What
is dream yoga?
I’ll take a shot:
I think it is the development of a state of mind, a condition of self-awareness and spiritual openness that allows a dreamer to see past the duality of human perception and reason in order to witness his dream-world as a single creation sprung from his own mind. Once this understanding is in place, the dreamer can carry that state of mind, of constant self-awareness and openness to wonder, into both waking life and death.
Death, indeed, is the real use the yogis found for this practice, via the natural extension of dream yoga: sleep yoga. This is because they are sure that, if they can master carrying their self-awareness through every moment of existence, including the deepest phase of sleep (the one we westerners call Delta), then they can hold onto their self-awareness through the
last moment, death, and on to whatever lies beyond corporeal life. In Buddhist and I think Hindu terms, this means they can jump off the Wheel of Life and guide their souls through enlightenment and on to explore new, greater spiritual potentials.
Given these two thoughts, I can see how dream yoga, once “discovered” by some LD’ing sort long ago, was quickly folded into religious life. It makes sense, because the given results of perfect dream yoga practice imply both an afterlife and that ever-elusive “Something Greater.”
If you can part yourself from the religious tenets (which I’d bet, though I do not know, the dream yoga masters try to get their students to do, first thing) and allow your imagination to create, observe, and interact freely in the dream state, the dream yoga becomes a very, very powerful tool indeed, one that can vastly exceed its humble lucid dreaming roots. How so? Because, once you’ve established that this entire reality you’re currently floating in is nothing more than
you, that there is no separation between your self and your environs, you can imagine new (or very old) worlds, new people, and, above all else, create novel metaphors which can be used to explore the endless places and psychic conditions that lie beyond human experience. And, if your dreams are actually portals to other worlds or other minds, here is where you will find, identify, and negotiate those portals!
Now back to the religious tenets. If the articles of faith you hold are true or (here is the best part) if you truly believe, to the core of your soul, that they are true, then dream yoga will take you to them “physically.” In other words, you’ll see the Buddha, or God, or Allah, or Neo, or etc., and you’ll be able to commune easily with the souls of those you loved in life, living or dead. And, you’ll be able to rattle the loom from which the very fabric of reality was woven. All from
simply paying attention, and keeping your self-awareness intact and pure!
Okay, that’s enough for now. I know I left out far more than I included here, but the more you talk about a thing that can and must be described in a sentence, the more it is diluted into incomprehensible blather. So, suffice it to say that Dream Yoga is the practice of holding self-awareness through all states of being, and applying those states to your conscious existence,