A common topic debated for years, a topic so interesting, intriguing, and yet forgotten. I have been reading too many blog posts about dreams, their impact, origin and what it means. And the moment my thought process kicked in over the numerous posts, I have been engulfed in it, will be in the coming days would think about it in periodic cycles in the future. The deeper the thought, more distorted the image.
Each scene has been written with a complete different thought process.
Scene 1:
Ever woken up from a dream and felt is so real? I have. The dream which I remember is a short one which happened to appear on repeated occasions when I was a young kid. I run from the entrance of my house to the kitchen, screaming, sweating profusely and climb up the storage shelves to save myself from a hopping frog. I turn back, the frog leaps towards me, it takes its final leap towards me and I wake up! This felt too real till the point I woke up, I could feel the sweat on my forehead and my palms after waking up with a startle. Of course, this dream has never reoccurred in the last 5 years or so. Here is one more of my dreams. Hammers repeatedly hitting on a vacant nothing, I can feel and see rubber bands being elongated and contracted, this happens repeatedly. Unable to take it, I wake up, walk to my parents and ask them to lower down their voice. I then go on to explain on how their loud voices are affecting my head in my dream. They get stumped, they weren’t talking aloud and offer me a glass of water and put me to sleep. I, of course do not sleep and keep thinking about the dream I just had. By then, I was in complete consciousness and had made strong efforts to note the details of the dream. Till this date I remember the dream including the color of it! Sepia. What made me walk to my parents and talk to them after immediately waking up is a mystery to me. From the numerous dreams I have, I can easily relate them to some instance during the day or the deep thought felt by the heart and brain. Very recently, I was reminiscing my grandmother’s cooking and the delicious meals she prepares. That night, I dream eating a royal South Indian lunch prepared by my grandmother on a plantain leaf. Strange enough to start searching about dreams on the net!
What is my brain trying to convey? Is it asking me to go after what I am really missing or is it making up for the things I have lost? Is it sub consciously linking my real world and dream world by waking me up and forcing me talk to people about irrelevant things? Or is it making my body experience what the brain feels by making me sweat over a hopping frog? I can only hope, pray and try to unravel how this unsettling is caused.
Scene 2:
In the process of trying to understand these mysteries, I went on to read numerous articles on brain, human practices and especially about Vedas and its teaching. The bottom line of these teachings is to reach a higher level and wake up, realize that this body is mortal and the soul isn’t. Other interpretations go on to convey that by training the brain in a systematic and disciplined way, you reach higher levels/enlightenment.
From Wikipedia – Most Hindus believe that the spirit or soul — the true “self” of every person, called the ātman — is eternal. The goal of life, according to the Advaita school, is to realize that one’s ātman is identical to Brahman, the supreme soul. The Upanishads state that whoever becomes fully aware of the ātman as the innermost core of one’s own self realizes an identity with Brahman and thereby reaches moksha (liberation or freedom).
If, we are in a state which is not at the peak then what state are we in? Is this reality or are we all interconnected in a dream state/program like in the movie matrix and being harnessed for something else? If we can wake up from a dream to reality, can’t we wake up from a reality to the actual reality? Going by the Vedic teachings, we take infinite births until the soul evolves, not the body, not the man/woman, but the soul. What this life senses may be the realization created by the awakening of souls from their dreams or the traces left in tangible form by the evolving and devolving souls. With this sentence, I have linked the two different thought process.
Scene 3:
Big black blank screen. That is what I see when I try to link all of these into one package and try to seal the understanding of life, dreams and reality. I guess when I eventually “realize”, I would be in no state of mind to write them down and let the other mortals peek into it. At this point, all I can do is to try and unravel what my brain does when I am “asleep” and when I am “awake”. Few years down the line, I might take a step further and try to realize the purpose of this life, meaning of my existence in this world and in future go on to realize, whether I really exist or is this entire life a complicated scripted dream. Or is it a part of an intricately iterative story woven in the life span of a soul until it reaches the final stage of evolution.
If you have anything to say to the numerous question marks in the post, please feel free to write what comes to your mind. The answer to the question is, there is no answer. We can only try to understand deeper and get a better image.
Posted on August 6, 2010
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