The Secret of Dreams

“Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I have awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.”

― Zhuangzi, The Butterfly as Companion: Meditations on the First Three Chapters of the Chuang-Tzu

There are four types of dreams according to Yacki Raizizun the author of The Secret of Dreams: Physical dreams, Sub-conscious dreams, Telepathic dreams, and Astral dreams.

First, Physical dreams are dreams that have some connection to our physical state of mind. For instance, during sleep, the dreamer may experience that he or she is being chased by a dog or playing with his or her dog outside the garden. But this dream is the influence of a dog barking outside the house or across the street. Another example was I had a dream once that I was sailing a ship across the Atlantic and I noticed a dark nimbus cloud coming my way. The ship started to shake violently, and my heart started to beat fast due to fear. Then I had seen huge waves rolling towards my ship, then waves swallowed by the ship, and I had fallen from my grip on the helm…Suddenly I have been awakened by hearing the faucet dripping from the bathroom. These kinds of dreams are an influence of external forces in our waking state.

Second, Subconscious dreams are dreams that are associated with our subconscious mind or memory. For instance, the dreamer may dream about a solution to a difficult problem that he or she can’t figure out. For example, the famous Mathematician Srinivasan Ramanujan dreamed about a huge chalkboard then a huge hand came out from nowhere and started to write something on the board till he realized that it was mathematical formula. When he finished writing Ramanujan look at the formulas and started memorizing them one by one. He woke up and hurriedly took his notebook near his bed and wrote down all formulas he could remember. Ramanujan contributed to the field of mathematics such as the number theory and infinite series which he computed the number of PI.

Third, Telepathic dreams are dreams that we received from thought transfer. These are the connection of different minds, a sender and receiver relationship. In sleep, there are some instances of thought transfer such as a mother to her daughter, a father to his son, or a friend to another friend. There was a story of a mother longing for her son that was drafted during the war. She has been dreaming of his return back home for several days. One day she received a letter from the army that her son will be returning home safely.

Forth, Astral dreams are dreams that are associated with premonitory or symbolic meaning. This might be creepy as it sounds but these are dreams coming from the dead. There was this dream my wife had several years back she dreamt about her dad warning of an upcoming storm. His dad in her dream insisted to tell her mom and sister not to travel by sea next week and rather let the storm pass. It was odd since there was no storm reported in the weather channel that day or even a week after. She told the story to her mom had not boarded the ship heading to their province. the week after that dream it was reported that a ship sank that should have been the ship boarded by her mom and sister. Her dad passed away a year before she had that dream.

Have you been dreaming lately?

Have you remembered what was it about?

Have you ever gotten any dreams from the astral or the symbolic?