A technique to be aware in dreams

What the Method Is

The core instruction for this meditation technique, as described by Osho drawing from the ancient wisdom, is: “With intangible breath in center of forehead, as this reaches heart at the moment of sleep, have direction over dreams and over death itself.” This sutra aims to cultivate awareness that extends into the dream state and beyond.

How It Is Done

To practice this method, you should:

  • Feel the intangible breath (prana): The first step is to be able to perceive the invisible, immaterial part of your breath, known as prana. This can be achieved through various centering methods:
    • The easiest way to feel the invisible part of breath is by focusing attention between the two eyebrows, at the third eye center.
    • Alternatively, it can be felt by being attentive in the gap between two breaths (though less easily).
    • Or, by being aware of the navel center where breath touches and exits (with less ease).
  • Practice at the moment of sleep: This technique is specifically designed to be practiced while you are falling into sleep, and not at any other time.
  • Feel prana reaching the heart: As sleep begins to overtake you, consciously feel this intangible breath (prana) moving into your heart. Tantra suggests that prana enters the body through the heart.
  • Allow sleep while maintaining awareness: Continue to hold this feeling of prana filling your heart as sleep comes and gradually envelops your consciousness. Let sleep “drown” you while maintaining this continuous inner awareness.
Commentaries and Insights
  • Awareness in Dreams and Mastery: The primary outcome of this practice is to become aware while you are dreaming. Ordinarily, individuals perceive their dreams as reality until they awaken. By developing this awareness, you gain mastery over your dreams, enabling you to create the dreams you desire or to stop unwanted dreams. Ultimately, when this mastery is achieved, dreaming itself may cease, as there is no longer a need for it.
  • Connection to the Third Eye: Osho explains that when a person falls asleep, their eyes naturally move upwards and focus in the third eye center. This unconscious focusing is precisely why dreams are experienced as real. Osho encourages observing this phenomenon, particularly in children, to confirm it.
  • Dreams as Completion of Incompleteness: Dreams serve as a psychological mechanism to complete incomplete or unfulfilled actions and desires from one’s waking life. If desires or experiences are left suspended during the day, the mind attempts to resolve them symbolically in dreams, releasing inner uneasiness. An enlightened person, who lives completely and totally in each moment, leaves nothing incomplete, thus has no need for dreams.
  • The Quality of Sleep and Death: When dreaming ceases due to conscious mastery, the quality of sleep profoundy changes, becoming much deeper and more akin to the state of death. Osho highlights the ancient Indian understanding that sleep is a “short duration of death,” and death is a “long sleep”. This practice, by providing “direction over dreams,” consequently grants “direction over death itself”. This implies a realization that death is merely a profound sleep, allowing one to become the master of their rebirth, choosing their parents, time, and form for their next life. Osho cites Buddha’s precise pre-death predictions of his next birth and his mother’s dreams as an example of this mastery. Mastering dreams signifies mastering the very “stuff of this world,” as life itself is described as being made from it.
  • Transcending Spiritual Sleep (Dreaming): Meditation aims to transcend the constant process of dreaming that permeates both waking and sleeping states. According to Osho, man is perpetually “asleep,” whether in deep sleep at night or in a “lesser sleep” during the day. True awakening, or enlightenment, is characterized by the complete cessation of this inner dreaming. The conventional state of being involves the “dreamer… lost in the dreaming,” focused on external reflections rather than the self.
  • Methods to Transcend Dreaming: Osho discusses two general methods to achieve awareness in dreams:
    • Shankara’s Approach (World as Illusion): Consistently act and behave as if the entire world is a dream during your daily activities. This is not a philosophical concept but a practical meditative aid. Sustaining this attitude for about three weeks can lead to spontaneously remembering at night that you are dreaming. This process, when fully integrated, results in the entire 24-hour cycle feeling like a dream, with your consciousness becoming “double-arrowed” – aware of both the dream and the “dreamer” (the subject, your true self).
    • Gurdjieff’s/Sufi Approach (Self-Remembering): Continuously remember “I am” throughout all your daily activities, but this is a feeling, not a verbal repetition. This sustained self-remembering penetrates into sleep, allowing you to recognize dreams as dreams. If the “I” (the self) is present, reality becomes a dream; if the “I” is absent, dreams are perceived as reality. This heightened self-awareness can lead to a perception of others as being “asleep” or “drugged,” as observed by Ouspensky under Gurdjieff’s guidance.
  • The Significance of Gaps: For Tantra, the real dimension of being is found in the “gap” between states, such as the fleeting moment between waking and sleeping. This “neutral gear” of consciousness, when mind is not active in either state, offers a prime opportunity for a glimpse of one’s true being. Practicing awareness in this small, momentary gap grants the “key” to unlock a different dimension of self.
  • Enlightened Person’s Sleep (Absence of Dreams): An enlightened individual does not dream. Their consciousness remains active and aware even during sleep, with only the periphery of their being resting. This sleep is a state of deep relaxation without unconsciousness. The absence of dreams is a consequence of their living life so totally and completely that no experiences or desires remain “suspended” or incomplete, thus removing the need for the mind to complete them in dreams. An enlightened person’s thinking process is also different; it is simultaneous with action, not a rehearsal or a dream.