Dream yoga

A Tibetan Buddhist practice of recognising the dream as a dream.

Dream yoga, in Tibetan milam, is a practice from Tibetan Buddhism and the Bön tradition in which you learn to know that you are dreaming while you dream, and to use that clarity for spiritual growth. It belongs to the six yogas of Naropa, a collection of tantric practices that came from India to Tibet in the eleventh century.

In the West lucid dreaming is known: dreams in which you realise you are dreaming. Dream yoga goes further. The aim is not to bend the dream to your will for pleasure, but to see that the dream is a creation of the mind. Whoever recognises that in a dream can apply the same view to waking life: there too we take much as solid and real that is impermanent and coloured by the mind.

The practice begins during the day. You keep reminding yourself that what you experience resembles a dream, and you prepare for sleep with an intention, sometimes with visualisations in the throat or heart. Teachers advise first learning to sleep well and remember dreams, for example with a dream journal, before going further.

Dream yoga is also seen as preparation for death. In Tibetan Buddhism the dream state resembles the bardo, the intermediate state after death. Whoever can stay clear in a dream could also stay clear there.

Whoever wants to begin can already do a lot with simple steps: sleeping calmly, keeping a dream journal and stating the intention in the evening to remember dreams.

Traditionally dream yoga is practised under the guidance of a teacher. On Dreamkin we describe the background; for the practice itself you look for an experienced teacher.