Perchance to Dream

After World War I, in a time of increasing British oppression in India, Mahatma Gandhi was a relatively new participant in the efforts for independence. He and other leaders met to plan opposition to the Rowlatt Bill, which was the continuation of wartime martial law into peacetime. Violent protests had broken out, and Gandhi's appeals for non-violent action were ignored. During this multiday meeting, Gandhi had a dream, which he describes in his autobiography:

Towards the small hours of the morning I woke up somewhat earlier than usual. I was still in the twilight condition between sleep and consciousness when suddenly the idea broke on me -- it was as if in a dream. … we should call upon the country to observe a general hartal [a day of fasting]. … Let all the people of India, … suspend their business on that day and observe the day as one of fasting and prayer.[1]

We know how that dream played out in reality. The country was shut down by this interfaith fast, essentially a strike, and the Rowlatt Bill was repealed. Moreover, this action launched Gandhi as a leader in the fight for independence for India.

This dream is just one example of dreams that led their dreamers to new creative insight or new wisdom. Niels Bohr, the founder of quantum mechanics, was given the critical insight of discrete quantum levels in a dream. He dreamed of horses in a horserace, having to stay in their tracks.[2] Albert Einstein had a dream about travel at relativistic speeds, leading to his special theory of relativity. His dream was about what the stars would look like, while sledding at high speeds.[3]

Dreams live at the boundary between science and rational understanding on one hand and religion and mystery on the other. We know a lot about the physiology of dreams but very little about what they might be trying to tell us.

Let me speak briefly to what we do know about the physiology of dreams. All humans in fact, all mammals dream.[4] Dreaming happens most often during a particular period of light sleep known as rapid eye movement or REM sleep, though it can happen at other times too.[5] This is a time of light sleep when the eyes often flutter and limbs twitch. If you have a dog, you've likely witnessed this REM sleep, it can be dramatic.

Humans will typically have a half dozen or so episodes of REM sleep over the course of a night. If you are awakened from one of these episodes, you will likely recall a dream.

Now the meaning of the dreams, why they happen, and what they might tell us, is much less well understood. The field of psychology is rife with theories about the nature of dreams, starting with Freud, who suggested that dreams are the "day residue" of our recent experience, and perhaps the subconscious mind revealing itself to us, confused by the censorship of the ego. Jung suggested that dreams might be expressions of the subconscious, both our individual subconscious and a kind of universal human subconscious, in which the universal symbols of the archetypes dwell.

In the realm of religion, the meanings of dreams run deeper. The aboriginal people of Australia believe that the world was dreamed into existence, with humans dreamed up near the end.[6] In the Hebrew Bible, Joseph interprets a significant dream of the Pharaoh so Pharaoh promotes Joseph to rule Egypt.[7] Both Mary the mother of Jesus and Queen Maya the mother of Buddha were told in dreams that their children would be divine.

Many of us find dreams valuable tools in self-awareness and creativity, and dream work an important part of spiritual practice. Let me suggest how you might use your dreams in your own spiritual work. To begin, you might need to improve your recall of dreams. The first thing is to simply tell yourself you will recall a dream. This works! A friend of mine used to teach dream workshops at a local college. She told her students that they had to have dreams if they wanted to pass the class, and they groused but never failed to dream.

When you wake up with a dream fresh in your mind, immediately write it down. It turns out that certain brain chemicals responsible for helping convert short-term memories into long-term memories are suppressed during REM sleep, so depending on your memory is hard. Jot down some notes. I actually keep this lighted pen on my nightstand with some paper, so I can write notes about my dream at once.

Many people keep a dream journal, in which they write their dreams, and add any analysis of observations. I do this, too.

Finally, a great way to go deeper with your dreams is through a dream group. We hope to start a dream group here at the church as part of our adult programming offerings.

We'll consider what such a group might look like, with the presentation following our hymn. Liz, Karen, and Tim will be sharing and discussing their dreams.

--- Dream Group Presentation ---

First let me thank all those who helped with this dream service, both presenting Susan's dream and presenting dreams as part of the dream group. I want you to notice just how varied these dreams were, not only in content, but also in expression. Susan found her dream best cast in movement; Tim's was a strongly visual dream, and Liz's unfolded as a story.
Often our dreams incorporate material from our everyday lives. Freud called this the 'day residue', and theorized that dreams were merely ways of processing the previous day's experience. When I worked in the hospital, many of my dreams involved hospital procedures. I remember vividly one dream where I was receiving a blood transfusion at high pressure through a PICC line right into my heart. It was wondrous, not scary. Now that I'm out of the hospital, those dreams don't happen so much anymore. Now I seem to have church dreams, including of course, forgetting my sermon text, though thankfully I've never dreamed of preaching naked.

Now some people suggest that specific symbols in dreams have specific meaning; that they represent the archetypes that connect us to that collective unconscious that Jung describes. I'm unsure of that. I do love how sometimes the same symbol may have different meanings. As we put together this service, a few people related dreams to me. One person dreamed of elevators with no up and down buttons, and another dreamed of an elevator to the center of the earth, a terrifying ride, for her and her companions, but when they arrived, she alone had the courage to step out into that world. Both dreams contained elevators, but one person's dream was a one of frustration and stuckness, the other's was of courage and triumph.

I tend to think that the meaning of dreams is personal, and subjective. You may have noted that participants in the dream group would often start their comments with "If this were my dream…". This kind of language is encouraged by Jeremy Taylor in the dream work that he teaches, for it reminds us that all of our interpretations are subjective, they are personal, they are speculative. There is no right or wrong interpretation in this sort of work, which is why this appeals to me and to many others who do group dream work.

I think this is a key point. How we approach dreams is metaphor for how we approach many other things in life: art, poetry, sacred text, beauty. Even the deep structure of the world.

Dreams, like art or sacred texts, have meaning only because we create that meaning. Interpreting or making meaning is a personal task. Others can help but ultimately it is up to us to find the message or meaning we need. Just as a sculpture, or a piece of music, or an ancient story may speak to us, and cause us to go 'aha!', so a dream may bring forth meaning that causes us to go 'aha!'. This creative discovery of meaning is what can make dream-work a spiritual practice.

Dreams can raise deep questions. Let me give you an example. You wake up from a dream, and then realize that this is not real awakening, but that you are still within a dream. . This may have happened to some of you. This is called false awakening or a dream within a dream.

False awakening raises the question: do we live in reality, or in a dream of reality? Is the real hidden behind a dreamlike apparent reality? Let us return to the Taoist philosopher, Zhuangzi and his dream of the butterfly.[8] Does Zhuangzi dream he is the butterfly or does the butterfly dream it is Zhuangzi? Or does Zhuangzi dream he is the butterfly dreaming it is Zhuangzi dreaming he is the butterfly and so on. You get the point. Now I know philosophy attempts to plumb these questions of reality though reason. But I also know that religion, or spirituality attempts to plumb these questions through experience. False awakening in dreams may be just one invitation to think about the nature of reality. Such experiences encourage us to contemplate the deep structure of the universe.

In another teaching, Zhuangzi reminds us that our lives are limited, but knowledge is limitless.[9] There are things we cannot grasp or understand. Thus we live with mystery, with limited knowing. Every night, our dreams remind us of this mystery. Their images, of dancing cards or dead birds or suitcases, tease us with the limits of our knowing, inviting us to that place of mystery and humility. And once in a while, like Gandhi, or Bohr, or Einstein, we have an insight, an 'aha', that transforms us and possibly transforms the world. May we always be present for that possibility -- in our dreams and in our waking lives.

Notes:
1. Gandhi, An autobiography: the story of my experiments with truth, 1957, p. 459.
2. Jeremy Taylor, Where pigs fly and water runs uphill: using dreams to tap the wisdom of the unconscious, 1992, p. 30.
3. ibid, p. 31.
4. MIT News, "Animals have complex dreams, MIT researcher proves", Jan 24, 2001, http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2001/dreaming.html
5. G. William Domhoff , "the 'Purpose' of Dreams", http://psych.ucsc.edu/dreams/Library/purpose.html
6. Jim Poulter, 'The Secret of Dreaming', Parabola, Spring 2009, p. 77.
7. Genesis 41:15-42.
8. Burton Watson, Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings, 1996. p. 45.
9. Burton Watson, Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings, 1996. p. 46.