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WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

Dreams

27 April 1955

Sweet Mother, when one sees oneself dead in a dream, what does it signify?

Ah! I have already been asked this several times. It depends on the context.

It can mean that one has made enough progress to get rid totally of an old way of being which has no longer any reason for existing. This, I think, is the most frequent case. Otherwise it depends absolutely on the context, that is, the circumstances surrounding the dream.

That is... one sees himself dead... How does he see himself dead? Does he simply see the inert body or himself already dead, or does he take for dead what is not dead?

You see, if you leave your body--by going out of the body as I explained a while ago--if you have gone out materially enough, in a very material vital, well, the body which is lying on the bed seems absolutely dead, but it is not dead for all that. But if you look at it or see it while you are outside and you don't know, it seems absolutely dead, it is in a cataleptic state. Then if you know what is necessary and what you ought to do it is very easy; but if you don't know and the imagination starts roaming, then you open the door to fear and anything may happen.

But in fact, I don't think that once in a million times it is a premonitory dream. I think it much more likely that it is a fragment of the being which has stopped being useful and so disappears; so the fragment takes the form of the whole and one sees himself dead because this fragment has stopped existing in him. This is the most frequent and the most logical instance.

Now, one may see not a death but, for example, an accident or an assassination or things like that... Then it is a very real violent dream, you know, and this may mean that one is attacked by bad forces sent by someone with a precise purpose. Then one has only to strike hard and react violently. [new p. 133][old p. 135]

Sweet Mother, sometimes when one is asleep, he knows that he is asleep but he can't open his eyes. Why?

This happens when one has gone out of his body, and one must not force things, one must quite simply, slowly, concentrate his consciousness in his body and wait a while for the fusion to be made normally; one must not force things.

Sometimes the eyes are a little open and one can also see things...

And one can't move!

Yes.

It means that only a fragment of the consciousness has come back, not enough to bring back the full movement in the body. You must not shake yourself, because you risk losing a bit of yourself. You must remain quite still and concentrate slowly, slowly, on your body; it can take a minute or two at the most.

What can one lose?

Anything at all, something that has gone out, you see. It's because one part of the being has gone out; so if you shake yourself, it doesn't have the time to get back. Why, there's someone behind you (Nolini) who has had an experience of this kind--someone startled him out of his sleep, and when he came back he had truly the feeling that something was missing. Isn't that so? (Mother turns to Nolini)

(Nolini) Yes.

Then I told him to concentrate quietly; it came back. Only, if [old p. 136]one is afraid it can become complicated, you see. [new p. 134]

But one must never startle anyone out of his sleep because he must have time to get back into his body. It is not good, for instance, when getting up to jump out of bed--hop! You must remain quiet for a while, like this (gesture), as though you were bringing yourself back into yourself, like that, quietly... quietly. When you are quite calm, when you feel that everything is there, then you get up and it is over. But you must never jump out of bed abruptly, it is not good. Besides, sometimes it happens that those who wake up abruptly and jump out of bed feel giddy and risk falling. You must always make a movement like this (gesture), as though you were gathering your consciousness or all kinds of things which may be gathered in one's body; you remain very quiet for a few seconds of assimilation and when it is done properly, you get up quietly, composedly.