Why do we dream? What is happening in dreams? How to decode or understand dreams? This article is all about dreams from Taoism’s perspective.
To understand dreams, you must understand the relationship between our different bodies. We have three bodies that are closely related and overlap each other. It’s like your physical body and the organs or the body and the shadow; they co-exist and influence each other simultaneously.
The Three Bodies
The three bodies are what we call the energy body, the soul body and the physical body. They exist in different dimensions, as explained in the “Daai Law Tin” article about Taoist heaven. These dimensions have their coded name, which we call D1, D6 and D8.
Your energy body is in D1, a PreHeaven dimension with no restriction of time and distance. It is the same dimension as where your spiritual planetary body (Yuen Sun) is. The difference is that the energy body is locally existing with your physical body, and the spiritual planet is far away in space, where the sun is. The energy body in Chinese is called the Faat Sun 法身 (Whua Sin), which translates to the “magical body.” The energy body contains our heart in the center core system, which is the heart that gives us the energy to be alive, have feelings and make decisions in life.
Your soul body is in D6, a PostHeaven-Yin dimension with no distance restriction. If you live in this dimension, you can appear here now and instantly appear in another place in seconds as if you can teleport. This is also like the dimension where most ghosts and spirits are. The soul body in Chinese is called the Ling Sun 靈身 (Nieong Sin), which translates to the “spiritual body.” The soul allows us to have the power to stay conscious, think and push the physical body to move and take action.
Your physical body is in D8, a PostHeaven-Yang dimension, which has both time and distance restrictions, and that is why we have to use the time to travel. The physical body in Chinese is called the Yuk Sun 肉身 (Yioh Sin), which translates to the “flesh body.” The flesh body allows us to see, hear, taste, smell, sense and interact with elements in this world, which allows us to absorb the light and energy into our energy body in D1 again as memory.
Macrocosmic and Microcosmic Orbit Cycle
There are two sets of systems that we are looking at, which all have the cycle between D1, D6 and D8. One set we call the macrocosmic orbit 大週天 and one set we call the microcosmic orbit 小週天. The cycle goes from D1 to D8 and back to D1 again in a loop.
The microcosmic orbit cycle is about the local body, where your physical body is now. The heart in D1 gives the feeling, and the soul in D6 generates thoughts and pushes the energy to make the physical body moves to execute the task. The physical body in D8 will witness the results by seeing, hearing, smelling, and all kinds of sensations. The light and energy go back into the heart in D1 and give you a new feeling, then the cycle repeats. What you experienced in the physical reality will return to PreHeaven as a memory.
The macrocosmic orbit cycle involves the bigger systems, where the spiritual planetary body (Yuen Sun) is involved. When you sleep, the heart in D1 will push a bunch of energies to the soul in D6, while the soul will connect with the Yuen Sun and exchange its energies. The energies from the local body will be given to the Yuen Sun, while the Yuen Sun will give the soul a new “package” of energies from the planet. This energy will go back to the heart when you wake up, and that is why you feel refreshed and recharged when you wake up. This energy from the Yuen Sun is called 元氣, and it will manifest through the soul to pump you up for a day of life, giving you the power to feel, think and act again. When our heart feels overloaded or unbalanced, it will dump some energies into the Yuen Sun to distribute the load and balance itself. This is why sleeping can reduce your anger or worries, and stress.
Dreams are created during the macrocosmic orbit, when we sleep, and when the local body and Yuen Sun do their transactions.
Dreams
Sometimes, dreams can tell us hints and give us signs to forecast the future. These are dreams when the Yuen Sun tries to tell us a message or give us warnings. However, they never come in a direct form and are mostly misinterpreted by people because they don’t understand nature’s coding system and metaphor.
Sometimes, dreams are just colours, feelings and even weird abstract things generated by the energy transaction, which means they are illogical and not to be decoded. It’s like your blood is pumping through the eyes; you see some red here and there flashing when you close your eyes. It’s not a message; it’s just happening because the blood is pumping through the spot. You don’t have to decode or understand these dreams.
Sometimes, dreams are dangerous because you could be getting evil spirits attacking you. If evil gods attack you, they could be attacking or invading your Yuen Sun; these entities will appear in the dream and maybe even bully you in the dream world. If you see “gods” in the dream, they are always evil spirits, not real gods, or at least they are always bad for you. Real gods do not contact you through the dreams like that. Do not fall for the scams and tricksters who come to your dream and claim to “teach” you some magic. These are always a trap! Some evils in the dreams will also trick you into sexual things to suck away your energies; beware! The same goes for seeing your passed-away relatives in dreams, don’t believe them because most of them are not ghosts but evil gods at the back playing tricks on you and impersonating them.
You might have Deja Vu moments sometimes as you have dreamed of something that happened in the present now. That is nothing surprising because your Yuen Sun can give you signs and forecasts of the future since it is in the PreHeaven and has no time restriction. It can jump to the future and see your future “timeframe” to get you a possible outcome forecast. It doesn’t always have to be true, but it can be true. Caring about these is useless and meaningless since it doesn’t change anything for you. It happened because the Yuen Sun was trying to signal and forecast to you.
Nightmares are often bothersome because they could stick to you even after waking up and ruin your mood for the day. Sometimes it can also cause you to be worried the whole day. I have had clients who got a nightmare about themselves dying in the house, then they walked out of the house and never returned home because they feared that they would die there soon. It is crazy and stupid to do that! Nightmares are often created because there is much detoxing from the heart to the Yuen Sun. It’s often good because it “detoxes” the heart and eliminates many unwanted things.
Dreams can be decoded into five elements according to their properties.
Gold element dreams are often still and not moving much, so the heart is regrouping, focusing and realigning the energies.
Water element dreams give you the feeling of a long journey, like you have done many things and gone through a lot in a short sleep; it means the Yuen Sun is transmitting goodies to your heart, energies flowing from the above into your local body below.
Wood element dreams are energetic, fast pace, motivating, dynamic, moving around and growing, developing and sometimes very encouraging. These dreams tell you that your heart is giving energies to the Yuen Sun, and the Yuen Sun is getting hyped and happy.
Fire element dreams are violent, vivid, bright, and sometimes bloody and destructive. These dreams tell you that your bad energies are being burnt off; it is a good sign because the Yuen Sun is helping you do an exorcism and burn off negatives.
Earth element dreams are fruitful, gaining things, growing bigger, achievements and success related, or you could be waiting for something etc. These dreams tell you that your heart is getting the goodies from the Yuen Sun mostly and is absorbing the goods during the dream.
Sometimes dreams might involve others you know, such as your co-workers, boss, teacher, lover, or even enemies. Sometimes they are there because these people mix some of their energies into yours. Sometimes they are just used as random metaphors, visuals generated by the Yuen Sun’s energy. It is hard to know the cause of their appearance unless you can do divination and ask the Yuen Sun in PreHeaven.
Decoding Dreams
There are many dream-decoding systems, including the famous one named after the creator of I-Ching. However, which one works? None of them works for you if you randomly try to reference them here and there. As I have explained in a lecture on YouTube about life charts, the same concept goes to dream decoding.
Your Yuen Sun uses some default metaphors in nature, and sometimes it will use weird examples that freaks you out because you don’t understand the metaphors and codes. A dream decoding book would be a pattern or system you believe in, and then you would always go back to the book to interpret the dreams. Even if the decoding went wrong, you would still believe and put your faith in it. Over time, your heart will learn the codes, and the Yuen Sun will learn the codes because they are entangled. By then, your Yuen Sun will give you dreams closer to the code book you go by, and you will then find the dream book more “accurate” for you. It works for you because you have trained your Yuen Sun to speak in this coding system.
For Saam Law Taoists, we learn the metaphysics rules of nature and understand them through the teachings of our lineage. The more we understand these patterns, the more we can tune our hearts and Yuen Sun to speak in this language, and the more we can understand our dreams. We don’t need a code book; we need to learn and fully understand nature’s basic patterns and codes, which are universal and work for most people.
What’s more important is not about decoding the dreams but protecting yourself during sleep! You don’t want the evils to come and disturb you or trick you during sleep, and you definitely don’t want to be kidnapped away into their world and then cannot wake up again. There were cases that I have seen in which people have been kidnapped in sleep and cannot come back for a while, turning them into a coma, and the doctors cannot do anything to help them!
Ordain today to become a Taoist to learn more about the secrets of nature! Most importantly, you want the power to protect your dreams, like installing an anti-virus into your system and are protected and blocked off from evils. This is also why you need the bedside deity in the room!
