One night, some years ago, I dreamed that a snake was in my mouth. I pulled it out and found that it was dead; it was quite unpleasant. An ambulance arrived at my house and the paramedics told me the snake was poisonous and that I was dying. I said okay, and they took me to the hospital.
I was afraid and told them I needed to see a statue of Tapihritsa, the Dzogchen master, before I died. The paramedics did not know who he was, but they agreed and told me I would have to wait to die, which relieved me. But then they surprised me by bringing the statue right away. My excuse for delaying death had not worked for very long. So I then told them there was no death; this was now my crutch. And the minute I said that, I awoke with a rapidly beating heart.
It was New Year’s Eve and the next day I was to fly to Rome from Houston. Feeling uncomfortable after the dream, I thought that perhaps I should take it seriously and cancel my travel plans. I wanted my teacher’s advice, so I went back to sleep and in a lucid dream traveled to Lopon in Nepal and told him of the disturbing dream.
At that time, Houston was having a lot of trouble with flooding. My teacher interpreted the dream to mean that I was representing Garuda, the mystic bird that has power over the Nagas, the snake-like water spirits. Lopon said that the dream meant that Garuda was conquering the water spirits that were the causes of the flooding. This interpretation made me feel much better; the next day I went to Rome as planned. This is an example of using lucid dream for something practical, for making decisions.
Perhaps this all sounds strange or unbelievable, but the real point is to develop the flexibility of the mind and to pierce the boundaries that constrict it. With greater flexibility, we can better accept what arises without being influenced by expectations and desires. Even while we are still limited by grasping and aversion, this kind of spiritual practice will benefit our daily lives.
If I am truly living in the realization that there is no death and no one to die, then I will not seek interpretation of a dream as I did in this case, when the dream left me feeling anxious. Our desire for interpretation of a dream is based on hope and fear; we want to know what to avoid and what to promote, we want to obtain understanding in order to change something. When you realize your true nature you do not seek meaning, for who would be doing the seeking? As you are then beyond hope and fear, the meaning of a dream becomes unimportant; you simply experience fully whatever manifests in the present moment. No dream, then, can cause anxiety.
Dream yoga spans the whole of our lives and applies to all the different dimensions of our experience. This can lead to a sense of a conflict between the highest philosophic view and some of the instructions. On the one hand, the view is boundless: the teachings that apply to non-duality, to non-conventional reality, declare that there is nothing to accomplish, that seeking is losing, that effort carries one away from one’s true nature. But there are also practices and teachings that only make sense in terms of duality, in terms of hope and fear. Instruction is given on interpreting dreams, on pacifying local guardians, on accomplishing long-life practices, and the student is urged to practice with diligence and to guard the focus of the mind. It sounds like we are being told both that there is nothing to accomplish and that we need to work very hard.
Sometimes confusion on this point leads a practitioner into confusion regarding practice. The question arises: “If ultimate reality is empty of distinctions, and if liberation is to be found in the realization of this empty nature, then why should I do practices that are aimed at relative results?” The answer is very simple. Because we live in a dualistic, relative world, we do practices that are effective in this world. In samsaric existence, dichotomies and polarities have meaning; there is right and wrong, and better and worse ways to act and to think, based on the values of different religions, spiritual schools, philosophical systems, science, and culture. Respect the circumstances in which you are bound. When living in samsara, conventional practices apply and dream interpretation can be very helpful.
I needed the interpretation of the dream because I was afraid of death. But it is important for me to know that my need was based on fear, on dualism, and that when I abide in non-dual presence there is no fear and I need no interpretation. We use what is useful for the situation in which we find ourselves. When we live only in the nature of the mind, the state in which reality truly is void of distinctions, then we do not need to do relative practices. Then there is no need for the interpretation of dream because there is no need to redirect ourselves, there is no egoic self to redirect. We do not need to consult a dream about the future, because there is no hope or fear. We are completely present in whatever arises, without aversion or attraction. We do not need to look to the dream for meaning, because we are living in the truth.
In our conventional lives, we make choices and can change things; that is why we study the teachings, why we practice. As we understand more and become more skilled in our lives, we become more flexible. We begin to really understand the things that we are taught: what lucidity is, what is illusory about our experiences, how suffering comes about, what our true nature is. Once we start to see how what we do is a cause of more suffering, we can then choose to do something different. We grow weary of constricted identities and the repetitive inclinations that lead to so much unnecessary suffering. We let go of negative emotional states, train ourselves to overcome distraction, and abide in pure presence.
It is the same with dreaming. There is a progression in the practice. As the practice is developed, it is discovered that there is another way to dream. Then we move toward the unconventional dream practices in which the story and its interpretations are not important. We work more on the causes of dreams than the dreams themselves.
There is no reason not to use dream yoga to attain worldly goals. Some of the practices address relative concerns and lead to the use of dreaming for purposes such as health, divination, guidance, cleansing unhealthy karmic and psychological tendencies, healing, and so on. The path is practical and suited for all. But, while the use of dream yoga to benefit us in the relative world is good, it is a provisional use of dream. Ultimately we want to use dream to liberate ourselves from all relative conditions, not simply to improve them.