Yoga Dream

Many Yoga practitioners experience Yoga-posture dreams, a vivid enactment of a single posture, or sometimes a series of them. Commonly, these dreams involve a posture that you cannot normally accomplish, yet in the dream you are able to do it with great poise and ease. On the one hand, such dreams can indicate a frustration with your physical body, or an increased obsession with your physical Yoga practice. On the other hand, they represent an awakening of your awareness of the subtle body. I used to dream of doing postures like the splits (hanumanasana) or tic-tacs (viparita chakrasana) without any effort whatsoever.

Literature on this subject (c.f. Richard Bach, Carlos Castenada and Ken Wilbur) suggests that a dream of your physical body, or even just a part of your body, indicates a stage of self-development. That is, you are beginning to discern your subtle body. You are becoming aware that you and your physical body, and you and your subtle body are different, though linked entities.

When you sleep your consciousness passes through three distinct stages: from waking, to dreaming, to deep sleep. When you begin to experience increased awareness of the physical body through practices such as Yoga, you also progress through three stages: from awareness of the gross external aspects of the body, to the internal physical aspects, and eventually to the subtle non-physical aspects.

Strange dreams are common signposts on this particular journey, and often accompany the development of the flexibility of the spine. For example, as you practice and develop back-bending postures with greater frequency, you will also experience strange dreams. There is a definite link between the movements of the spine, the effects on the nervous system and the corresponding effects on consciousness.

It is no accident that many Yoga practitioners experience more ‘lucid’ dreams. They seem so real when you are in them, but when you wake up, that reality disappears. The subtle awareness that exists in the dream state passes on awakening and is often mistakenly put aside as something insignificant. Even though it is important to remember that the dream state is only a stage to pass through, it does indicate an important stage of development. The sense of loss that can occur when waking from a lucid dream indicates the loss of subtle awareness. One of the goals of Yoga practice is, therefore, to maintain some of this subtle awareness in the waking state.

Other dreams that signify increased awareness of the subtle body include walking and running dreams (sometimes involving a chase or pursuit and the fight/flight response of the nervous system) which sometimes precipitates breathtaking falling dreams and death dreams (a car crash for example, or being shot or stabbed). The initial sense of shock that occurs after falling and hitting bottom, or dying in some dramatic way, quickly subsides, and you may be even more shocked to notice that you can observe your own body being dead or wounded, but you have survived. In fact, it is common to experience varying degrees of relief, freedom and joy at this point in the process. Initially, out of fright or confusion, it is common to wake up before you come to the end of a death sequence, and as you awaken, befuddled, you can feel your heart beating like a speeding train. Remind yourself each time that you are okay and, perhaps the following night, request another dream.

You will begin to experience the difference between your subtle self and your physical self. Even though one can die, the other still remains. Some may say that it’s only a dream. Even so, when you wake up after reaching the end of a dying sequence, having faced that particular fear, your sense of your body becomes steady, tranquil and accepting. You feel okay, because somehow you know that despite the unpredictable nature of death, you need not fear it.

I am identifying the sense of beauty and purposefulness that your waking life takes through awareness of the dream state. The freedom in one is conferred into freedom in the other. This works in both directions; whether it is the freedom of your Yoga practice enabling more subtle flying dreams, or the flying dreams themselves releasing you from the heaviness of your waking physical and psychological activities.

In practical terms, you may find it useful to request a flying dream each time you lie down to sleep. You can begin to experience greater freedom in the subtle realm, such as running/falling and flying in a cycle of dreams that occurs over weeks, months or years. Commonly the stage of flying dreams is called astral travelling. The after-effects of flying dreams often leave me feeling buoyant, content and purposeful. Somehow I know that my life is on the right track.

No matter the seeming strangeness of such dreams (flying over a city that moves like the sea, or joining with a friend on a flying trip over the ocean) they are of a vastly different quality to the more common ‘sub-conscious’ dreams. The latter typically relate to various anxieties and tensions that have been suppressed or not fully acknowledged in the waking state. After a death dream, the process of flying is a blissful experience, a movement of the subtle body that is an adventure and exploration of something new rather than an attempt to resolve something that is old.

It is important to remember that a physical Yoga practice is not the only precursor to flying dreams. Many individuals experience flying or falling dreams at some point or other in their lives. The major difference is increasing your awareness both in the dream state and in the waking state. This is where your posture and meditation practice can be a great help.

Further literature on this subject (c.f. Ken Wilbur) indicates that many long term meditators begin to experience a sense of awareness in the deep sleep state. They have passed through awareness of the subtle body and are approaching awareness of the causal state. We pass through these three states of being every day: from gross/waking to subtle/dreaming to causal/deep sleep. The practice is to bring increased awareness to all three stages rather than just one or the other. There are no records indicating that asana practitioners develop this last stage of awareness. Only in meditation does the subtle aspect of consciousness begin to surrender to the causal aspect of consciousness.

Yoga Teacher Dream

Another interesting dream I like to contemplate is the teacher ‘vanishing class’ dream. Commonly this dream begins with you (the teacher) in a classroom full of students. Or sometimes you are standing in a large hall waiting for the students to show up. There is usually an expectation and nervousness to this dream: regarding the students, how many are coming, what they will think of you, what you are going to teach, how much money you are going to make and so on.

I have not had this dream for some time now, but I know from many beginning teachers it is quite common. In my case, I would often start with a room full of students, and then through a series of unfortunate events (usually a small group of the students being difficult) the class would dwindle to one or two, or none. I would be left feeling hurt and inadequate.

This type of dream may simply indicate a teacher’s fear of the students, or an anxiety that the teacher wants to be perceived in a certain way, or a number of other insecurities. It also indicates that you are experiencing a normal and healthy tension that occurs when you try to do your best, and you are not quite sure if you are up to the task. The waking tension is then carried over into the dream state. As stated before, however, any dream that involves seeing your body in some way, also involves the subtle body.

The classroom dream represents the hierarchy that you are trying to maintain and are identifying with in the waking state. That is, your role as a teacher is an attempt to be above and beyond your students in some way. The sense of wrongness in the subtle realm is obvious: the class dissolves into chaos. Psychologically, this represents the unfortunate tendency to keep yourself separate in your identity as a teacher. That is, the teacher is the ultimate expert (or supposed to be) when you know deep inside, that you are not.

Even if some of this is true, whether from a physical point of view (as a teacher you are the one that usually stands out the front) or simply due to your greater experience in most areas, when displayed in the dream state, the real truth emerges. You are acknowledging that you really have no real control, and the constant playing of the ‘expert’ role is a bit of a joke. This is not to say that you should never play the role of being the teacher, or being the expert. Only that you acknowledge the role, and that you are able to let it go, particularly whilst teaching. It is important to recognise that each individual student is the only true expert on their particular process and condition, and your role as a teacher is ultimately to support that inner expert.

I have found that many experienced teachers have become so armoured in their role as a teacher, that the nervousness and vulnerability that is inherent in any position of responsibility is seen as something to get passed, or just an infantile stage to be ignored. That is, only beginner teachers get nervous, and have silly dreams that reveal how inadequate they are. Yet the very vulnerability of allowing yourself to be influenced and judged by your students is one of the most important stages of development that any teacher can embrace. If you allow yourself, in one of these classroom dream sequences, to surrender your control of the class, and to allow the students to fulfil their role-play, the dream will not dissolve into chaos – it will change into something else, but something different and possibly magical. In one dream sequence of this kind, I found myself playing volleyball at the beach, which turned out to be a lot more fun than staying indoors. Later on this same dream morphed into a mad romp with dolphins and penguins. So rather than re-enforcing your separateness as a teacher in the waking state, the dream state teaches that if you allow contact with your students and let yourself be influenced by your students, then magic occurs for you and for them.