Commentary on my Tibetan Themed Dreams

The first thing to say is that one cannot un-have dreams of high vividness. They make an impression on life and in a sense, they change one. The dreams collected under this category were all markedly vivid.

My dreams have pointed to a possible three Buddhist incarnations, one Indian, one Japanese and one Thai. In one case there is a named individual. An incarnation of said individual has been recognised by the Tibetan Buddhists in exile as a tulku incarnation.

 What, if anything, does one do with these dreams and that “knowledge”?

I’ll speculate that if anyone sits down and reads all these dreams in one go it will have a weird effect on them, it will twist their melon so to speak. I’ll speculate that I am probably unique in having dreams about Vajrayana, quantum and patents.

In 2009 I gave a short course at “The Academy of Dreams”, a venue run by a psychotherapist. There I met a young man Charlie Morely who is interested in Lucid Dreaming. He invited me to talk at the Kagyu Samye Dzong in London, which I did. I subsequently attended two group empowerments by Chöje Akong Rinpoche in White Tara and Padmasambhava, Guru Rinpoche. To my eyes they were fairly shamanic rituals.

I had the Bakula dream before any physical plane contact with Tibetan Buddhism. I had not heard of Bakula nor the sixteen arhats. Being an ex-academic, I discussed this dream with an academic Buddhist scholar monk in Germany and a monk at the local Thai forest Buddhist centre. I sent it off to a senior Tibetan Kagyu person. The return comment was that it was a nice dream, end of.

Although the search for Tulku incarnations within the Tibetan community employs dreams and visions, they come from within the Sangha and not without. I am not in the club.

All of this is preceded by a dream with Djwhal Khul in it. He is supposedly the author behind many of the Alice Bailey books and therein he says he is an abbot of a lamasery near Shigatze Tibet, from time to time.

“Don’t worry it was just a dream…”

To me these dreams seem significant and point at something of a perhaps wider import. However, my prediction is that any outcome is extremely unlikely. A hairy arsed Welshman in Brittany is somehow wrong and not malleable.

I have had numerous other dreams which say that I will not be believed. Aside from the theme of “somebody else’s huge mess” it is right up there, near top, in the recurrence rate.

So far, I have had no dream or vision of me in a Tibetan life. But I am dreaming in senior and important figures in Tibetan Buddhism. In particular I feel affinity for the relative anarchy of Chögyam Trungpa.

I cannot rule a Tibetan life out, yet. The likelihood is low in my estimation. In ~2005 I had a series of visions of me as a Buddhist monk/priest with Om Mane Padme Hum tattooed in Sanskrit on my arm. {The Tibetan script is now more prevalent than the Sanskrit on the internet, I checked and it was Sanskrit.} I was however unable to see the colour of robe. They were a waking dream. I even gave lectures on Chemical Reactions Kinetics to around 100 students whilst having them in perceptual overlay.

To discuss this with university physical science academics at the time would have had a lead balloon effect and perhaps a recommendation for prompt psychiatry. Past-life recall is considered a tad whacko in that peer group.

My current hypothesis is that I will eke out the rest of this life here doing gardening and perhaps a bit of blogging. I am no big cheese and although I have had the phenomena of these dreams in practical terms there is little that I can do with them. Their impact remains upon me and the wife.

Any dreams incoming may change that hypothesis. I am currently working with a dream from March which suggests that I have a human puzzle to solve before anyone will listen to me…

Bakula – Buddhist Arhat – Dream 12-08-2011

A thangka depicting Bakula, one of Buddha’s sixteen arhats, with his mongoose.

I am in a roof top garden, there is some sort of party going on with loads of people sat around and at tables. There are people of many ethnicities from all over the world. They are dressed in brightly coloured “hippie” style clothes. As the party carries on, they draw a curtain around one part of the garden and gather around some Buddhist icons. A south American man there starts to do some chanting. I butt in with Tibetan deep voice chanting. They do not recognise me and are annoyed at my interruption. I point out to them that it is my garden which they are in. I strike up again and do White Tara. I need a drink of water before I can find my voice. After several cups I strike the right note and do some White Tara. Everyone joins in and after a while the party resumes happily.

The wife and I are in one segment of the garden when Anna L and a friend turn up. They have been travelling in India. She has remained pale but her friend has gone brown. She talks of her travels and I say that we will in time need to have a proper talk. She has something for me. At which point she shoots straight up into the air and then lands. She has brought many “ethnic”, clothes and trinkets.


Next I am on a mountain train. I arrive at a terminus in a hillside town way up in the mountains. It is very much like Nepal / Tibet / Bhutan. I get out of the train and wander along the high street. Turning instinctively to the right I go up a hill to “my” palace. Again, there is a vibrant garden with peacocks. It is “my” garden.


Later I make another journey on the mountain train and end up at another terminus. Here the streets are filled with market traders selling saffron and magenta clothes, together with gold trinkets and jewellery. I have time to explore. Everyone is trying to barter with the merchants trying to buy goods in various currencies. The merchants will not trade unless the currency matches the passport of the person trying to buy.


I am not interested in bartering and look on watching. Somehow, I am “in tune” with the locals. I wander back to the main street and notice various pins sticking in my back. Somehow, I am now in an off the shoulder monk’s robe. One by one I pull the pins out of my back. They are made of a very fine gold pin topped with a tiny ivory chess figure. There is a castle, a knight, a king and a queen. I have also been adorned with much golden jewellery.


I go into an emporium as I am pulling out these pins and sit down. I ask the shopkeeper about what has been happening. She says that they have done this to me so as to make me unattractive to the locals so that they won’t fall for me and want to have sex with me.


Anna L comes into the shop and sits next to me. We start talking about my palace. An old Indian man with very short hair suddenly starts to talk in a very proper English accent. He says that she holds for me a key and that we must find it. It relates back to 1773. He says that I must get back to Bakula.


We leave the shops and seek out the train station. “All trains go through Bakula”, says the station announcer. We look at the map and it is configured like this.

  • Before this dream I had never heard of Bakula nor the sixteen arhats.
  • It is possible that Anna L is dakini.