Prayer

Depending upon feelings in dream: Dreaming or praying could indicate you are looking for certainty in face of anxieties; or seeking approval or authority for ones desires. It could be an expression of pleasure and thanks or seeking co-operation of unconscious faculties to aid ones everyday activities. In some dreams it is definitely an attempt to channel the forces of the divine or allowing them to shine out of you, perhaps in support of others or for healing. See: spiritual life in dreams.

 Example: As I did so, once more the door creaked open, and in came the black men. This time none of my waving of hands in the sign of the cross, and all my magic words stopped them. They reached me and their hands went around my throat to strangle me. I woke up screaming and terrified.

The black men were found to be symbols of his own repressed sexual urges. They had been buried so long they appeared as if out of a grave. As with another dreamer, the sign of the cross will not cast out our own internal urges and splendid life energy. After all, it has often been the church that put the conflict there in the first place as a means of social and individual control. So how can the cross help, unless we associate it with love and life?

 Edgar Cayce said that prayer is two sided; we may be asking something from Life/God/ the More – or we are listening to find out what Life/God/ the More might be wanting from us. See Heart Beats of Prayer; Prayer And Dream Interpretation

 In computer use for instance, it is now commonplace to have an image on the screen that connects us either with information stored on the hard disk, or will evoke a programmed response linked with the image. So by moving our cursor to an image and clicking on it we can start a program such as a word processor; or we can cause to be displayed information such as a book, music or a photograph, that is stored on the hard disk. In a similar way, by learning to use prayer, or a condition in which you are engrossed in a directed fantasy – such as meditation or prayer – and by using a dream image in such fantasy, you can evoke responses from parts of you usually inaccessible. See

There are classic ways of using prayer, and each culture has its own traditional methods. But because there are so many different ‘places’ prayer can take us – everything from apparent time travel to contact with the dead – it has to be understood that some of the techniques relate to specific areas of experience. Alcohol for instance has a general tendency to make one less capable physically and to deaden ones sensitivity. Some of the best known techniques are listed below.

✉ Meditation and prayer in their many forms. These may use imagery and fantasy; the mental repetition of a phrase, question or prayer; the stilling of the thoughts and emotions; the evoking of love and passion for a god or God; the directing of attention along particular pathways. This latter may be done by concentrating deeply on a question or problem. In these ways one calls on what is ‘out of sight’ within the psyche to respond. One that I have successfully used is called Enlightenment Intensive.  See: meditation – goals of.

✉ Body postures, movements and dance. Experiments with some body postures in particular setting have produced marked changes in states of awareness. See Body Posture and Religious Altered States of Consciousness by Felicitas D. Goodman which appeared in The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Summer 1986. Also see Magnetism and Magic by Baron Du Potet De Sennevoy.

Allowing spontaneous body movements, as occurs in many forms of sacred practices such as early Pentecostalism, Shaktipat in India, Subud in Indonesia, Setai in Japan, can quickly lead to pronounced experiences of holy contact. Given movements, such as the dance of the Dervishes, is also a way many cultures use to produce particular forms of inner experience. In many of these practices, the results may be due to the movements or posture helping the person to let go of their thinking and will, enabling an easier emergence of unconscious material usually suppressed by dominant processes. The whirling of the Dervishes is particularly expressive of this. See The LifeStream.

Human beings of all ages have, when opening to the influence of their larger perceptions during meditation, trance, and prayer, experienced awareness of love existing behind the creation of things, a love that is the source of the big-bang itself, a love that willingly died that we might exist. Humanity became aware of this at a particular stage of the development of self-awareness. See Big Bang and God are the Same

 Beads are often used for prayer in some countries, as in Greece, in Buddhism and with the rosary. So the bead or beads might be a way of concentrating on a prayer.

  ‘The priest was going to question and assault my friend in connection with some opinion he had offended the church with. I went to stand near him to give him moral support, and physical help if necessary. I hated seeing anybody degraded. The priest saw my move and sent three thug type men to shoulder me out. They surrounded me to knock me down. I went berserk and knocked them all over the place with kicks and punches.’ John P.

In the example John sees the dogmas of the church as an assault and degradation of human qualities of love and moral support. He energetically stands by his feelings about the church.

 Example: In ancient Egypt, dreams were regarded with religious reverence, especially as means of indicating remedies in illnesses’; and that ‘the prayers of worshipers are often rewarded by the indication of a remedy in a dream.’ An Egyptian prayer to this effect reads ‘Turn thy face to-wards me. Tis thou who dost accomplish miracles and art benevolent in all thy doings; ‘tis thou who givest children to him that hath none. Tis thou who hast created magic, and established the heavens and the earth and the lower world; ‘tis thou who canst grant me the means of saving all.’

Example: The following dream has a very deep meaning and a clear guidance-message: The dreamer is in a dark, swampy forest. It is night. He has lost his way and is desperate, not knowing where to go, wallowing in the morass . . . He is not religious, but he falls on his knees and begins to pray, imploring the Higher Forces to help him out of this predicament and to show him the way!. . Suddenly a clear ray of light appears from the black sky, moving and showing a stable way among the boggyness. He rushes forward! But after several steps on the right path — he loses it and feels very frightened and lonely. He falls on his knees again, praying and begging for guidance and help. . . The golden ray reappears from above, leading him out of the dark and swampy dangerous forest. . Three or four times he goes astray, losing the right way. The helpful golden beam always reappears after he offers a sincere and deep prayer to be shown the right direction, where to go, the way out of the darkness and bog. . . His prayer was right: he asked no favors, no gifts, only the right way.

Useful questions or hints:

Do I dislike prayer or feel prayer is for the weak?

Have I found prayer uplifts or strengthens me?

How do I pray – always for help – or sometimes from the joy of being?

Have any of my prayers been answered?

See Jesse Watkins Enlightenment – Using Symbols to Change Life Problems – Myths Legends and Fairy Stories – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams