The Mind in Dream :

The mind is ever rotating like a wheel. It plays with the five senses of perception and gets experiences in the waking state. It receives the different sense impressions through the avenue of the senses. The impressions are lodged in the causal body. Ajnana or the causal body is like a black sheet of cloth. In it are contained the Samskaras of all your previous births.

During dream, the mind creates various kinds of objects out of the impressions produced by the experience of the waking state. Sometimes, the experiences of the previous births which are lodged in the causal body flash out during the dreaming state.

The mind is the perceiver and the mind itself is the perceived in dream. The dream objects are not independent of the mind. They have no separate existence apart from the mind. So long as the dream lasts, the dream creatures will remain, just as the milkman remains so long as the milking goes on. Whereas, in the Jagrat state, the object exists independent of the mind. The objects of the waking experiences are common to us all, while those of dreams are the property of the dreamer.

The mind creates the bee, flower, mountain, horses, rivers, etc., in the dream, without the help of any external means. It creates various curious, fantastic mixtures. You may witness in the dream that your living father is dead, that you are flying in the air. You may see in the dream a lion with the head of an elephant, a cow with the head of a dog. The desires that are not satisfied during the waking state are gratified in dream. Dream is a mysterious phenomenon. It is more interesting than the waking state.

Desires are the rulers of all experiences in waking and also in dream. Waking is physical functioning of desires; dream is mental functioning of desires. The senses are moved by desires in waking; the mind is moved by desires in dreaming. In waking, the mind experiences through the senses; in dream, the mind alone experiences.

The dreamer creates the world of his own in the dreaming state. Mind alone works independently in this state. The senses are withdrawn into the mind. The senses are at rest. The mind is then like a furious elephant let loose.

Just as a man withdraws himself from the outside world, closes the door and windows of his room, and works within the room, so also, the mind withdraws itself from the outside world and plays in the dream world with the Vasanas and Samskaras and enjoys objects made up of fine or subtle ideas which are the products of desire. Dream is a mere play of the mind only.

Just as pictures are painted on the canvas, so also, the impressions of the waking state are painted on the canvas mind. The pictures on the canvas seem to possess various dimensions though it is all on a plane surface only. Even so, though the dream-experiences are really states of the mind only, the experiencer experiences internality and externality in the dream world. He feels, while dreaming, that the dream world is quite real.

The dreamer only appears to be doing things in dream, but actually there is no activity. The scripture, in describing our doings in dreams, qualifies them by an ‘as it were’: "As it were rejoicing together with women, or laughing as it were’...". Ordinary people also describe dreams in the same manner: "I ascended, as it were, the summit of a mountain .... I saw a tree, as it were". Therefore, the dreaming self has no activity in dreams.