The dream state has to be by far the most under-appreciated aspect of the human experience. Humans today mainly see the time we spend sleeping simply as rest for our physical bodies and not much more. True indeed, recharging the physical body is paramount but the fact that we spend roughly 33% of our lives sleeping there has to be more to it.
My curiousity about the true significance of the time we spend sleeping started from a place where a lot of my inquiries come from...questioning the Creator's design. I was pretty sure the creator who grafted universal principles and divine mathematics into every fabric of life didn't design 33% of our lifespan to be dedicated solely to snoozing. From there, the easiest place to start looking for further meaning would of course be the dream state.
First, what are dreams? After looking at a few recent definitions the best one I could piece together is "an involuntary series of visions, thought, emotions, and sensations that occur during sleep". The key word for me here being "involuntary". Makes you wonder if dreams are a cause, an effect, or a little of both.
Now that we have the modern definition down, lets compare the dreaming state to its opposite, the waking state, to potentially shine some more light on the role dreams play.
| Waking State | Dreaming State | |
|---|---|---|
| Dominant Mind | conscious | sub-conscious |
| Interaction | sensory perception | non-sensory perception |
| Gender | masculine | feminine |
| Environment | voluntary | involuntary |
In the waking state, our conscious mind takes the wheel, allowing the 5-senses to interact with the external world. This state aligns with the masculine principle of logic, rationality and focus on the tangible realm.
The dreaming state, however, is where the subconscious leads. We experience non-sensory (or "supersensory") perception, unbounded by physical restraints. Makes you wonder, what force is producing this environment and what medium am I using to perceive this environment? It makes sense that this state connects to feminine principles such as intuition, emotion, and inner exploration, more intangible factors.
This duality suggests that dreams bridge our conscious and subconscious minds. While waking prioritizes rational analysis, dreaming lets the subconscious process emotions, intuitions and drives that we experience when awake. Maybe these experiences kind of serve as a download to the subconscious mind, which then plays a role in how the following day unfolds.
The involuntary nature of dreams also highlights how the subconscious seems to take charge, communicating through symbols, metaphors and narratives packed with personal meaning. We have no control over this. If we did, we definitely wouldn't have nightmares.
So while resting the body, perhaps an even more vital function is self-awareness - making more sense of experiences and being more cognizant of how we process those experiences (so we don't download any malware).
While the focus here is on dreams, this greatly speaks to the importance of maintaining a positive attitude, even when things get a little rough. In James 1:2-4, the Bible says:
My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
My translation: Be patient when things don't go your way because it is only sharpening you, and drown yourself in gratitude (count it all joy) before you go to sleep. If you don't, you'll plant seeds in your subconscious that produce more of the feelings you want to avoid.
For some other varying perspectives on dreams, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung have both written extensively on the topic. While I don't agree with all of their theories based on my own observations, a lot of their claims make perfect sense. A thorough summary of their opinions can be found in Dreams and Self-Knowledge, a paper by Dr. Athanasios G. Melissaris.
Rudolph Steiner's, An Outline of Esoteric Science has a chapter titled "Sleep and Death" that is roughly 60 pages long and goes way deeper than I was willing to go here.
Sweet dreams...
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