Sri Aurobindo : corresp.
THEME/S
THE VITAL AND SUBCONSCIENT DREAMS
You recently wrote to me apropos of incoherent dreams: "It depends on your attitude and consciousness; it is by bringing light down into the subcon-scient that these things can go." What exactly did you mean by "attitude" and by "consciousness"?
Your aspiration to a less downward consciousness in sleep.
It is the condition of your consciouness I spoke of — the more conscious you become, the more you will be able to have dreams worth having.
From where does what we ordinarily see in our dreams come?
It is more often the impressions of the waking state that come up in this (subconscient) type of dreams.
How to understand our dreams?
Observe them — if they are of importance or of a dynamic character, the meaning is not so difficult to find.
Is it helpful to study one's own dreams, unravel them and find out their meaning?
Unless they are really significant dreams it is a waste
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of time.
I don't think it is necessary to make the effort to remember unless you feel that there has been some-thing of special importance.
In what way can our dreams prove useful?
They show what the subconscient contains.
For the last three nights I have been absolutely unconscious in sleep and don't remember even my being's participation in any dreams. What happens at night to the being in these cases? Where does the subconscient go?
The subconscient remains in the body. The being really goes out into different planes of consciousness, but its experiences are not kept in the memory, because the recording consciousness is too submerged to carry the record to the waging mind.
Are the forms, seen in dreams, of subtle beings those beings themselves or formations created by them?
They are rather formations created from the subconscient. It is a hotchpotch of subconscient impressions thrown out on the vital plane.
I am told by S that the people we see in our dreams are sometimes parts of our own being, and that the mind gives them the forms of men or women, with whom we are acquainted on the physical plane. Is it true?
It is not parts of our own real "being" usually. It is different forces and forms of nature — whether of
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general nature or of our own nature, also ideas, impulses etc., the formations of our outer personality, or mind, vital etc.
These dreams on the vital plane are often very mixed owing to the intrusion of figures and details from the subconscient.
These are dreams on the vital plane or excursions into the vital world of which the happenings are rendered in terms familiar to the physical mind — e.g. shopkeeper, police etc. though arranged in a different way from the physical. I cannot say they are clear and precise in significance as the mental dreams are.
The dream is a seeing of things that have their truth on the vital plane.
You do not know that you live on other planes as well as on the physical and that what happens there need not be the same as what happens on the physical. If you meet the Mother on the vital and certain things happen they can have their truth on the vital plane but it does not mean that they happened here in the physical world.
Things do happen on the vital plane — but they are not more important than what happens here because it is here we have to realise and what happens on the vital is only a help.
Subconscient dreams and lower vital dreams are usually incoherent. Higher vital dreams are usually and mental dreams are always coherent.
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It was a sexual formation probably rising from the subconscient vital. Instead of allowing yourself to be disturbed by it, you should dismiss it from your mind altogether.
In our dreams, why sometimes do the figures take the form of a particular woman?
They take often the form of one who has some power of vital attraction in her so as to support their effort.
When I once asked you whether a certain dream was an attack by a vital force, you said "Yes". And you added: "There are other dreams that are formations put in by the vital forces, but this is not one of them." Please elucidate the difference.
I said this dream was an actual happening on the vital plane, not a formation. If somebody attacks you in the street, that is not a formation. But if somebody hypnotises you and suggests that you are ill—that suggestion is a formation put in by the hypnotiser.
It depends on the dream. It is sometimes a fact on the supraphysical plane, sometimes a representation in the mind of something that happened otherwise — sometimes only a formation.
Last night I saw in a dream a train passing at full speed and a horse which was very faithful to me. What does the dream mean?
The horse is a force acting for progress. The railway train at full speed means rapid progress.
What should we try to understand about dreams?
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Simply to make precise where you are in the dream state.
In a dream I saw X who had my time-piece. First he went straight to Arjava and then told me, "Now I will repair your time-piece." Does not this dream differ from the previous ones of memory? For I never asked him to do anything for me.
But you have seen X and Arjava and know that X repairs time-pieces for the sadhaks. When all that comes up from the subconscient it arranges itself not as it is in life but in a confused and incoherent way because the coordinating mind is not at work — everything combines together in a haphazard way.
During the afternoon sleep I seem to come often into contact with the Mother. Is it the Mother who sends her emanation?
Yes, or rather something of her is always with you.
A dream; The time was hushed with twilight. I was entering the Ashram when I saw that the Mother had already come down. When she saw me, such a gracious and blissful smile escaped her lovely lips! There were many sadhaks about her.
Then she began to conduct music with a small and beautiful stick. There were three girls around her; one of them was playing on a harmonium and the other two on tamburas. While directing the music the Mother was also singing, but mostly in a trance.
Am I right in taking those three girls as the Mother's presiding Shaktis?
Yes.
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Was it a mere dream or a real experience within?
It was an experience on the vital plane.
What does such a spiritual music signify?
There is such music on the supraphysical planes.
...You entered some part of the higher vital world and had the experience.
In a dream I saw the dawn of the 15th of August: a great storm arose, something like a cyclone. My mind considered it as a final revolt of the material nature against the higher Powers that were brought down by you on the occasion of your birthday. Very soon all the resistance vanished and instead of the obscurity, created by the storm, I found a bright sunlight! What does this event signify?
It is not an event. It is simply a symbolic dream in the vital indicating a tendency or possibility.
There was another dream: I felt as if two parts of the being — one turned towards light and the other towards ignorance — came out of the body. They fought a duel. It was not clear who won, but I afterwards experienced a sort of release in the consciousness.
It was probably not a dream, but an experience within.
I dreamt that a few Christians were jeering at you. Then you made a statement by which the court could fine them.
It is a purely vital dream. Of course one can take the Christians as forces of the vital physical nature, which can be converted.
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In a dream I saw the Mother walking with some of us. She asked me, "What is this tree?" I replied, "Peace in the vital." Amongst us there were many newcomers. One of them prostrated herself before the Mother. Sobbing, she prayed, "O Mother, how wretched I am that I am not able to stay here. I am already married," etc. In the dream itself my mind thought that it was her soul that had expressed itself.
That is more coherent than many of your vital dreams and was probably an actual fact of experience in the vital plane.
In last night's dream I saw a monkey. What does a monkey stand for?
The monkey may have been of the Hanuman type. Hanuman is a symbol of Bhakti and devotion.
THE MENTAL AND PSYCHIC DREAMS
In mental dreams can things, men and movements figure as in vital dreams?
They can, but the happenings there have a different less fanciful character with a clear meaning.
Last night I saw two dreams:
1) A warrior sends to his son a flower (signifying "Psychic Centre") and informs him thus: "There is a sword with just the shape of this flower on a certain mountain, go and get it." The sword was exactly
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like that.
2) A very beautiful maiden was perceived on a vast sea, raising her head out of the water. Only her head could be seen. She did not appear to be a vital kind of woman. My being looked at her with a great reverence.
The first dream seems to be mental and the meaning, as in all mental dreams, is plain enough in the dream itself. The other is probably from the higher vital representing come part of it with its presiding Shakti.
I went to X, during my afternoon nap, for some flowers to send to the Mother. He was seated with his usual group of people, telling them, "Z has been permitted to stay here (in the Ashram) for 30 years." Anyone could see that he was much excited with a vital joy. In the dream itself I could feel that he had pressed the Mother for keeping Z here. Then we all entered his room, where he began to pour some tea in his cup. As for my business, he said, "See, there are no flowers, my basin is empty."
It is of the mental vital expressing X's vital mind in these matters —so busy with vital things like his desire about Z that he has neglected to foster the psychic.
During sleep does the inner being stop the sadhana because of the commonplace dreams?
No. It can go on behind the surface.
In a dream I saw that it was night and I was sleeping on the mosquito-curtained cot. I found beside my cot some women of exquisite beauty playing.
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I could not make out if they were angels or goddesses. Their bodies were filled with superhuman light. It seemed they had some rapport with the Divine Mother. They respected me and talked with me, I forget what, but probably it was about my sadhana and the Mother. A bright light was burning amidst them. Although they were not young they appeared as innocent as children.
Probably the dream represented something from the psychic realm.
Here is a dream I had during my noon sleep. I came across a lake. In its centre there was an island with a small but very beautiful garden. There stood a fountain in the middle from which water was springing out. I watched it from the brink of the lake.
It is probably a rendering in physical terms of some experience on the psychic-vital plane.
This time the dream was about the Mother's music. All the while I was seated apart from the throng of people and yet in such a place that I could see everything.
After some time the Mother opened her magic eyes. She turned her head towards me and threw only one glance on me for a few seconds — I could not bear it longer, so I bent my head down. I felt a glow all over my body — up to the material layer! It was something more than the touch of a fiat. This time my physical consciousness experienced being taken more inside than above. It was no more bound by the ignorant nature.
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It is obviously an experience. It is not symbolic, so you can't ask what it signifies—it was a thing that happened, just as on the physical plane Mother might put something on you.
In today's dream I went to the Ashram Dining Room ( Aroume). Casually I paid a visit to Y. As I was approaching him I felt as if stepping towards a psychic being!
His psychic is very prominent.
A dream: I went to the seashore where I heard a great noise. Then I noticed a big steamer. The noise was due to the taking off of three aeroplanes from the steamer, which was on fire. Perhaps they separated from it in order to save it. Strange to say, afterwards the steamer seemed to be all right and already sailing away!
Has the dream anything to do with the psychic fire?
It cannot have been the psychic fire because then there would have been no need to save the steamer.
You wrote the other day: "The subconscient is there, so long as it is not enlightened these dreams are bound to come." I had asked you the question from the viewpoint of Harin's lines:
Even in sleep-depths I am wide awake.
Thy sweet presence is always there.
That does happen, but usually only when the psychic is in full activity.
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SOME DREAMS OF THE HIGHER PLANES
A dream: There was a small dog that wanted to take revenge on me, I don't know why. I had to run away from it in order to save myself. But it always pursued me, no matter where I fled and how. At last I escaped to a place which seemed like a highest room, and heaved a sigh of relief that the dog would never attempt to follow me here. But alas! After a while it did appear before me. But what a wonder! I perceived that all its anger had vanished! it simply bowed down before me.
This dream may be perhaps interesting.
It may be symbolic.
The dog is here something of the physical, adverse or injurious until one rises up to the highest part of the being when it gets transformed and becomes friendly and helpful.
Romen, Shanti, Jyoti and myself climbed to a high hill. There was a beautiful bungalow and garden on the summit. We were enjoying the place. Within a short time, Jyoti became impatient and insisted on going down immediately. In spite of our unwillingness we had to lead her down. Any meaning in this?
Probably that she cannot remain long on a high experience but comes down into the ordinary consciousness.
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In a dream of mine, the Mother told Shanti, Romen and myself to go to her abode. It was at some distance. The Mother had shown us a particular passage which alone could be used. But it was full of dangers. There was a long and slippery slope. At the centre lay a narrow and crooked path of not more than nine inches breadth! A slight wrong step from the centre and there was water below to swallow us up! However, by the Mother's grace we three crossed all that and arrived at a certain safe place. And yet we had not reached the destination (somehow in the dream itself we had thought: "How can we hope to attain the goal so easily?"). Afterwards the Mother appeared and told us, "Why did you not journey forward? My abode was just a few steps farther. You ought not to be so discouraged once on the way." What meaning does this dream have?
It is indicated in the dream itself.
A dream during my noon nap: I saw an earthen pot of just an ordinary kind. But it was beautifully decorated. The pot was so manufactured that its upper half could be taken up without disturbing the lower half. The upper lid consisted of eight parts, and each one could be separated. This whole vision appeared as clearly as a cinema film. Later some writing surged up, which was deciphered as: "Those eight parts are the openings of eight Goddesses. Each part of the lid will open and a woman will emerge from it." Does the dream mean anything?
It may — the pot may be the symbol of the being, with its upper and lower parts and the eight divisions
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(physical, vital, psychic, mental, Supermind and Sach-chidananda parts — or else more probably higher mental, intuitive, overmind and supramental). Each has its own Shakti to manifest.
A dream of last night: I was going towards the sea with some people. When we reached the shore we saw several boats just started on a voyage. Almost all the boats were new and very beautiful. They seemed to be constructed in quite a different design than what we find in this world. I felt as if not only the travellers were very gay and cheerful but also that even the boats themselves were manifesting joy and felicity! I could not quite make out the exact meaning of the happy and cheerful boats and the voyagers.
A happy movement of the sadhana without depressions and obstacles.
Some time after seeing the above dream, a voice was not only heard but felt as an experience, "A Light is dawning on the lower vital (for transformation) and we can sleep no longer." The voice awoke me at once and I felt profoundly that most of my lower vital difficulties had been ended by the Mother during the night — and then I felt myself free and full of delight and as if a thing like the lower vital existed no longer in my being!
It was at about 2.30 a.m. that I was roused from sleep. And yet I was so full of joy that more sleep was not necessary. The pure Atman consciousness which I had experienced before during fragmentary periods and only if I had first entered into a pure
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blankness, became now as spontaneous as peace!
Doubtless, all that shows a sudden and marvellous change in my being and also that the Mother has done it very consciously and precisely during the sleep.
It is a very good experience, especially as coming in a dream such experiences have power on the subconscient.
From where did that voice come?
Such voices come usually either from within oneself or from some higher plane.
(Meaning of "sleep no longer"): "Be tamasic and negligent about sadhana no longer."
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