Where do you go when you sleep?
The mysteries of sleep and dreams
“…the day-time of the body is the night-time of the soul, and the night-time of the body is the day-time of the soul.”
We all know the feeling of waking up after a strange dream. Some of you reading this probably had a weird dream last night that you are still wondering about.
Sleep is essentially a third of your life here on Earth. And then you have dreams, which are feelings, images, and stories that you can recall, and felt like you were there, but which fade from memory after waking.
Other people’s dream worlds are different than mine, and mine are different from everyone else’s. But the experience is universal. Though we cant “latch on” to the dream consciously like a moment in waking reality, we feel 100% “there” when we are there. What is that?
If you dream of a triangle, where does the triangle exist?
The generally accepted physicalist stance is that matter causes mind (or illusion of mind), whereas folks who subscribe to some form of Idealism, say the opposite. That all this physical stuff is a projection of mind and consciousness, which comes first, and connects everything together.
Dreams bring up interesting arguments here.
Nothing that happens in the dream world is physical, but seems to take on nearly all the same attributes of the physical world. Wherein lies the difference?
Arthur Haswell writes about a “dream triangle” in an article titled “If you dream of a triangle, where does the triangle exist?”
“…The dream triangle, while potentially vivid and detailed in the mind’s eye, does not occupy physical space nor does it have measurable properties outside the context of the dream. Yet the dream triangle, despite lacking a physical instantiation, might be experienced with an apparent concreteness indistinguishable from physical triangles. This underscores a significant distinction: the dream triangle manifests in a non-physical manner, challenging a purely physicalist interpretation of reality.”
But what’s perhaps even stranger, is that in our dream reality we accept all kinds of weird things as true and normal. In a dream, you might think, “Of course that sad elephant is jealous of my hat. She lost her own hat in the great flood.”
So what is sleep and what are dreams?
Enter the spirit world
In esoteric philosophy, you’ll find a lot of talk about sleep and dreams, and how they serve as a bridge to the spirit world. And also a way to better understand death, as well as what happens beyond death.
We have dreams. And we have sleep.
In the Theosophic and Anthroposophic esoteric traditions, dreams are understood as an intermediary between wakefulness and true sleep. Passing from wakefulness into the dream world, the experience remains in the “etheric body” which is between the physical body and the “astral body,” and is still sort of attached to waking life, and thus the images experienced are clothed in the appearance of the material world.
“These dream pictures taken from ordinary life are formed only in the intermediate conditions ... The individual lives then in a different world of reality, a world which is passed through between falling asleep and awaking.”
- Rudolf Steiner
And the meaning of dreams? This is highly personal, of course, but Madame Blavatsky, author of The Secret Doctrine in 1888, laid out seven types of dreams:
“1. Prophetic dreams. These are impressed on our memory by the Higher Self, and are generally plain and clear: either a voice heard or the coming event foreseen.
2. Allegorical dreams, or hazy glimpses of realities caught by the brain and distorted by our fancy. These are generally only half true.
3. Dreams sent by adepts, good or bad, by mesmerisers, or by the thoughts of very powerful minds bent on making us do their will.
4. Retrospective; dreams of events belonging to past incarnations.
5. Warning dreams for others who are unable to be impressed themselves.
6. Confused dreams, the causes of which have been discussed above.
7. Dreams which are mere fancies and chaotic pictures, owing to digestion, some mental trouble, or such-like external cause.”
Now, the sleep that takes place when we are not dreaming is something else altogether, according to these philosophies.
When we are truly asleep and there is no dreaming, that is when the soul has entered a sort of great cosmic realm of which we have no memory when we awake. We become one with the cosmos.
“During sleep the astral body withdraws from the impressions of the physical world, which contain nothing that produces harmony, and passes into the cosmic harmony from which it was born. And so in the morning it brings with it the lingering effects of the refreshment and renewal it has experienced during the night. Every night the astral body renews its harmony with the cosmic astral ocean...”
– Rudolf Steiner, Theosophy of the Rosicrucian, The Elemental World and the Heaven World. Waking Life, Sleep and Death.
It’s also an experience closer to death.
“The difference between a man who is dead and one who is only sleeping is that at death the etheric body passes away together with the astral body and the physical body alone is left behind in the physical world.”
- Steiner, Theosophy of the Rosicrucian
In these interpretations, sleep and dreams are in fact a profound connection to the spiritual world, according to these esoteric traditions which claim to draw from ancient, universal wisdom across the world, and into the Esoteric canon.
Myth and symbol
To take it one step further, esoteric philosophy loves a universal truth hidden within an ambiguous symbol. And dreams are full of symbols. Carl Jung’s dream theory allows for dreams to show us parts of ourselves archetypes and universal symbols.
And because it’s Jung, he often includes alchemy in his theories of symbols and psychology.
The Ouroboros, for example, is an alchemical and fundamental symbol.
The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This 'feedback' process is at the same time a symbol of immortality since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself, and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he, therefore, constitutes the secret of the prima materia which ... unquestionably stems from man's unconscious.
- Carl Jung
While you may not dream about a snake eating its tale, you may dream about water, or some other natural symbol that may have deeper or alternate meaning. And for Jung, a dream is the subconscious communing with consciousness.
Sleep and dreams allow for a multitude of interpretations and implications.
A third of your life is spent in that world. What does it all mean?
Listen to your dreams. Start a dream journal.
And sleep well.
- Joe
Further reading:
If you dream of a triangle, where does the triangle exist?
Universal Theosophy - Sleep and Dreams
The Three Stages of Sleep, Rudolf Steiner
Theosophy of the Rosicrucian, Rudolf Steiner
Exploring Carl Jung’s Theories on Dreams: Unveiling the Psyche’s Mysteries
Books
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin
Fascinating. I enjoyed reading this. Dream journals are a thing. The protagonist in my novel "Devin's Dreams" keeps one that ends up being a critical tool to decipher what's "real" and what's not.