In spirituality, a dream is a certain way of sensing the Light. It is a state of the desire relative to the Light when I don’t use the desire because it has no screen. This is why a dream is called “one sixtieth of death.”

Obviously we’re not talking about a regular dream, but a spiritual state where I use only the smallest part out of all the huge desires that are revealed inside me. I perceive reality and my relationship with the Creator only in this part.

To “fall asleep” means to begin a new period, a new degree, when an old state ends and I begin to work with new, yet uncorrected desires. For this reason I perceive them as darkness, night, a reclined horizontal state wherein all the parts of the spiritual Partzuf (soul) – its head, torso and extremities (Rosh, Toch, Sof) – are on the same level, and there is no clothing of the Inner Light from above downward.

All of the Light is gone, and there is only a faint luminescence left in the Kelim, which animates them. It is called a dream (Kista de-Chauta). When I cannot feel or understand anything, when I experience the feeling of dreaming, it is called “one sixtieth of death.”

From this state or point, I must awaken and rise to my full height (GAR). And then, together with my new desires, I will lie back down again. And so the states succeed one another, cycle after cycle.

At first I surrender myself to the Upper Force, letting it care for me like an embryo inside a womb. And the more I cancel myself, the more it helps me to grow.

Then I begin to actively cancel myself, suppressing my desire to enjoy with my own strength. And then my Partzuf empties itself of the Light and I fall into a dream, until a new day comes, and with it, a new degree.

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