The psychology of dreams--OSHO

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The psychology of dreams

 

16 sept 1970

CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHAT YOU MEAN BY DREAMS?

 

We have seven bodies: the physical, the etheric, the astral, the mental, the spiritual, the cosmic, and the nirvanic. Each body has its own type of dream. The physical body is known in Western psychology as the conscious, the etheric body as the unconscious, and the astral body as the collective unconscious.

 

The physical body creates its own dreams. If your stomach is upset, a particular type of dream is created. If you are unhealthy, feverish, the physical body creates its own type of dream. One thing is certain: the dream is created out of some dis-ease.

 

Physical discomfort, physical dis-ease, creates its own realm of dreams, so a physical dream can even be stimulated from the outside.. You are sleeping. If a wet cloth is put around your legs, you will begin to dream. You may dream you are crossing river. If a pillow is put on your chest, you will begin to dream. You may dream that someone is sitting on you, or a stone has fallen on you. These are dreams that come through the physical body.

 

The etheric body - the second body - dreams in its own way. These etheric dreams have created much confusion in Western psychology. Freud misunderstood etheric dreams for dreams caused by suppressed desires. There are dreams that are caused by suppressed desires, but these dreams belong to the first body, the physical. If you have suppressed physical desires - if you have fasted for instance - then there is every possibility that you will dream of breakfast. Or, if you have suppressed sex, then there is every possibility that you will have sexual fantasies. But these dreams belong to the first body. The etheric body is left out of psychological investigation, so its dreams are interpreted as belonging to the first body, the physical. Then, much confusion is createdThe etheric body can travel in dreams. There is every possibility of it leaving your body. When you remember it, it is remembered as a dream, but it is not a dream in the same sense as the dreams of the physical body. The etheric body can go out of you when you are asleep. Your physical body will be there, but your etheric body can go out and travel in space. There is no space limiting it; there is no question of distance for it. Those who do not understand this, who do not recognize the existence of the etheric body, may interpret this as the realm of the unconscious. They divide man's mind into conscious and unconscious. Then physiological dreaming is called "conscious" and etheric dreaming is called "unconscious." It is not unconscious. It is as conscious as physiological dreaming, but conscious on another level. If you become conscious of your etheric body, the dreaming concerned with that realm becomes conscious.

 

Just as physiological dreams can be created from the outside, so too can etheric dreams be created, stimulated. A mantra is one of the methods to create etheric visions, etheric dreams. A particular mantra or a particular nada - a particular word, sounding repeatedly in the etheric center - can create etheric dreams. There are so many methods. Sound is one of them.

Sufis have used perfume to create etheric visions. Mohammed himself was very found of perfume. A particular perfume can create a particular dream.

 

Colors can also be of help. Leadbeater once had an etheric dream of blueness - just blueness, but of a particular shade. He began to search for that particular shade. The velvet was then used to create etheric dreams in others as well.

 

 

So when someone goes deep in meditation and sees colors, and experiences perfumes and sounds and music absolutely unknown, these too are dreams of the etheric body. So-called spiritual visions belong to the etheric body; they are etheric dreams. Gurus revealing themselves before their disciples is nothing but etheric travel, ethreic dreaming. But because we have only searched the mind at one level of existence, the physiological, these dreams have either been interpreted in the language of the physiological or discarded, neglected.

 

Or, put into the unconscious. To say that anything is part of the unconscious is really just to admit we do not know anything about it. It is technicality, a trick. Nothing is unconscious, but everything that is conscious on a deeper level is unconscious on the previous level. So for the physical, the etheric is unconscious; for the etheric, the astral is unconscious; for the astral, the mental is unconscious. Conscious means that which is known. Unconscious means that which is still not known, the unknown