Page 31 - NAMAH-Apr-2025

Namah The Gift of the Night School

my aspiration to be united with the Divine, When you tend in this way to your dreams,
and lost in the mundane stress of being you give that part of your inner being, “the
a parent of young children. What helps me dream-maker,” respect and credence
re-centre and regain the ability to enter into by acknowledging the work being done to
the night school is: make you more conscious. The dream-
maker in return rewards you with
• most importantly, re-igniting my aspiration more consciousness and opens more
to be conscious during my days. doors for you the next night. While Sri
• asking for more consciousness before I sleep, Aurobindo and the Mother do not speak of
so that I may use the time to spiritually a ‘dream-maker’, I have always felt there
progress, as well as protection from evil is an actual being, an ally of the psychic
from my divine Teacher, the Mother. being, that is helping to design the dreams
• remembering my dreams right when I each night and whose reasoning defies our
wake up, making the effort not to move mental understanding.
much in my bed and then writing down
my dreams. I will immediately type The work of psychotherapist, Donald Kalsched
into my Notes app a few details, then beautifully explores this possibility of a dream-
hopefully take the time later, after I’ve maker from a Jungian angle, as applied to
dealt with the morning obligations, to childhood trauma. He depicts how the dream-
write the dream down in full. maker defends the soul from recognition
of horrific abuse, through the creation of
As the Mother says, “In the morning when evil archetypes, or “archetypal defenses,”
you get up, you must not be in a hurry. That that populate the dreams, whose presence
is, you must not get out of bed; you must have simultaneously serves as a precursor to
some time in hand and must take good care… healing (6). Awakening to these forces,
when waking up not to make any abrupt beginning to notice them in one’s dreams,
movement, because if you make an abrupt can lead to healing revelations and repressed
movement, automatically the memory of your memories coming to the surface. (This could be
dream vanishes (5).” likened to how the Mother and Sri Aurobindo
often point to adverse forces as goads or
This is difficult to do with an alarm-clock, helpers towards one’s progress in sadhana).
a
a
but I find using a vibrating alarm helps me The dream-maker, then, is aware of all of
to wake more gently so the dream doesn’t these potentialities when pulling in different
disappear. forces and beings into the dreams.

The habit of writing down dreams helps Maintaining a consistent effort to remember
you build a conscious link to your inner my dreams has generated even clearer and
being at night. When you witness the more conscious dreams — but the quality
dream details and activities through the of the dream still depends on my waking
act of writing, you are telling your inner state during the day. In my waking hours, I
being that you want to let it guide and need to remember the thread to the Divine
help you progress at night. in all that I do — from washing the dishes

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