ADVAITA-L Digest - lucid dreams

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

Giri wrote:

>         I am sorry if this debate on svapna has been skewed by the
 introduction
> of the topic lucid dreams by me.
>         Anyway, as I mentioned to Sista in a private e-mail, I dream
> occasionally and whatever dream I have is lucid in the sense that it is
> completely uncontrollable but I clearly am the witness. It is kinda like
> watching TV knowing well that the characters in the TV are not real..

As I mentioned before, this does not really matter. Sista and I had a
discussion about this once and I said that the "dream" state as said by the
vedic seers is the "usual" dream state and the "lucid dream" state would be
called the waking state. Ofcourse, the fact that one is lying down and "wakes"
up refreshed would make one call it a "dream state", perhaps. As I also
observed with some people who pot and so on, some of them seem to have
"visions" which they "know" is untrue, but still see them. This seems to be
similar to your "dreams". Come on now, what did you eat before going to bed?
:-)

Finally you anyway have deep sleep. So the arguments still hold. It is
interesting to note that gauDapaada calls both "waking" and the "dream" state
as the "dream" state at some places in the kaarikaa.

>         It is certainly not day-dreaming and occurs only during sleep
> after a meal (though not neccessarily a full meal :-).
>         It is often said by various vedic seers that we should question
> the reality of the dreams during dreaming and not in the waking state. All
> I am saying is that I do and find the dream is unreal while dreaming (if
> you can call that dreaming). A good question to ask 'where does this
> awareness which says this is unreal go when one is awake ?' I don't know.

Another thing is that I have seen some lucid dreamers and all of them are very
light sleepers, are you also one? Usually nothing short of an earthquake can
wake me up :-).
--
Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said, "The flag is moving." The other
said, "The wind is moving." The sixth patriarch happened to be passing by. He
told them, "Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving." - The Gateless Gate