Eckhart Tolle explores what happens to your mind during sleep and whether you can stay present in dreams. He distinguishes between suppressing thoughts and achieving true presence, and explains how practicing presence while awake reduces the insights you need from dreams.
There may be periods in your life when paying attention to your dreams. You can learn certain things. There may be messages there. And the more attention you give to your dreams, the more the dream life responds. Are we able to control our minds while sleeping? Although I'm able to be present much of my waking hours, from the minute I fall asleep to the minute I wake up, my mind is chattering away. I assume the questioner is talking about his or her dream life. From the minute I woke up to the minute I wake, I fall asleep. To the minute I wake up, my mind is chattering away. Well, it won't be chattering away during dreamless sleep. Every human, as you know, has periods of dreamless sleep. And there's no mind activity there where the mind connects with the source. But you don't know that. And then I assume then you mean that you have a very active dream life. There's not much you can do except go into sleep with as much presence as you can. So in the last 15 minutes before sleep, at least don't engage in mind activity. Television? No. Listening to the radio? No. Even reading a book? No. Go into the body or use any other access point for presence, or just go into presence directly and go into sleep from presence. Don't confuse. This may not be the case with you, but it could be the case with some people. Don't confuse suppressing thought with being present. It is for some people are able to suppress thought, which requires an effort, and you become a little contracted when you do that. So in other words, some people can will themselves to stop thinking, but it's not real presence. You can't really will yourself into presence. It's not will. There's no contraction that goes with it. And it's not really. Not even an effort. So let me just demonstrate, because words sometimes are not sufficient. If you will yourself to stop thinking, the body contracts a bit and you're holding something in, and you go like this. And you might even stop breathing for periods of time. So, and if you hold yourself tight and you stop breathing for periods of time, you may be able to stop thinking while you do that. Some people call that meditation. And some people have perfected it to such a degree that they can sit for one or two hours like that, and that holds thought at bay. And then the moment you let go, come out of your meditation. The mind is more active than before because you were holding the lid on a boiling kettle, you're holding the lid down. But real presence is simply a natural arising of awareness in which there's no contraction in the body and there's no willpower that is exerted. But presence is simply allowed to arise like this. And that's a state of openness. In that state, thoughts tend to quickly dissolve. Very different from the state of closedness, the tight lid to that. So make sure that presence is not brought about by an act of will, willpower, exertion of willpower, because that's not presence. Presence is powerful, but soft, gentle, open. Some people have an active dream life, other people less. So of course, everybody dreams more or less. Some people remember their dreams, others never remember their dreams. Almost never remember. The more attention you give to your dreams after you wake up, the more you tend to dream. And there may be something said for sometimes there may be a period in a person's life where paying attention to your dreams can be helpful, such as it's practiced in Jungian therapy and so on. There may be periods in your life when paying attention to your dreams. You can learn certain things. There may be messages there. And the more attention you give to your dreams, the more the dream life responds. But I believe that is a period in a person's life, and then you move on. And then dream life becomes of less importance. Or maybe still occasionally you might get a very insightful dream. The important practice is presence in daily life. Then eventually the rest will look after itself. And dreams tend to turn more peaceful also. And you might even lessen the amount of dreams that you have. Not that that matters really anymore. Dreams are less needed to give you important insights when you are present. Because in presence, insights tend to come to you directly. So you tend to need the intermediary of dream images less because you are already connected with the source of all insights and wisdom. Funny thing is, if you go to a Jungian analyst, after a while you begin to have Jungian dreams. Isn't that strange? Not that it's not valid or valuable. That's how it works. Because life responds to you, or consciousness responds to your expectations, it.
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