Humanity has long sought the significance of dreams. Within each of us is a yearning to know precisely what these nocturnal apparitions mean, and in what way they can be utilized in the facilitation of our growth. Yet, do they mean what we think (or hope) they mean? The supposition of this article is that dreams can be revelatory and profound, or deceptively misleading.
It is important to remember that the soul is encased within three layers of substance. Indeed, they constitute the mental, emotional and physical bodies of the personality. They are the outer garments worn by the soul so that it may interface with the world of thought, feeling and physical sensation. The means by which the soul extends itself into these three sheaths is an inner structure called the sutratma. It is an energetic conduit extending through the mental, emotional and physical layers of the personality. To have an understanding of the sutratma is valuable, for it holds the clue to our dream experiences.
The sutratma is actually an intertwining of two threads linking the soul to the threefold personality. One of these filaments is called the life thread, and the other is the consciousness thread. Through the life thread, the soul pours its living vitality into the personality. It makes it possible for the physical body to function as a coordinated whole, and to animate its biological systems. This thread anchors itself within the heart imbuing vitality into the circulatory system — the medium through which the life principle is distributed. The second fiber of the sutratma, the consciousness thread, makes possible the experience of consciousness itself. Through this thread, the soul learns how to be conscious of itself and the environment. This thread finds its mooring within the brain cavity, roughly in the region of the pineal gland.
As we drift off into sleep, we experience an abstraction of consciousness from the physical brain. The soul withdraws from the normal experiences of wakeful consciousness. This represents the extraction of the consciousness thread from the brain cavity. As a result, consciousness becomes engaged in subtler realms. Essentially, this is the foundation from which all dreams arise. While this occurs, the life thread continues to animate the body.
It must be understood that there are several categories of dreams, some being spiritually significant while others are not. Some dreams genuinely indicate the soul’s guidance and purpose, while others are comparatively unimportant or even deceptive when believed to be soulfully inspired. The distinction of dream categories is based upon the extent to which the consciousness thread has been extracted while in the sleep cycle. After the consciousness thread is drawn away from the physical body, it enters the emotional plane. This is where the end of this thread is found within the personality, particularly early in the sleep cycle. Dreams are then conditioned by the emotional body, as well as the desires and wishes of the personality.
During other phases of the sleep cycle, the consciousness thread is further extracted and enters the mental body. Dreams will then emphasize ideations with less feeling tone to them. And, during our deepest period of sleep, the consciousness thread is pulled back into the causal body (the container of the soul) itself. Here is where the soul has its greatest capacity to generate profoundly meaningful dreams that have the power to guide and transform.
Fundamentally, the notion to be grasped is that the character of a dream is determined by the consciousness thread and the measure of its withdrawal. When drawn into the emotional and lower-mental realms, dreams will tend to be rather base, having little or no consequence. They are often conditioned with strong feeling tones, desirous urges and/or personal biases. However, when this thread is drawn into a far subtler dimension, dreams will be more revelatory, guiding, and soulfully significant. Most often, such dreams manifest through symbolic enactments, intuitive recognitions, or geometric patterns. Comparatively speaking, they are far more impersonal and have a universalizing quality about them.
