Vemuri Ramesam, Thursday, August 20, 2015 7:22 am

The Enigma of Deep Sleep – 8

The Dream Experience:

It is a fallacy to say that dreaming happens only during sleep. As you sit and watch some inconsequential thing or even in the midst of some serious work, you may find yourself occasionally lost in a sudden reverie. Only after the lapse of a few seconds or minutes, you catch yourself building castles in Spain! Even though you are awake and the sensorial inputs are received by the brain, you remain unaware of what is being perceived because your mind is busy in its own stream of thoughts. This is called as Daydreaming. Whether it is daydreaming or dreaming in the sleep, the essential feature common to both is that mind is active but the body is at rest.

Clearly then, our experience of the world out there during dreaming (daydreaming or night dreams) is only the activity that goes on at the level of mind alone.  From the example of the morning cup of coffee we discussed towards the end of Part – 7, we know that our experience even during the awake state is also within the realm of the mind only, i.e. sensations, perceptions and thoughts (mentations), and we do not really experience any objects that have density, solidity or physicality to them.

Therefore, we can say that the wakeful state and the dream state are not different from one another. The so called awake state can be considered to be a mere extension of the dream with additional inputs coming from the sensory organs which vest an extra dimensionality to our experience of the imagined wakeful world. Because of this fact, some of our ancient philosophers posit that there exist only two states – the dream and the deep sleep state and the wakeful world is not a distinct third state.

One may, however, contend that all of us experience the same one world in the awake state but our experience of the dream world is unique to each one of us and therefore, the dream and awake states cannot be the same. Another may dispute saying that the dream objects are unreal because they are too ephemeral and serve no useful purpose whereas we can transact business with the awake world objects which are real. But if examined critically, both these arguments can be seen to be nothing more than conventional and convenient fabrications.

To hold that all persons are seeing the same one world is just a belief. The following example, taken from one of our ancient scriptures, shows that such a belief is an illusion much like what the soldiers resting during an intense combat experience.

“The soldiers were sleeping in the night.  Everybody was dreaming about the war.  In every soldier’s dream, there was an army fighting.  In truth, each had his dream-army.  But when he wakes up, he tells his friends, “I dreamt of our army fighting.”  It was not “our army” that he saw in his dream.  It was some dream army, maybe similar to his army.  But the soldier did not notice the difference.  It is the same thing with the world seen by all the people.  Hence, elders state that this world is like a long dream.”

To contend that the wakeful world objects are ‘real’ and the dream world objects are unreal based on their ‘utility’ for transaction is very puerile.  The dream world objects may not serve the purpose of the wakeful world; but they do meet the requirements of the dream world creatures.  It can equally be argued that the awake world objects serve no purpose of a dream world being. For example, you may have had a sumptuous meal before going to sleep, yet you may dream of being hungry and search for dream food in the dream. Obviously, the wakeful world food you had consumed before going to bed is of no consequence to the hungry dreamer-you.  The utility of an object is restricted to the domain of its occurrence and the criterion of utility in the awake state does not help in establishing its reality.

*****

Pre-historic Cave Art, France showing Dreaming manThe world of dreams fascinated man perhaps ever since s/he became aware of his own ‘abstract thinking.’  The figure on the left shows a rare depiction of a human being in prehistoric art in the Apse, Lascaux cave, France, dated approximately 18,000 years ago.  According to the sleep researcher Michel Jouvet, this may be one of the first depictions of a dreamer and his dream. (Adopted from the book, “Consciousness and the Brain” by Stanislas Dehaene, 2014).

Though systematic scientific research in dreams began over half a century ago, there is still much to learn about the whys and wherefores of the dream. The modern day developments in sophisticated technology along with the latest discoveries in Neuroscience are making tremendous headway in the investigation of dreams. We can look forward to the day in a decade or so when we can see on a computer screen the scenes being witnessed by a dreamer in his sleep.

Dreams play a significant role in the explication of the Vedantic thought.  Dreams are an oft quoted metaphor and are much discussed in our ancient philosophical lore.  In fact the rationale of one of the most powerful prakriyA-s (methods) for nididhyAsana (contemplative meditation) known as ‘eka-jIva vAda’ (I am Alone) is explained on the basis of dreams.  However, I find that one important aspect often gets glossed over in the philosophical discussions.  I would like to delve on this particular aspect here as it helps answer the most crucial question related to creation  – creation that is ever fresh and new without any past – historylessly  and acausally.

We know that we go through 4-5 sleep cycles each night. That means we get four or more dreams. In one dream you may be traveling, in another you may be quarreling, in a third you may be dead scared and running and so on.  If you think that you do not have a memory of the four or five dreams of one night, let us consider the dreams of last night and a couple of nights before that which you may recall.  Now, let us stop here for a while.

Have you ever considered how and when the life of the dreamer in each of the dream ended and whether it is the same dreamer who reappeared in a subsequent dream?   What ID did the dreamer carry to say that it’s the same dreamer appearing in each and every one of the dreams?  If you dreamt of your own death, how and to whom is he reborn and how he grew up to be what he is in the next dream? Or is it just an assumption on your part that the dreamer is the same guy simply because the waking-you now claim, in the present awake state, that all the different dreams belong to you?

I suggest that the different dreamer-you(s) are like the different Antonio-s appearing in different scenes of the Shakespeare drama we discussed in Part -3. They are unrelated and there is no continuity. They are the costumes with a few memorized dialogues. The memorized dialogue of each appearance of Antonio belongs to that specific appearance and ends with that appearance. It is a “knowledge” that is learnt and acquired.  It is a possession (a property/quality) of the character Antonio.  This knowledge can be stored, remembered, cultivated and developed. Practice maketh it perfect.

In contrast, The True Knowledge is “I am Peter Smith.” The True Knowledge is not learnt or cultivated. It comes already perfect. Because, that’s what Peter Smith is! It is like the Knowledge “I am a lion cub.” The memorized dialogue (the knowledge) and the character Antonio appear as and when the True Knowledge (I am Peter Smith) gets veiled. So what continues without a break all through is the True Knowledge only. The acquired knowledge (each of the appearances of Antonio) raises without any relation with or linkage to the past appearances. Each Antonio emerges from Peter Smith, is sustained for a time and dissolves back into Peter Smith.

The dreamer in each dream is separate and unconnected to the previous dreamer like the appearances of Antonio in different scenes. It’s only Peter Smith  and no Antonio exists in-between anywhere. Antonio is created anew and afresh in each scene.

*****

An experience based on mental perception only without the assistance of the sensory organs (i.e. inputs from the five senses) is called “The Ephemeral reality.” We have already noted that our experience obtained with the assistance of the sensory system in addition to the mind during the awake state is called “Transactional or Empirical reality.”  Because an object is experienced during the awake or dream states, we feel they are ‘real’ at least for the duration they are experienced. Because they are subjected to change and do not exist in the same way forever, we feel they are unreal. Their exact status, thus, remains indeterminate (anirvacanIya) to us. Therefore, the reality of the awake and dream states together (covering the upper two quadrants of the Four Outcomes Model) is referred to as “real-unreal” or mithya.

[You may like to watch: “I am the Creator of My World”]

(To Continue …. Part 9)

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