The purpose of this lecture is to discuss the utility of dreams: the purpose, the role, the dangers, some of the obstacles, as well as the principles by which we can understand a very deep part of our life. I will be going through some practices that we can use so that we can better understand our dreams, our relationship to the unconscious, as well as the most spiritual principles that we carry within.
What Are Dreams For?
It is good to reflect on what dreams are for, to understand why we dream.
We have mentioned many times that dreams are the gateway to the divine. Oftentimes, our dreams will be a form of instruction, spiritual guidance, and even encouragement from our spirit, wisdom from our internal truth, knowledge about how to work practically in ourselves, so that we have a deeper relationship with the divine. On this path of self-exploration, we get encouragement. We get visions. We get insights, primarily about how to live our life with wisdom. Oftentimes, in dreams, we can have celebrations, victories over hardship, in which our innermost spirit, what we call the Being, the divine, encourages, enlightens us, and inspires us to keep us moving forward in our path. We also find that we can be warned about critical issues, dangers. This is the meaning of prophecy, of omens throughout diverse cultures, whereby we are instructed about how to walk effectively in life, to be warned about the future. We also get insight into psychological problems, states of mind that are particularly difficult, enlightenment about how we ourselves may be impeding our progress, our spiritual growth. We also find practical solutions. Dreams can show us how to solve problems in our daily life, because our dreams are a reflection of what we need to do physically. They are not separate. They are integrated. We also talk in this teaching about past lives, remembering past existences, whether from Hinduism or Buddhism, as well as many other spiritual traditions. In this way, by our understanding where we came from, why we are here, we learn how to change fundamentally. By knowing our past states of being, we understand our present situation. This is why the Talmud in the Jewish tradition stated: A dream not interpreted is like a letter not read. ―Talmud
It is a message. It is a guidance.
How Does Divinity Communicate?
So how does divinity communicate?
Just like any teacher in a school, divinity teaches us in accordance with our experiences, our background knowledge, our life experiences, situations we have been through, the people we know, the associates we work with, our family members, places and environments where we grew up. This explains why some people dream about their home, what is familiar, or family members. These are not necessarily literal representations of those places. Instead, they can be symbols. They teach us something about us psychologically, our state of mind. So, if you dream of a brother or a sister, a family member, it can reference someone who is a brother or sister to you in your spiritual world. Parents can represent the eternal divine, the divine masculine, the divine feminine, parts of us that want to elevate our way of being. Even though we may dream of other people and places and things, in truth these represent something about us. It is good not to take dreams literally. Instead, they are archetypes. An archetype is a blueprint, a sketch, a symbol, a representation of something deeper. What is interesting about the way we experience dreams is that they are not only something that we witness, but we also participate with. We are both the actor and the director of a film. In this dynamic, in this clear perception, we come to understand that these visions are very different quality of mind. They are not an egotistical type of perception: fear, resentment, anger, nightmares. Instead, the quality is something subtle, refined, and spiritual, something pure. These visions lack any type of subjectivity. There is no flaw in it. It is not trapped in a type of condition of mind, a negative emotion. These qualities elevate our heart. They inspire us, and they come from the Being, the divine, our inner divinity. 
They manifest in what we call the superior mind and the superior emotional center, that we discussed in a previous lecture about our human constitution, the human machine [How Do We Dream?]. These centers of our psychology only know how to transmit that which is spiritual, and so, the quality of that state is very unique. It is something that we have to taste again and again, to recognize and to become familiar with.
How Do I Understand My Dreams?
The question becomes, how do I understand my dreams?
To really understand the language of the divine, we have to expand our vocabulary. This means to study scripture. Study the texts of the great masters of humanity, whether of Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sufism, Jainism. All these texts were written from beings who were visionaries. They transmitted a knowledge that is so transcendent, that it escapes culture, because it is universal. However, they use their particular language, their talents, their skills, and in accordance with the idiosyncrasy of the people they taught, they gave scripture. All these scriptures are written in the language of dreams. This is why, for example, the Bible, or the Qur’an, or many texts which are very impactful, seem to be very, perhaps, contradictory. Some people look at the Bible and say, “This does not make sense with this.” But they are not reading it properly. These texts are a form of dream language. They are not literal. They are representations, and if we want to understand our dreams more, it is good to understand what these great beings taught, to know the consensus and the diversity of symbols that we may experience in our own dreams. 
Kabbalah: The Language of Dreams
We also talk about the language of dreams as the kabbalah. This is traditionally associated with Judaism. But the reality is that this diagram, this Tree of Life, with its ten spheres, represents levels of being, the multidimensionality of who we are, our full potential, whether from the most abstract at the top, the most divine, or to the densest and material below, our physical existence.
This image is universal. It is in every religion, but not represented in this way. Just as Newton did not invent gravity, but merely formulated a theory, likewise, Jewish culture documented this truth in accordance with the Hebrew language and idiosyncrasy. But it is useful to study this type of graphic in relation to ourselves and is very profound. It is codified. It is a way that we can map our experiences, who we are, where we are, where we are going. קבלה Kabbalah comes from the Hebrew קבל kabel, which means “to receive.” It is knowledge that we receive directly from God. It is mystical experience. It is a profound vision. It is insight. It is a psychological, mystical, and archetypal grammar. The language of dreams, the symbols of dreams, are representations of deeper truths, something about us that we need to understand. They relate to our mental, emotional, and spiritual environment. They teach us about our mind. I am sure we have all had a dream that brought us here, something that provoked our great unease, perhaps our longing, or perhaps gave us insight into life, or provoked questions about why we are here and what we are doing. This mystical language is something that we understand in our soul. We call it the Essence, the consciousness, the spark of the divine that can fully develop into a master, an enlightened one. This language or this knowledge is not intellectual. It is not of the mind. It is a very different apparatus. The intellect is useful in its place, but it can trap us. We have to understand and awaken perception that is beyond our mind, even our cultural habits, our personality, our taste, our preferences. Consciousness is something deeper. It is beyond our personality. This language is not literal. It can represent our life experiences and can teach us something about what we need to do in our spiritual life. These dreams, or this language, is multidimensional. There is not just one meaning to a dream. In fact, many dreams have a deep code that have layers and layers, which over the years, we can begin to verify more and more and understand. The logic of dreams is not linear. It does not go from A to B to C. The trajectory and the connections are very diverse, which is why we need a lot of intuition to understand them. This Tree of Life is very deep, and we study it so that we know and understand our experiences, which is why Samael Aun Weor, the founder of the modern Gnostic tradition, stated: The objective of studying the kabbalah is to be skilled for work in the internal worlds... One who does not comprehend remains confused in the internal worlds. Kabbalah is the basis in order to understand the language of these worlds. ―Samael Aun Weor 
Who Can Interpret Dreams?
Another question people ask is, “Who can interpret my dreams?” This is something we get quite a lot on our website, as well as during lectures or on internet forums. But there is a problem when someone, or we try to rely on someone, to interpret our dreams for us.
The problem is that our dreams are unique to us. They are particular to our own mind, our Being. As instructors or teachers, we do not necessarily know the full depth of a person, of each individual soul. Many of us are not enlightened enough for that. Dreams and dream interpretation is also limited to the person, the instructor, or the student. If someone were to give a very accurate interpretation of someone’s dream, you would need to know the person’s life, their mind, their habits, their defects, their level of being, their consciousness, even their inner divinity. Those things are unique to all of us. The only one who should be a master of that is you. We have to master our own understanding of who we are. Relying on someone to interpret our dreams presents more obstacles than it solves. Obviously, in some context there are symbols that can be helpful to understand, that in a general sense, can provide some baseline, but the real depth and magic of dream interpretation occurs when we access that knowledge for ourselves. We have to understand that all instructors are at different levels of being. Some are more well developed spiritually, some are not. That is just the reality. We should not learn to rely on other people for our understanding of things, because the point of this path is to be a master (self-mastery), and if we rely on others to teach us who we are, they become the master of us. So, it is good to change that dynamic and not be too dependent. A real master will be silent. I knew one instructor, actually my teacher, who knew Samael Aun Weor, the founder of this tradition. If you have studied his books, you see that he has a lot of experiences about these types of things. Well, my instructor asked him to interpret a dream for him. Samael Aun Weor just remained silent, meaning, “Go home and meditate. I know the answer, but you need to figure it out.” If we rely on our own inner intuition, we gain confidence, faith, and strength in our own capabilities. It is good to remember that. 
The Limitations of Dream Symbol Dictionaries
But obviously, it is easy to rely on a dictionary. We often go to books to explain our experiences, to identify and get some sense of what is going on. But another problem with this type of guidance or this type of book is that often times symbols are multifaceted. They are not singular in meaning.
Symbols have many dimensions of insights into them. For example, a cross, you know not only within Christianity, within many religions, and there are many layers and insights into what a cross symbolizes. A book can say a cross means “this,” but that is just one level of interpretation. It does not apply to the whole spectrum of what you perceived and what you experienced. It is also important to remember that each symbol is contextual. They are interdependent. They are not isolated phenomena. One symbol, like a cross, can relate to another symbol in a dream. Therefore, you have a relationship there. Things are augmented. The symbols are enhanced because it is not just isolated by itself, but there is something else added to it. There is a relationship there. Likewise, the question becomes, how do we interact with the symbol? I think this is one of the more important points, because you dream of a cross. Are you carrying it? Is it weighing you down? Is it on your head? Is it on a temple? Is it within a temple, within a dream? These symbols and our interactions with them are really significant. That determines what they mean. This also relates to the psychological mood of our experiences, because our emotional reaction is the key. It is actually the doorway to understanding what the symbols mean, because the world of dreams is the world of emotions. If we analyze our intuition, how we feel about the dream, we can better understand what is going on. Also, only individuals can be intuitive. A book is limited. Books cannot be flexible. They have one, perhaps, explanation for things, or maybe two or three if we are lucky. But an individual has a whole range of potential to interpret. Also, the dream dictionaries are often, in our contemporary age, limited to the level of being of their authors, so not all people who write dream dictionary books are enlightened. This is why we rely on scripture, because those beings who taught those traditions were from the heights. So, it is good to rely on high quality material to be able to understand what is going on. 
How Do We Know a Dream is True?
This brings us to the next question, “How do we know that a dream is true?”
They have to relate to our physical life, our conscious states, our emotions, our mind, situations in life. There has to be a connection. Otherwise, it is fantasy. It is desire. It is an illusion, a mirage. Well, when you see the symbols relate to something going on, perhaps at your work, your job, situations and people that you many know, then the “Aha!” moment, the spark, you see the connection. There is something going on that you have to look out for in your day. Personally, for me, I tend to have a lot of dreams about my job because I have a difficult one. But we get clues about how to navigate situations. Then if you are very conscious and alert, you can see “This is it!” You know without having to think about it. We have already explained how dreams operate on multiple levels. So, you may have a dream that means something one day, but also gathers more significance throughout the years. You see that there is deeper profundities and layers that only manifest themselves when we have more life experience. Then we see, “This is what my divinity was telling me.” So, as Samael Aun Weor states in his book Sexology, the Basis of Endocrinology and Criminology, the methods or the attitudes we need to interpret dreams: Symbols must be analyzed coldly, without superstition, maliciousness, mistrust, pride, vanity, fanaticism, prejudgment, preconceptions, hatred, envy, greed, jealousy, etc. ―Sexology, the Basis of Endocrinology and Criminology 
Who is Interpreting?
This is because if we want to understand our dreams properly, we have to understand who in us is trying to interpret.
It can be an odd question. We have talked extensively about this graphic, the human machine with its five centers: the intellect where we process thought, emotions where we experience sentiment and feeling, our motor center related to movement, our instinctual center related to digestion, unconscious appetites, instinct, reflexes, and also our sexual drives too. Through these centers is how we manifest life. We experience life. As we have talked many times before, we have a wide range of conscious experience, whether from negative emotions and thoughts to the most elevated and spiritual. We divide or we categorize those types of perception as the soul (the Essence, the consciousness) and the ego (defects, the sense of “I” or myself that is perhaps selfish). If we want to interpret dreams properly, we have to question, “Is it my fear that wants this dream to mean one thing, or is it my pride that wants to think somehow I am special?” If we dream of some being like a God―and I am sure we have all known situations or movements where there is a Guru that is teaching that they are somehow a prophet, who might have had certain experiences―and yet their actions contradict their declarations. So, we have to be very careful with our analysis, that we are not fearful or interpreting a dream because of our resentment towards someone. We will explain why a little bit more. But the thing to think about is when we interpret, we are trying to render clear or explicit, from the Old French interpreter "explain; translate,” from the Latin interpretari “to explain, expound, understand,” from interpres "agent, translator.” We know in a situation in life that if we have an argument, our anger may be interpreting everything through our anger, and later we come to realize we did not see the situation for what it is. We have an agent or multiple agents in us that perhaps do not see life clearly, and so, because we have tendencies to make mistakes or not see reality or situations for what they are, we have to take our perceptions with a grain of salt, to be critical, but also to be patient and understanding with our own psychology. 
Mythomania: The Danger of Spiritual Visions
This brings us to the topic of mythomania in relation to dreams. This term comes from the Sanskrit, to make a myth of manas. मनस् Manas in Sanskrit means “mind.”
There are dangers to spiritual visions, not because they are inherently harmful, but because we may interpret things mistakenly. So, on this image we see the foot of God standing above the horizon and an individual person standing on the earth. It is true that we may have an experience that is very spiritual, authentic, and brilliant. We may have an experience about our own inner divinity. Maybe we see ourselves as some kind of great being or prophet, a master, and the dream in a sense could be reflecting something about your own inner divinity―not our personality, not our name, our culture, our body, but our spirit. The spirit is sacred. The spirit is a master. But the question is, “Are we fully connected with that?” That is the question. You can have a very authentic experience where you see your inner God, and yet if we are not careful, we come back to our body from an astral projection and think, “I am done. I have done the work.” Many people have fooled themselves and also have fooled many people, because they believe in a lie. It is the desire to be something one is not. It is the misinterpretation of an authentic spiritual experience. But also, it is possible that that experience could be a belief, or an illusion, or a mirage. Maybe it is just a projection of our own mind, our desire that wants to be something that it is not. Mythomania means to make a myth of ourselves, to tell a narrative that somehow, “I am great, or in my past life I was John the Baptist or Mary Magdalene,” and they build a big story. This happens to a lot of people. It is to believe that our ego is divine. The thing to remember is that our Being, our spirit, is what is real―not us. We are temporary. We are passing through this life. But the eternal is what It is. But in this work, we can learn to eliminate pride, develop humility, and learn to express that truth perfectly, but that takes a lot of discipline. 
Ethics, Spiritual Culture, and Restraint
This is why in our studies of dream interpretation we study ethics. We study spiritual culture, and we practice restraint.
I have an image here of Don Quixote riding across Spain on a full moon. Miguel de Cervantes, who wrote Don Quixote, was an initiate. He knew this knowledge and he taught the danger about speaking too openly about one’s visions, because in the story you have this old knight going on a quest, seeing many things, having many visions, and yet everyone around him saw him as a lunatic. In fact, I think Miguel de Cervantes even got himself into trouble for writing Don Quixote (might have been with the Inquisition). Now, dreams in themselves are very intimate to the person. You may have a dream about, say, another person, and yet the thing to remember is that by speaking openly about such experiences, we can harm them. Maybe they are not ready to hear it, or more importantly, maybe they are not meant to know. It should be kept private, even if the experience was objective. Many people have damaged spiritual groups because of gossip of this type: having a dream and then openly accusing “so-and-so” as a sorcerer or a witch, or was a bad person, was evil, and create a lot of conflict and divide communities. This is a very terrible crime of a severe magnitude, which is why we have to really be careful with our dreams. The actions in dreams can even be past life memories. Maybe we see our spouse or someone we love committing a crime in a dream (adultery), but that could be a past life memory. In this life this person may not even be capable of hurting a fly. So having that dream, some people have been accused, even by their partners, “You are unfaithful.” know many cases of this, relationships ending in spiritual groups. We also have to remember that these experiences could also just be projections of our own mind, could be our own jealousy, could be our own lust, fear, our desires, our habits. 
It can be like this image. The Moon is a symbol of our ego in mystical language, within the dream language. We say, in a spiritual sense, the Moon is a cadaver. It is dead, has no life of its own. It is only animated by the Sun, and as a metaphor, our inner divinity is like the Sun. But our hatred, our pride, and anger, these are like the Moon. They borrow and trap the light of the spirit and do not allow it to fully manifest.
This Moon represents danger for us, because often times we know even from science how the Moon is a mechanical entity. It regulates many qualities and forces in nature, and often times our habits and desires just happen. So, we have to be very careful with our speech. We should learn to develop what is called an intellectual-spiritual culture. Study the religious documents about right behavior, about compassion, about selflessness, about patience, because without these qualities, we can end up like Don Quixote, or even slandering other people. It is important to show decency and respect. But also, more importantly, speaking about our experiences can build pride like, “I am a great instructor or missionary, or student, or spiritual person.” We have to be humble. That light does not originate from us (like the Moon). It comes from the Sun. We are but the vehicle for that. 
The Three Stages of Dream Interpretation
So, there are three stages for dream interpretation. We show this image of the Tree of Life again because this maps out our multidimensional being, all the different dimensions from the densest to the most spiritual. Now when we have dreams within any type of these spheres, it is important to think about these three principles. Samael Aun Weor stated the following:
Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition are the three obligatory ways of initiation. ―Samael Aun Weor
So, initiation is our spiritual work: to begin a new type of life, to learn to take dreams seriously, to learn to understand their connection to us, to guide our spiritual work. We will talk about what these three are.
Imagination
We have explained that imagination has been known by a technical term in French, clairvoyance, “clear vision.” We call it imagination. That term clairvoyance was invented to confuse people, because there was a group of French mystics who wanted to keep their teachings secret, so they used the term clairvoyance to make it sound technical, like it is something complicated that only a few have.
The truth is, if you can imagine an apple right now, you have imagination. You can see spiritually. But the problem is that is not fully developed. But when we do develop our full potential, we gain access to this Tree of Life. We see our dreams with greater lucidity, with greater color and depth. We start off by developing consciousness. This is positive. A lucid dream, an awaked state in which you are aware of being out of your body, is conscious clairvoyance, conscious imagination. But there are levels to this that lead up to, say, supraconsciousness, which is the consciousness of a god, a master, who can perceive all these dimensions all at once, but their body falls asleep and they can go out and immediately access anything, in the moment, at will. That is the level of a prophet, but we begin where we are at. We often have to deal with our negative types of perceptions: subconsciousness, unconsciousness, infraconsciousness. We know these states, say, perhaps in our fears, intense anger, and even our most frightening nightmares, which is the bottom. But the important thing is, whenever we start to have dreams, it is a good sign that we are starting to see whether they are positive or negative. The important thing is that we at least begin to recognize that there is a reality beyond our terrestrial existence, that there is something more. If you do not see at first, you cannot understand. So first we develop our imagination, which we will give practices for you how to do this. Inspiration
But after having the perception of a dream, the next point becomes inspiration. Inspiration is recognizing a symbol. It is when you know in your heart with a lot of joy, “This is a message from my inner Being, this comes from God. Now let me seek to understand it!” This explains the definition of inspiration in its original sense, “the immediate influence of God or a god,” or our inner divinity or perhaps a spiritual master, who may be teaching us in the world of dreams. It comes from the Latin inspirare, “to breathe upon.” We all know the saying, “to have a breath of fresh air,” something insightful. We are rejuvenated. We are inspired. This is an important step because when you know that you have received a symbol, the next task is to understand it.
Intuition
This is intuition, the comprehension. You know what the symbol means. It is insight. You directly perceive it, and you immediately understand its significance.
Now these three stages are not necessarily plateaus. They can happen all at once. They can happen over the course of many years. Maybe you had a dream or were inspired by a symbol in your childhood that only now are you beginning to understand. It happens like that. But with meditation and different practices, we learn in the moment how to understand it immediately. 
Intuition and the Mantra ONRO
So, one practice that you can use to intuit or understand your dreams is a mantra.
Now mantras are sacred sounds. They help us to vibrate energy within our physiology, our mind, our heart, our spirit. By prolonging these vowels and pronouncing them with a lot of faith or intention, immersing yourself into the sound, you learn to activate qualities of your psyche that are dormant. It also helps us to train our mind because our mind (the intellect) is the primary obstacle (as we have explained previously). This is why Samael Aun Weor states the following in Dream Yoga: The mind is like a wild horse, and we have to learn to control it with the whip of willpower. No one can enter higher initiations with the mind; only the heart can lead us to higher levels because the heart has a wonderful power if we develop it wisely. Intuition can open the entrance so that we can enter consciously into the world of Morpheus [the world of dreams]. ―Samael Aun Weor, Dream Yoga
So, you take the sounds, the vowels, and you prolong it like this, ONRO:
I know that trilling could be difficult for people, especially if you are not familiar with or do not speak Spanish, but I am sure there are YouTube videos you can find if you want to learn how to roll and trill the R’s. But if you cannot do it, it is OK. The important thing is that your consciousness is immersed in the sound and that you just sink into it. You are swimming within the energy, and if you can do that for about an hour, that is good. That will help you to not only be lucid in dreams, but also how to intuit and understand.
The Power to Interpret Dreams
Because the heart chakra, as we see in this image, is the center of our being. So, there are seven chakras, seven flowers or senses of our astral vehicle. These chakras have been known by the names of Muladhara, Svadhisthana, Manipura, Anahata, Vishuddha, Ajna, and Sahasrara. But the Christians call this the seven churches, from the Book or Revelation: Ephesus, from the bottom going up, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and then Laodicea.
This is why in that enigmatic scripture, the Book of Revelations, we find many injunctions that are symbolic. It is perhaps the most difficult book in the Christian canon to interpret because that language is dreamlike. It is symbolic. It is pure vision, and it is clothed in terrestrial language to hide a principle or truth. Now another exercise we can use to develop your ability to interpret dreams is to work with this throat Chakra Vishudda, or the Church of Sardis. Now, we know that speech is powerful. Our words manifest our intention, our psychology, and it is through that center in which the Word, what we call in Greek the λόγος Logos, the divine, expresses. So, this is why mantra again, is very powerful in a spiritual sense, and why in the Book of Revelation it states: He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. ―Revelations 2:7
…because divinity speaks to our consciousness when those flowers are activated, when the churches and the chakras are spinning, when we work with this energy, so that we can learn to perceive more and also understand more.
So, the throat chakra is very powerful for that too. There is a mantra called Aum Shiva Tum Eh, which vibrates in the throat. It is pronounced like this:
Different vowels vibrate with different centers, but that mantra helps to strengthen the throat chakra. It may be with time you begin to understand and intuit more about what your dreams mean.
The Four Laws of Dream Interpretation
So, let us actually get into the laws of interpretation. There are four. These laws are eternal, just as the language of the spirit is eternal.
Scriptures and dreams could be interpreted through philosophical analogies, through contrary analogies, to correspondences, and through numerology. 
The Law of Philosophical Analogies
The first is philosophical analogies. We included an image of Raphael’s The School of Athens. Philosophy has traditionally been studied as a belief or intellectual knowledge about human experience. In its original sense, philosophy refers to φίλος Philos Σοφíα Sophia, which in Greek means “love of wisdom.” Real love of wisdom applies to the spirit, love of the divine. Sophia, if you are familiar with Gnostic texts, the Gnostic Gospels, is a representation of the soul that ascends from this physical world up to the spiritual heights. But Sophia can also be a representation of our inner Being, because the divine is wisdom.
Now we study philosophical analogies because in dreams, different representations of symbols can mean different things. They have associations: A is B, or C is D. An example could be a book. Literally a book, in its objective sense, is a collection of paper with ink on it. But to us, to our terrestrial way of being, a book is a gateway. It is a form of knowledge. It encodes profound wisdom. We know that by going to university and by studying different books or works of literature, for example, that we are gaining insight perhaps into our human nature, culture, life experiences, language. So, this is a whole dimension that opens up even within a text. But objectively, a book is just paper. Instead, to our understanding of things, a book is analogous to something else. If you dream of books or a book, it can reference the need to study and understand more, to practice more spiritually, because divinity can be showing us that there is more for you to understand from the book of your own life. A book, perhaps, is a philosophical analogy of high wisdom, as represented by Raphael in this painting. We have Plato walking with Aristotle. Plato is pointing towards the heavens. Aristotle is debating him or trying to learn from him―symbols. Different symbols have philosophies attached to them, which is why in different religious scriptures, the emblems of different faiths encode a lot of knowledge. They embody entire traditions, so it is good to study what those traditions are referencing and what they mean. 
The Law of Contrary Analogies
We also have the Law of Contrary Analogies, and we included this image of Adam and Eve being tempted in the Garden of Eden, consuming the forbidden fruit, and then being subsequently expelled by the Cherubim with the sword of fire.
Now, dreams do not necessarily always correlate “A with B.” In fact, some dreams can be opposites, “A is not B.” Now, an example would be as in this story. Adam and Eve thought that by consuming the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, that they would have wisdom, but the result, according to the Biblical narrative, was the opposite, is disastrous. So, some dreams can be like this. A dream of being humiliated, being spat upon, persecuted, condemned, hated, betrayed, can in fact mean the opposite: our spiritual life is going to go very well. This happens because in the spiritual work, when we begin to change ourselves, divinity places necessary impediments or ordeals for us to conquer. Otherwise, we cannot grow. We cannot develop if we are not challenged. A good teacher, or a good instructor, or a prophet, would basically push the individual to their maximum, so that by facing hardships and ordeals voluntarily, they grow. So, some dreams are like that. They are the opposite. Sometimes having a dream laughing with a friend could mean the end of the relationship, primarily because that interaction could be superficial. There is nothing deep there. It is vain. Dreaming about receiving excrement (to be a little bit graphic) could mean that we are going to earn a lot of money in the physical world, because in the objective spiritual sense, money is transitory. It is passing, goes through human systems, literally. So, it is interesting, opposites, very profound. 
The Law of Correspondences
We also have the Law of Correspondences, which is why we study again religious iconography.
We see here Joseph and Mary above the Christ child, and the Nativity of Jesus. To see a child in a dream could correspond to many deep things, can reference us. Our soul in the beginning of this work is a child, is learning to develop, is learning and growing. Likewise, we see the divine couple, divine parents, our Divine Father, our inner spirit, and our Divine Mother, referenced in some traditions as the Kundalini, within Hinduism―many names for different truths. Different symbols could correspond to different things. Maybe you dream about a bull knocking and destroying, breaking our home. It could relate to someone in the physical world who is angry with us. It is a correspondence. Or again, like dreaming about your brother or sister, could be someone in your spiritual work, that you are working with, whom you know. These represent different things. 
The Law of Numerology: The Eternal Tarot
Perhaps most interesting for me, but also for a lot of people too, is the Law of Numerology, the Eternal Tarot.
Numbers are the study of kabbalah in the traditional Jewish sense. But these numbers are not literal. They are again representations, but they represent truths, principles. We study the twenty-two major arcana of the sacred tarot because each arcanum (which is the singular form of the plural arcana) represent laws of nature, laws of being. They explain the steps that the soul takes from the very beginning to the end, and if you receive a number in a dream, it is because whatever situation in life you are going through relates to one of these cards. If you study the wisdom of each arcanum, you can gain insight about what you need to do to resolve it. This is why Samael Aun Weor stated in The Major Mysteries: Astral projections and kabbalah are an integral whole. […] It is necessary to study the twenty-two major arcana and to learn them by memory in order to understand the esoteric language of the initiates in the astral plane. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries
We provided a course on our website called The Eternal Tarot of Alchemy and Kabbalah, which you can study if you really want to go in depth, not only in the tarot cards themselves, but also the Hebrew letters, the zodiac, and different scriptures.
Each card, while it is vested in Egyptian iconography, is really representing for us deeper principles. It is not literally limited to Egyptian culture. But we use these cards as a form of concrete instruction for these insights. 
Joseph in Genesis and the Book of Daniel
If you really want to go deeper into dream analysis, you can study the Book of Genesis and the Book of Daniel, primarily chapters 37, 38, and 39-41 of Genesis, where you learn about the story of Joseph (where he gets himself into trouble because he is interpreting dreams but speaking openly about them). But also, you see a method representing those four laws where he relies on numerology, correspondences, contrary and philosophical analogies. It is very beautiful and deep.
Also, the Book of Daniel teaches many truths about how to interpret dreams, how to become like a prophet, maybe not to tell other people what dreams mean (again), but to understand our own experiences. This is why Samael Aun Weor mentions in Igneous Rose to refer to those texts, because they are very profound. They teach us how to overcome adversity. Joseph became a slave in Egypt, and through his power of interpreting dreams, became second in command of Pharaoh. Likewise, Daniel, who was put through trials and tribulations, managed to become a figure authority, a master, facing the lion’s den, “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” to quote Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “by taking arms against a sea of troubles,” opposing and ending them. 
Prophetic or Predictive Visions
Some dreams are also prophetic and predictive, which is Samael Aun Weor states in Dream Yoga:
During conscious astral travel, we can be taken to the future to see things, actions, projects or processes that will take place at some undetermined time. These kinds of dreams can also be given based on opposite analogies, numerology, associations, etc. Any prophesy or announcement can especially occur on Wednesdays between 9:00 pm and 3:00 am. ―Samael Aun Weor, Dream Yoga
So, often those dreams that happen right before we wake up, those are going to be the most immediate, have the most immediate impact. Something is going to happen that day related to the dream. Maybe if it is a little earlier in the day or early in the night, could be something related to something that might happen in a couple of years even. But right when you wake up, when it is most fresh, those tend to have the most immediate relevance.
Considerations for Dream Interpretation
Some things to think about when you are interpreting dreams include the psychological impression.
What is our mood from the dream? What is the impact? How do we feel when we dream the dream? Were we anxious? Were we angry? Were we terrified? Were we happy? That is going to tell us more about what is going to happen in that experience than anything (almost), but it will give you a clue as to whether it is authentic or not. Also, pay attention to the time, numbers and dates in dreams, because those numbers, the kabbalah, add up. So, if you dream about multiple numbers, you have to take those numbers into consideration individually. See what they represent in terms of the tarot. But also, add the numbers together and arrive to a final sum, because those numbers are conjunctive, cumulative, but also independent. Those numbers will tell you what your dream means. You also should pay attention to the actual hour of the dream, which is what we just mentioned. It is also good to consider the date and time the dream event will occur. So, if you are told about something will happen in the future and they give you numbers, pay attention to what those numbers represent. These are not literal, but it will teach you a bit about how it might play out. Colors and sounds are also very significant. Lighter, happier colors tend to be much more pleasant, more positive, whereas dark, clouded colors, blacks, dense colors, agitated colors, often represent more negative emotions. Also, we have to consider whatever situations and circumstances we are experiencing in our physical life, because if the dream does not match up with the experience, we have to discard it as a projection. 
Death, Birth, Sacrifice
There are three principles to consider when we are studying ourselves. We often say in this teaching we practice three factors in order to be genuinely spiritual: death, birth, sacrifice.
That which is negative has to die in ourselves, if we want to be born to the spirit. That which is impure, corrupt, insufficient and weak, debilitating, and difficult, has to be transcended. There has to be a form of death to perhaps pride, in order for humility to be born, or death to anger in order for sweetness, compassion to emerge. Birth represents the awakening soul, the virtues of the soul: astral projections, awakenings, conscious travels, understanding internal experiences. Likewise, as we see Jesus of Nazareth helping the poor, we should learn to sacrifice for humanity, in whatever form we are capable, whatever our skills are. We should be a benefit to our communities, because these three factors, transforming conditions of mind, giving birth to the soul, and also being better people, divinity will approach us and give you experiences, to teach you to do more, to be more useful and helpful, and a strong link in the chain of humanity. These factors help us to be more understanding of our own dreams, because if you give light to others, divinity gives you light. It is a law of nature―birth / death. But also, to overcome the inertia of perhaps not wanting to face the difficulties, instead, the sacrifice gets us through, the effort. 
Analyzing Dreams through Meditation
Our next lecture will be focused on Analyzing Dreams through Meditation. Now I want to mention this briefly because with all this intellectual knowledge about interpreting dreams, we also have to consider that, in reality, the real wisdom of dream interpretation occurs when we meditate.
Relying on books can be helpful in the beginning, but we have to leave it behind for something more effective. By meditating, by silencing our mind peacefully, by understanding ourselves and learning how to concentrate and imagine our experiences, we learn to extract what is the most essential. This type of understanding comes to us when we let our body rest, harness our energies, calm our emotions, relax our mind, and direct our willpower (our concentration), and activate our imagination to visualize the dream itself that we experience, and concentrate on it, and ask our inner divinity to teach us what we need to know. That is meditation in a nutshell. When we meditate, we also learn to access these states, of this Tree of Life. By suspending our senses in this physical world, we go higher, and we access knowledge that is really deep. You can actually relive the dream itself by meditating on it, go back to the experience, see what is hidden there, and understand more, because meditation is a state of being. It is not necessarily a practice in itself, but it, in a conventional sense, we say it is. But meditation is when we put behind our personality, our mind, ourselves, and the soul witnesses the truth. 
Conclusion
This is why, to conclude, I like to relate what Paul of Tarsus says, in the Book of Corinthians, in relation to dreams, which some people obviously may not make the connection, but I would like to. He is emphasizing how the purpose of dreams and understanding prophecy is for a larger work, in that having dreams is a wonderful and beautiful thing, but it is useless if you do not apply the message.
Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. ―1 Corinthians 8-12
Dreams can give you partial knowledge. A dream has a beginning and an end, so we should not be attached to experiences. Prophecies come and go. What matters is the context for this type of work, so that by developing love and working in ourselves, we spiritually mature, again, like the image of a child, the child becomes a man, a human being, a perfect individual. Therefore, in the beginning, we see darkly. We may not see dreams so clearly, but with time and practice it improves.
Resources for Dream Interpretation
Some resources that we have include Tarot and Kabbalah by Samael Aun Weor, as well as his book Dream Yoga. I recommend that you study them. Learn the sacred arcana of the tarot and learn different practices for how to astral project. They go hand in hand. This is why Swami Sivananda wrote in The Philosophy of Dreams:
Every dream presentation has a meaning. A dream is like a letter written in an unknown language. To a man who does not know Chinese, a letter written in that language is a meaningless scroll. But to one who knows that language it is full of most valuable information. ―Samael Aun Weor, Philosophy of Dreams
These texts will teach you how to interpret dreams very deeply, Tarot and Kabbalah and Dream Yoga.
Exercises
We always end this lecture series with practices.
So, some of you may not have been here for the former lectures, but if you listen to the series from the beginning, you will get access to some of the other mantras, like Raom Gaom, to help with remembering dreams, and the practice of the Key of SOL, which we talked about in our lecture called How to Lucid Dream. At this point I would like to open up the floor to questions. Questions and Answers
Question: So, do visions only appear or come to those on the path of initiation, or is it just anyone, like, do they just come to anybody, or do you have to be on the path for visions to come to you?
Instructor: If God only taught the initiates, we would be in trouble, because we are trying to become initiates. So out of compassion, divinity teaches us to turn us around, which again, if you read Paul of Tarsus’ story, he was a persecutor of the Gnostics, the first Christians. It is said that he killed out of his zealotry for his Hebrew tradition. But by riding to Damascus, he was struck by lightning. Obviously, that is a symbol, by receiving (suddenly) insight in that he knew he was wrong. So, that vision came to him even though he was a criminal. So, all of us have our own mistakes to deal with, but out of compassion divinity always reaches out. Question: Why is it in some dreams you can experience the same dream several times and why others just one time. Why? Instructor: Good question. I spent some time in my last lecture talking about that. It is called How to Consciously Return to (Enter) Dreams. Recurring dreams are oftentimes divinity’s way of knocking on our head, or knocking on the door, trying to get us to understand something really deeply. Now recurring dreams and symbols are often the way divinity gets us to pay more attention. There is a lesson to be learned there. Whether it is a repeated situation, repeatedly meeting with a certain person, seeing a symbol, being in a certain place, we call that the initiator element or the unifier element of dreams, because out of the chaos of dreams, we begin to see a type of structure, an order. Now that unifying element is a recurring dream symbol, and when that dream repeats, it is because we are getting a profound lesson. So, something needs to be learned there that we are perhaps not picking up on. But also, divinity gives those recurring dreams because if you recognize the symbol in the dream, you can suddenly say, “I am awake. Now let me go learn something valuable in the astral plane!” So, it is a way to wake up. It is a way to be more cognizant, to remind us of that we are not in our physical bodies anymore. We are dreaming. It is a way to wake up. Question: Could you give a brief explanation of the Key of SOL, its purpose, and how it helps us with dreams? Instructor: Sure. We practice an acronym called Key of SOL: Subject, Object, Location. It is an awareness exercise. If you are walking down a street in Chicago, you pay attention to yourself. You observe, be mindful of your own mind, your states, your mood, your actions. If you are walking down the street, pay attention to yourself, but also be aware of the objects around you: cars, the sidewalk, people. Or if we are in our own home: bookshelves, TV, whatever we own. Location is the recognition of where we are at. We are in Chicago, or we are in our house, or with a friend. Most times in life, we do not really pay attention to what is there. We are often dreaming. We could be walking down the street and maybe we have our iPhones or devices, thinking of one thing, feeling another thing, and doing something completely different. Our attention and awareness are dispersed. It is not concentrated. It is not developed. If you are not practicing mindfulness in the daytime, when you physically go to sleep and your body rests, you carry those same habits into the dream world. So, we will have dreams, perhaps, where we are doing miscellaneous things, like in our daily life, and then we return to our body. We wake up and we say, “I was dreaming.” If you train yourself in the daytime to pay attention, to be mindful, to be awake, be aware of yourself, your objects around you, and where you are at, suddenly you may find you are walking in some strange city. You are talking to people. When they are talking to you in another language, then you question, “What is going on here? Why am I in Spain? I am from Chicago!” Therefore, you can suddenly realize, “I am in the astral world. How did I get here? I remember a few hours ago I was dreaming. I went to bed.” You begin to realize that you are no longer in the physical world. Now there is a next step to that. You have to learn to physically (when you are questioning your environment), as you are walking down, say, physically down the streets of Chicago, you are being mindful and aware, you are observing yourself in your environment, you can start to question, “Am I dreaming or am I in my body?” Take your finger, try to pull it (slightly). Another thing you can do too is, well, actually, if you pull your finger in the dream world, your astral finger will stretch, because astral matter (the astral body) is ductile. It is elastic. It bends. It moves. It is not subjected to the physical laws of our world, and there you see your finger stretch. You will realize, “I am dreaming.” Now that may not work all the time, because sometimes, if we do not practice it with full intention so that it is going to stretch, then it may not happen, so therefore you might wake up and realize, “I missed an opportunity.” But with time and practice, as you get familiar with how to question and how to actually pull your finger without hurting yourself, it will happen, and suddenly you realize, “We are not in Kansas anymore,” says Dorothy. Now one other thing that I will mention too is physically, you also can jump in the air. You can try to see if you are going to float. Obviously, you do not want to do it in public too. So personally, I pull my finger because it is more discreet. If I am at work and I am really questioning (if I see something unusual going on), I question, “That is pretty strange. That is not the norm of my daily life.” I am going to question if I am dreaming, and then pull your finger, and then it may happen that you do that and suddenly you see that your finger stretches. You are in the dream world. You have to do the practice whenever you see something unusual, so do that so you have some kind of material to question yourself on. You can also try to jump in the air to see if you float. Obviously do that in private somewhere. You can jump up and then if you are floating in the air in the astral plane, you know where you are at. So that is the Key of SOL. Question: What do you think about when we dream about people or family members who have already passed away and they give us messages that really came true? Is that really a connection or is it a spirit that took their place and is representing them? Instructor: I say follow your intuition. Follow your heart. It can really be your family members or those who are deceased. In some cases, it can be your divine parents, or your parents, or family members, or siblings. Now one thing that does come to mind, is that, for me, is that a lot of people are not awake in the astral plane. Many people, they go through life, they live without developing their full potential. So, when they die, they do not know that they are dead. So, there is that situation too, and sometimes that might explain why some relatives would speak to us. But at the same time, you have to really follow your intuition, because only your heart is going to tell you, and meditating on what they said in relating to your experiences, that you are going to know the connections. So, I do not think there is really a blanket answer for that. It is really unique to the individual. Question: I remember very few of my dreams, is that because I am not paying attention? Instructor: It can be part of it. Now, in our last lecture, we talked about (actually two lectures ago) how to remember dreams. One of the things we explained was how by not developing our consciousness and paying attention, we also have a deficient memory. But also, there are techniques to help with the memory of the brain, as well as the memory of the internal bodies, because our inner constitution (such as our astral vehicle, our mind, our heart) have a type of material existence, and by learning to develop or practice good nutrition (especially) can help with physical memory, but also can help to establish the connection between the internal worlds and our physical world. We have different practices that you should study in that lecture. It is on our website, How to Remember Dreams. Question: What is going on spiritually when people are lucid dreaming? Is that what you mean by astral projection? Is that the same thing as astral travel? Instructor: Yes. Now lucid dreaming is when you, as a consciousness, are free of any type of condition, any type of filter. What we call oftentimes lucid dreams in themselves, are an augmentation of perception, where you gain a clarity of insight but also awakening within the dream state. Now the thing to remember is that being lucid in a dream will not necessarily mean that in some cases that we are fully objective. But in the dream, you can have a clarity and expansiveness of awareness where you are seeing more. Now astral travel occurs when you are in that state, and you are consciously and intelligently navigating the internal worlds. So, in that way, you understand what you are perceiving. You are willingly going “at will” where you want. Astral projection is a little different because that is the process in which you physically go to bed and your soul goes out into the internal worlds. But the way to make lucid dreams more consistent is, again, practice mindfulness, practice meditation, so that you can also not only perceive the internal worlds but also remember them. Question: I remember one time when I was in the astral world, I looked at myself and there was like a mirror in front of me. I could see that my face was the face I have physically, so I kept thinking like, “That’s it. I died, and I’m reborn into a new body!” Does the astral body, will I get a new face or am I going to remain in the face that I had? Like how does that work right? Instructor: So, you are saying that you saw your face in a different way internally? Question: No, no, I’m saying it was the same, the one I have right now, like we are seeing right now, but I was saying like in the coming future, when I’m reborn somewhere else, would that cause a change in the face of people? Instructor: Yes. So, every time you get a new body, you are changing clothes. The soul is the same, carries its conditions and its history, its past, but at the same time we take on new forms. So just as you change your shirt, you have a new face, new outfit. Question: So, is this, I mean I don’t know from anyone’s experiences, is this more like once you can do this, it is consistent, or is it more like ebbs and flows kind of stuff? Instructor: It depends on our effort. If you are disciplined, you can make it constant. But in a sense, there are times in our spiritual work in which even though we are being consistent with our practices, we may not see things. We call that the spiritual night.
Beethoven beautifully depicted that in his Moonlight Sonata. So again, going back to the image of the PowerPoint with Don Quixote and the Moon, we see that the Moon is a symbol of suffering, of disillusionment and pain. Now there are periods in which we have to go, for our own good and benefit, through periods in which we do not necessarily see what we want. But if we are persistent and we continue, and develop and maintain our momentum. We get through.
Question: What about if like there are numbers and symbols and things and like some dreams I have had, I feel like there are messages in some and I am looking at the time and the numbers and location and stuff like that. I just wonder if that would be astral or is that lucid or a combination? Instructor: Sure. So, the astral dimension is where we dream. So, in our fourth lecture earlier in this course, if you want to listen back, we talked about the dimensions themselves, where we actually experience dreams [Where Do We Dream?]. 
We typically dream in the fifth dimension, the astral plane. But there are other dimensions mapped out by that Tree of Life, including sixth dimension, seventh dimension, beyond. There are levels. So, knowing where we are dreaming depends on understanding our current state, where we are at. It is useful to study the kabbalah, especially. It will teach you how to understand where you are at, and the tarot themselves will complement that understanding, as they go hand in hand.
Any other thoughts? The next lecture is going to be online [Analyzing Dreams through Meditation]. So, you all are familiar with Zoom during our COVID era, where we are working electronically, but then we should have the next in-person lecture in December about Navigating the Internal Worlds. In this course, we have talked quite bit a lot about where we dream, why we dream, where we are, and where we are going. But the last lecture, after analyzing dreams, we will also talk about all the different things that we can do in the astral world, kind of turning back to the very original point of introduction, introducing this course. So, I will teach you all the ways to navigate when you are practically there, and how to take advantage of the dream state. Any final comments? Thank you all for coming!
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