Interpreting Spiritual Dreams and Enlightenment Experiences
Understanding Spiritual Dreams
Enlightenment Experiences in Dreams Explained
Dreams are dreams and Spiritual Enlightenment Experiences which often take place in the silence of the night, sometimes co-mingle with dreams, but are certainly real. As the website has grown one of the great benefits for me personally is the fascinating stories and experiences I get to read from spiritual aspirants globally. These personal tales of transcendent experiences validate much of what is found in the spiritual texts, but more than anything else they inspire me to further deepen and expand my own practice. I often share these testimonials with you and will do so again in the next few days, but today I want to explore the phenomenon of spiritual experiences that take place deep in the night and which often intermingle with our dreams.
To understand what I mean by enlightenment experiences you can read, Understanding Hinduism, Buddhism and Non-Duality.
I have pointed out previously that napping or the phase between wakefulness and sleep is a very conducive time for enlightenment experiences (3 Simple Tips to Invite Enlightenment), but it is also true that sleep in general is a time when many enlightenment experiences occur. I would say that even for you now this is true, even if you don’t have such experiences during meditation or wakeful hours. It’s just that you don’t recall or remember these experiences in the morning. Add a bit of awareness and you will be quite amazed at all that is going on within you at night.
Many enlightened masters actually point to experiences that took place at night while they were asleep to be the major catalysts for their awakening, J. Krishnamurti included. Other masters have pointed out that a lot of the spiritual work gets done during these nighttime hours, when the conscious mind sleeps. I have myself found that the majority of enlightenment experiences take place either when one is very relaxed, during meditation or during sleep. The skeptical will say, oh it was just a dream, but let me tell you, these are not dreams. Far from it, they are the most real experiences one has and in this article I want to explain that sometimes these experiences mix with dreams and that can lead to mis-interpretations.
My Dream Encounter and My Spiritual Self:
As an example I will use a late night enlightenment experience which mixed with a dream experience I had a few days ago. I am a big fan of Ayurveda and one of the Ayurvedic Doctor’s whose teachings I admire is Dr. Vasant Lad (The Ayurvedic Institute). For some time I have wanted to visit his clinic but have not had a chance to do so. In any case a few nights ago I had a dream where I met Dr. Lad.
In the dream, he eschewed normal greeting protocols and instead looking me in the eye, placed his hands on my shoulders. Soon I noticed that he was applying downward pressure to my shoulders and I figured he was checking the state of health by measuring my physical strength by this technique. He had a bright, mischievous smile on and continued to press down and I started to feel my knees buckling.
I tried to stand but realized that the pressure was too great and it was impossible to control my body and stay standing. The effort continued for a few minutes and finally I completely surrendered. Here the experience actually is an “out of body” or experience of the spiritual self taking place.
Suddenly upon total release, when I let go of the physical body, I realized I was extremely light, light as a feather and a great divine presence was evident. This was the spiritual aspect of oneself and now it was being experienced, as the body had been forsaken. Mystic master Osho has often pointed to experiencing oneself as weightless and that is what was happening now. This spiritual aspect was enormously blissful, free, weightless and expansive. Utterly in awe I bowed in complete devotion to it and attempted to bow to Dr. Lad as well. The experience and dream ended shortly afterwords.
I understand one of Dr. Lad’s Gurus, Vimalananda (Biography: Aghora – At The Left Hand of God), was reputed to have many psychic powers and abilities, including that of visiting others in their dream. Now I am not sure if Dr. Lad has embraced these powers 
, but I would say the aspects of this experience involving Dr. Lad are indeed a dream, but the experience of bliss and the spiritual self, were indeed very real.
Of course, having experienced this dimension many times previously when awake (The Miracle of Self Awareness – I AM All, The Time My Body Disappeared – Osho Retreat) means I know it was not imagined, but I assure you if you were to have such an experience and remember it, you too will know that it is not a dream at all.
Interpreting Spiritual Experiences During Dreams:
So there are a few lessons to learn from such experiences, weather they take place in conjunction with dreams or during wakeful hours.
1. Sleep is an Opportunity:
Sleep time is a golden opportunity to develop your awareness and discover deeper and higher aspects of your being. The key to this is maintaining awareness during sleep. By doing so you will develop the wonderful skill of Lucid dreaming, but more importantly you will get a chance to experience hidden spiritual aspects of yourself, which are usually covered by the thinking mind during waking hours.
2. Night Time Enlightenment Experience and Dream Interpretation:
Often the enlightenment experiences you have at night will intermingle with your dreams and this can lead to wrong interpretations and misunderstandings. Be aware that certain components of your experience might actually be a dream component, which has interlaced with a transcendent experience that is blossoming. Of course, it is also well know that dreams can “mix” with real life experiences and this is just such a case where the dream is mixing with an enlightenment experience.
3. You are Not the Body, You are Blissful, Free and Divine:
You are not the body, you are spirit. Such experiences allow you to first hand see the Truth of things for yourself. So you do not have to simply believe spiritual texts or the teachings of Masters. Such experiences then further inspire you to continue to work towards constant God Realization which is the same as Self Realization. This is the highest purpose of human birth. Do not waste this opportunity.
God Bless You All.
I had a dream where I knew I woke up from my sleep and woke up to my most beautiful dream I have ever had. I woke up to an all knowing feeling, I felt like an orgasm of love, removing the sexuality out of it and just tremendous amount of love, where I thought my heart was going to explode of so much love and peace. All my questions were answered in a second. I felt like I was the air. I was able to breath a million times more. In front of me I was as if I was in space, total darkness and in that space I was viewing a white glowing light, that light was connect together like a brain wave. From that view I had this knowing that the world was absolutely perfect. Each circle was everything in existence in the universe and I was one of those circles being an observer. I knew I was my own conscious Identity viewing it all but I was also all of the life it self, I was that entire conscious endless light but at the same time I was me. I understood we all share the same pool of information and we are all same substance inside, that substance is love and intelligence, all of experience and all the universe. we are everything. what we focus on is what we get to experience in this field of intelligence. Best way to describe this experience is to imagine a drop of water have consciousness and viewing the sea. The drop of water has realize its the same water substance as the sea. its larger than it feels, yet it still has its own identity as a drop of water. That light also went infinity, there was no end, this feeling was a relief and not overwhelming that I knew we don’t die we are eternal. After I received all that information, an Angel was coming down for me with this incredible feeling of love towards me. It had no sex, i couldn’t tell if It was a girl or boy, I just felt kindness, love, care and every good feeling on the book. She telepathically said come with me and we went to my bedroom and we became small versions and went into my head, right in between the eyes, like in superhero shows where they drive the robot. The Angel wanted to teach me my body was like a vehicle and I was the driver by thought. She said think of exiting the bedroom and choose to go to the right or left and see what happens. So I thought of going to the right to the living room and I realize my body was moving, right when I got the aaa huh!!! I woke up. I knew it was a message for me and anybody else who questions what happens to us. Life is perfect. Focus on what you want and your reality will change.
i ve seen jesus in my dream,
DREAM- “i was on a morning walk with my wife, she got tired and stopped at one place, suddenly SOMEONE told me to continue my walk, and i started walking again with that person. then i saw a beautiful girl from back and nearing her i saw her face, she was my wife. again that SOMEONE told me to walk faster without seeing my wife. then i walked and reached my home and lying on the bed in india. suddenly i heard lots of voices around me, then i got up and went to my window and suddenly i was taken to the banks of lake ontario at canada and at the other end there was a large olden days boat on which i saw JESUS statue laid horizontally, and the people around me yelling on me that “This man(jesus statue) was live walking with this fellow(me)”. i was thinking in my mind that, ‘was i walking with him, then i realized that SOMEONE is JESUS himself”.
then suddenly i woke up and saw around me, nothing was there, iam lying on my bed’
Then i understood that some revelation there for me, but whats that. pls somebody help me. Iam confused. The only thing iam able to understand id that “i saw Jesus Christ”
I had a wonderful enlightening meditation night before last. Last night, mind mind was a jumble of incoherrent thoughts. Is this common? And how can I clear my mind for enlightenment–or should I just go with the jumbled thoughts?
I had a dream, in which I was a slave, long hair and forced to eat from the ground. I was kicked, dragged by a chain and forced to bow to the king. The kings priest that was with him had a small Buddhist altar. I touched it, and was instantly Enlightened. I was dressed in white, with a orange turban and felt like all the wisdom of the ages were in me. I was light as a feather and filled with divine light. My master tried to whip me, and I caught the whip and said “please, do not, you will hurt yourself”, I was more concerned with his wellbeing than mine. I then walked out, almost floating, to teach the world what I knew. I shortly woke up after… I always seem to have dreams of being a Buddhist monk or nun, but the master in my dream would always say “you are not ready”…. I don’t know what this all means, but maybe I have some wisdom I don’t know about. If anyone has any idea, please e-mail me at cosplaylover@Yahoo.com!
Much love,
~Erin
Dear Anmol,
I have been practising meditation for the last six months and I try to concentrate to my third eye chakra for about 30 mins. ALthough I have not experienced the presence of pure white light till date, I have experienced a tuneel of yellow light and it feels like I am travelling through this tunnel. Can you please explain this vision and the reason why I don’t witness the white light vision?
Thanking you in advance,
With warm regards,
Paromita
Defining mind as the flow of thought, some of the differences between dreaming and waking states are that in a dream, sense perceptions are not linked in real time to the sense organs, and the intellect’s reasoning is not always logical.
But, as you have stated, there is every possibility that non-intellectual, non-sensory dreams (such as a feeling of lightness) are as meaningful as the same states experienced in meditation.
Also, as you have stated, careful discrimination should be employed in evaluating the truth of such dreams.