doing all this. If you stay in silence for a period of time, and you just observe the way the mind is going on, it is almost like you are possessed by something else. As if it is doing its own thing. But it is only undoing your doing.

Now, is life all doing, dream all undoing? No. Life is a mixture of doing and undoing. The more unconscious you are, the more undoing is happening. If you become partially conscious, you will end up doing a lot more. If you become fully conscious, then undoing will happen very rapidly, doing will be completely held back. A partial level of consciousness always does more doing than undoing. Once you become educated, your doing and undoing gets pretty mixed up. You are capable of undoing and doing at the same time.

The role of education

On one level, your thought and emotion are working themselves out in unconscious ways. On another level, you have intentions to fulfill. This is happening to people all the time. I don’t want to blame it all on education, but generally, the type of education you receive is the reason for this – it sets up strong intentions in you. Today’s education is not a process of knowing, it is not a process of realization, it is not a process of developing your body or your mind to its fullest capability. It sets up very strong desires and ambitions within you.

This is a powerful tool for creating karma: intention. It is the volition which causes karma, not the action.

Educated people are suffering with limitless wants. They cannot eat a full stomach and happily sit and sleep. No. When they are eating, they are talking business. It is not because they have taken up the cause of the world, to create something, to build something, to make their lives or everyone’s lives wonderful. No. They simply want to do more of the nonsense that they are doing because very strong intentions have been set up, without any particular purpose. This is a powerful tool for creating karma: intention. It is the volition which causes karma, not the action.

In the karmic process, the unwinding is happening because of activity. The winding is happening because of strong intentions. The more you think of yourself, the stronger your intentions become. When I say intentions, I’m not talking about great intentions – I’m talking aboutstrong intentions. When you are in anger, you could be unwinding, but you could also be winding. You may just burst into anger and cool down. Or you can burst into anger and then create an intention: “You know what I want to do to her?” Now you will be winding in a big way. Anger is just an explosion. Anger is just an unwinding of something that has happened within you. Anger may breed hatred. Hatred is an intention. Hatred is anger which has taken on an intention. Jealousy may be an unwinding, we can say envy is an intention – it is jealousy that has taken on an intention. Now, with a certain coolness, even if you are angry, if you become hateful, you don’t show your anger or hatefulness anymore. You put on a cool face and do the hot things, isn’t it? Lust for example is an unwinding. Passion is winding because it is an intention.

The so-called sophisticated

If you find expression to all the thoughts and emotions that happen within you, you would come out almost brutish. To polish that, you create an intention – that’s winding. This so-called sophistication is suicide because you constantly wind faster than you unwind, because the mind becomes two-faced. On one level, it is unwinding, on another level, it has its own intentions. You will see the so-called sophisticated people – when I say “sophisticated,” I mean socially sophisticated people not truly sophisticated people – they always suffer much more than simple folk. Simple people’s anger, hatred, and prejudice find open expression. They may look crude but in terms of cunning, they are many points below the so-called sophisticated people. The more sophisticated people, initially they learn to deceive others. After some time, they become experts and they can even deceive themselves. Their intentions are not even revealed to themselves.

Education enhances that capability because of the variety of exposure it gives you without proper understanding of how the human mind functions, how it evolves, what can make it flower, what can make it turn dirty – these things are not being looked at with any profoundness. Information is simply dished out in all kinds of forms to all kinds of people. So generally, people unfortunately are making use of education to wind themselves up. In terms of the world around them, in terms of information, they may know more, but in terms of life process, educated people are generally more ignorant than the illiterate. If you go to a simple illiterate peasant’s house in India, his sense of life, his sense of his body, his sense of his physical comfort, his sense of what works with somebody and what doesn’t is so much more clear-cut and sensible than that of most of the educated communities in the world. Because he doesn’t have so much confusing thought in his mind. He is not loose in his head, which has happened to a large segment of educated people. It is not that education itself is the culprit, it is because there is no guideline as to how to make use of it for one’s wellbeing. So unfortunately, education which should have been empowerment, education which should have been clarity, has brought more confusion about the life process itself.

So wakefulness and dream – it is best that you do not distinguish between the two. I want you to see either both these states as dream, or both these states as different levels of wakefulness. This is one kind of dream, that is a deeper dream. Or this is one kind of reality, that is another kind of reality. If you see it this way, you can make both into a process of unwinding rather than winding.