Sleep, Dreams and Spirituality

We know what they are.

WHAT ARE DREAMS?

Every age, every culture, and perhaps every person, has a different answer.

They agree at least on this: that dreams are different. Their presence in our lives demonstrates that we are not limited to a single mode of consciousness. The world of sleep is largely a blank for us, an abyss of non-consciousness yawning between one day and the next. But the very fact that we can dream announces our potential for some kind of awareness within the abyss.

Most cultures have gone further and noticed a cluster of questions about the nature of reality posed by the unconsciousness of sleep and the other consciousness of dreams.

Are there worlds more lively and real-feeling than this one, just as this one sometimes feels more real and more lively than dreams?

Can we be sure that dreams are less valid in some way than our waking lives? Am I dreaming even now?

To what realities might I someday awaken?

Can I extend my nighttime consciousness beyond dreams to illuminate and include the rest of my sleep?

Our capacity to sleep and dream thus poses some of the same questions as our capacity to die.