The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Changes in the Dream Life of the Occult Disciple

[ 1 ] A sign that the secret student has reached—or will soon reach—the stage of development described in the previous chapter is the change taking place in his dream life. Previously, his dreams were confused and random. Now they are beginning to take on a regular character. Their images become meaningfully coherent, like the ideas of everyday life. One can discern laws, cause, and effect in them. And the content of the dreams also changes. Whereas before one perceived only echoes of daily life—transformed impressions of the surroundings or one’s own physical states—images now emerge from a world previously unknown to the dreamer. At first, however, the general character of dream life persists, insofar as the dream differs from waking imagination in that it presents symbolically what it intends to express. This symbolic nature cannot escape the attention of a careful observer of dream life. For example, one dreams of having caught an ugly animal and feeling an unpleasant sensation in one’s hand. One wakes up and realizes that one is clutching a corner of the bedspread in one’s hand. Perception, then, does not express itself directly, but through the characteristic symbol. —Or one dreams of fleeing from a pursuer; one feels fear in the process. Upon waking, it becomes clear that one’s heart was racing during sleep. The stomach, filled with hard-to-digest food, causes frightening dream images. Events occurring in the sleeping person’s surroundings are also reflected in the dream as symbols. The striking of a clock can evoke the image of a troop of soldiers marching past to the beat of drums. A chair falling over can trigger an entire dream drama in which the thud is interpreted as a gunshot, and so on. – This symbolic mode of expression is also characteristic of the regular dreams of a person whose etheric body is beginning to develop. But these dreams cease to merely reflect facts from the physical environment or one’s own physical body. Just as those dreams become regular that originate from these things, so too do dream images emerge that are expressions of things and circumstances from another world. Here, experiences are first had that are inaccessible to ordinary waking consciousness. – Now, one must by no means believe that any true mystic already regards the things he experiences in this dreamlike manner as the basis for any authoritative communications from a higher world. Such dream experiences are to be regarded only as the first signs of a higher development. – Soon, as a further consequence, the images of the dreaming esoteric student are no longer, as before, beyond the control of the sober intellect, but are regulated and properly supervised by it, just like the ideas and sensations of waking consciousness. The distinction between dream consciousness and this waking state is gradually disappearing. The dreamer is awake in the full sense of the word during the dream life; that is, he feels himself to be the master and guide of his pictorial imaginings.

[ 2 ] While dreaming, a person is in fact in a world that is distinct from that of his physical senses. However, a person with undeveloped mental faculties is unable to form any other impressions of this world than the confused ones described above. For them, it exists only in the same way that the sensory world would exist for a being possessing, at most, the very earliest rudiments of eyes. That is why a person can see nothing in this world other than the afterimages and reflections of ordinary life. However, they are able to see these in a dream because their soul paints their daytime perceptions as images into the substance of which that other world is composed. One must be clear about the fact that, alongside his ordinary conscious daily life, a person leads a second, unconscious life in the other world alluded to here. Everything he perceives and thinks, he imprints into this world. One can see these imprints only when the lotus flowers have developed. Now, every human being always possesses certain rudimentary forms of these lotus flowers. During waking consciousness, he cannot perceive anything through them because the impressions are very faint. This is for a similar reason to why one does not see the stars during the day. They cannot compete with the powerful effect of sunlight. Thus, the weak spiritual impressions cannot hold their own against the powerful impressions of the physical senses. When, during sleep, the gates of the external senses are closed, these impressions shine forth in a confused manner. And the dreamer then becomes aware of experiences had in another world. But, as I said, at first these experiences are nothing more than what the imagination—bound to the physical senses—has itself engraved in the spiritual world. —Only the developed lotus flowers make it possible for manifestations that do not belong to the physical world to be recorded there. And through the developed etheric body, a full knowledge of these recordings originating from other worlds then arises. – Thus has humanity’s interaction with a new world begun. And humanity must now—through the guidance of the secret training—achieve two things initially. First, it must become possible for them to perceive the observations made in dreams just as completely as in the waking state. Once they have achieved this, they will be guided to make the same observations even during the ordinary waking state. Their attention to spiritual impressions is then simply regulated in such a way that these impressions no longer need to fade away in the face of physical ones, but rather that they can be alongside and remain with them at all times.

[ 3 ] Once the initiate has attained this ability, something of the vision described in the previous chapter appears before his inner eye. He can now perceive what exists in the spiritual world as the cause of the physical world. And above all, he can recognize his higher self within this world. – His next task is now, in a sense, to grow into this higher Self—that is, to truly regard it as his true essence and to behave accordingly. He increasingly gains the understanding and the vivid sense that his physical body and what he previously called his “I” are now merely instruments of the higher Self. He develops a feeling toward the lower self similar to that which a person limited to the sensory world has toward a tool or vehicle he uses. Just as such a person does not count the car in which he rides as part of his “I,” even when he says, “I’m driving,” just as he says, “I’m walking,” so too does the developed person, when he says, “I’m walking through the door,” actually have the idea: “I am carrying my body through the door.” But this must be such a self-evident concept for him that he does not lose touch with the solid ground of the physical world for even a moment, so that a feeling of alienation from the sensory world never arises as a result. If the student of the esoteric teachings is not to become a dreamer or a fantasist, then through higher consciousness he must not impoverish his life in the physical world, but rather enrich it—just as one enriches it who, instead of using his legs, makes use of a train to travel a certain distance.

[ 4 ] Once the initiate has attained such a life within his higher Self—or rather, already during the process of acquiring higher consciousness—it becomes clear to him how he can awaken the power of spiritual perception in the organ formed in the region of the heart and channel it through the currents described in the previous chapters. This power of perception is an element of higher substance that emanates from the aforementioned organ and flows in radiant beauty through the moving lotus flowers and also through the other channels of the developed etheric body. From there it radiates outward into the surrounding spiritual world and makes it spiritually visible, just as sunlight falling from outside onto objects makes them physically visible.

[ 5 ] How this power of perception is generated in the heart can only be understood gradually through the process of development itself.

[ 6 ] The spiritual world actually becomes clearly perceptible as objects and beings only to a person who can project the characterized organ of perception through their etheric body toward the external world in such a way as to illuminate the objects. – It follows from this that a complete awareness of an object in the spiritual world can arise only on the condition that the human being himself casts the light of the spirit upon it. In truth, the “I” that generates this organ of perception does not reside in the physical human body at all, but, as has been shown, outside of it. The heart is merely the place where the human being kindles this spiritual organ of light from outside. If he were to kindle it not here but in some other place, the spiritual perceptions brought about by it would have no connection with the physical world. But the human being is meant to relate all higher spiritual matters precisely to the physical world and to allow them to work into the latter through himself. The heart is precisely the organ through which the higher Self makes the sensory self its instrument and from which the latter is directed.

[ 7 ] Now, the perception that the spiritually developed person has of the things of the spiritual world is different from that which is characteristic of the sensory person with regard to the physical world. The latter feels himself to be in a certain place within the sensory world, and the perceived objects are “outside” him. The spiritually developed human being, on the other hand, feels as if united with the spiritual object of his perception, as if “within” it. He does, in fact, wander from place to place in spiritual space. That is why, in the language of esoteric science, he is also called the “Wanderer.” At first, he is at home nowhere. – If he were to remain merely a wanderer, he would be unable to truly define any object in spiritual space. Just as one defines an object or location in physical space by taking a certain point as a starting point, so too must this be the case in the other world that has been attained. There, too, one must find a place, which one first explores in great detail and mentally takes possession of. In this place, one must establish a spiritual home and then relate everything else to this home. After all, even a person living in the physical world sees everything through the lens of the concepts associated with their physical home. A Berliner instinctively describes London differently than a Parisian. Yet a spiritual home is different from a physical one. One is born into the latter without any effort on one’s part; during one’s youth, one has instinctively absorbed a series of ideas within it, through which everything is henceforth viewed unconsciously. One’s spiritual homeland, however, is something one has formed for oneself with full consciousness. Therefore, one also judges from this perspective with complete, enlightened freedom. In the language of esoteric science, this formation of a spiritual homeland is called “building a hut.”

[ 8 ] At this stage, spiritual vision initially extends to the spiritual counterparts of the physical world, insofar as these counterparts are located in what is known as the astral world. This world contains everything that, in its essence, is akin to human drives, feelings, desires, and passions. For all the sensory objects surrounding human beings also possess forces that are related to these human ones. A crystal, for example, is molded into its form by forces that, to higher perception, appear like an instinct at work within a human being. Through similar forces, sap is channeled through the vessels of a plant, causing the blossoms to unfurl and the seed pods to burst open. All these forces take on form and color for the developed spiritual organs of perception, just as objects in the physical world have form and color for the physical eye. At the stage of development described, the initiate sees not only the crystal and the plant, but also the spiritual forces at work within them. And he perceives animal and human instincts not only through the physical manifestations of life in their bearers, but also directly as objects, just as he perceives tables and chairs in the physical world. The entire world of instincts, drives, desires, and passions of an animal or a human being becomes the astral cloud in which the being is enveloped—the aura.

[ 9 ] Furthermore, at this stage of his development, the clairvoyant also perceives things that are almost or completely beyond the reach of the senses. For example, he can sense the astral difference between a room that is largely filled with people of low character and one in which people of high character are present. In a hospital, not only the physical atmosphere but also the spiritual atmosphere is different from that in a dance hall. A commercial city has a different astral atmosphere than a university town. At first, the perceptual capacity of a person who has become clairvoyant will be only weakly developed for such things. It will relate to the aforementioned objects in the same way that the dream consciousness of a sensory human relates to his waking consciousness. But gradually, even at this stage, he will fully awaken.

[ 10 ] The highest achievement of the clairvoyant who has attained the described level of vision is the stage at which the astral repercussions of animal and human drives and passions are revealed to him. An act of love has a different astral manifestation than one motivated by hatred. Senseless desire produces, in addition to itself, an ugly astral image, whereas a feeling directed toward the higher produces a beautiful one. These astral images can only be faintly perceived during a person’s physical life, for their intensity is diminished by life in the physical world. For example, a desire for an object creates such a mirror image in addition to the form in which the desire itself appears in the astral world. But if the desire is satisfied by the acquisition of the physical object—or if at least the possibility of such satisfaction exists—then the mirror image will be only a very faint glimmer. It only comes into its full effect after a person’s death, when the soul, by its very nature, must still harbor such a desire but can no longer satisfy it, because both the object and the physical organ required for it are lacking. A person of a sensual disposition, for example, will continue to have a craving for culinary delights even after death. But he now lacks the means of satisfaction, since he no longer has a palate. As a result, the desire produces a particularly intense counter-image, which then torments the soul. These experiences caused by the counter-images of the lower nature of the soul after death are called the experiences in the realm of the soul, particularly in the realm of desires. They only fade when the soul has purified itself of all desires directed toward the physical world. Only then does this soul ascend into the higher realm (the spiritual world). – Even though these counter-images are faint in a person who is still physically alive, they are nevertheless present and accompany him as his predisposition to desire, just as a comet’s tail accompanies it. And the clairvoyant can see them once he has reached the corresponding stage of development.

[ 11 ] In such experiences—and in all those related to them—the initiate lives at the stage that has been described. At this stage of development, he is not yet able to attain even higher spiritual experiences. From there, he must ascend even higher.