Dreaming Awake 

Sleep & wakefulness

We are all familiar with dreamtime.  Some of us may remember our dreams more than others, but we all dream.  Many people put dreams in the category of “not real”, meaning they have no definitive reality because they lack tangibility, linearity and consistency.  Yet most of the time when we are fully immersed in the dream experience we have no idea that we are dreaming.  We simply experience the dream and then at a certain time the dream ends or we wake up.  Most of the time while we are in the dream state things seem quite normal and ordinary to us kind as they would in our waking state.  Once we wake up only then do we realize that we were dreaming and not a moment before.  

One caveat to this is when we lucidly dream, which is when we literally wake up inside the dream and are able to manipulate the dream with our wakefulness or our conscious state of being in a dream rather than being the dream or the dream simply occurring as if by itself on automatic pilot.  You are both experiencing the dream and simultaneously realize that you are the dreamer dreaming the dream.  For those that have had this experience you know that this is where magic literally comes to life inside of the dream.  Seeming impossibilities become possible and the direct manifestation of those possibilities is experienced through the dream the moment you realize it.  You quite literally know your power and have access to energy and information that was previously elusive to you.  You feel so awake, empowered, energized and in direct knowing of the mystery of life, and your knowing becomes what you immediately experience.  There is no gap.

One of the things about the sleep dream state is that we get more access to our unconscious minds because our everyday conscious minds are resting.  Sleep is quite literally the resting of our conscious minds.  Our unconscious mind on the other hand is that aspect of mind that in our waking state is often obscured, but becomes unobscured when we fall asleep.  The unconscious mind is like a warehouse of dormant energy and information about ourselves, life, the universe and the cosmos at large.  This is what we access when we fall asleep.  When you fully wake up inside of a dream (ie. lucid dreaming) your conscious mind becomes active and your normally unconscious mind is also simultaneously present and available.  This is why I personally believe that the gap between knowing and direct experience/manifestation is eliminated in these instances.  That which is normally forgotten when we are awake in just our conscious thinking mind is intact along with our conscious thinking mind.  This is a recipe for infinite knowing and direct experiencing.   

Dream of Reality 

Thoughts like dreams

Many spiritual teachings talk about how what we view as reality is really just a dream.  That when we wake up from our sleeping dream we are simply awakening into another aspect of the dream that seems more real or permanent due to our conscious thinking mind creating a sense of continuity through its patterns of thought and memory.  Yet this experience that we call reality seems to be missing a lot of information and energy and many of us sense this through a subtle (or not so subtle) feeling of disconnection from something.  Most people can’t even really put their finger on what is missing, they just feel this sense of being lost or in the dark along with the feeling that there is something more.  

If we are indeed dreaming right this very moment, asleep to the unconscious part of our mind which contains all knowledge and infinite free energy, can we not wake up into the aspect of our mind that is asleep when our conscious minds are awake?  I do believe that this is what spiritual teachers are pointing to when they talk about awakening.  This is the dropping of the veil, where worlds become one again or better stated where mind becomes one again.  The conscious mind reconnecting into the infinite sea of unconsciousness, sparking it and making it come alive in the light of awareness, bringing to life infinite possibilities and manifestations out of this sea.

It is important to know that separation is simply a thought.  It is not a “real” thing.  In fact there are no real separate things.  There is only thought.  Thoughts are what tell you what you see, they are the information source for what you experience.  Conscious minds generate thought and thought creates worlds.  So if you recognize that there is not really a gap between the conscious and unconscious aspects of your mind, there is only a thought of separation or thought of a gap, then you can directly experience the non-separation that inherently is.  All that is required is that you drop the thought of separation.  

When you suspend focusing on the thoughts and forms that the conscious mind creates, even if only for a one second, you immediately drop your conscious mind into the vast spaciousness of the non-separate unconscious mind.  Some people call this pure awareness.  The configurations that patterns of thought (aka light) create and condense down into forms that we call reality are what give shape to pure awareness or the unconscious mind.  These thought/light configurations can create the illusion of separation and thus the feeling experience of it.  If you are identified with the forms, which are just configurations of light, and are asleep to that which is the former of the forms (ie. the dreamer), life will seem automatic, like it is just going along on its own and that you don’t have much to say or do about how it goes.  That is until you wake up.  Remember that only when you wake up from the sleeping dream do you realize that you’ve been dreaming all along.  Being inside of a thought (what we call reality) is like being inside of dream.  When you suspend or stop the thought even momentarily you create an opportunity to wake up from being inside of it where it is no longer dictating your experience.  All that remains is pure awareness not yet condensed into a form through a thought.  Increasing the brightness of your conscious awareness on the former of thoughts, the creator of all worlds, which is this pure awareness, will wake you from the dream of thoughts altogether.

Dr. Amanda Hessel, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis (NSA) & Somato-Respiratory Integration (SRI), Boulder, Colorado