The two largest religions to originate in southern Asia (the geographical and cultural area that consists of contemporary India, Tibet, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) are Hinduism and Buddhism. Both of these complex religious traditions have been shaped by schools of philosophy that regard the world as we experience it as being in some sense "dreamlike," illusory or unreal. In terms of this metaphor, it is the goal of the religious life to "wake up" from the illusion of this world.
The method by which the "awakening" is accomplished is often conceptualized as some form of yoga. In the West, the widespread popularity of hatha yoga has led the term yoga to be associated with an exotic set of physical exercises. However, in its original southern Asian setting, yoga encompasses a complex variety of practices, all of which aim to release the individual aspirant from the cycle of reincarnation.
Despite Hinduism's traditional discourse about "awakening from the dream," a form of yoga directed specifically at controlling the dream state does not seem to have developed until it emerged in Tibetan Buddhism (although it may have had a predecessor in Tantric Hinduism). According to tradition, the teacher Marpa introduced six yogas, including the teaching on dreams, in Tibet in the eleventh century.
The dream yoga of Tibet involves what has come to be called lucid dreaming in the West-a state in which the dreamer is aware that he or she is dreaming. The lucid dream state is not itself a form of meditation. Rather, the yoga of the dream state is practiced while one is in a lucid dream. During sleep, the yogi (one who practices yoga) exercises control over the landscape of his or her dream, learning that the dream world is transitory, malleable, and a function of consciousness. If the yogi has properly digested the teaching that this world and the dreamworld are both creations of the mind, the yogi's dream experience helps him or her realize the illusory nature of this world. Learning to control the dream state also prepares the yogi to determine where his or her consciousness goes after death, a major goal of many schools of Tibetan Buddhism.
