Dream On
When we dream at night, we experience some type of fantasy world. Most of us, however, assume that the waking state is unquestionably “reality.”
I used to think that way, but no longer. I’m willing to admit I don’t know the exact nature of this waking state.
Can we really make such a clear distinction between the dream state and the waking state? Is one state any more real than the other? Who or what is in control of each state?
Only your mind thinks it has answers to these questions. Let’s investigate some of these questions and see what we find. We’ll start with the dreaming state.
Who or what controls the content of your dreams? There are some who experience lucid dreaming, the ability to observe and control dreams during sleep.
Most people (including myself) have not experienced lucid dreaming. In other words, we don’t feel we are in control of our dreams. The content of dreams appears to arise spontaneously. Some of the dream content may relate to things in our lives – existing relationships, career situations and the like.
Yet other dream content is completely unpredictable. We may meet people who are deceased or find ourselves in a crowd of people we don’t know. We may fight monsters in a cave. The story lines are sometimes very bizarre.
What we DO experience is that the dreams seem very real while we are in the dream state. We see people and other objects vividly. We can hear sounds, taste food, or feel emotions. If we have a frightening dream, we may wake up in a sweat; thus our body is reacting to the dream images.
Of course, our eyes were closed the whole time and our head was on the pillow. If someone watched us all night in that room, he could verify that there were no sounds, no food and no monsters or caves – just a person sleeping on a bed.
Think about this. Your mind is capable of experiencing all of its senses in the dream state. You’re moving, feeling, tasting, touching, smelling and hearing while lying in bed with your eyes closed.
How are you able to see with your eyes closed? Don’t we believe we need our eyes open to see?
How are you able to taste food with your mouth closed – and with no “real” food present? Don’t we believe we need to open our mouth and insert actual food in order to taste food?
Here’s another fascinating aspect of the dream state. During our dream, the concepts of time and space are also playing tricks with us. We may dream that we are flying on a plane to another continent. We can have the sense that we were on the plane for ten hours or more.
Yet we know (upon awakening) that we never boarded a plane, never traveled any distance at all, and that ten hours did not expire. Time and space were experienced solely through the mind. The images that arose were not reality.
We’re not even approaching the issue of who is the script writer for these dreams. If you think that you (the human being) are doing it, I challenge you to predict in advance precisely what you’re going to dream about tonight. Tomorrow morning, you’ll see if you were right.
There are many unknown mysteries operating here – far beyond the ability of the mind to determine.
Let’s take a look now at the waking state. You experience time and space. You see, touch, feel, taste, smell and hear.
This seems a lot like the dream state!
The major difference in the waking state is that your eyes are open and you aren’t lying down. You APPEAR to have a lot more control over your movements and decisions in the waking state. Yet you can’t be sure of the extent of your control, even in the waking state.
The dream state and the waking state have more similarities than differences.
Many of the Eastern religions and spiritual traditions describe the waking state as the dream or play of the Divine. According to this view, the manifest world is dreamed into existence by God or spirit.
Your mind will likely reject this as science fiction or pure fantasy.
However does it make any sense to believe what the limited mind tells you about the dream state and the waking state?
Whatever this waking state IS, it’s a mystery. The dream state is also a mystery.
Why even discuss an issue like this? Some may feel it is not practical. Others, myself included, have a desire to explore the nature of our being and the nature of reality. When we question the mind’s fairy tales and get quiet, spirit can then reveal to us some insights about the miracle of our being.
I welcome your thoughts on this issue of the dream state vs. the waking state. I’d like to know your perspective and what you have discovered.
– Jeff Keller
© 2009