Dream (Svapna)
The dream: a whole private world spun from the mind's own stored impressions.
Svapna is the dream state — consciousness turned inward, weaving a private world out of its own stored impressions while the senses rest. Unlike waking's shared, solid world, the dream world is self-luminous and personal, built entirely from the mind's own material. The contemplative traditions prize it as evidence that consciousness can project a whole convincing world from within, a clue to how it projects the waking world too.
How it traveled
- Bṛhadāraṇyaka UpaniṣadMithilā (kingdom of Videha) · -700explains
- VivekacūḍāmaṇiŚṛṅgeri (Sringeri) · 1400explains
Key passages(13)
Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)
'And there are two states for that person, the one here in this world, the other in the other world, and as a third an intermediate state, the state of sleep. When in that intermediate state, he sees
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Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)
Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)
Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)
And Yagnavalkya said: 'That (person), having enjoyed himself in that state of sleeping (dream), having moved about and seen both good and bad, hastens back again as he came, to the place from which he
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Uddâlaka Âruni said to his son Svetaketu: 'Learn from me the true nature of sleep (svapna). When a man sleeps here, then, my dear son, he becomes united with the True, he is gone to his own (Self). Th
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There that god (the mind) enjoys in sleep greatness. What has been seen, he sees again; what has been heard, he hears again; what has been enjoyed in different countries and quarters, he enjoys again;
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