246
DREAMS
Meetings held at 17, Lansdowne Road, London, W., on December 20th and 27th, 1888; Mr. T.B. HARBOTTLE in the Chair.
(The following is a Summary of the teachings during several meetings which preceded the Transactions of the “Blavatsky Lodge of the T. S.,” when the explanations of the Stanzas from The Secret Doctrine became incorporated in a regular series of instructions.)[1]
Q. What are the “principles” which are active during dreams?
A. The “principles” active during ordinary dreams—which ought to be distinguished from real dreams, and called idle visions—are Kama, the seat of the personal Ego and of desire awakened into chaotic activity by the slumbering reminiscences of the lower Manas.
Q. What is the “lower Manas”?
A. It is usually called the animal soul (the Nephesh of the Hebrew Kabalists). It is the ray which emanates from the Higher Manas or permanent EGO, and is that “principle” which forms the human mind—in animals instinct, for animals also dream.[2] The combined action of Kama and the “animal soul,” however, are purely mechanical. It is instinct, not reason, which is active in them. During the sleep of the body they receive and send out mechanically electric shocks to and from various nerve-centres. The brain is hardly impressed by them, and memory stores them, of course, without order or sequence. On waking these impressions gradually fade out, as does every fleeting shadow that has no basic or substantial reality underlying it. The retentive faculty 247of the brain, however, may register and preserve them if they are only impressed strongly enough. But, as a rule, our memory registers only the fugitive and distorted impressions which the brain receives at the moment of awakening. This aspect of “dreams” however, has been sufficiently observed and is described correctly enough in modern physiological and biological works, as such human dreams do not differ much from those of the animals. That which is entirely terra incognita for Science is the real dreams and experiences of the higher EGO, which are also called dreams, but ought not to be so termed, or else the term for the other sleeping “visions” changed.
Q. How do these differ?
A. The nature and functions of real dreams cannot be understood unless we admit the existence of an immortal Ego in mortal man, independent of the physical body, for the subject becomes quite unintelligible unless we believe—that which is a fact—that during sleep there remains only an animated form of clay, whose powers of independent thinking arc utterly paralyzed.
But if we admit the existence of a higher or permanent Ego in us—which Ego must not be confused with what we call the “Higher Self,” we can comprehend that what we often regard as dreams, generally accepted as idle fancies, are, in truth, stray pages torn out from the life and experiences of the inner man, and the dim recollection of which at the moment of awakening becomes more or less distorted by our physical memory. The latter catches mechanically a few impressions of the thoughts, facts witnessed, and deeds performed by the inner man during its hours of complete freedom. For our Ego lives its own separate life within its prison of clay whenever it becomes free from the trammels of matter, i.e., during the sleep of the physical man. This Ego it is which is the actor, the real man, the true human self. But the physical man cannot feel or be conscious during dreams; for the personality, the outer man, with its brain and thinking apparatus, are paralyzed more or less completely.
We might well compare the real Ego to a prisoner, and the physical personality to the jailer of his prison. If 248the jailer falls asleep, the prisoner escapes, or, at least, passes outside the walls of his prison. The jailer is half asleep, and looks, nodding all the time, out of a window, through which he can catch only occasional glimpses of his prisoner, as he would a kind of shadow moving in front of it. But what can he perceive, and what can he know of the real actions, and especially the thoughts, of his charge?
Q. Do not the thoughts of the one impress themselves upon the other?
A. Not during sleep, at all events; for the real Ego does not think as his evanescent and temporary personality does. During the waking hours the thoughts and Voice of the Higher Ego do or do not reach his jailer—the physical man, for they are the Voice of his Conscience, but during his sleep they are absolutely the “Voice in the desert.” In the thoughts of the real man, or the immortal “Individuality,” the pictures and visions of the Past and Future are as the Present; nor are his thoughts like ours, subjective pictures in our cerebration, but living acts and deeds, present actualities. They are realities, even as they were when speech expressed in sounds did not exist; when thoughts were things, and men did not need to express them in speeches, for they instantly realised themselves in action by the power of Kriya-Sakti, that mysterious power which transforms instantaneously ideas into visible forms, and these were as objective to the “man” of the early third Race as objects of sight are now to us.
Q. How, then, does Esoteric Philosophy account for the transmission of even a few fragments of those thoughts of the Ego to our physical memory which it sometimes retains?
A. All such are reflected on the brain of the sleeper like outside shadows on the canvas walls of a tent, which the occupier sees as he wakes. Then the man thinks that he has dreamed all that, and feels as though he had lived through something, while in reality it is the thought-actions of the true Ego which he has dimly perceived. As he becomes fully awake, his recollections become with every minute more distorted, and mingle with the images 249projected from the physical brain, under the action of the stimulus which causes the sleeper to awaken. These recollections, by the power of association, set in motion various trains of ideas.
Q. It is difficult to see how the Ego can be acting during the night things which have taken place long ago. Was it not stated that dreams are not subjective?
A. How can they be subjective when the dream state is itself for us, and on our plane, at any rate, a subjective one? To the dreamer (the Ego), on his own plane, the things on that plane are as objective to him as our acts are to us.
Q. What are the senses which act in dreams?
A. The senses of the sleeper receive occasional shocks, and are awakened into mechanical action; what he hears and sees are, as has been said, a distorted reflection of the thoughts of the Ego. The latter is highly spiritual, and is linked very closely with the higher principles, Buddhi and Atma. These higher principles are entirely inactive on our plane, and the higher Ego (Manas) itself is more or less dormant during the waking of the physical man. This is especially the case with persons of very materialistic mind. So dormant are the Spiritual faculties, because the Ego is so trammelled by matter, that It can hardly give all its attention to the man’s actions, even should the latter commit sins for which that Ego— when reunited with its lower Manas—will have to suffer conjointly in the future. It is, as I said, the impressions projected into the physical man by this Ego which constitute what we call “conscience”; and in proportion as the Personality, the lower Soul (or Manas), unites itself to its higher consciousness, or EGO, does the action of the latter upon the life of mortal man become more marked.
Q. This Ego, then, is the “Higher Ego”?
A. Yes; it is the higher Manas illuminated by Buddhi; the principle of self-consciousness, the “I-am-I,” in short. It is the Karana-Sarira, the immortal man, which passes from one incarnation to another.
Q. Is the “register” or “tablet of memory” for the true dream-state different from that of waking life?
250 A. Since dreams are in reality the actions of the Ego during physical sleep, they are, of course, recorded on their own plane and produce their appropriate effects on this one. But it must be always remembered that dreams in general, and as we know them, are simply our waking and hazy recollections of these facts.
It often happens, indeed, that we have no recollection of having dreamt at all, but later in the day the remembrance of the dream will suddenly flash upon us. Of this there are many causes. It is analogous to what sometimes happens to every one of us. Often a sensation, a smell, even a casual noise or a sound, brings instantaneously to our mind long-forgotten events, scenes and persons. Something of what was seen, done, or thought by the “night-performer,” the Ego, impressed itself at that time on the physical brain, but was not brought into the conscious, waking memory, owing to some physical condition or obstacle. This impression is registered on the brain in its appropriate cell or nerve centre, but owing to some accidental circumstance it “hangs fire,” so to say, till something gives it the needed impulse. Then the brain slips it off immediately into the conscious memory of the waking man; for as soon as the conditions required are supplied, that particular centre starts forthwith into activity, and does the work which it had to do, but was hindered at the time from completing.
Q. How does this process take place?
A. There is a sort of conscious telegraphic communication going on incessantly, day and night, between the physical brain and the inner man. The brain is such a complex thing, both physically and metaphysically, that it is like a tree whose bark you can remove layer by layer, each layer being different from all the others and each having its own special work, function, and properties.
Q. What distinguishes the “dreaming” memory and imagination from those of waking consciousness?
A. During sleep the physical memory and imagination are of course passive, because the dreamer is asleep:
251 his brain is asleep, his memory is asleep, all his functions are dormant and at rest. It is only when they are stimulated, as I told you, that they are aroused. Thus the consciousness of the sleeper is not active, but passive. The inner man, however, the real Ego, acts independently during the sleep of the body; but it is doubtful if any of us—unless thoroughly acquainted with the physiology of occultism—could understand the nature of its action.
Q. What relation have the Astral Light and Akâsa to memory?
A. The former is the “tablet of the memory” of the animal man, the latter of the spiritual Ego. The “dreams” of the Ego, as much as the acts of the physical man, arc all recorded, since both are actions based on causes and producing results. Our “dreams” being simply the waking state and actions of the true Self, must be, of course, recorded somewhere. Read “Karmic Visions” in Lucifer,[3] and note the description of the real Ego, sitting as a spectator of the life of the hero, and perhaps something will strike you.
Q. What, in reality, is the Astral Light?
A. As the Esoteric Philosophy teaches us, the Astral Light is simply the dregs of Akâsa or the Universal Ideation in its metaphysical sense. Though invisible, it is yet, so to speak, the phosphorescent radiation of the latter, and is the medium between it and man’s thought-faculties. It is these which pollute the Astral Light, and make it what it is—the storehouse of all human and especially psychic iniquities. In its primordial genesis, the astral light as a radiation is quite pure, though the lower it descends approaching our terrestrial sphere, the more it differentiates, and becomes as a result impure in its very constitution. But man helps considerably in this pollution, and gives it back its essence far worse than when he received it.
252 Q. Can you explain to us how it is related to man, and its action in dream-life?
A. Differentiation in the physical world is infinite. Universal Ideation—or Mahat, if you like it—sends its homogeneous radiation into the heterogeneous world, and this reaches the human or personal minds through the Astral Light.
Q. But do not our minds receive their illuminations direct from the higher Manas through the Lower? And is not the former the pure emanation of divine Ideation—the “Manasa-Putras,” which incarnated in men?
A. They are. Individual Manasa-Putras or the Kumaras are the direct radiations of the divine Ideation—”individual” in the sense of later differentiation owing to numberless incarnations. In sum they are the collective aggregation of that Ideation, become on our plane, or from our point of view, Mahat, as the Dhyan Chohans are in their aggregate the WORD or “Logos” in the formation of the World. Were the Personalities (Lower Manas or the Physical minds) to be inspired and illumined solely by their higher alter Egos there would be little sin in this world. But they are not; and getting entangled in the meshes of the Astral Light, they separate themselves more and more from their parent Egos. Read and study what Éliphas Lévi says of the Astral Light, which he calls Satan and the Great Serpent. The Astral Light has been taken too literally to mean some sort of a second blue sky. This imaginary space, however, on which are impressed the countless images of all that ever was, is, and will be, is but a too sad reality. It becomes in, and for, man—if at all psychic—and who is not?—a tempting Demon, his “evil angel,” and the inspirer of all our worst deeds. It acts on the will of even the sleeping man, through visions impressed upon his slumbering brain (which visions must not be confused, with the “dreams”), and these germs bear their fruit when he awakes.
Q. What is the part played by Will in dreams?
A. The will of the outer man, our volition, is of course dormant and inactive during dreams; but a 253certain bent can be given to the slumbering will during its inactivity, and certain after-results developed by the mutual inter-action—produced almost mechanically—through union between two or more “principles” into one, so that they will act in perfect harmony, without any friction or a single false note, when awake. But this is one of the dodges of “black magic,” and when used for good purposes belongs to the training of an Occultist. One must be far advanced on the “path” to have a will which can act consciously during his physical sleep, or act on the will of another person during the sleep of the latter, e.g., to control his dreams, and thus control his actions when awake.
Q. We are taught that a man can unite all his “principles” into one—what does this mean?
A. When an adept succeeds in doing this he is a Jivanmukta: he is no more of this earth virtually, and becomes a Nirvanee, who can go into Samadhi at will. Adepts are generally classed by the number of “principles” they have under their perfect control, for that which we call will has its seat in the higher EGO, and the latter, when it is rid of its sin-laden personality, is divine and pure.
Q. What part does Karma play in dreams? In India they say that every man receives the reward or punishment of all his acts, both in the waking and the dream state.
A. If they say so, it is because they have preserved in all their purity and remembered the traditions of their forefathers. They know that the Self is the real Ego, and that it lives and acts, though on a different plane. The external life is a “dream” to this Ego, while the inner life, or the life on what we call the dream plane, is the real life for it. And so the Hindus (the profane, of course) say that Karma is generous, and rewards the real man in dreams as well as it does the false personality in physical life.
Q. What is the difference, “karmically,” between the two?
A. The physical animal man is as little responsible as a dog or a mouse. For the bodily form all is over with the death of the body. But the real SELF, that which 254emanated its own shadow, or the lower thinking personality, that enacted and pulled the wires during the life of the physical automaton, will have to suffer conjointly with its factotum and alter ego in its next incarnation.
Q. But the two, the higher and the lower, Manas are one, are they not?
A. They are, and yet they are not—and that is the great mystery. The Higher Manas or EGO is essentially divine, and therefore pure; no stain can pollute it, as no punishment can reach it, per se, the more so since it is innocent of, and takes no part in, the deliberate transactions of its Lower Ego. Yet by the very fact that, though dual and during life the Higher is distinct from the Lower, “the Father and Son” are one, and because that in reuniting with the parent Ego, the Lower Soul fastens upon and impresses upon it all its bad as well as good actions—both have to suffer, the Higher Ego, though innocent and without blemish, has to bear the punishment of the misdeeds committed by the lower Self together with it in their future incarnation. The whole doctrine of atonement is built upon this old esoteric tenet; for the Higher Ego is the antitype* of that which is on this earth the type, namely, the personality. It is, for those who understand it, the old Vedic story of Visvakarman over again, practically demonstrated. Visvakarman, the all-seeing Father-God, who is beyond the comprehension of mortals, ends, as son of Bhuvana, the holy Spirit, by sacrificing himself to himself, to save the worlds. The mystic name of the “Higher Ego” is, in the Indian philosophy, Kshetrajña, or “embodied Spirit,” that which knows or informs Kshetra “the body.” Etymologize the name, and you will find in it the term aja, “first-born,” and also the “lamb.” All this is very suggestive, and volumes might be written upon the pregenetic and postgenetic development of type and antitype[4]—of 255Christ-Kshetrajña, the “God-Man,” the First-born, symbolized as the “lamb.” The Secret Doctrine shows that the Manasa-Putras or incarnating EGOS have taken upon themselves, voluntarily and knowingly, the burden of all the future sins of their future personalities. Thence it is easy to see that it is neither Mr. A. nor Mr. B., nor any of the personalities that periodically clothe the Self-Sacrificing EGO, which are the real Sufferers, but verily the innocent Christos within us. Hence the mystic Hindus say that Eternal Self; or the Ego (the one in three and three in one), is the “Charioteer” or driver; the personalities are the temporary and evanescent passengers; while the horses are the animal passions of man. It is, then, true to say that when we remain deaf to the Voice of our Conscience, we crucify the Christos within us. But let us return to dreams.
Q. Are so-called prophetic dreams a sign that the dreamer has strong clairvoyant faculties?
A. It may be said, in the case of persons who have truly prophetic dreams, that it is because their physical brains and memory are in closer relation and sympathy with their “Higher Ego” than in the generality of men. The Ego-Self has more facilities for impressing upon the physical shell and memory that which is of importance to such persons than it has in the case of other less gifted persons. Remember that the only God man comes in contact with is his own God, called Spirit, Soul and Mind, or Consciousness, and these three are one.
But they are weeds that must be destroyed in order that a plant may grow. We must die, said St. Paul, that we may live again. It is through destruction that we may improve, and the three powers, the preserving, the creating and the destroying, are only so many aspects of the divine spark within man.
Q. Do Adepts dream?
A. No advanced Adept dreams. An adept is one who has obtained mastery over his four lower principles, including his body, and does not, therefore, let flesh have its own way. He simply paralyzes his lower Self during Sleep, and becomes perfectly free. A dream, as 256we understand it, is an illusion. Shall an adept, then, dream when he has rid himself of every other illusion? In his sleep he simply lives on another and more real plane.
Q. Are there people who have never dreamed?
A. There is no such man in the world so far as I am aware. All dream more or less; only with most, dreams vanish suddenly upon waking. This depends on the more or less receptive condition of the brain ganglia. Unspiritual men, and those who do not exercise their imaginative faculties, or those whom manual labour has exhausted, so that the ganglia do not act even mechanically during rest, dream rarely, if ever, with any coherence.
Q. What is the difference between the dreams of men and those of beasts?
A. The dream state is common not only to all men, but also to all animals, of course, from the highest mammalia to the smallest birds, and even insects. Every being endowed with a physical brain, or organs approximating thereto, must dream. Every animal, large or small, has, more or less, physical senses; and though these senses are dulled during sleep, memory will still, so to say, act mechanically, reproducing past sensations. That dogs and horses and cattle dream we all know, and so also do canaries, but such dreams are, I think, merely physiological. Like the last embers of a dying fire, with its spasmodic flare and occasional flames, so acts the brain in falling asleep. Dreams are not, as Dryden says, “interludes which fancy makes,” for such can only refer to physiological dreams provoked by indigestion, or some idea or event which has impressed itself upon the active brain during waking hours.
Q. What, then, is the process of going to sleep?
A. This is partially explained by Physiology. It is said by Occultism to be the periodical and regulated exhaustion of the nervous centres, and especially of the sensory ganglia of the brain, which refuse to act any longer on this plane, and, if they would not become unfit for work, are compelled to recuperate their strength on another plane or Upadhi. First comes the Svapna, or 257dreaming state, and this leads to that of Sushupti. Now it must be remembered that our senses are all dual, and act according to the plane of consciousness on which the thinking entity energises. Physical sleep affords the greatest facility for its action on the various planes; at the same time it is a necessity, in order that the senses may recuperate and obtain a new lease of life for the Jagrata, or waking state, from the Svapna and Sushupti. According to Raj Yoga, Turya is the highest state. As a man exhausted by one state of the life fluid seeks another; as, for example, when exhausted by the hot air he refreshes himself with cool water; so sleep is the shady nook in the sunlit valley of life. Sleep is a sign that waking life has become too strong for the physical organism, and that the force of the life current must be broken by changing the waking for the sleeping state. Ask a good clairvoyant to describe the aura of a person just refreshed by sleep, and that of another just before going to sleep. The former will be seen bathed in rhythmical vibrations of life currents—golden, blue, and rosy; these are the electrical waves of Life. The latter is, as it were, in a mist of intense golden-orange hue, composed of atoms whirling with an almost incredible spasmodic rapidity, showing that the person begins to be too strongly saturated with Life; the life essence is too strong for his physical organs, and he must seek relief in the shadowy side of that essence, which side is the dream element, or physical sleep, one of the states of consciousness.
Q. But what is a dream?
A. That depends on the meaning of the term. You may “dream,” or, as we say, sleep visions, awake or asleep. If the Astral Light is collected in a cup or metal vessel by will-power, and the eyes fixed on some point in it with a strong will to see, a waking vision or “dream” is the result, if the person is at all sensitive. The reflections in the Astral Light are seen better with closed eyes, and, in sleep, still more distinctly. From a lucid state, vision becomes translucid; from normal organic consciousness it rises to a transcendental state of consciousness.
258 Q. To what causes are dreams chiefly due?
A. There are many kinds of dreams, as we all know. Leaving the “digestion dream” aside, there are brain dreams and memory dreams, mechanical and conscious visions. Dreams of warning and premonition require the active co-operation of the inner Ego. They are also often due to the conscious or unconscious co-operation of the brains of two living persons, or of their two Egos.
Q. What is it that dreams, then?
A. Generally the physical brain of the personal Ego, the seat of memory, radiating and throwing off sparks like the dying embers of a fire. The memory of the Sleeper is like an Æolian seven-stringed harp; and his state of mind may be compared to the wind that sweeps over the chords. The corresponding string of the harp will respond to that one of the seven states of mental activity in which the sleeper was before falling asleep. If it is a gentle breeze the harp will be affected but little; if a hurricane, the vibrations will be proportionately powerful. If the personal Ego is in touch with its higher principles and the veils of the higher planes are drawn aside, all is well; if on the contrary it is of a materialistic, animal nature, there will be probably no dreams; or if the memory by chance catch the breath of a “wind” from a higher plane, seeing that it will be impressed through the sensory ganglia of the cerebellum, and not by the direct agency of the spiritual Ego, it will receive pictures and sounds so distorted and inharmonious that even a Devachanic vision would appear a nightmare or grotesque caricature. Therefore there is no simple answer to the question “What is it that dreams,” for it depends entirely on each individual what principle will be the chief motor in dreams, and whether they will be remembered or forgotten.
Q. Is the apparent objectivity in a dream really objective or subjective?
A. If it is admitted to be apparent, then of course it is subjective. The question should rather be, to whom or what are the pictures or representations in dreams either objective or subjective? To the physical man, the dreamer,
259
all he sees with his eyes shut, and in or through his mind, is of course subjective. But to the Seer within the physical dreamer, that Seer himself being subjective to our material senses, all he sees is as objective as he is himself to himself and to others like himself. Materialists will probably laugh, and say that we make of a man a whole family of entities, but this is not so. Occultism teaches that physical man is one, but the thinking man septenary, thinking, acting, feeling, and living on seven different states of being or planes of consciousness, and that for all these states and planes the permanent Ego (not the false personality) has a distinct set of senses.
Q. Can these different senses be distinguished?
A. Not unless you are an Adept or highly-trained Chela, thoroughly acquainted with these different states. Sciences, such as biology, physiology, and even psychology (of the Maudsley, Bain, and Herbert Spencer schools), do not touch on this subject. Science teaches us about the phenomena of volition, sensation, intellect, and instinct, and says that these are all manifested through the nervous centres, the most important of which is our brain. She will speak of the peculiar agent or substance through which these phenomena take place as the vascular and fibrous tissues, and explain their relation to one another, dividing the ganglionic centres into motor, sensory and sympathetic, but will never breathe one word of the mysterious agency of intellect itself, or of the mind and its functions.
Now, it frequently happens that we are conscious and know that we are dreaming; this is a very good proof that man is a multiple being on the thought plane; so that not only is the Ego, or thinking man, Proteus, a multiform, ever-changing entity, but he is also, so to speak, capable of separating himself on the mind or dream plane into two or more entities; and on the plane of illusion which follows us to the threshold of Nirvâna, he is like Ain-Soph talking to Ain-Soph, holding a dialogue with himself and speaking through, about, and to himself. And this is the mystery of the inscrutable Deity in the Zohar, as in the Hindu philosophies; it is the same in 260the Kabbala, Puranas, Vedantic metaphysics, or even in the so-called Christian mystery of the Godhead and Trinity. Man is the microcosm of the macrocosm; the god on earth is built on the pattern of the god in nature. But the universal consciousness of the real Ego transcends a millionfold the self-consciousness of the personal or false Ego.
Q. Is that which is termed “unconscious cerebration” during sleep a mechanical process of the physical brain, or is it a conscious operation of the Ego, the result of which only is impressed on the ordinary consciousness?
A. It is the latter; for is it possible to remember in our conscious state what took place while our brain worked unconsciously? This is apparently a contradiction in terms.
Q. How does it happen that persons who have never seen mountains in nature often see them distinctly in sleep and are able to note their features?
A. Most probably because they have seen pictures of mountains; otherwise it is somebody or something in us which has previously seen them.
Q. What is the cause of that experience in dreams in which the dreamer seems to be ever striving after something, but never attaining it?
A. It is because the physical self and its memory are shut out of the possibility of knowing what the real Ego does. The dreamer only catches faint glimpses of the doings of the Ego, whose actions produce the so-called dream in the physical man, but is unable to follow it consecutively. A delirious patient, on recovery, bears the same relation to the nurse who watched and tended him in his illness as the physical man to his real Ego. The Ego acts as consciously within and without him as the nurse acts in tending and watching over the sick man. But neither the patient after leaving his sick bed, nor the dreamer on awaking, will be able to remember anything except in snatches and glimpses.
Q. How does sleep differ from death?
A. There is an analogy certainly, but a very great difference between the two. In sleep there is a connection, weak though it may be, between the lower 261and higher mind of man, and the latter is more or less reflected into the former, however much its rays may be distorted. But once the body is dead, the body of illusion, Mayavi Rupa, becomes Kama Rupa, or the animal soul, and is left to its own devices. Therefore, there is as much difference between the spook and man as there is between a gross material, animal, but sober mortal, and man incapably drunk and unable to distinguish the most prominent surroundings; between a person shut up in a perfectly dark room and one in a room lighted, however imperfectly, by some light or other.
The lower principles are like wild beasts, and the higher Manas is the rational man who tames or subdues them more or less successfully. But once the animal gets free from the master who held it in subjection; no sooner has it ceased to hear his voice and see him than it starts off again to the jungle and its ancient den. It takes, however, some time for an animal to return to its original and natural state, but these lower principles or “spook” return instantly, and no sooner has the higher Triad entered the Devachanic state than the lower Triad rebecomes that which it was from the beginning, a principle endued with purely animal instinct, made happier still by the great change.
Q. What is the condition of the Linga Sarira, or plastic body, during dreams?
A. The condition of the Plastic form is to sleep with its body, unless projected by some powerful desire generated in the higher Manas. In dreams it plays no active part, but on the contrary is entirely passive, being the involuntarily half-sleepy witness of the experiences through which the higher principles are passing.
Q. Under what circumstances is this wraith seen?
A. Sometimes, in cases of illness or very strong passion on the part of the person seen or the person who sees; the possibility is mutual. A sick person, especially just before death, is very likely to see in dream, or vision, those whom he loves and is continually thinking of, and so also is a person awake, but intensely thinking of a person who is asleep at the time.
262 Q. Can a Magician summon such a dreaming entity and have intercourse with it?
A. In black Magic it is no rare thing to evoke the “spirit” of a sleeping person; the sorcerer may then learn from the apparition any secret he chooses, and the sleeper be quite ignorant of what is occurring. Under such circumstances that which appears is the Mayavi rupa; but there is always a danger that the memory of the living man will preserve the recollections of the evocation and remember it as a vivid dream. If it is not, however, at a great distance, the Double or Linga Sarira may be evoked, but this can neither speak nor give information, and there is always the possibility of the sleeper being killed through this forced separation. Many sudden deaths in sleep have thus occurred, and the world been no wiser.
Q. Can there be any connection between a dreamer and an entity in “Kama Loka”?
A. The dreamer of an entity in Kama Loka would probably bring upon himself a nightmare, or would run the risk of becoming “possessed” by the “spook” so attracted, if he happened to be a medium, or one who had made himself so passive during his waking hours that even his higher Self is now unable to protect him. This is why the mediumistic state of passivity is so dangerous, and in time renders the Higher Self entirely helpless to aid or even warn the sleeping or entranced person. Passivity paralyzes the connection between the lower and higher principles. It is very rare to find instances of mediums who, while remaining passive at will, for the purpose of communicating with some higher intelligence, some ex-terraneous spirit (not disembodied), will yet preserve sufficiently their personal will so as not to break off all connection with the higher Self.
Q. Can a dreamer be “en rapport” with an entity in Devachan?
A. The only possible means of communicating with Devachanees is during sleep by a dream or vision, or in trance state. No Devachanee can descend into our plane; it is for us—or rather our inner Self—to ascend to his.
263 Q. What is the state of mind of a drunkard during sleep?
A. It is no real sleep, but a heavy stupor; no physical rest, but worse than sleeplessness, and kills the drunkard as quickly. During such stupor, as also during the waking drunken state, everything turns and whirls around in the brain, producing in the imagination and fancy horrid and grotesque shapes in continual motion and convolutions.
Q. What is the cause of nightmare, and how is it that the dreams of persons suffering from advanced consumption are often pleasant?
A. The cause of the former is simply physiological. A nightmare arises from oppression and difficulty in breathing; and difficulty in breathing will always create such a feeling of oppression and produce a sensation of impending calamity. In the second case, dreams become pleasant because the consumptive grows daily severed from his material body, and more clairvoyant in proportion. As death approaches, the body wastes away and ceases to be an impediment or barrier between the brain of the physical man and his Higher Self.
Q. Is it a good thing to cultivate dreaming?
A. It is by cultivating the power of what is called “dreaming” that clairvoyance is developed.
Q. Are there any means of interpreting dreams—for instance, the interpretations given in dream-books?
A. None but the clairvoyant faculty and the spiritual intuition of the “interpreter.” Every dreaming Ego differs from every other, as our physical bodies do. If everything in the universe has seven keys to its symbolism on the physical plane, how many keys may it not have on higher planes?
Q. Is there any way in which dreams may be classified?
A. We may roughly divide dreams also into seven classes, and subdivide these in turn. Thus, we would divide them into:—
1. Prophetic dreams. These are impressed on our memory by the Higher Self, and are generally plain and clear: either a voice heard or the coming event foreseen.
264 2. Allegorical dreams, or hazy glimpses of realities caught by the brain and distorted by our fancy. These are generally only half true.
3. Dreams sent by adepts, good or bad, by mesmerisers, or by the thoughts of very powerful minds bent on making us do their will.
4. Retrospective; dreams of events belonging to past incarnations.
5. Warning dreams for others who are unable to be impressed themselves.
6. Confused dreams, the causes of which have been discussed above.
7. Dreams which are mere fancies and chaotic pictures, owing to digestion, some mental trouble, or suchlike external cause.
Footnotes
- ↑ [Published here in correct chronological sequence, though originally appearing as an “Appendix” to the Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, Part I, pp. 49-64.—Compiler.]
- ↑ The word dream means really “to slumber”—the latter function being called in Russian “dremat’”—ED.
- ↑ [Vol. II, No. 10, June, 1888, pp. 311-22. Incorporated into Vol. IX of the present Series, in its correct chronological sequence.—Compiler.]
- ↑ [Considering the highly metaphysical nature of the teaching involved, this word could be used here in the sense of “prototype,” and would then be spelled “antetype.” We leave it unaltered, as the meaning is somewhat uncertain.—Compiler.]