What's the Buddhist view on dreams?

[Phasmid]

Do dreams hold any significance in Buddhism?

[MysticSang'ha]

You'll likely receive more than one answer to your question, Phasmid.

In Tibetan Buddhism, dreams are hugely significant as an opportunity to practice mindfulness and attentiveness while in extremely subtle states of mind - see here.

[zenzero]

FriendPhasmid,
Buddha had said that one must be awake even in sleep.
Ananda once asked him *You sleep in one posture without turning around even once, how?*
Buddha said, * I, remain awake, its just that my body sleeps.*
Similarly one has to remain awake even in the dream state. Dreams are from the different layers of conciousness in us and each of those needs to be conciously faced as then slowly all the different layers of the unconcious becomes concious and then one is totally awake. One is a Buddha.
Love & rgds

[MysticSang'ha]

Originally Posted by zenzero

FriendPhasmid,
Buddha had said that one must be awake even in sleep.
Ananda once asked him *You sleep in one posture without turning around even once, how?*
Buddha said, * I, remain awake, its just that my body sleeps.*
Similarly one has to remain awake even in the dream state. Dreams are from the different layers of conciousness in us and each of those needs to be conciously faced as then slowly all the different layers of the unconcious becomes concious and then one is totally awake. One is a Buddha.
Love & rgds

Excellent!!

[Ozzie]

Dreams and movies can be considered in their entirety as objects of the mind. On the other hand,dreams are an excellent generic example of how reality one experiences is a constructive product of the mind. Imagine yourself dreaming forever, how would that reality be and what qualities would it hold?

After you have answered that question and are convinced those dream qualities are permanently sustainable, imagine those qualities transposed on the outside world in waking reality. That is Buddhism (at least a Buddhist waking reality).

[zenzero]

Friends,
Reality is ONE.
But each differ in its perspective due to the mind's coloring and so the whole outside world is seen differently by each one of us though in Reality it is ONE.
This whole existence is a dream state in two ways. One is what we see which is not reality due to our mind's coloring and the other is because Nothing that we see is permanent. Everything is in a flux is transient and so none can have an iamge of anything as that is false.
So this existence too is a dream state or more exactly an illusion or maya.
Love & rgds