The Nature of Dreams

You know, the last couple of weeks I've been trying to write about the nature of dreams three times and this is the fourth attempt. Somehow the first two attempt had been aborted by the technical problem before I had a chance to save it as a draft. The third attempt I had managed to save it in a draft and when I wrote this fourth attempt I don't have a chance to open and edit it. So it's really four times attempt in writing about the nature of dreams.

The thing that makes me curious is why this subject had been distracted for me to be written and why the feeling I'm carrying right now seems odd. You know the last few weeks I have this feeling in which I feel like dreaming in both of my concious state; either when I'm awake or sleeping. Nonetheless, that kind of feeling make it easier to write about the nature of dreams.

So, I ask you, 'What is the nature of dream?' My friends commented in my facebook that dreams was something unreal. The other person said it is a stage you saw during sleeping time, Some said it's a sleeping experience. In general we all refer dream to the state in which we are physically sleeping but inwardly we saw scenes taking place either involved us or jus as spectator.

For me dream is a bridge to the world beyond. I perceive this world is more like tangible material world to me. And something that belong to the world beyond is immaterial world in which my perception sees it as more real than the material world. We perceive this material world using our senses, our hearing, sights, taste and smelling senses and they are destructible.

Eventhough dream is a bridge to the world beyond, I won't say that all dreams are real. The nature of dreams can be differentiated based on their sources into four different kinds. They are physical dream, subconcious dream, deliberate dream and divine dream.

Physical dream is a dream that is manifested from physical needs which very closed to the material world. I believe once in a lifetime everybody ever have a dream in which they want to pee and they wake up having their pants wet. That is one of the example of physical dream.

Subconcious dream is a dream that is manifested from human subconcious awareness. I perceive this subconcious awareness is a set character that is embedded in human being that can be invoke through set of training and lying dormant in human mind. People with strong subconcience character usually when they have nightmare usually have the power to overcome it.

In islamic mysticism tradition there is a practice that is called 'dzikr' (remembrance). The first stage of this remembrance is starting with 'loud' remembrance in which the person pronounce out the remembrance words. Once they get used to it, they will go further to inner remembrance in which their remembrance is pronounced in silent. This remembrance is one that is helpful when a person is having a nightmare. One of the experience I ever had was when I had a nightmare, I was weak and had to fight the demon in my dream, by invoking this remembrance, I gained my strength and won the fight.

The third is deliberate dream. Since this dream required a higher spiritual attainment, it refers to the dream that happened to the person who direct it. What happened in deliberate dream is the person with high spiritual attainment will go to someone's dream and send the message to him/her through the dream. To understand how this can be done or whether it really happened we need to understand the nature of human being. However, I'm not going to talk about that in this topic. I might write it some other time.

The example of this kind of dreams I had from two persons from different spiritual practice background. And since they kind of ignorance to fame and pride, they usually don't admit what had happened openly. The person received the messages through their dreams, may only guess how and why it happened.

Divine dream is the dream that bear the truth in general. It may be of the coming event in future or the reality of things or person. My undestanding, divine dream can be asked for or happen naturally. In islamic practice there a special prayer taught to ask for guidance which is called istiharah prayer. The answer to that prayer sometimes is given in the form of dream. So I categogorize this divine dream to be the one asked for.

Divine dream that happen naturally is usually related to the things that going to happen in either society or person's life sometime in future. It carries messages from the World Beyond and require some intepretation from a wise person. Or if the person himself is the one, he would know the meaning of it.

In Javanese tradition there is a book called The Book of Dream which contain the intepretation of sign receive from dreams. Some people believe and some consider it as superstitious. In islamic religion there was one of scholar who is most known as a intepreter dreams. He is Ibn Sirin. He even wrote a book called The Intepretation of Dreams to help people understand the message of the World Beyond. This is because there is a saying that 'The true dream is part of prophecy'. We all know the story about the Prophet Joseph who is known as King of Dreams.

Understanding the nature of dream will help us to understand the message it carries whether it is a true dream or meaningless dream that carries no significant message for us or humanity.

Understanding that dream as another ethereal world that we can look at can enrich our knowledge and wisdom on the vastness Universe.

So, what was you dream last night? :)