Befriend your Dreams

You have to learn to befriend your dreams. Dreams are a communication from the unconscious. The unconscious wants to say something to you.

Analysis is not needed because if you analyse the dream, then again the conscious becomes the master. It tries to dissect and analyse and forces meanings which are not of the unconscious. The unconscious uses poetic language. The meaning is very subtle. It cannot be found by analysis. It can only be found if you start learning the language of the dream. So, the first step is to befriend the dream.

For example, you see your dream. The next morning, sit for one hour and relive the dream consciously, with no effort to analyse. Don’t say that this means that you don’t bother about the meaning. What is the meaning of a rose flower? The rose flower, in itself, is the meaning. It is not a symbol for something else. It is a symbol for itself. What is the meaning of stars in the night? Nothing. They are their own meaning. the meaning is intrinsic. So, simply enjoy, and delight in it. Be excited with the dream consciously.

Experience your dreams

The more and more close you come, the more the conscious and unconscious start overlapping each other. This is a great experience. You feel, for the first time, one. This what yoga is – to become one. You feel a unity arising. No part of your being is denied. You have accepted your wholeness. You start becoming whole.

Slowly, your unconscious becomes conscious and your conscious becomes unconscious. They both become one. And, it is one of the greatest symphonies when the unconscious becomes conscious and the conscious becomes unconscious. That means that your male mind and your female mind are moving into a deep orgasm. That means that your man and your woman, your yin and yang are meeting, copulating: A great energy arises. great energy is released. Then, you are no more a man or a woman, because man is conscious and woman is unconscious in you. In a woman, it is just the reverse.

So, allow it to happen. Ordinarily, we have been brought up to deny. A man has been brought up to be just a man and to never be like a woman. A man has been taught always to be conscious, rational, and logical, so we have been denying the illogical, the irrational. Because of that denial, we have thrown much of our being into darkness. That’s what the unconscious is. and, the unconscious is our source of life. It is there that we are rooted. It is our earth.

So, whenever your mind is doing something that goes against your nature, the unconscious gives you the message – first politely, but if you don’t listen, nightmarishly. Then it becomes violent, very agitated, because you are moving in danger, and it has to be violent and agitated. A nightmare is nothing but the shouting of the unconscious, a cry of desperation that you are going too far away, and you will miss your whole being. Come back home! It is as if a child is lost in the woods, and the mother screams and shouts the name of the child. That is exactly what a nightmare is. So, start befriending your dreams.

For three weeks, drop all barriers between you and your dreaming consciousness. It is your consciousness. It is a different dimension, but it is yours and you have to reclaim it. It is no ordinary consciousness. It is very significant – more significant than your waking consciousness – because, in dreams you are closer to your being than in waking. In waking you’re farthest away, in dreams you are a little closer, and in sleep, very close. In samadhi, you fall to your centre.

In India, we have four states of consciousness: waking consciousness, the farthest; dream consciousness, a little closer; sleep consciousness, even closer; turiya, the fourth state The word, turiya, simply means the fourth, because there is no name for it.

The fourth is a great meeting, a communion of sleep and waking. In a way, it is like sleep, absolutely silent, not even a ripple of thought. In another way, it is like waking – absolutely alert. This is what we call “God-consciousness.” But, to go towards it you will have first befriend your dream, then you will have to befriend your sleep, and then only will you be able, by and by, to reach the fourth stage.

So, for three weeks, work on it. Love your dreams. Good, bad, don’t evaluate, don’t judge. Don’t even use the word “nightmare,” because in that very word, we have denied. Simply love your dreams, come closer to them, learn the language of their message, feel for them, and allow them to unfold. By and by, they will become courageous. When you allow them, they will be ready. One day, you will suddenly see that you are sitting fully awake and a dream has opened. You will then remember it well because you are fully alert. You can see all the nooks and corners, and you can penetrate to the very depth of it.

Watchful awareness

It is simply wonderful to watch a dream, fully aware, but that is possible only when you are in deep sympathy with the dream. If you are antagonistic, it hides. This denied part has to be replayed. This dispossessed part has to be repossessed. And, remember, don’t analyse. Just enjoy the poetry of it, the colourfulness of it, the fantasy of it. Don’t analyse.

It is just as you watch a Picasso painting. This is dream consciousness. This is what Picasso cannot tell you what the meaning of it is. There is no meaning. It does not symbolise anything – it itself is the symbol. Either you can understand it directly or you don’t understand it. It is like a joke. Somebody tells you a joke and you say, “I missed it; please explain it to me.”

I will tell you why. If the person explains, the joke is destroyed. If you get it, you get it. If you don’t get it, please don’t ask what the meaning is, because this is not the way to understand a joke.