What do dreams mean?

ONE man, a Zen master, woke up and started weeping. Zen masters are unpredictable. Their ways of teaching are mysterious, untraditional. One disciple asked the master: why are you weeping? Master said last night I dreamt that I was a butterfly and flying in the garden. Disciple asked: it was just a dream, why are you crying? Master said: I do not know whether I dreamt that I became a butterfly or whether the butterfly is dreaming now that it is a master with so many disciples.

Both thoughts were transient, not permanent. But do we understand? We always think that whatever we are is permanent. We try to possess it, identify with it.

We have four states: waking, dreaming, deep sleep and one more. There are two states of thoughts and two states of consciousness, which overlap. In waking state we are with thoughts and ‘I consciousness’. In deep sleep we’ve neither thoughts nor ‘I consciousness’. In the dream state, we’ve only thoughts but no ‘I consciousness’. Once we think of I, we come out of the dream. There is a fourth state where there are no thoughts but we know who we are. This state is called turiya, and is unknown to western psychology.

Every student of spirituality needs to understand these states. These are different layers of our Being. In the waking state you use the physical body. In dream state you see your subtle body. The third body is karana sarira that is used in deep sleep. It is conscious, sub-conscious and unconscious states in these three states. Whatever is unfulfilled in conscious state, anything you suppress is brought back in your dream or sub-conscious state. If you fast while waking, you dream of feasting at night. If you are afraid of snakes, and suppress thoughts of them in the conscious state, you will dream of snakes.

If your boss mistreats you and you can not deal with him consciously you will seek revenge in your dreams. Your suppressed anger, hidden fears, violence or sexual desires will come out in dreams.

In the unconscious deep sleep or karana sarira state your mind processes all information you have collected. If you see hundred things you look at only two things, you observe and take in only two things consciously. The rest goes into your unconscious and the subconscious states and come back to you in your dreams.