Dream Yoga is the practice of using mantras, prayers, and watchfulness to awaken the consciousness here and now, and thereby also awaken in dreams.
Dream experiences can have a spectrum of consciousness. There are dreams that are vivid and lucid, dreams where we are awake but without agency to act, and dreams where we are fully conscious and can direct our experience in the astral plane.
Out-of-body experiences, astral travel and lucid dreaming are terms for the same thing: consciousness in the astral world.
Dream Yoga is Universal in all Religious Traditions
“Now when the bardo of dreams is dawning upon me, I will abandon the corpse-like sleep of careless ignorance, and let my thoughts enter their natural state without distraction; controlling and transforming dreams in luminosity; I will not sleep like any animal but unify sleep and practice.”
-Tibetan Book of the Dead: Main Verses of the Six Bardos
Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, 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 Chou. Soon I 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. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things.
-Chuang Chou
I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows.
-Corinthians 12:2
The Sufi views his own experience as tiny bits of dust made visible by a ray of sunlight: neither real nor unreal.
-Abu’l-Hasan Ash-Shadhili
The entire world is truly imagination. Only God is real reality. Anyone who understands this knows the secrets of the spiritual path.
-Ib’n al Arabi
Dream Interpretation
Dream interpretation is guided by the Law of Philosophical Analogies, the Law of Opposites, and numerology.
Analogous objects in dreams often represent certain thoughts or ideas, landscapes or colors can show us moods and emotions. The book of Genesis contains a famous dream interpretation according to the Law of Philosophical Analogies.
“Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘Behold, in my dream I was standing on the banks of the Nile. Seven cows, plump and attractive, came up out of the Nile and fed in the reed grass. Seven other cows came up after them, poor and very ugly and thin, such as I had never seen in all the land of Egypt.And the thin, ugly cows ate up the first seven plump cows, but when they had eaten them no one would have known that they had eaten them, for they were still as ugly as at the beginning. Then I awoke. [ ] And I told it to the magicians, but there was no one who could explain it to me.’
Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, ‘There will come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt, but after them there will arise seven years of famine, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt. The famine will consume the land,and the plenty will be unknown in the land by reason of the famine that will follow, for it will be very severe. And the doubling of Pharaoh’s dream means that the thing is fixed by God, and God will shortly bring it about.'”
-Genesis 41:14
Opposite symbolism is often seen in dreams. A funeral in a dream can indicate a wedding physically, and vice-versa. Eating sweets can indicate pain to come, giving away money can indicate bounty to come, etc.
Dates, times, numbers of objects can all have numerological importance. Numbers can be calculated and interpreted Kabbalistically, see the book The Initiatic Path in the Arcana of Tarot and Kabbalah by Samael Aun Weor.
Dreams are a Language of the Being
Once an American living in a small village in Guatemala was discussing dreams with some natives of that land. He said that often in America and in modern Western culture people don’t remember their dreams at all. The natives were astonished, saying, “But then how do they talk with God?”
Dreams are a way for God, our internal Being to communicate with us, through the language of dreams and the astral world. We can develop this language, and strengthen our relationship and faith through paying attention to dreams.
There are many universal symbols seen in dreams that are often significant and can guide us in our internal process. Look at numbers, colors, weather, animals, the four elements, people and our relationship to them, weapons, money or payments, vehicles, location and time period, and celestial bodies.
Develop intuition, imagination and inspiration to understand your dreams.
Practices for Dream Yoga
There are many practices given in the books of Samael Aun Weor and taught at gnostic centers, the following is a small sample.
Awakening in the Astral
- A simple mantra to use is O (rhyming with “go”). Prolong the vowel sound while staying relaxed.
- With devotion and faith you can call to your Divine Mother to bring you out of the body
- To blur the line between sleep and wakefulness you can set an alarm several times in the night to to interrupt your sleep to pray, mantralize.
- Practice being more alert and conscious in the day, observe yourself and your surroundings as if you had never noticed anything before.
- Wake up to the dream, the unreality of life.
Dream Recall
- Set your intention before bed to remember your dreams. It is helpful to get in a routine of writing down one’s dreams each morning. If recall is difficult try writing stream of consciousness, poetry, or sketching in the morning to tap into the imagination.
- To help recall dreams in the morning use the mantra related to the elemental of the mint plant: RAOM GAOM.
When Awake in the Astral
- Samael Aun Weor teaches that we can visit the great temples in Egypt, the Gnostic Church in the internal worlds, the Temple of Chapultepec, when we wake up in the astral world.
- Practice ham-sah pranayama, or other specific breathing and transmutation exercises to stay awake and gain clarity in the astral.
- It is always best to pray, especially with an objective prayer like the Our Father.
Astral travel and conscious astral experiences are very valuable, but they are just one part of the gnostic esoteric work, and a natural part of the path of awakening. Cultivate an attitude of wonder, of humility, of being present. Do not covet exotic spiritual experiences, be like a child amazed at the world, and as you wake up in life you will wake up in the astral.