The concept of lucid dreaming has enthralled many people since time immemorial. Lucid dreams are essentially the kind of dreams wherein the sleeper knows that they are dreaming, and are subsequently able to exert some control over the narrative of their dream or the environment they are in. While curiosity about lucid dreaming is common, some studies suggest that frequent lucid dreams might be detrimental to mental health and sleep quality. Sadhguru addresses one such question about lucid dreams and if it is possible to enter such a state while sleeping, with his wisdom and deep insight.
Sadhguru: “Well, if that’s the only way you wish to fly it’s up to you but I want you to understand that the word ‘dream’ means it’s not real. That’s what the word dream or the word swapna means- it’s not real. Has it happened to you? When you were 8 to 14 years of age, when your intelligence is blossoming but you’re not yet hijacked by your hormones there is a strong tendency to dream strong, a child will simply sit like this and if he reads a story or sees a movie or something else somebody told him, he will just create a reality with that.”
“I’ve made efforts to disturb that dream always, because we need to understand, this mechanism is so subtle. Anything that is subtle always has a certain sense of fragility attached to it. For every one of us, I’m saying our sanity is not a guarantee, like your health is not a guarantee, just because you’re eating proper food, you’re doing the right thing it doesn’t mean for your life you will be healthy. So, similarly your sanity is not an assured dimension of life it needs to be kept carefully. Giving too much significance to dreaming and making it more and more real in your experience is like pushing the line of sanity. You may not cross but there’s no guarantee you will not.”
“So this lucid dreaming, you know, you can fly, you can become this, you can become that…Well, it comes from the Native American culture, it’s all over the place. Today in America, a whole lot of people are doing other kinds of plants, herbs, roots, whatever, to get lucid dreams. I would say, don’t. But you can’t stop people from dreaming! Once there is not enough stability in your energy system, if dreams become too strong then you will know no distinction between what is eyes open and what is eyes closed. A simple thing that everybody could do is, see if you can just lie down on your back for most part of the night.”
“If you’re doing enough yogic sadhana [practices] slowly these things may evolve by itself. Not everybody may be able to lie down flat on their back for the entire night but in my opinion you should not be sleeping for the entire night- sunset to sunrise is 12 hours! A third of that is okay, a little more is okay but not the entire night. All you have to do is depending upon the shape of your body, accordingly you must adjust the angle of your leg. If you adjust the angle of your legs,you can sleep on your back. If you do this consciously at least for half the time that you sleep,you may achieve at least dreamless sleep, which is a good thing.”
“You lie down flat on your back and sleep, you will see, you will breathe better, that means life will happen better in the system and all organs will work better. Also, if you don’t want to have unnecessary dreams, disturbances, you must eat at least 4 hours before you go to bed. That is, you’re almost hungry before you go to bed, you just drink a glass of water and go to bed. Wow, you will wake up early in the morning, no dreams- simply sleep and wake up!”
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