Memories in Dreams

[deafAncient]

Namaskāra everyone!

First, let me do the happy dance! I'm continuing to read a paper outline that was for a college course, "Intro to Vedānta (Tattva Bodha)." I found it in PDF format and am considering this to be one of "my books" to read often.

In there, it talks about the different states of experience, the waking state, the dreaming state, and the dreamless state in deep sleep. Within the dreaming state section, it states:

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During Svapna or dream, our memory faculty alone is functioning. Whatever experiences we have been gathering in the Jāgrat Avasthā, they all get registered in the memory-slab of the mind. In Jāgrat Avasthā, the mind is similar to a recorder of Shabda, Sparsha, Rūpa, Rasa and Gandha. Not only can it register the physical world, but also the emotions like sorrow and happiness are registered. That part of the mind is called Chittam faculty. And whatever is registered is thrown out again and functions as a Video Cassette Player. Therefore whatever emotions we experience in dream, are not freshly received emotions but are only replaying the recorded emotions. Therefore everything that happens in dream is only from memory. Therefore the other faculties are not functioning:

- The Manaha or emotional faculty for gathering fresh emotions
- rational faculty does not function
- Ego faculty does not function. Even the Ego experienced in the dream is the memory ego
and the fresh ego is not functioning.

Therefore the condition of the mind during dream is: partially functioning mind. Of the
four faculties, only one faculty is functioning and this being Chittam or memory. Hence
Svapna Avasthā is also called Ardha Vikāsaha.
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I knew it... I KNEW IT!! It says earlier in the paper that the mind of the subtle bodies carries the mind, intellect, memory, and ego from one life to the next. Chances are, the dreams I have are really memories from another life elsewhere. I knew it HAD to be. They just felt like I was reliving something I had experienced before. People, including therapists, have asked what I was taking to make this happen (I do not do drugs), and I firmly believe that they think that the "creativity" of the mind, intellect, memory, and Ego are responsible for the dreams in this state, without taking in consideration the bolded text above, because saṃsāra is not part of their worldview, as it is in mine.

I seem to know this because I have dreams of people I know IN THIS LIFE. I know who they are, and I remember them. In the other dreams that are from another life somewhere, I only know the people from within that dream, and most of the time, I seem to remember the emotional connection with them, but not exactly the nature of the relationship (Oh, she's my friend, or my sister, or he's my father, etc.), and I also seem to remember how to get from one place to another in that world. I see things that don't exist here or can't happen here. I also see or hear people talking to me directly, but I can't understand a word because I can't make sense of it. I THINK it's in a different language that I don't know and/or doesn't exist here. There are times when I am in a conversation with someone. BUT, once I leave that dream and wake up, I don't know who they are or where I was...

I knew it!

[deafAncient]

Namaskāra everyone,

However, what is to explain the presence of very strong emotions in a dream, especially when it's about people who are dead now?

One dream was about my last partner, who died in a car accident. In it, during our encounter, I experienced a tremendous emotion, of excitation or something for about two seconds.

In another dream, I saw my Dad walking along a beach, and he was wearing something on his feet that don't exist here (or at least I've never seen them), and I felt this HUGE sense of grief, like I missed him.

I used to have dreams of fear, where once, I woke up from a dream in which I was driving, and I drove too fast around a mountain pass and saw myself in the first quarter second of having missed the turn and realizing it before I jerked myself out of the dream. I used to have a lot of dreams involving plane crashes. I would feel the fear and jolt myself out of these dreams.

What is this?

Praṇāma