Have you ever noticed that your dreams sometimes follow what you were doing right before you went to bed?  Sometimes I watch action packed films and wake up in the morning with a cool story to tell about all the bad guys I out-maneuvered that night.  Or sometimes I’ll get into playing video games with my 7-year-old a for a few hours and then dream that I was the main character in the game going on all sorts of quests and defeating level bosses.  Sometimes I read about some of the evil in the world and my dreams can get quite dark and nightmarish. On the other hand, when I take some time to meditate and read uplifting material before bed, I often see very kind people and we have very pleasant interactions.

I would love to hear your experiences with this.  Please leave a comment below!

Hm, as I re-read what I just wrote and ponder over all the other material on this website, I am getting a notion that I really ought to direct my daily attention with more purposeful intention.  I mean, uplifting thoughts not only make my day more pleasant, but also my nights!  Who doesn’t want that?  It’s in my grasp if I can just manage to make constant decisions to pick up positive, uplifting reading material instead of the scary and depressing stuff that is so much more readily available in this day and age. 

Did someone say “thought-experiment”?

IT'S INTERESTING HOW IN NEARLY ALL CASES OF DREAM RECALL we describe the circumstances we found ourselves in by talking about what we saw. Although there may be remembered other sensations we had experienced – such as hearing music, tasting food, smelling some fragrance, etc. – one would be hard pressed to find records of people describing their dreams from only tactile or taste or smell or auditory memories. Likewise the distinctness of these memories is a result of some recalled experience having been either vivid or having been experienced in a state of some clarity of mind.

     We are certainly challenged on a daily basis in so many circumstances where sensory overload can easily lead to a mind being tugged at in several directions at once. If we add to that some particular problem we’re concentrating on and trying to solve or some new thing we’re trying to create either of which can be interrupted by our surroundings then it becomes easy for the mind to become fragmented and distracted. It would certainly make sense that entering the subtle world with an agitated or easily distracted mind could easily result in an agitated or distracted (disjointed, fragmented) experience.

      Conversely if we are able to cultivate a clear mind that can either be called into activity at will or silenced and held at bay at will then it makes sense any self-generated fragmentation of the dream experience might be significantly reduced.

     That kind of mental agility could certainly be practiced on a regular basis through efforts to think systematically and methodically on some thing – then to stop the mind and hold it clear for a short amount of time – then to again purposefully exercise the mind … and repeat this cycle many times. Over time this could become habit. Since so much of what we do in the subtle realm is habitual then it’s possible such mental habits would also carry over there. And that would have a direct impact on the clarity of our experiences and therefore our recall afterwards.