bad dreams after meditation??

Aloozer

17 Feb 10, 10:17

how come after meditation then during sleeping i get bad dreams? like ghost dreams but like i just get more aware of what is happening in the dreams and sometimes its abit more scary...is this a sign that ive got ghosts following me around or what?

likeyou

17 Feb 10, 10:20

Probably you are too tired.

Fantagf

17 Feb 10, 10:22

I am guessing - perhaps the one from the dark side felt intimidated by your meditation

longchen

17 Feb 10, 10:31

Originally posted by Aloozer:

how come after meditation then during sleeping i get bad dreams? like ghost dreams but like i just get more aware of what is happening in the dreams and sometimes its abit more scary...is this a sign that ive got ghosts following me around or what?

Hi Aloozer,

It is a good sign.. What i am writing now is not part of Buddhist teaching but is based on my 'training' in other areas of metaphysics. So, it may not be agreeable to some people on the forum.

When one meditate, the subconscious aspects of one's psyche starts to surface. Dream is a symbolic representation of one's subconscious psyche.

'Ghost' in dream is symbolic of something unknown that we are scared of. If we see the 'ghost' in the dream, that meants that an unknown part of our personality is surfacing and will be made known to you. This is a good sign.. it signifies that one is becoming more aware and mindful of one's mental processes.

If we did not see the ghost but just feel an eerie invisible presence, it means that the unknown aspect of oneself has not be seen yet but can be felt.

Either way, it is just a dream... we did not really encounter any real spirits :)

Weychin

17 Feb 10, 10:32

Originally posted by Aloozer:

how come after meditation then during sleeping i get bad dreams? like ghost dreams but like i just get more aware of what is happening in the dreams and sometimes its abit more scary...is this a sign that ive got ghosts following me around or what?

Dreams are related to daily activities, meditation is about focusing of mind.

Your dreams are more vivid because of more awareness. you are more concious of the dreams,that's all. Do not dwell on it!

Dawnfirstlight

17 Feb 10, 18:11

Originally posted by Aloozer:

how come after meditation then during sleeping i get bad dreams? like ghost dreams but like i just get more aware of what is happening in the dreams and sometimes its abit more scary...is this a sign that ive got ghosts following me around or what?

I have different experience from you. I stopped meditation after my insomnia was
cured but it seems to be back lately. I start to meditate again (before I sleep). I sleep throughout the night without any funny dreams on those nights when I meditate.

My friend also feels meditation helps her to sleep better without any bad dreams.

likeyou

17 Feb 10, 18:15

Talking about dreams, I ever dreamt running very very slow and pple behind me racing very fast. Kind of very scary....my leg feel so heavy and hardly any energy to lift and leg and run. I have to drag myself in full force....

Any meaning for this?

Thanks.

Dawnfirstlight

17 Feb 10, 18:27

Originally posted by likeyou:

Talking about dreams, I ever dreamt running very very slow and pple behind me racing very fast. Kind of very scary....my leg feel so heavy and hardly any energy to lift and leg and run. I have to drag myself in full force....

Any meaning for this?

Thanks.

Not too sure. I always don't bother to find out the meaning of my dream.

There was once I dreamt monks were cleaning skulls. The dream was really scary as how can monks clean skulls? I felt strange and had forgotten about it. About a week later, I saw the picture in Straits Times showing monks cleaning the skulls of those who were dead during war in Cambodia, the scene was similar as my dream. I also can't be bothered to find out the meaning but guessing may be I was a Cambodian who died during war in my past life.

An Eternal Now

17 Feb 10, 22:33

Just want to add, anything dreams related can consult Longchen who is an expert in this area with many years training.

He also runs a dream interpretation website.

Rainbow Jigsaw

17 Feb 10, 22:43

Originally posted by An Eternal Now:

Just want to add, anything dreams related can consult Longchen who is an expert in this area with many years training.

He also runs a website http://www.dreamlense.com/

Just curious, how is metaphysics and interpretation of dreams related to Buddhism? Isn't it confusing for beginners or true believers of Buddhism? :)

An Eternal Now

17 Feb 10, 23:02

Originally posted by Rainbow Jigsaw:

Just curious, how is metaphysics and interpretation of dreams related to Buddhism? Isn't it confusing for beginners or true believers of Buddhism? :)

Buddha himself interpreted several of his disciple Ananda's dreams. However, at the same time, he discouraged monks to practice dream interpretation (probably since dream interpretation does not concern the main purpose of attaining liberation). Monks thus should focus their energies on the main goal as a monk.

Dream interpretation is later factored into spiritual practices in some form in Tibetan Budhdism. I'm not exactly familiar with it. It is also heavily emphasized in certain part of Western Psychology (i.e. Carl Jung).

However, Buddhism generally does not emphasize on dream interpretation. Those who are interested may consult Longchen privately to resolve them though. So far longchen was able to very accurately tell what mental states or emotions I was going through just by me telling him my dreams, so I think dreams definitely do 'communicate deep subconscious mind to the conscious mind of a person'.

One of his articles:

My personal opinion is that dreams are a way for the deep subconscious mind to communicate with the conscious mind of a person.

The way I see it is that consciousness is multi-layered or multi-dimensional. The different layers of consciousness are well.. different from one another. For example, our personality self is different from the subconscious mind.

My theory is that dreams are an intermediate state of consciousness connecting the conscious personality self to the subconscious layer of mind. Dreams arrange and display the content and information of the subconscious mind into a format is that understandable and cognizant to the dreamer’s conscious mind.

To me, symbolism is a way for the deep subconscious mind to enable the conscious mind to be aware of its inner workings. Therefore dreams are a kind of symbolic playing/acting of deep mind’s content.

By understanding the meanings of the dream via the interpretations of its symbols, we are able to vaguely figure out what may occur in the near future. How is this possible? There’s no definite answer to this. My personal take on this is that many life events are not really concidences. Instead they are the manifestation of the dynamics that are working within the deep subconscious mind. This inner workings step-down the multi-dimensional concsciousness and eventually manifests as events in our physical world. Dreams, are the intermediate layer of consciousness between conscious personality self and the deep subconscious. As mentioned earlier, dreams are a symbolic representation of deep mind’s inner workings. So, by interpretation of the dreams, we can roughly deduce deep subconscious mind’s dynamic around that period of time. By the time, the dreams are being dreamt, the deep subsconscious mind’s dynamics have already started the stepping down process into physicality.

longchen

17 Feb 10, 23:10

Erm... it is definitely very possible to practice on a path without dream interpretation. In fact, may i ask that my website link be removed. Thanks. :)

Dream interpretation can be helpful up to a certain stage in understanding one's unconscious and personality aspects. But is not 100% necessary.

Also, I am generally too lazy to do interpretation for others. For this case, i did this interprtation because it is related to meditation and i don't wish that Aloozer think that there are spiritual interferences when he is dreaming about ghosts.

The above theory of dream also explained why Dawnfirstlight's dream of monk manifest in a weeks' times as a physical event. The dream symbolism usually will manifests its occurence in physicality in about a week to a months' times.

An Eternal Now

17 Feb 10, 23:14

I see.. ok.

Weychin

18 Feb 10, 00:41

When I was younger I saw dreams a way of indicating my destiny, now I don't bother.

Now I take dreams as a final preview before being permanently deleted from the recycle bin.

soul2soul

18 Feb 10, 09:12

Originally posted by Aloozer:

how come after meditation then during sleeping i get bad dreams? like ghost dreams but like i just get more aware of what is happening in the dreams and sometimes its abit more scary...is this a sign that ive got ghosts following me around or what?

Can you let us know what sort of meditation you do?

likeyou

18 Feb 10, 09:42

Originally posted by longchen:

Erm... it is definitely very possible to practice on a path without dream interpretation. In fact, may i ask that my website link be removed. Thanks. :)

Dream interpretation can be helpful up to a certain stage in understanding one's unconscious and personality aspects. But is not 100% necessary.

Also, I am generally too lazy to do interpretation for others. For this case, i did this interprtation because it is related to meditation and i don't wish that Aloozer think that there are spiritual interferences when he is dreaming about ghosts.

The above theory of dream also explained why Dawnfirstlight's dream of monk manifest in a weeks' times as a physical event. The dream symbolism usually will manifests its occurence in physicality in about a week to a months' times.

Hi LC, can open a new thread for dream interpretation?

I use to dreamt I went to temple while status is golden in colour. What is that mean?

Fugazzi

18 Feb 10, 15:31

If i were to have a dream that i was sick - do i go and see the doctor after i wake up from the dream?

When one meditates - all kinds of emotions, feelings - especially those repressed would surface in the form of nite mares or dreams.

Let it pass - they are simply passing çlouds. The undoing is getting identified and trying to look for answers. When one looks for answers, or goals and uses meditation to áchieve .... one is rerroneously mistaken or simply being delusional - the ego is at play, one is merely playing mind-games.

In fact - meditation if it is actually "working'' one would simply be and one simply is, one does not bother as to whether it is working - one simply allows existence and partakes of what is, otherwise it is akin to the tail wagging the dog lar!