...is the title of a book by Fred Wolf who also blogs as a time travel yogi. The basic idea is that life is a dream, except on the Northern Line where of course it is a nightmare. Ask Norway's famous existential confusionalist who has just bought a new dress. A dream come true, maybe? So is there a Big Dreamer? Are we all just the eyes and ears of the Dreamtime, stuck in Plato's cave wishing to be free? Should we awaken from the dream where shall we be then? Who shall we be? Pure awareness with no object?
The Tibetans have an ancient tradition of dream yoga. Using visualisation and concentration they develop the state of lucid dreaming and so liberate themselves from harmful patterns of conditioning. I learnt some of these techniques from Sogyal Rinpoche. Through Sogyal I met Dudjom Rinpoche, one of Tibet's greatest Nyingma masters who once said "You actually have this awareness within you. It is the clear, naked wisdom of dharmakaya. But who can introduce you to it? On what should you take your stand? What should you be certain of? To begin with, it is your teacher who shows you the state of your awareness. And when you recognize it for yourself, it is then that you are introduced to your own nature. All the appearances of both samsara and nirvana are but the display of your own awareness; take your stand upon awareness alone. Just like the waves that rise up out of the sea and sink back into it, all thoughts that appear sink back into awareness. Be certain of their dissolution, and as a result you will find yourself in a state utterly devoid of both meditator and something meditated upon - completely beyond the meditating mind." Keith Dowman is a great source for much of this ancient wisdom.
Who dreams? Where do dreams come from and where do they go? We are children of stardust. How many degrees of separation lie between us?
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