The Meaning of Dreaming

• Should your dreams be important to you or offer special messages or meanings?


• Have you ever wondered why you have nightly dreams, or exactly how the process happens?


• And what does it mean if you think you don't dream or seldom remember your dreams?

All these questions and more are answered by the great master of yoga, Paramhansa Yogananda, in a unique look at the ever-fascinating subjects of dreams and dreaming.

Dreams are an endlessly fascinating topic for people of every culture, place, and time. Many books have been written on this subject. Yet, no one has addressed this topic in the same way that the great exponents of yoga have done. And no one has spoken or written on this subject with such fresh insights, clarity, and spiritual authority as one of the greatest yoga masters of recent times, Paramhansa Yogananda.

Yogananda was the first yogi from India to make his permanent residence in America. Yogananda came to the United States in 1920, where he lived until his passing in 1952. In addition to lecturing and teaching extensively, he wrote many books, such as his best-selling spiritual classic Autobiography of a Yogi, and lessons on yoga teachings, meditation, and philosophy. In some of his earliest lessons he wrote about dreams, why we dream, and what our dreams mean. He did not write as someone presenting a theory about what dreaming is, but as a spiritual master—one who had experienced every level of consciousness, and who had achieved union with the Divine, as well as great knowledge of life and death.

Much of the material in this book is taken from a series of lessons Yogananda wrote in the 1920s and 1930s. Savitri Simpson also quotes from the books, lessons, and lectures of Swami Kriyananda (1926–2013), a direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda, serving Yogananda's worldwide mission for nearly six decades, and the author's spiritual teacher for thirty-eight years.