Humanity has something shared in common since the beginning of our consciousness: sleeping and dreaming. Sleep serves as a necessary reprieve for our bodies, a universally acknowledged fact. However, the enigma surrounding dreams persists, eluding even scientific hypotheses.
A. Perspective
In my perspective, dreams embody a transcendental journey of our souls into alternate dimensions and realms. Our astral entities navigate through landscapes that may mirror our own existence or harken back to past lives. Occasionally, these dreams may assume a prophetic nature or convey messages from surrounding deities. Undoubtedly, each of us has experienced a dream that left an indelible impression for reasons unbeknownst to us, or for some, clearly known. The distinction between wakefulness and dream-state becomes a profound question—how can we be certain of our waking reality? Dreaming of realities so tangible and fresh to the eye, we walk through these realms as if we were already there. So what is the waking world? In my eyes, it is an illusion between our sleep and dreams. Keep in mind the word illusion. Within this stream of consciousness, I aim to explore various interpretations of dreams that have manifested throughout the annals of time. Let us begin with one of the most famous quotations from Zhuangzi:昔者莊周夢為胡蝶，栩栩然胡蝶也，自喻適志與。不知周也。
Once, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering about, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know that he was Zhuang Zhou.
俄然覺，則蘧蘧然周也。不知周之夢為胡蝶與，胡蝶之夢為周與。周與胡蝶，則必有分矣。此之謂物化。
Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuang Zhou. But he didn't know if he was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he was Zhuang Zhou. Between Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things. — Zhuangzi, chapter 2
“But I cannot forget that, at other times I have been deceived in sleep by similar illusions; and, attentively considering those cases, I perceive so clearly that there exist no certain marks by which the state of waking can ever be distinguished from sleep, that I feel greatly astonished; and in amazement I almost persuade myself that I am now dreaming.”
And:
“When I consider this carefully, I find not a single property which with certainty separates the waking state from the dream. How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?”
Let us continue with this passage from the Great Sage Dream Anecdote:
"He who dreams of drinking wine may weep when morning comes; he who dreams of weeping may in the morning go off to hunt. While he is dreaming he does not know it is a dream, and in his dream he may even try to interpret a dream. Only after he wakes does he know it was a dream. And someday there will be a great awakening when we know that this is all a great dream. Yet the stupid believe they are awake, busily and brightly assuming they understand things, calling this man ruler, that one herdsman—how dense! Confucius and you are both dreaming! And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming, too. Words like these will be labeled the Supreme Swindle. Yet, after ten thousand generations, a great sage may appear who will know their meaning, and it will still be as though he appeared with astonishing speed."
-Great Sage Dream anecdote
All of these quotations point to a dream within a dream, an illusion within an illusion - which creates a mise en abyme. Mise en abyme translates literally to placement in abyss, a copy of an image within itself, infinitely recurring. Imagine standing between two mirrors, and having an infinite image of oneself. Now, imagine a dream within a dream.
"We are like the dreamer, who dreams and then lives inside the dream, but who is the dreamer?"
-David Lynch
A picture in a picture, a dream within a dream, a mirror within a mirror. Once again, do we truly know what waking reality is? In Mahayana and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, dreams are also special in that way. Namkhai Norbu, a master of Dzogchen, or, atiyoga, states:
"In a real sense, all the visions that we see in our lifetime are like a big dream ..."
Furthermore, from Oppenheim (1956):
“Of the two levels of consciousness which are alternatingly experienced by man-the waking world and the realm of dreams-the latter is subject to a characteristic dichotomy. In dreams intermingle in many and curious ways the influences of the conceptual conditioning of the waking world with all its manifold and interconnected configurations of experiences, attitudes, and expectations and that fundamental inventory of dream-contents which is most likely shared in varying degrees by all humans of all periods. The terrors of the dream and its delights, the meeting with the departed, the untrammeled sweep of the earth, the nether-world, and the heavens, the pressures of the needs of the creature, the encroachment of the troubles of the daily life, to mention only a few aspects, produce an ubiquitous fundus in that world of dreams upon which is superimposed a rigid pattern of selections and restrictions adopted by the individual civilization and adjusted to the cultic and social standing of the dreamer
For the ancient Near East it can be stated-with the oversimplification which should be permitted only in such preliminary remarks-that dream-experiences were recorded on three clearly differentiated planes: dreams as revelations of the deity which may or may not require interpretation; dreams which reflect, symptomatically, the state of mind, the spiritual and bodily "health" of the dreamer, which are only mentioned but never recorded, and, thirdly, mantic dreams in which forthcoming events are prognosticate”
B. Out of Body Experiences (TO BE CONTINUED …)