When you begin to practice Zen, you may notice more frequently that you drift off into both thinking and daydreaming more than you’d realized, even in the midst of your daily routines. If these routines are long established and/or humdrum, the mind has lots of incentive to tune out what’s here and now and slip into imagined realities. How much of our mental planning and fantasizing is a variety of dream states? A Zen practice includes noticing when the mind begins to troll through worries, plans, regrets, resentments.
These mental narratives can create or feed suffering states. On the other hand, they may help us to address situations that need more attention and suggest creative solutions. It’s all in how we wake up to and use our awareness. Bringing greater awareness to dream states helps us to claim more of our mental life for benefit rather than disturbance and harm. We are always living a dream. Our practice is to realize the fundamental dream nature of all phenomena.