There are usually two periods of sleep when people dream. One is right after falling asleep, when the mind is calming down but is not yet fully rested. During this period dreams are almost always of the first type ─ those arising from vexations that manifest during the day. The other is after a long period of deep sleep when the mind is fully rested. It is these dreams which can have some higher level of accordance with reality, but it does not always happen. For instance, light or restless sleepers may never calm their minds enough to have these types of dreams.

The mother of a well known Buddhist in Taiwan once came on a retreat at my temple. Before the retreat she had no idea of wanting to go on a retreat, but she dreamt of a monastery with very high walls to which she could not find an entrance. Then she saw an old monk waving her in. She had no idea what the monastery was or who the monk was. Sometime later while reading a newspaper she came across a picture of my master. It was the monk in her dream. He had been dead for several years, and she had never seen him before. When she came to the monastery it turned out to be the same as the one in her dream.

STUDENT:

I have dreamt of you, Shih-fu. It rarely happens, but when I do dream of you, the dream is crystal clear and I usually wake up clear, too. When I wrote to you about one such dream, you wrote back saying that if I think of you with sincerity and conviction and I need your guidance, then you will be there. I never knew if you meant this figuratively or literally.

SHIH-FU: