VIEWING THE WORLD THROUGH YOUR
DREAMS
DREAMS - A CASE STUDY
Dreams are the language of your subconscious. Let our dream
expert analyze it for you.
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Inerpretation
Dr.D.Raja Ganesan
The
Dreams of a Sadhak
We take up for discussion the detailed report of the five consecutive
dreams Mr.S.R.C, has had in a single night.
Mr.S.R.C, 37, Unmarried, had his education for the medical profession, but
voluntarily gave up a career in Medicine in order to do full-time sadhana
through Raja-yog. First he began on his own with dhyana sadhana and
practised for a year. Subsequently, he has been formally initiated into Raja
Yoga sadhana by a house holder guru. "In spite of having an otherwise
excellent gurudeva", of late Dr.S.R.C. is being plagued by anxieties
and doubts.
In his first Dream:
Dr.S.R.C. asks Saint Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa why he was not progressing in sadhana and what he should do
about it. Sri Ramakrishna says "something about the 8th house".
Dr.S.R.C. does not understand its import and wonders whether it has
something to do with the 8th house of astrology which deals with occult
matters.
Suddenly another siddha saint of 19th-20th century Varanasi to whose "order"
Dr.S.R.C. belongs appears and repeats "the 8th house".
Dr.S.R.C. requests him to explain it but "the 8th house" is
all that he repeats. |
Dr.S.R.C. wants to understand the meaning of the sage’s reply "the
8th house". He also wants to know whether this dream could be more than
just a fancy of his unconscious, or "perhaps a true mystical experience".
Dr.S.R.C. discovering the meaning of a dream consists in inserting the text
of the dream into the context of the dreamer’s ongoing biography. This
is to be done, in the first instance, by producing free associations from
relevant and significant elements in the dream and linking them up with
elements/situations in the wake-state. I have described this method in
detail in the September 1996 issue if EST. Your dream is also most
appropriate for the application of what is called the dialogue technique.
The dialogue technique consists in carrying on an imaginary conversation in
the wake state with the dream figures. In your case, you will most probably
begin the dialogue with the following question: Dr.S.R.C.: Swami
(Ramakrishna), why did thou appear in my dream?
Then you will assume yourself to be Saint Ramakrishna (it means no
blasphemy in this context, you can rest assured on that) and utter as the
reply whatever comes to you spontaneously, without second thought or
hesitation, If the reply is irrevalant, incomplete or unsatisfactory you
must revert and become yourself, derive the next question from this reply
and thus proceed till it results in what is called an ‘aha’
experience - a mini-stori- of discovering something that is at once
surprising and obvious. You will repeat the same exercise - perhaps, with a
different series of questions - with your present guru (Remember, this is
only an imaginary conversation mono-acted by yourself!)
The answer for your second question under this dream is dependent on the
first. Again, as the Mother (of Sri Aurobindo Ashram) has indicated in an
identical context of dream interpretation, first exhaustively search within
yourself for an answer to a question about the meaning of your dream before
you go outwards or for occult explanations.
This dream of yours indicates that you have an ambivalent (a mixture of both
positive and negative) attitude towards your present guru. If you compare
the measure of your progress on your own before you come under your guru
with what you have since achieved in a calm and dispassionate way, it may
help you gain better perspective. Your letter attests that you do have an
open-Dr.S.R.C. asks Saint Ramakrishna Paramahamsa why he was not progressing
in sadhana and what he should do about it. Sri Ramakrishna says "something
about the 8th house". Dr.S.R.C. does not understand its import and
wonders whether it has something to do with the 8th house of astrology which
deals with occult matters. Suddenly another siddha saint of 19th-20th
century Varanasi to whose "order" Dr.S.R.C. belongs appears and
repeats "the 8th house". Dr.S.R.C. requests him to explain it but "the
8th house" is all that he repeats. mind which is willing to observe
critically and scrutinize closely well-established and received, traditional
beliefs in the light of your individual experience and change them when this
is warranted. This is really a valuable quality. Keep it up and it will
stand you in good stead.
If you feel it won’t interfere with your sadhana you may keep up a
dream diary and regularly practise dream understanding exercises. I have
indicated in the same column in the June 1997 issue (pp.59-60) the
relationship and difference between dream understanding and meditation. They
could be complementary. I may add here that the Mother began this practice
of recording her dreams and she says she could begin to see its effects only
after fourteen months.
Of course, no hard and fast prescriptions can be made in these matters -
especially in the case of those those who have already under-taken sadhana,
and certainly not from a distance, without any occasions for face-to-face
interaction.
But your second dream in which
| two well-built sadhus are
self-administering shocktherapy of high voltage but applied low voltage
to you when you sought the same (shock therapy) experience |
indicates that your psyche is set and ready for a modulated progress, not
for one in a rigid and hurried time-frame. The answers for the two questions
you have raised are to be discovered by yourself-mostly by the free
association technique.
Yes, the threads of your first, second and third dreams are in tandem. The
content of the third dream in which
| You encounter your erstwhile
Professor of Surgery in the Calcutta ‘tube’ railway (I am glad
you have noticed the anomaly of seeing a lot of country on either side
though you are travelling underground: try to eke out its significance
because, often anomalies have latent but powerful significance), who
informs you that you have travelled past your destination. |
as you have surmised, must be an echo of your excelling performance of the
occult Kriya together with your guru’s reactions thereto earlier. Your
first two questions under this dream have been partly answered here, I
believe.
As to why you should feel apprehensive that you have travelled farther than
you are entitled to is difficult to answer from the information you have
provided: perhaps, you unconsciously evince a hesitation about transgressing
the limits prescribed by your guru for your progress. Do you get an insight
when you link up by free association - as I would do, for example - guru -
authority figure - Professor of Surgery - Shock Therapy - Intravenous Fluids
- a year - two other sadhus giving your milder voltage electroconvulsive
therapy? Why should this sadhu be ash-smeared? Who does he look like?
Pursue such chains of free associations from each of the elements - like "ampere"
- meter; they will converge onto a significant point and knot up or
criss-cross into a networks of words which will capture the meaning of your
dream.
Most important: Pursue exhaustively all that is associated
with "8th house" in the depths of your mind and link it up with
these. Dhyana sadha proceeds by distinct stages. I believe you have
definitely got into the first stage because you feel physically fit and
mentally calm.
Other sign are: Less sweating, panting and palpitation than
before when you have to exert yourself physically. Each stage gets
stabilized and you stay put there for sometime. Then, when once progress to
the threshold of the next stage, there is a total destabilization and one
feels utterly lost and "back to square one" nay, worse than that.
So your doubts and anxieties may also be a part of the travails of progress.
From your report I feel that you have what it takes to achieve substantial
progress in sadhana and that your observations about yourself and others
must be fairly accurate.
As Sri Aurobindo advises a sadhak, one must go by one’s own internal
experiences and not trust explanations. I suggest that you read Sri
Aurobindo’s "Letters on Yoga" in volumes 15 and 16 of his
Collected Works - particularly his observations about dreams. Though the
letters of disciples (for which some of the observations are replies) are
not included in these volumes you may still find them helpful.
I will comment on your other two dreams which relate to your family
(brother) and personal life in the next issue.
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