Dilemma: Dreaming vs. Reality

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                                           “When you perceive the things in Dream

    You take them all to be real,

When you wake up and perceive

    They are all false and unreal.” 

                                              

                                       - Antarai (Songs of Dreams) 

                                  Philosophy of Dreams

                                     by By Sri Swami Sivananda

Whenever a person dreams, is he aware that he’s dreaming? Or does his perception of the reality changes? Is he conscious that the world he currently resides is just a part of his intellectual realm? Or does it completely occupy his consciousness so as to affect his waking state? People tend to become confuse whenever their dreams seem to portray the reality, or whenever their dreams appear to be happening in real life, which in turn make them incapable of making distinction about which is real and which is not. Whenever one dreams of something so realistic, he begins to have a hard time doubting its existence. Truly, dreams can build confusions to people’s minds and can eventually lead to a dilemma wherein men have the difficulty to distinguish the dream from the reality.

Controlling one's dream is oftentimes achievable especially when a person is aware that he is dreaming. If a person dreams that he is with a very popular celebrity, and he knows that he's only dreaming, he will take advantage of that moment by manipulating his dream. It is easy to operate dreams especially when one's consciousness remain. As what Sri Swami Sivananda stated in his Philosophy of Dreams, "You can be conscious in the dream state that you are dreaming. You can alter, stop or create your own thoughts in the dream state independently. You will be able to keep awake in the dream state. If the thoughts of the waking state are controlled, you can also control the dream thoughts.” What is difficult is when one's consciousness changes, that is when the reverse happens: the dream manipulates the dreamer. Sleep walking is a common scenario for some people. They get up from bed, walk aimlessly, and go to the refrigerator, toilet, or even outside the house. This happens because their dreams told them to do so. They are enacting what they are dreaming at that moment. A mild scenario is when a person not totally engulfed by his dream can resist the urge to get up from his bed. If he thinks in his dream that he has to go to the toilet and release that thing that nature wants him to get over with, he may do that while he is in bed. A milder scenario is when a person do the sleep-talking, murmuring things that he is actually saying simultaneously in his dream. Sri Swami Sivananda also stated another scenario of one being largely dominated by his dream:

“Sometimes a man who lives in the city dreams that he is facing a tiger and a lion and shrieks loudly at night. He takes his pillow thinking it to be his trunk and proceeds to the Railway Station. After walking a short distance he takes it to be a dream and comes back to his house. Some people dream that they are sitting in the toilet and actually micturate in their beds.”

 

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There are also times when the reality or the waking state affects people's dreams. A person might dream that he is in a completely cool place when his blanket slipped away from him. There are some experiences when during a particular dream when a person is in a conversation with another, and then the alarm clock rings, his dream might be distorted so as to make his own voice in that dream resembles that of the alarm clock. The reality penetrates the dream and makes it resemble what has been happening outside the dreaming world. Sri Swami Sivananda additionally stated that certain kinds of external sounds  like the ringing of a bell or the blowing of wind may create numerous imaginations in the mind of the dreamer. These sounds generate particular sensations which empowers according to the imaginative capability of the dreamer and the sensitivity of his mind. This is an example of how the reality can affect a man's dream and contribute to the reality - dreaming confusion.

 

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There are also instances when, due to the beauty of a person's dream, one no longer wanted to wake up, or if he failed to do so, hopelessly wishing that it will happen in reality. If a person dreamed that he already achieved the thing that he long for his whole life, he will be disappointed that it only happened in his dream. People have the tendency to compare his own dream to the reality. While people are undergoing this difficulty, they eventually forget how to live, that is, to live in the reality. As what angel wrote in her blog, “How good it would be if reality is wonderful enough already that you wouldn’t have to dream anymore?" This statement apparently portrays a longing for the transformation of one's own dream into reality, an evidence that people really have this dilemma between dreaming and reality, which may eventually lead to a life being lived hand in hand with the alluring mask of dreaming, of the virtual world.

People really reach the point where they have to ask if it is really a dream or a reality. They come to a point where they are helpless to determine the distinction between the two and hoping that they can come up with a conversion formula for these two opposing worlds. Because of this confusion, people often realize that sometimes,  there are things that happen in life which are difficult to determine whether it has already happened in a dream or it has just only happened in the past. One cannot readily come up with a conclusion, he still has to dwell too long with the subject, meditate on it, and, if fortunate, figure out the difference between what is actually happening and what has imaginatively happened.