The Teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan1

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Topic

Archetypes

Astrology

Attainment

Chakras

Character

Christ

Compassion

Dervish

Desire and renunciation

Destiny and Free Will

Dimensions

Discipleship

Dreams

Duties and debts

Ego

Elements

God

Guidance

Healers

Healing

Health

Heart

Immortality

Initiation

Light and Love

Lovers

Magnetism

Mastery

Material life

Meditation

Message

Mind

Physical Body

Planes

Poets

Power

Prayers

Purpose

Reconstruction of World

Relationships

Religions

Saints

School

Scientists

Sexuality

Sleep

Speaking

Stages

Stories

Sufism

Teaching Style

Voice

Women

World

Wounds of the Heart

Sub-Topic

3 Hours Sleep

Dream

Dreams and Visions

Five Kinds

Supplementary

Vol. 2, Cosmic Language

12. Intuition and Dream

Dream

The dream is another wonder, a phenomenon of the mind. In the dream it is not only imagination and thought that work, but also intuition. Intuitions which rise in the waking state rise in the dream state and become clearer, for at that time a person is naturally more concentrated, his eyes being closed to the outer world. But then also there is the same problem: no sooner has intuition risen from the depth than imagination rises from the surface, and one does not know which is which. That is why many dreams are confused: a part of the dream is expressive of some truth, and a part of the dream is confused.

There is no dream which has no meaning. If the dream has nothing to do with intuition, it is a purely automatic activity of all that the mind has gone through in one's work during the day; the same activity goes on automatically just like a moving picture before one. Yet even behind that there is a meaning, for nothing is projected on the curtain of the mind which does not take root in the soil of the heart, producing similar flowers and fruits. If in the dream intuition is working, then the dream is narrative of something in the past, or present, or coming in the future.

There is however a kind of dream which shows everything upside-down, just like a mirror which shows a fat person thin and a thin person fat, a tail person short and a short person tail. So there also comes a condition of the mind where everything shows quite the contrary to what it is. This fault can be traced as the fault of the mind. The mind has been turned upside down, and therefore all that a person sees looks upside-down, especially in that dream state. Sometimes this dream shows quite the opposite to what was, what is, and what is going to be. If a person did not understand this nature of the dream, he would interpret it quite contrarily to its real nature.

There are dreams which may be called visions. They are reflections; reflections of persons, of their minds, of worlds, of planes on which the mind has become focused. If the mind is focused on a certain world, then the dreams are of that world. If a person is focusing his mind upon himself, then his own thoughts come to him. If the mind is focused on a certain person, then that person and what is within him is reflected in the dream. If the mind is focused on a certain plane of being, then the conditions of that plane are reflected upon the mind. The deeper one goes into this subject, the more one finds that in the understanding of the dream - its nature, its mystery, its character - one understands the secret of the whole life.