[Advaita-l] Dreams and Reality

[Sunil Bhattacharjya]

--- On Thu, 2/19/09, Sunil Bhattacharjya <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Sunil Bhattacharjya <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Dreams and Reality
To: mayavaadi at yahoo.com
Date: Thursday, February 19, 2009, 4:14 PM







Dear friend,
 
As the world is mutable every worldly thing of the past gradually loses significance ie they do not have the present reality. A person of evolved soul can see the past births and these appear to him or her as mere dreams. Lord Buddha could see his past births and realised that he had achieved the true enlightenment. When the Advaitin realises the truth all the past individual existences and the separateness in all worldly things appear to him as nothing but dream(s). This perception of dream occurs due to realisation of the final truth.
 
As regards the other type of dreams, that you are referring to, these are mental constructions, however abnormal they may appear to you, should you manage to remember them on waking up. An artist can draw a flying man and at that time he would be dreaming about it, albeit he is awake to others. The reasons for this type of dreaming may have previous cause which make one to dream in a particular way or may even be a work of the sub-conscious mind. Some dreams may even be the premonitions of impending events.  
 
Sincerely,
 
Sunil K. Bhattacharjya

--- On Thu, 2/19/09, Suresh <mayavaadi at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Suresh <mayavaadi at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Advaita-l] Dreams and Reality
To: advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
Date: Thursday, February 19, 2009, 12:22 PM

Dear Friends,

In advaita, we're often given the dream analogy so we can make sense of why
we mistake an illusory world as real. But there's one thing I don't get.
Why do we mistake the dream (the dreams we have while asleep) for reality? For
instance, we may dream of someone flying or something even more bizarre like
some long dead historical personality. Yet, while dreaming, we never once get
suspicious, we never once get the feeling that something's odd (except of
course in rare cases of lucid dreaming).

My question is, Why is it this way? In the normal waking state, we all know
that it'd be impossible to see a flying guy, we laugh at the very idea. But
while dreaming, we do the exact opposite, in that we believe every bit of it.
How is this possible, when the 'waker' and the dreamer are one and the
same person, and with the same knowledge and awareness. 

I am a guy with the awareness that X is an impossible event, and with that same
awareness I go to sleep. Yet I believe X totally while dreaming. Why? How can
awareness vanish like that, or be replaced by some other type of awareness?
What's it about the dream that makes us fall for it completely, even when
it's totally illogical?

I look forward to reading your views on this.

Warmly,
Suresh




      

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