When we dream, we do not enter a world completely disconnected from that of the waking: the two realities are closely linked, even if in a slightly different way from the one we used to thinking about. In general, we tend to believe that at night the unconscious makes us “live films” that depend on what we have done during the day like events, meetings and emotions. In reality, this function of the dream is certainly true, and very precious, but it is only one aspect of the dream reality.
The dream world is another reality, a parallel dimension that is endowed with existence independent of that of the waking, in which we live a life that is not simply a consequence of what we experience while we are awake. We can find the links between the two dimensions, if we know how to decipher them both, which is a capacity inherent in our potential but unfortunately it falls within the things that human beings have lost over time.
The history of dream
Over time, culture has in fact removed them, erasing many connections that linked the world of sleep to that of waking. Take the Bible, for example, in its most ancient versions, the dream world is not only continually interwoven with that of the waking, but it is a channel through which the characters live the experience of contacts with dimensions and forces that otherwise could not meet. This confirms how the dream is not just an extension of when we are awake.
Unfortunately however, in the fifth century San Girolamo reinterprets the Bible in a strictly Christian tone and attributes to all the passages related to the dream the meaning of the presence of the devil, and therefore of a negative influence in the lives of men. It is a real pity, because instead, say many scholars of sacred texts, the “Book of books” contains many teachings about the state of the dream. But evidently, at least sixteen centuries ago, it was thought that it was important to avoid too much freedom in interpreting one’s life.
Sufism says that the dream is the most important science from the beginning of life. Classical Greece kept and developed a deep culture of sleep: the “abaton’s” for example, were rooms adjacent to the temples in which people were accommodated to sleep and recover from their ailments through the dream. Even the ancient Romans, who used to adopt the best traditions of the peoples with whom they came into contact, that is, that they conquered, had resumed the Greek vision of the dream, spreading the use of temples linked to the dream throughout the empire, all the way up to the province of Britain.
The lucid dream
Then little by little the dream has lost these characteristics in the Western conception, and we have begun to consider it as a byproduct of the waking world, if not as something considered to even be disturbing.
The same science, until the twentieth century, has not been practically studied, and what we live while the sleeping body has remained wrapped in skepticism, considered an activity of physiological recovery of the body, at most a good story of fantasy for the poets.
Things then began to change, driven by neurological disciplines, to arrive at the study of dreams and the exploration of lucid dreaming, concluded in the middle of the last century by an American named Stephen LaBerge, who at Stanford University scientifically demonstrated that it is possible to wake up in the midst of a dream, remaining physically asleep and consciously moving in that reality. It is called lucid dreaming!
Something extraordinary
To wake up “inside” of a dream, to realize how that part of existence is, to meet others and to realize that there are things that are important for us, gradually adding to our dream world as well, can be a wonderful experience. One that we can learn from. If we think about it, it’s like living a double life, without tiring ourselves more, and better connecting many parts of us.
Are you interested in the dream world? What relationship do you have with your nocturnal fantasies?
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