Dreams and Their Significance

　　夢

　　”Life is nothing but a dream.”

　　生命無他，只是一場夢。

　　One of man”s greatest unsolved problems is the mystery of dreams. From the very earliest of times man has tried to analyze dreams and has tried to explain them in prophetic and psychological terms, but while there has been some measure of success recently, we are probably no nearer the answers to the baffling question: ”What is a dream

　　”

　　人類無法解決的問題，就是夢的神秘性。從原始到現在，人類不斷的嘗試透過各種不同的途徑，來闡釋夢的起因，仍然無法找到答案──什麼是夢？

　　The great English Romantic poet William Wordsworth had a startling concept: that this life we live is merely a dream and that we will ”awake” to the ”real” reality when we die, when our ”dream” ends.

　　英國詩人W.吳得兒次認爲：「我們生活在夢中，當我們清醒時，生命結束了，夢也結束了。」

　　”Our birth is but a sleep and forgetting:

　　The Soul, that rises with us, our life”s star,

　　Hath had elsewhere its setting,

　　And cometh from afar.”

　　「我們的『生』，只不過在睡眠中，忘記了一切。靈魂是我們的星宿，依我們而生。它來自遠方，會在其他地方殒落。」

　　A similar concept is expressed in a charming old Buddhist tale which tells of a deva who was playing with some other devas. Being tired, he lay down to take a short nap and passed away. He was reborn as a girl on earth. There she got married, had a few children and lived to be very old. After her death again she was born as a deva amongst the same companions who had just finished playing their game. (This story also illustrates the world is very different from time in another plane of existence).

　　在一個傳統佛教故事裏，這麼記載：有一位天人，在與同伴遊戲的當兒，感到疲倦便找個地方打盹，他就這樣去世了。他轉世到人間，成爲一個女性。結婚生子，活到很老才去世。去世後，他又轉生天界，一切就好像在做夢，他醒覺時，同伴的遊戲剛剛結束。這故事也向我們顯示了人間與天界不同的時間概念。

　　What has Buddhism to say about dreams

　　 Just as in every other culture, Buddhism has had its fair share of people who claimed to be skilled in interpreting dreams. Such people earn a lot of money exploiting the ignorance of men and women who believe that every dream has a spiritual or prophetic significance.

　　佛教如何看待「夢」呢？佛教和其他的傳統概念一樣，不認爲自己擁有解夢的能力。很多解夢者，爲那些愚昧、無知的人解夢，從而賺取大筆的金錢。

　　According to Buddhist psychology dreams are ideational processes which occur as activities of the mind. In considering the occurrence of dreams it is relevant to remember that the process of sleeping can be regarded as falling into five stages.

　　根據佛教的看法，夢是一種心理現象，也是一種思維的程序，一種在睡眠中思維不受意識操縱的活動。我們的睡眠經過五個程序：

　　drowsiness,

　　light slumber,

　　deep slumber,

　　light slumber and

　　awakening.

　　一、産生睡意。

　　二、淺睡眠。

　　叁、深睡眠。

　　四、淺睡眠。

　　五、覺醒。

　　The significance and the cause of dreams were the subject of discussion in the famous book ”Milinda Panha” or ”The Questions of King Milinda”, in which Ven. Nagasena has stated that there are six causes of dreams, three of them being organic, wind, bile and phlegm. The fourth is due to the intervention of supernatural forces, fifth, revival of past experience and sixth, the influence of future events. It is categorically stated that dreams occur only in light slumber which is said to be like the sleep of the monkey. Of the six causes given Ven. Nagasena has stated positively that the last, namely prophetic dreams are the only important ones and the others are relatively insignificant.

　　在《彌林達問經》(Milinda Pànha，古譯：彌蘭王問經)裏，那噶瑟納(又稱龍軍)尊者(Nagasena)爲夢做了六種解釋。其中叁種是因爲器官受到呼吸、膽汁分泌失調(暴躁)和痰堵塞了氣管的影響。第四種是受到超自然力的影響。第五種是過去經驗的影響。第六種是爲了將來而造成的煩惱所影響。那噶瑟納尊者有次序的解釋了夢的産生，在心猿意馬的情況下入睡，怎麼不會做夢呢？其他都是次要的。

　　Dreams are mind-created phenomena and they are activities of the mind. All human beings dream, although some people cannot remember. Buddhism teaches that some dreams have psychological significance. The six causes mentioned earlier can also be classified in the following manner:

　　夢是一種心識在無意識活動中而産生的現象。每個人都會做夢，可是往往無法記起自己的夢境。佛教認爲夢是一種心理現象。讓我們詳細的分析前面所提到的六種解釋。

　　Every single thought that is created is stored in our subconscious mind and some of them strongly influence the mind according to our anxieties. When we sleep, so…

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