Meditation 99: Life is a Dream
Metaphors draw two unlikely suspects together in an illuminating way. The metaphor “Achilles is a lion” is not literally true, unless I have a lion named “Achilles.” Yet it draws attention to the courage and strength of the hero with a punch that straight prose lacks. “X is brave and strong” applies to many people. The metaphor distinguishes Achilles from others who are also brave and strong. Metaphors make readers think about the deeper identity that underlies surface differences. A good one sparks new thoughts and connections between ideas, but metaphors are never literally true.
“Life is a dream” is a well known metaphor. On the surface, seeking an identity between waking life and dreaming seems unpromising. After all, we distinguish ‘dreaming’ from ‘waking life’, and without this contrast, it would no longer make sense to speak of ‘dreaming’ in the first place. Life is real, but dreams are not. No matter how vivid at the time, what happens in dreams does not actually happen. I dream that I marry the boss’s daughter, but wake up to find it is time to go to work sweeping her dad’s factory floor. I can fly in my dreams, but not in waking life. There are other contrasts. Time is disjointed in dreams, but can be mapped using clock time in ‘real life’. I wake to a continuing life, but each dream is complete in itself. It is extremely rare, I would imagine, to continue last night’s dream tonight. Dreams certainly appear illusory in comparison with normal waking life.
At this point, we might ask why “Life is a Dream” has captured so much attention over the years? From what direction do we hear it? The metaphor seems to be coming from an esoteric tradition, from mysticism, Taoism, or perhaps Buddhism. As a realistically-minded philosopher, I have resisted the idea that life is somehow a dream. And yet, I have thought about it over the years. I stub my toe. It hurts. Is this a dream? I lose my job, my wife, my cat and my dog. Are these just dreams? The world aches with war, plague, death, hatred, hunger and despair. Are all these dreams? Are the suffering of millions just illusions?
Another way I have resisted the life/dream metaphor is by rejecting mysticism as not sufficiently rational. In one strand of the mystical tradition as I understand it, what the ignorant normally call ‘life’ is actually illusory. It is the veil of Maya, fueled by craving for the unreal and delusional delights of trying to satisfy endlessly proliferating desires. Everything is changing in every way all the time. Nothing stays the same. We are supposed to escape from the illusion of Maya and the wheel of life (Samsara) by understanding that life is just a dream, and all this ceaseless striving is a kind of sleepwalking. Best to give up the desires which give birth to the world of craving. This sounds good, but once again we are up against the fact that life feels real to those who are struggling to survive in a difficult and frightening world. Thinking that life is just a dream seemed to me just an excuse to forget about the world and all the problems we find there.
After coming to these dark reflections, I found a question to move forward. Are dreams actually the same as illusions? Consider an optical illusion. Once we find out that it is an illusion, our minds corrects for the faulty perception. A straight stick looks bent when it is half under water. Once we learn a little optics, we see why it looks this way. Of course, it might be a bent stick after all, but that would just be funny. Are dreams illusions like this? I think not. No matter how sure I am that it was a dream after I wake up, there is no way to ‘correct’ for the illusion while in the dream itself. Dreams just do seem real at the time.
First of all, a dream is not illusory on its own terms. While dreaming, the dream is real. Second, dreams have meaning. To say that something is a dream is not to say that it is meaningless, pointless or trivial. Third, and most importantly, though dreams do vanish upon waking, the ephemeral nature of dreams does not detract from their existence or significance.
From this standpoint, there is a deep identity between dreams and waking life. For me, it has to do with the varnishing of days and dreams together. Yesterday has all the phenomenological reality of yesterday’s dream. It is gone, not to be retrieved. Yesterday is like a play that ran its course, stirred up actions and passions, and then passed away in sleep. What is the memory of the wonderful trip you took to the sea shore last summer but a dream? This is the deep structural identity of memories, dreams and waking life.
Spelling?: wheel of life (Samara)
I was expecting Samsara.
As with the “brain in a vat” problem, this plays a big role in my thoughts on epistemology.
For me the key is duration (which you hint at). The theme of a dream rarely lasts beyond one night, while our life’s memories last many years.
This is where I get the notion that all we know is little more than something that is statistically inferred, since our direct experience does not extend beyond our lifespan (at least not within normal memory). Any idea of an eternal or permanent truth is an attempt to extend beyond that direct perception, thus making such ideas something we are less sure of than our direct perception. And, that’s not even taking into account the questions about the accuracy of our direct perceptions.
The things we take as eternal truths are based on observations of things that appear to always happen the same way, though we have yet to be present at the end of time to verify that they remain true.
So, dreams are the periods where experiences are too short lived to properly connect with the longer lasting aspects of our lives. The question about whether life is a dream is essentially asking what is there beyond the realm of our personal experiences.
I suppose that everyone has had the sensation of waking up with regard to previous life experiences, for example, realizing that one’s goals were an illusion or utopian. That’s another metaphor, to be sure, but it seems like an appropriate one to describe the experience.
How often does one say in an argument with someone who is not realistic or who is utopian: wake up!
The phrase “Life is a dream” can have a deeper meaning if there is another state beyond the two states of existence: waking life and dreaming. In Buddhism and other mysticisms it is claimed that there is another way of living and relating to reality that makes what we call waking life seem like a dream in comparison to it. In Buddhism the story goes that when a man passing the Buddha on the road and noticing something special about him asked if he were a god or magician or demon, he replied, “I’m awake.” A strange reply (since obviously he was awake) unless there is a state of being that makes our normal waking life seem like a dream in comparison to its superior wakefulness. This is what Buddhism asserts but not only as an intellectual assertion; it recommends a practice that must be done so that one sees or experiences that this is the case. You write as if it is a purely intellectual claim to be considered philosophically or in thought. But Buddhism and most mysticisms are about the person’s decision to pursue a daily practice which involves some sort of method of inquiry that either does or does not wake them up by showing them how what we call waking life is actually like a dream in comparison to a superior wakefulness. The Buddhist practice is mindfulness meditation. The moment to moment practice of witnessing the contents of consciousness – thoughts, feelings and sensations – as they arise and pass away. The claim is that you will see that everything is impermanent, changing. You don’t just think it is impermanent, you experience it immediately and that experiencing alters one’s being.
In psychoanalysis of a Freudian or Lacanian kind you do the practice of therapy in such a way (and with the assumptions and practice) that regard the dream as conveying more reality – the really real – in comparison to our illusory waking life.
I think the crucial question is: what method of inquiry do you choose? If you choose a mystical path and do the practice and see what they say you see then do you then believe that that is the way things are? If you choose to use philosophical reflection and see things in a certain way is that the way things are? So, which mystical practice or philosophical tradition should one choose? Phenomenologists “see,” or talk in terms of different things, than do analytic philosophers. If we ask philosophical questions about the way things are we think that we are just neutrally inquiring, but we’ve really unconsciously adopted a method and approach to investigating that comes with certain presuppositions about how we will know what’s real.
Which method of inquiry is the right one to choose to investigate whether “life is a dream”?
Well, I was wondering if someone was going to mention the wakefulness of Buddhism, and it makes an interesting contrast putting that along side the concept of impermanence, thanks Jeff.
I had always taken that Buddhist concept of wakefulness as being a matter of not being trapped in illusory states, particularly those that are ego focused. It would seem that dreams are an extension of those illusory states. However, I wonder how that fits with the modern notion from Biology that dreams are an additional processing of recent experiences. In that sense, dreams would seem to be a form of biologically induced meditation. As such, disciplined meditation would then be an extension of biological dreaming, with the intent to further resolve experiences.
Thinking, it would seem, is not much more real than a dream. But, these things that go on within our minds seem to all be geared to enhancing our connection to reality. I suppose that this highlights the importance keeping our imaginations distinctly separate from our perceptions.
This statement “life is a dream” would seem to be a challenge for use to use the best of our thinking resources, including ideas about dreams, to better seek out the true nature of reality.
Jeff,
Very nicely written.
“While dreaming, the dream is real.”
Interesting statement. In what way is it real? In the way that a thought in a wakeful moment is? If it’s real, am I as one of its participants real in the dream. If so, again, in what way?
Just off the top of my head, I think of a dream as a story some part of me wants to tell. The question is why tell it in such an abstract way? Our brains take life as we experience it and presents it to us with out the type of frills we get in dreams. Why the difference?
Tesserid, Regarding your second paragraph:
* Yes for some forms of Buddhism dreams are just more illusion, but I think there are some Tibetan Buddhist practices that use dreams. I didn’t know that modern biology sees dreams as useful, but it makes sense since in evolutionary psychology it seems every human trait is useful for something. But the usefulness of dreams for insight into our selves and our lives is a mainstay of psychoanalysis. Of course there are others who say that dreams are poor narratives and are not very useful like J. Allan Hobson.
* In the Buddhism I’m thinking of they wouldn’t regard dreams as “biologically induced meditation” or “an extension of biological dreaming” because I don’t think that the intent of meditation is “to further resolve experiences.” I think the Buddhist practitioner wants to establish a strong mindfulness and simply examine the contents of subjective experience as they arise and pass a way. It’s very present moment centered. You’re not trying to “process” or “resolve” experiences. You’re peering into their nature to see that and whether they are impermanent, have inherent suffering and are not-self.
You wrote:
“Thinking, it would seem, is not much more real than a dream. But, these things that go on within our minds seem to all be geared to enhancing our connection to reality. I suppose that this highlights the importance keeping our imaginations distinctly separate from our perceptions.”
* Yikes! There’s a lot going on in this bit. It could be argued that thinking is very different from a dream. It could be questioned in many ways whether what goes on in our minds is geared to greater connection to reality. There’s the question of what and whether there is “reality.” There’s the question of the nature of a “connection” to it. There’s also all the debates in philosophy about the relationship between imagination or thoughts or concepts and perceptions. Each big concept you use is a landmine of debate in philosophy these days. I don’t know those debates.
You wrote:
“This statement “life is a dream” would seem to be a challenge for use to use the best of our thinking resources, including ideas about dreams, to better seek out the true nature of reality.”
* But one of the questions in my comment was the question of what method to use to inquire. Should we use our “thinking resources” or some other resources? Is there a “true nature of reality?” or is it not a good use of our time to inquire into it? There’s one of the Wittgensteinian approaches that says that those words are being used in a misleading way and we need to dismantle that problematic usage to relieve ourselves of the “cramp” that the problem of the “true nature of reality” expresses. (I add this because I’ve been reading Oskari Kuusela’s “The Struggle Against Dogmatism: Wittgenstein and the Concept of Philosophy” lately.)
Thanks Ralph,
‘Very nicely written.
“While dreaming, the dream is real.”
Interesting statement. In what way is it real? In the way that a thought in a wakeful moment is? If it’s real, am I as one of its participants real in the dream. If so, again, in what way?”’
* One way it’s real is that we generally don’t know it’s a dream and react to it as if the things that are happening in it are as real to us as the things in everyday life are. Of course, one can learn lucid dreaming in which one learns to “wake up” in the dream, realize it is a dream as it’s happening and decide to do what one wants in the dream. And then there’s the Buddhist point I originally made that one can learn to “wake up” from the dream that is our normal waking life. And then the psychoanalytic point that the dream has more of what’s “real” about your life than your normal, rational, conscious self. So it’s how you choose to live and what that mode of living regards as real.
* There is a way the dream is real similarly to the thought in waking life, in that for much of our waking life we take our thoughts to be what is happening.
* Yes, you’d need to ask “real in what way?” Does it mean I’m real in the dream just like I am real in waking life? Depends on what we mean by real, like you say.
“Just off the top of my head, I think of a dream as a story some part of me wants to tell. The question is why tell it in such an abstract way? Our brains take life as we experience it and presents it to us with out the type of frills we get in dreams. Why the difference?”
* Well, the psychoanalytic explanation is that it is trying to tell us something it is hard for us to hear. It screens the dream-content, because we can’t handle the truth that our unconscious has to tell us. Or, it has multiple things to tell us and it condenses the multiple meanings in polysemantic symbols.
* Or, waking life appears to convey no-frills stories because, in general, we are so dulled by modern life that we don’t see the multiple meanings in the events that occur everyday. I’ve had the experience on LSD and mescaline and during intensive meditation retreats of much more meaningfully layered waking encounters. Of course, it’s still not as wild as the dream. On the other hand, dreams don’t seem as wild and crazy when we get to know them better. Our culture is quite dream ignorant.
Okay Jeff you’ve got me interested; I’m going to learn more about dreams.
Adi Shakara in 7th century AD was a celebrated philosopher of Advaita or Monism.He considered duality is a dream or brhma.His famous example of snake and rope was the essence of his thought.He believed that every man could attain brahman through meditation.His life itself was a mystery.Hindus consider him as a saviour of hinduism and god incarnate.This is not without reason.He left behind several questions which remain unanswered till today.Adi Shankar lived up to 31 years.In a short period a decade from 18 onwards,he accomplished following.1.He wrote 10000 verses in chaste sanskrit about his philosophy and vedas.He wrote apart hundreds of commentaries about life and realities as he viewed and experienced.He viewed reality from higher plane.1.He travelled extensively and went to Kailas from Kerala on foot and other holy places on Ganga Kinara.2.He built several mutts and renovated thousand of hindu temples,then in ruin.He reuvenated hinduism and was considered as God incarnate.It was believed that he could move at the speed of mind and was called manovegi.3.He returned to his birthplace to see his ailing mother from nowhere and cremated her on plantain leaves and stubs,the burnt residue is still seen at Aladi.He took samadhi at unknown place when he separated from his shishyas at Kailas and never returned.The main question which remains unanswered is how he could accomplish all these in just 10 years of his adult life.I would like hear from others if hey have answers to his mystic life and know other incredible experiences.Please continue this discussion about Adi Shankarachrya of Aladi,Kerala.Jai Shankar.
Jeff,
Thanks for the comments.
A couple of clarifications:
I’m really just a spectator as far as Psychology is concerned, but I think it’s fairly clear that there is still a lot to pin down about the need for dreams. I’m just betting that the efforts in this area will bear fruit.
My encounters with Buddhism have been less from the Tibetan variety and more from Eastern Zen, and what (little) I’ve done academically has focused on the Heart Sutra.
And, since I had my introduction to the concept of the sub-conscious id long before that (not to mention my pseudonym), much of what I learned about Zen was influenced by ideas of what can bubble up from the id, to influence thoughts, dreams, meditation, etc.
We could also mention that these things can be applied to escapist pursuits, which would distance a person from reality. And, I think Psychology has much to say how such distancing could be either problematic or beneficial. For instance, how do fantasies (day dreams and such) fit into this?
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about the significance of our ability to speculate about things outside of our direct perception and events that may be possible in the future, along with the kinds of logic that comes into play to manage such speculation. I think this question about what is dream and what is reality is very much a part of that.
Thanks again for the comments.
Before the dream we are rapt, caught up in its flow we are borne along by it in a current of association that reveals the inner dynamic of our minds. So much the better if we do it whilst in that state of relaxation which the vulgar call sleep. Unfortunately a great many people carry on whilst in the waking state what can only be described as somnambulism. They dream their lives away. It has been the business of psychopomps of one sort or another, philosophers not the least in number to cry in the manner of the Gurdjieffian exercise – Halt! What just happened? We need to experience duration in the manner of Bergson. That is the weight of the moment.
Michael, interesting perspective.
I have to admit that I’m fond of dreams and what they show me. And, I’ve definitely found solutions to problems while in sleep. I’d also have to say that day dreams can also be very productive. Though, we do seem to worry about mistaking dreams for reality or dwelling in dreams to the point of excessive procrastination.
One moe comment, Jeff:
Descartes is the one who insisted that while you’re dreaming, what you’re dreaming seems real: what you’re dreaming (the content). This in regard to a question above about what is claimed to be real. So, in a dream in which you see your dead grandmother as alive, you think she is alive, just as when she was alive and you saw her, you thought she was alive, of course! So, if we remember, Descartes’ point was, not only that we can’t distinguish one from the other, but that we can’t be certain that what we sense, not just see, in waking life is indeed real. This argument seems to lead to the conclusion that life could indeed be a dream, we’ll never know. Until, of course, he comes up with the cogito, which is another story. I have a tendency to go back to the classics in philosophy to at least be cognizant of the origins of some of our questions.
Well, that point about Descartes brings this to mind.
How often do we wake and reflect on the dreams of the past night, and how often do we dream and give little regard of the day before?
I suppose I’ve had a few dreams where I might have wanted to wake. I’ve also had dreams where I wanted to sleep. But, such dreams are really quite rare.
It seems to be that it is in this place we call waking reality that we spend so much time questioning dreams and reality. Dreams are just too disconnected and short to sort such things out.
J.Zuni,
Since I believe that Richard Rorty knew the absolute Truth, I’d say that the problem is this quest for the real. Or, put another way, what is the real? How do we know when we have it? Is it what God (if there is one) knows? Do we know we have it when our arguments for it are as foolproof as a thoroughly vetted mathematical proof? (And then, is it the proof or the vetting of the proof that determines its validity?) Or, when we find a language whose words’ meanings never change? Or, when we’ve finally transcended our historical context and can divine essences?
Waking life could be a dream, if we have something more real to compare it to. The Buddhists say we do. What the Buddhists say is the real could be a dream if we think the superior wakefulness they cultivate is an evasion of the reality of normal waking life. The dream could be more real if we believe it reveals our true, unconscious motivations and tells us more about what we’re actually doing in our deluded waking life. The dream could be less real if we believe it is a semi-random series of neural firings that gives no pertinent information.
By what criterion do we decide which view to adhere to? How do we decide? Are arguments superior to the sureness of wholly convincing experiences? What criterion do you choose to use to decide the issue? Why do you need to decide?
I’m now wondering about a progression that might be followed in this idea that Buddhism wants us to wake from our living in delusion.
As I’d mentioned in my last comment, dreams don’t usually treat waking life as unreal, but waking life usually doubts that dreams are real. In that vein, the expanded awareness of Buddhism doubts the reality of unenlightened life and that the unenlightened life does not have the capacity to question enlightenment. I wonder if there isn’t a progression here, where there are enlightenments beyond enlightenment–each having an awareness that the lesser awareness is unable to grasp. And, I wounder if this could be an infinite progression, and infinite awareness would be no more reachable then anything infinite.
It would seem problematic for someone of a lesser awareness to challenge any claim that the ultimate awareness had ever been achieved.
With this idea, I’m inclined to say that the ultimate that something like Buddhism and Zen could offer is not the ultimate awareness–but a process of continuing on the path towards an ever expanding awareness. And, that would make any state of enlightenment just a way point on that path.
Know I do not know much in these field, but it seemed interesting to me, when i thought about it, im thinking where in these does time play a part. Is time just something like an illusion that we perceive as a pattern in certain events that undergo the world we live in.
Life is a dream. I’m the dreamer and the dream itself.. And you the reader is me too. But because you are also me that makes you everything too. I know sounds crazy but that’s THE TRUTH
In psychology the topic, “states of consciousness”, is being tackled. This topic investigates on the biological rhythms, chronobiology, sleep stages, drugs that alter states of consciousness, and our tendencies to alter our normal consciousness when we daydream, etc. In sleep stages, it is explained that the human brain during the normal waking hours is as active as it is during the REM sleep. As we reach the REM sleeping stage, we also become aware of our surroundings it’s just that we are in another dimension. It is a dimension wherein others around us cannot perceive it the way we can. If we will allow ourselves to be shattered by painful realities that come along our way, we can not be comforted by the dreams that inspire us to work for their reality. Who cares? It’s psychology!! During the earliest thinkers’ time (e.g. Plato, Pythagoras,Homer, Da Vinci, etc…)had anyone think of the cellphones or the internet or the airplanes, electricity, blah blah blah to materialize at once, or those thinkers simply had such dream of turning them into reality???
Pseudoscience becomes more likely to become pseudoscience because people don’t work hard enough for it. But if one has a clear vision of what he has dreamed, it is more likely to be converted into a form – an event, which is acceptable and an objective reality this sick material world demands.
i strongly believe that nature has answers to life mystries’dream is such,dream is your subconcious mind in action.proven that nature never diviate from eastablished law.
Life is a dream, dreams can be imagined as the transitions between the “wake” state and the “sleep” state. We are always transitioning, always dreaming. Even the state of enlightenment is a dream. To be enlightened is to overstand that there is no such thing.
I too used to have this doubt: How could we take up everything in this world as unreal/maya though we see misery before our eyes. But, I got a better understanding later: As the dreams seem to be completely real when we dream, the life in this world ‘seem to be completely real’ when we live here. It is just a different perception, at a different state of consciousness. When we go beyond the walking, sleeping and dreaming state and get established in the super consciousness, we would be able to better understand the reality.
Fascinating article and comments! I have a BA in Psychology and a MS in Human Services. One of my higher level classes was “The Psychology of Sleep & Dreams”. The professor who taught that class recently passed away before I had the opportunity to ask him how fear/stress/anxiety (or the removal of fear/stress/anxiety) plays a role in how dreams are cultivated and assessed.
For example, in the “Life is a dream” scenario, does any think the dream would become more prophetic once the fear, stress or anxiety is removed from our every day life?
If there are no reasons for the metaphors to disguise the fear/stress/anxiety, then what is left?
“No matter how sure I am that it was a dream after I wake up, there is no way to ‘correct’ for the illusion while in the dream itself. Dreams just do seem real at the time.”
This statement ignores the phenomenon of lucid dreaming. In addition, there are Tibetan Buddhist practices oriented toward waking up (in the sense of being cognizant or aware) while dreaming. Dream yoga from the Six Yogas of Naropa is one.
Of course, your basic point is valid. Ordinarily a dream seems real while it is occurring just as life seems real while it is occurring. Tibetans also place emphasis on bardo (post-death) practices because the process of death affords an easier method of waking up and seeing the illusory nature of our experience than the process of waking up in the bardo of this life — this is analogous to the fact that it is easier to see the illusory nature of a dream in the morning than to cultivate a state of lucid dreaming.
If you are inclined toward logic as a starting point rather than meditation practice, it is helpful to consider the basis on which we determine that something is “real”. I have found Buddhist teachings on this point to be helpful and provocative. In Dzongsar Khyentse R.’s popular book “How Not to Be a Buddhist”, he speaks of three conventional approaches to distinguishing what is real from what is illusory. The term conventional here means widely held — but often not analyzed or understood.
The first approach is consensus. To use a traditional analogy, if a person has jaundice and sees a white conch as yellow, we determine his experience to be illusory because by consensus a white conch is white. It is easy to see that consensus is a weak basis for a definition of reality that is in any sense objective or non-relative (not dependant on the nature of the observer).
The second approach is continuity. If something appears today and it is there tomorrow, we say that it is real. We extend our concepts of reality to incorporate certain fixed concepts of impermanence. So, if we look at a rosebud, we say that the rosebud exists and is real even though as it sits in the vase from day to day its petals unfold into a flower and then drop to the table. But if something violates our concepts of its fixed nature — if a rosebud is on the table one minute and disappears the next, we suspect that it is not “real”.
The third conventional approach is to assess functionality. If something functions and has qualities that correspond with our preexisting concepts, we say that it is “real”. If a delicious looking bowl of fruit turns out to be made of wax, it lacks the functionality of fruit and we say that it is not real.
What is apparent from each of these conventional approaches is that reality is not an objective, external event. It involves a dynamic interplay between our concepts of the world and our direct experience. We could posit that reality in this sense does not exist without our preconceptions and memories. This is not the same as saying that there isn’t an experience that is beyond concept or pre-conceptual (although we have to be careful because in saying that we create a concept as well). Just that that experience can’t be quantified and measured. In fact, in a fundamental sense it cannot be conceived of. That is why Buddhism is, most essentially, a mystical tradition that looks to direct experience rather than philosophy and logic to discover truth. Logic is a useful adjunct to establish conditional confidence in the Buddhist practices that are then used to wake up.