Dreams

"If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep, My dreams presage some joyful news at hand: My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne; And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts."

"A stanza in the Book of Dzyan tells us: 'Those who received but a spark remained destitute of knowledge: the spark burned low'; and Madame Blavatsky explains that 'those who receive but a spark constitute the average humanity which have to acquire their intellectuality during the present manvantaric evolution'. ( The Secret Doctrine, ii, 167, 1979 ed.). In the case of most of them that spark is still smouldering, and it will be many an age before its slow increase brings it to the stage of steady and brilliant flame. Ch 3: The Ego"

"Yet eat in dreams, the custard of the day."

"Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, Of healths five-fathom deep."

"And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams Call to the soul when man doth sleep. So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted dreams, And into glory peep."

"All these different portions of the mechanism are in reality merely instruments of the ego [higher self/soul], though his control of them is as yet often very imperfect; for it must always be remembered that the ego is himself a developing entity, and that in the case of most of us he is scarcely more than a germ of what he is to be one day. Chapter 3: The Ego"

"I am weary of planning and toiling In the crowded hives of men; Heart weary of building and spoiling And spoiling and building again; And I long for the dear old river Where I dreamed my youth away; For a dreamer lives forever, And a toiler dies in a day."

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before."

"I'll dream no more—by manly mind Not even in sleep is well resigned. My midnight orisons said o'er, I'll turn to rest and dream no more."

"I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, Which is as thin of substance as the air And more inconstant than the wind."

"The dream Dreamed by a happy man, when the dark East, Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn."

"The chambers in the house of dreams Are fed with so divine an air, That Time's hoar wings grow young therein, And they who walk there are most fair."

"As I am writing in the main for students of theosophy, I shall feel myself at liberty to use, without detailed explanation, the ordinary theosophical terms, with which I may safely assume them to be familiar, since otherwise my little book would far exceed its allotted limits. Should it, however, fall into the hands of any to whom the occasional use of such terms constitutes a difficulty, I can only apologize to them, and refer them for these preliminary explanations to any elementary theosophical work, such as Mrs Besant's "The Ancient Wisdom", or "Man and his Bodies". Ch 1: Intro"

"Astral. Still another mechanism that we have to take into account is the astral body, often called the desire-body. As its name implies, this vehicle is composed exclusively of astral matter, and is, in fact, the expression of the man on the astral plane, just as his physical body is the expression of him on the lower levels of the physical plane. Ch 2"

"I believe it to be true that Dreams are the true Interpreters of our Inclinations; but there is Art required to sort and understand them."

"A thousand creeds and battle cries, A thousand warring social schemes, A thousand new moralities And twenty thousand, thousand dreams."

"What was your dream? It seemed to me that a woman in white raiment, graceful and fair to look upon, came towards me and calling me by name said: On the third day, Socrates, thou shall reach the coast of fertile Phthia."

"O God! Can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?"

"This morn, as sleeping in my bed I lay, I dreamt (and morning dreams come true they say)."

"Some must delve when the dawn is nigh; Some must toil when the noonday beams; But when night comes, and the soft winds sigh, Every man is a King of Dreams."

"I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was."

"For never yet one hour in his bed Have I enjoyed the golden dew of sleep, But have been waked by his timorous dreams."

"In an ocean of dreams without a sound."

"In the world of dreams, I have chosen my part. To sleep for a season and hear no word Of true love's truth or of light love's art, Only the song of a secret bird."

"Seeing, I saw not, hearing not, I heard. Tho', if I saw not, yet they told me all So often that I spake as having seen."

"Like glimpses of forgotten dreams."

"Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream."

"The most convenient method in which we can arrange the various branches of our subject will perhaps be the following: first, to consider rather carefully the mechanism — physical, etheric and astral — by means of which impressions are conveyed to our consciousness; secondly, to see how the consciousness in its turn affects and uses this mechanism; thirdly, to note the condition both of the consciousness and its mechanism during sleep; and fourthly, to enquire how the various kinds of dreams which men experience are thereby produced. Chapter 1: Introductory"

"Physical. First, then, as to the physical part of the mechanism. We have in our bodies a great central axis of nervous matter, ending in the brain, and from this a network of nerve-threads radiates in every direction through the body. It is these nerve-threads, according to modern scientific theory, which by their vibrations convey all impressions from without to the brain, and the latter, upon receipts of these impressions, translates them into sensations or perceptions; so that if I put my hand upon some object and find it to be hot, it is really not my hand that feels, but my brain, which is acting upon information transmitted to it by the vibrations running along its telegraph wires, the nerve-threads. Chapter 2: The Mechanism"

"Etheric. It is not alone through the brain to which we have hitherto been referring, however, that impressions may be received by the man. Almost exactly co-extensive with and interpenetrating its visible form is his etheric double (formerly called in theosophical literature the linga sharira), and that also has a brain which is really no less physical than the other, though composed of matter in a condition finer than the gaseous. Ch 2"

"For dhrames always go by conthraries, my dear."

"Ground not upon dreams, you know they are ever contrary."

"One of those passing rainbow dreams, Half light, half shade, which fancy's beams Paint on the fleeting mists that roll, In trance or slumber, round the soul!"

"Oh! that a dream so sweet, so long enjoy'd, Should be so sadly, cruelly destroy'd!"

"Namque sub Aurora jam dormitante lucerna Somnia quo cerni tempore vera solent."

"Dreams, which, beneath the hov'ring shades of night, Sport with the ever-restless minds of men, Descend not from the gods. Each busy brain Creates its own."

"That holy dream—that holy dream, While all the world were chiding, Hath cheered me as a lovely beam A lonely spirit guiding."

"You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream."

"Till their own dreams at length deceive 'em And oft repeating, they believe 'em."

"As a dream when one awaketh."

"We must discipline ourselves to convert dreams into plans, and plans into goals, and goals into those small daily activities that will lead us, one sure step at a time, toward a better future."

"O Brethren, weep to-day, The silent God hath quenched my Torch's ray, And the vain dream hath flown."

"Thou hast beat me out Twelve several times, and I have nightly since Dreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me."

"There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest, For I did dream of money-bags to-night."

"This is the rarest dream that e'er dull sleep Did mock sad fools withal."

"Oh! I have pass'd a miserable night, So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams, That, as I am a Christian faithful man, I would not spend another such a night, Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days."

"Ah, the strange, sweet, lonely delight Of the Valleys of Dream."

"Across the silent stream Where the dream-shadows go, From the dim blue Hill of Dream I have heard the west wind blow."

"Those dreams, that on the silent night intrude, And with false flitting shades our minds delude, Jove never sends us downward from the skies; Nor can they from infernal mansions rise; But are all mere productions of the brain, And fools consult interpreters in vain."

"Clairvoyant observation bears abundant testimony to the fact that when a man falls into a deep slumber the higher principles in their astral vehicle almost invariably withdraw from the body and hover in its immediate neighbourhood. Indeed, it is the process of this withdrawal which we commonly call 'going to sleep'. Chapter 4: The Condition of Sleep"