THE DREAM-CONSCIOUS STATE:  A PERSONAL JOURNAL OF INNER EXPLORATION
Bruce G. Marcot

ON ANCIENT TEXTS AND LUCID DREAMS

     Over the past two or three years (as of October 1997) I've studied a number of ancient texts and some more modern literature.  I've read two English translations of the entire Tibetan Book of the Dead; the entire Eastern Indian Upanishads (also two translations); the entire Bhagavad Gita; the Chinese Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu (Tzu) (again, two different translations) and the Chuang Tsu (an early Taoist contemporary with Lao Tsu but who developed a more personal and individual perspective on Taoism); a number of Books from the King James Version of the Bible; and several treatises on Taoism, Buddhism, and Zen.  The ancient Eastern texts, in particular, each has something to say about the nature of reality and, often, how lucid dreaming can be an important facet of understanding this world and the afterworld.
 

The Upanishads and Dreams

     The Upanishads -- the great Indian epic that has served as the foundation for much of Indian Buddhism -- has much to say about the dream state.  For example, the chapter "Brihadaranyaka" teaches:

     While the mind is dreaming, the Self also appears to be dreaming, and to be beyond the next world as well as this. ... There are two states for man -- the state in this world, and the state in the next; there is also a third state, the state intermediate between these two, which can be likened to dream. ... While in the intermediate state, he foresees both the evils and the blessings that will yet come to him, as these are determined by his conduct, good and bad, upon the earth, and by the character in which this conduct has resulted...  In the intermediate state...he is the creator of all these [sensations] out of the impressions left by his past deeds.

     The "intermediate state" of the Upanishads is remarkably like the Bardo of the Tibetan Book of the Dead.  What is the relation between the Indian Upanishads and the Tibetan Book of the Dead?

     The Upanishads goes on to teach that the conscious mind can awaken the body during sleep:

     While one is in the state of dream, the golden, self-luminous being, the Self within, makes the body to sleep, though he himself remains forever awake and watches by his own light the impressions of deeds that have been left upon themind.  Thereafter, associating himself again with the consciousness of the organs of sense, the Self causes the body to awake.

     This passage further notes that, through such consciousness, even in death, one can finally hope to escape from worldly reincarnation cycles and ascend to everlasting glory.  Again, this is entirely the message of the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

     It is important not to read too much into these texts, and not to unduly impart modern meaning and context onto ancient meanings and contexts, which may be very different.  Also, it is perennially difficult when to take such passages literally and when to presume they are but metaphor.  But some of these passages (assuredly quoted here rather out of context of the whole) still strike a resounding and resonant chord with my own lucid dreaming experiences.

     It is also important to read scholarly translations of these kinds of texts, rather than someone's modern interpretation of the texts which may be slanted toward new-ageism philosophies.  And even scholarly translations may vary widely in interpretation, which is why I have studied several translations of some of these texts.
 

The Bhagavad Gita and Dreams

     The 18 chapters of the romantic Sanskrit work known as the Bhagavad Gita (c. 500 B.C.E.) speaks to the relation between being human and striving for godly ideals in behavior and spirit.  It emphasizes that one's karma is guided by one's behavioral choices.  Karma -- the word derived from the Sanskrit kri which is found in the English words "create" and "creation" -- implies work, effort, extension, and responsibility ("ability to respond"), not a passive, preordained fate as is usually assumed by Westerners.  To me, having the onus for my own karma, my own life path, is embodied in the same concept as having control and onus over my own dreams.

     Although the Bhagavad Gita does not delve into dream-guidance explicitly, much of its message pertains to understanding the vision of god in all things and all things in god.  Many of the passages of the Bhagavad Gita sound logical, or meta-dimensional:

     The unreal never is: the Real never is not.  This truth indeed has been seen by those who can see the true. (Chapt. 2, Verse 16)

     He is never born, and he never dies.  He is in Eternity: he is for evermore.  Never-born and eternal, beyond times gone or to come, he does not die when the body dies. (Chapt. 2, verse 20)

     Some passages speak of a higher-dimensional vision of the universe, as if seen from a four-dimensional perspective (that can be cultivated in dream visions):

     Celestial garlands and vestures, forms anointed with heavenly perfumes.  The Infinite Divinity was facing all sides, all marvels in him containing.  (Chapt. 11, Verse 11)

     Nowhere I see a beginning or middle or end of thee, O God of all, Form Infinite!  (Chap. 11, Verse 16)

     He is invisible: he cannot be seen.  He is far and he is near, he moves and moves not, he is within all and he is outside all.  (Chapt. 13, Verse 15)

     Passages extol the virtues of intense inner vision, for the inner being is the true being, the one that extends beyond the bodily shell and that lives beyond after the shell dies.  Such teachings of the Gita greatly had set the stage for the Tibetan search for dream-consciousness and for extending beyond the Bardo by awakening within it.
 

Chuang Tsu, Lao Tsu, and Dreams

     Chuang Tsu, who may have lived in the last half of the fourth century B.C.E. -- was at once a staunch individualist who rejected Confucian calls to social order, and also was one of the early Taoists who proclaimed the connectivity of self to all.  This very description is nearly a Zen koan.  But it helps describe Chuang Tsu's passages on dreams and dream-states:

     Come the morning, those who dream of the drunken feast may weep and moan; when the morning comes, those who dream of weeping and moaning go hunting in the fields.  When they dream, they don't know it is a dream.  Indeed, in theirdreams they may think they are interpreting dreams, only when they awake do they know it was a dream.  Eventually, there comes the day of reckoning and awakening, and then we shall know that was all a great dream.  Only fools think that they are now awake and that they really know what is going on, playing the prince and then playing the servant.  What fools!  The Master and you are bothliving in a dream.  When I say a dream, I am also dreaming.  This very saying is a deception.  If after ten thousand years we could once meet a truly great sage, one who understands, it would seem as if it had only been a morning.

     Lao Tsu's approach is less direct, because he was more concerned with the social and even military aspects of Tao.  However, even some of his Taoist passages conjure the same urgency as found in the Tibetan Book of the Dead to become enlightened, aware, conscious, during dreams and during life, and during death:

         To know the eternal is called enlightenment.

         Not to know the eternal is to act blindly to result in disaster.
 

The Bible and Dreams

     I have also routed out a number of Bible passages on dreams.  There are some 87 passages in the Bible on dreams (I determined this by searching for the word or word-part "dream" in a computerized King James Version).  Most of these passages refer to dreams as the means by which divine messages are passed (e.g., Numbers 12:6, many others), or in which the future (or one alternative future) is presented (e.g.,. Jeremiah 23:28, Daniel 2:27-28).  And many passages deal with dream interpretation (e.g., Genesis 40:8, 40:16; many others).

     Interestingly, there are several Biblical passages that speak of dreaming and awakening to realize a great truth, as from afflatus and divine communication.  But one could read these passages as -- possibly -- the awakening is occurring within the dream itself.  As one example, Psalms 73:20 begins "As a dream when one awaketh..." It may be referring to awakening after a dream, but it might also be interpreted as awakening within a dream, as like the lucid-dreaming state.
 

The Tibetan Book of the Dead and Other Ancient Texts

     The Tibetan Book of the Dead, of course, is not to be confused with the vastly different Egyptian Book of the Dead.  The latter book deals with the realm of the Egyptian gods as they exist beyond our worldly domain, and does not deal with dream conditions.  In fact, in at least one translation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the word "dream" does not even appear.

     However, the Tibetan Book of the Dead is replete with references to how lucid dreaming can prepare us for the afterworld.  I have discussed this in several other sections in this essay.  One passage in particular highlights the value of lucid dreaming:

Hey! Now when the dream between dawns upon me,
I will give up corpselike sleeping in delusion,
And mindfully enter unwavering the experience of reality.
Conscious of dreaming, I will enjoy the changes as clear light.
Not sleeping mindlessly like an animal,
I will cherish the practice merging sleep and realization!
          - The Root Verses of the Six Betweens, p. 115

One translator of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Robert A. F. Thurman (Bantam Books version, 1994, p. 57), interpreted this passage thusly:  "...You can convert the dream state into a practice of the between-state [Bardo], priming yourself to recognize yourself as dreaming when in the dream.  This is quite difficult to do all at once, but not so hard if you can remember to persist, making a little progress bit by bit.  It is very important, for if you can become self-aware in the dream state by the practice of lucid dreaming, you have a much better chance of recognizing your situation in the between after death."

- - - - - - - - -

     I will have to continue my pursuits of other ancient texts to see what they teach in the way of lucid dreaming and the "intermediate state."  For example, I plan to study the Koran and the Torah.  I also suspect that much of the work on myth, such as summarized and analyzed by Joseph Campbell, might be revealing as well. Other insights may certainly be found in related Jungian philosophy.

     The learning continues.

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