According to Osho, do not try to be alert while falling asleep; effort and vigilance break sleep. First cultivate strong awareness during the day. When awareness matures, its energy naturally flows into the night—without doing anything—so a subtle witnessing continues through sleep and dreams. Sleep, like samadhi, happens; you cannot make it happen. Simply rest; let awareness arise on its own.
Be mindful in the daytime and stop trying at night; then a tiny inner light will watch your sleep by itself.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
How to be alert in sleep and dream?
The person who has asked says that whenever he tries to be aware, he cannot sleep. Or, if sleep is coming and suddenly he remembers that he has to be alert, the sleep is broken, and then he cannot sleep -- it is difficult. Awareness with sleep cannot be worked out directly. First you have to work with the waking. Don't try that, otherwise your sleep will be disturbed and your whole day will be disturbed and you will feel depressed, lazy, sleepy. Don't do that. Remember always there is a chain and one has to move from step to step. The first step is to be aware while waking. Don't think about the sleep at all. First you be awake while waking in the day. And when you will gather enough energy of awareness, then only the second step can be taken. Then there will be no effort really.…
Beloved Osho, when I go to sleep at night, I am swept away by such incredibly surreal dreams that I wake up in the morning surprised I am in my same bed. Osho, is there a way to channel this phenomenal energy that goes into dreaming at night, into watchfulness?
The phenomenon of dreaming and watchfulness are totally different things. Just try one thing: every night, going to sleep, while you are just half awake, half asleep, slowly going deeper into sleep, repeat to yourself, "I will be able to remember that it is a dream." Go on repeating it till you fall asleep. It will take a few days, but one day you will be surprised: once this idea sinks deep into the unconscious, you can watch the dream as a dream. Then it has no grip over you. Then slowly, as your watchfulness becomes more sharp, dreams will disappear. They are very shy; they don't want to be watched. They exist only in the darkness of the unconscious. As watchfulness brings light in, they start disappearing. So go on doing the same exercise, and you can get rid of dreams. And you will be surprised. Getting rid of…
Osho, I don’t see dreams in sleep, yet it feels as if I haven’t slept for many days. At the slightest disturbance the body wakes up, as if I had been awake all along. But I don’t feel tired, and the hours of sleep seem to slip away. Please tell me what this state is?
Good, auspicious; do not be afraid. Dreams will slowly disappear. When the witness is awake, dreams cannot be. If there is dreaming, there cannot be witnessing. Good. The dream has fallen away; a sense of wakefulness remains through the night. Gradually it will deepen and grow denser; swiftness and intensity will come. The witness becomes keen—like the edge of a sword. But in the beginning there will be difficulty. We believe that eight hours of sleep are necessary—this is a notion—and then what is this that is happening? The whole night seems to pass as if awake. And if you remain “as if awake” for eight hours, the night feels very long, as if it will never end. If you sleep, you forget; you do not know when the night began or ended. You sleep and it is morning. But now it feels as if all night it remained morning;…
Also, meditate on knowledge that comes during sleep. Also, meditate on anything that appeals to you.
THUS, THE YOGI BECOMES MASTER OF ALL, FROM THE INFINITESIMAL TO THE INFINITE. Nothing is new in life; it is a wheel; it moves on the same route. Because you go on forgetting about the past, that's why you feel so much excitement. Once you remember, the whole excitement drops. In that remembrance happens sannyas. Sannyas is an effort to get out of the rut of sansar. It is an effort to jump out of the wheel. It is to say to yourself that "Enough is enough! Now I am not going to participate anymore in the same old nonsense. I am getting out of it." Sannyas is a perfect dropping out of the wheel -- not out of the society, but out of your own inner wheel of life and death. This is the fourth type of dream. And then there is a fifth type of dream, and the…
When Turiya becomes easy in the day, then you can use it even in dreams. At night as you fall asleep, carry only one remembrance: I am the watcher, I am the seer. As sleep approaches, let a single tone resound within: I am the witness, I am the witness, I am the witness. Repeating this feeling-stream, fall asleep. You will not even notice when sleep came and when this stream broke. If you keep guarding this stream, sleep will come — the stream will continue. For the stream is flowing within you; sleep comes to the body. If the inner stream continues, one day suddenly even in a dream you will experience: I am the watcher. And the moment you experience this, something unique will happen — the dream will break instantly. As soon as within the dream you remember, “I am the watcher,” the dream stops.