“Your dreams can tell you what nobody else can”~ Swami Radha
“Experience is very flexible in dreams and we are free to do a great many things we cannot do when awake, including particular practices that facilitate our development…we can work with emotional difficulties, blocks that inhibit the free circulation of energy, and pierce obscurations in the mind by taking experience beyond conceptual boundaries and limitations” ~ Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
While its common for people to lack awareness of dreams, some individuals can actually become ‘dream deprived’.
REM sleep, the stage of sleep associated with dreaming, is rich with vital nutrients for our brains – enhancing memory functions, perceptual skills, and creativity, among other things. In modern culture many common substances like caffeine and alcohol, sleep medications and anti-depressants are known to suppress or interrupt REM sleep. When we don’t dream, it can have a deep impact on how we feel and how we act in waking life.
The purpose of dream yoga, as in all yoga, is about Awareness, and connection to the Divine within – sometimes also referred to as the Higher Self, the Soul, or many other linguistic representations.
The yogic method of working with dreams emphasizes independence. Generalizations about symbols are not used because each individual has their own symbolic language, associations, and understandings.
Our dreams are our own creations, a unique tapestry through which we listen to and see our own inner wisdom, strengthening our innate intuitive powers and self knowledge.
“The more we recognize ourselves as dreamers, the better we can come to understand how the mind creates not only dreams but also the waking dream and what we consider waking reality….the recognition that we are dreaming is critical to our spiritual awakening” ~ Dr Rubin Naiman “Healing Night – The Science and Spirit of Sleeping, Dreaming, and Awakening”