Posts Tagged ‘Dream Encyclopedia’

Religion and Dreams

And He said, “Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream” (Num. 12:6).

“I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams” (Acts 2:17).

“For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; Then He openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, That He may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man. He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.” (Job 33:14- 18).

In most ancient cultures, consideration and even veneration of dreams played a great part. Some groups felt that dream life was more real and important than waking life. Not only were dreams looked to for information about hunting, as in Eskimo and African groups; but also for ways of healing physical and psychological ills, such as the Greek Dream Temples of Asclepius; insights into the medicinal properties of herbs, barks and clays with African tribal witch-doctors. Common to most of these groups, and evident in the Old Testament, was also the sense that through dreams one had awareness of the transcendental or supersensible. St. Peter’s dream of the sheet and unclean animals was a turning point in the history of Western society – as was Constantine’s dream of his victory if he used the symbol of Christianity.

At its most fundamental, the human religious sense emerges out of several factors. One is the awareness of existing amidst external and internal forces of nature which cause us to feel vulnerable and perhaps powerless. Such natural processes as illness, death, growth and decay, earthquakes, the seasons, confront us with things which are often beyond our ability to control. Considering the information and resources of the times, one of religion’s main functions in the past, was the attempted control of the ‘uncertain’ factors in human life, and help toward psychological adjustment to vulnerability. Religions were the first social programs aiding the human need for help and support toward emotional, mental, physical and social health and maturity. Even if primitive, such programs helped groups of people gain a common identity and live in reasonable harmony together. Like a computer program which is specific to a particular business, such programs were specific to a particular group, and so may be outdated in today’s need for greater integration with other races.

Example: The flux is the heart of all religions. I couldn’t get them before until I had accepted myself and integrated the different aspects of myself and life. Not only am I accepting all the different parts of life but I have their potential also. I had the potential of the predator, of the parent, of the lover, of the soldier and tradesmen. I have actually absorbed them. Whoever loves me becomes part of or has access to that flux.

I felt that that was what it meant when Jesus doesn’t turn anybody away, and doesn’t judge anyone. These different aspects are part of ones nature, just as everybody in the objective world is a part of ones wider life. But they are all parts of ones nature, beautiful parts of ones whole.

Kinship with all life

Dreams also portray and define the aspect of human experience in which we have a sense of kinship with all life forms. This is an experience through which we find a connection with the roots of our being. While awake we might see the birth of a colt and feel the wonder of emergence and newness; the struggle to stand up and survive; the miracle of physical and sexual power which can be accepted or feared. In looking in the faces of fellow men and women we see something of what they have done in this strange and painful wonder we call life. We see whether they have been crushed by the forces confronting them; whether they have become rigid; or whether, through some common miracle, they have been able to carry into their mature years, the laughter, the crying, the joy, the ability to feel pain that are the very signs of life within the human soul. These things are sensed by us all, but seldom organised into a comprehensive view of life and an extraction of meaning. Often it is only in our dreams, through the ability the unconscious has to draw out the significance of such widely divergent experiences, that we glimpse the unity behind phenomena. This sense of unity is an essential of spiritual life – i.e. we all have a liver, we breath, we have come from a mother, so share a universal experience.

This experience of touching the essence of life is wonderfully portrayed in the following example. It is quoted from J. B. Priestley’s book Rain Upon Godshill:

Just before I went to America, during the exhausting weeks when I was busy with my Time Plays, I had such a dream, and I think it left a greater impression on my mind than any experience I had ever known before, awake or in dreams, and said more to me about this life than any book I have ever read. The setting of the dream was quite simple, and owed something to the fact that not long before my wife had visited the lighthouse here at St. Catherine’s to do some bird ringing. I dreamt I was standing at the top of a very high tower, alone, looking down upon myriads of birds all flying in one direction; every kind of bird was there, all the birds in the world. It was a noble sight, this vast aerial river of birds. But now in some mysterious fashion the gear was changed, and time speeded up, so that I saw generations of birds, watched them break their shells, flutter into life, mate, weaken, falter and die. Wings grew only to crumble; bodies were sleek, and then, in a flash bled and shrivelled; and death struck everywhere at every second. What was the use of all this blind struggle towards life, this eager trying of wings, this hurried mating, this flight and surge, all this gigantic meaningless effort?

As I stared down, seeming to see every creature’s ignoble little history almost at a glance, I felt sick at heart. It would be better if not one of them, if not one of us, had been born, if the struggle ceased for ever. I stood on my tower, still alone, desperately unhappy. But now the gear was changed again, and the time went faster still, and it was rushing by at such a rate, that the birds could not show any movement, but were like an enormous plain sown with feathers. But along this plain, flickering through the bodies themselves, there now passed a sort of white flame, trembling, dancing, then hurrying on; and as soon as I saw it I knew that this white flame was life itself, the very quintessence of being; and then it came to me, in a rocket burst of ecstasy, that nothing mattered, nothing could ever matter, because nothing else was real but this quivering and hurrying lambency of being. Birds, men and creatures not yet shaped and coloured, all were of no account except so far as this flame of life travelled though them. It left nothing to mourn over behind it; what I had thought was tragedy was mere emptiness or a shadow show; for now all real feeling was caught and purified and danced on ecstatically with the white flame of life. I had never before felt such deep happiness as I knew at the end of my dream of the tower and the birds.”

The totem as symbol

Some North American Indians developed the totem out of similar processes. In one generation a person might learn to plant a seed and eat the results. Later someone might see that through fertilisation more food was produced. Still later someone found that by irrigating, still more improvement was made. No one individual was responsible for such vital cultural information, and the collective information is bigger than any one person, yet individuals can partake of it and add to it. The totem represented such subtle realities, as it might in a modern dream, as Christ might in today’s unconscious. That older cultures venerated their collective information, and modern human’s seem largely apathetic to it, shows how our ‘religion’ has degenerated. Yet utilising the power of the unconscious to portray the subtle influences which impinge upon us, and building the information gained into our response to life, is deeply important.

With the growth of authoritarian structures in Western religion, and the dominance of the rational mind over feeling values, dreams have been pushed into the background. With this change has developed the sense that visionary dreams were something which ‘superstitious’ cultural groups had in the past. Yet thoroughly modern men and women still meet Christ powerfully in dreams and visions. Christ still appears to them as a living being. The transcendental, the collective or universal enters their life just as frequently as ever before. Sometimes it enters with insistence and power, because a too rational mind has led to an imbalance in the psyche – a balance in which the waking and rational individuality is one pole, and the feeling, connective awareness of the unconscious is the other.

Although it is tempting to think of the transcendent as ethereal or unreal, the religious in dreams is nearly always a symbol for the major processes of maturing in human life. We are the hero/ine who meets the dangers of life outside the womb, who faces growth, ageing and death. The awe and deep emotions we unconsciously feel about such heroic deeds are depicted by religious emotion.

Example: I see that I have honoured my ancestors by trying to understand their pathways.  I have tried to understand the things many felt were holy.  In finding them, in walking the pathways of their religion, in trying to understand them, I have not attempted to accept them as an eternal truth, but as a particular relationship with truth at that time.  The pathway fulfilled particular needs at that time.  The spirit of life is infinite, and as we relate to it we draw out of it ever-changing truths, ever-changing ways of life.  Without discarding those pathways I tried to see how the fundamentals of their way of life applies to life today.  There is a great deal that of course carries through.

The spiritual as a practical fact

Also, though this is seldom thought to be the case, religious feeling is at base a very practical thing. It is built upon a fundamental human experience – that of personal existence. What is meant by this is that in being aware of existing, you also become aware that your existence depends upon factors other than your own awareness of yourself. You need to breathe, you need to eat, you need other human beings to help you gather food, produce clothing, entertain you, share love, perhaps reproduce. In turn, food and air, people, depend upon plants, animals, bacterial action, and sunlight, for their own existence. A tree that produces an apple we eat needs the minerals in the soil as well as the bacteria at its roots. It needs sunlight for energy, as well as the rain and the bees or insects to help it pollinate. Life is a process of coexistence and interdependence. The interactions and dependencies upon which your existence, or that of the apple on the tree depend, are not limited. If we trace them we find they link not just with our earth, but with the whole cosmos.

Example: I also was walking along a lane and went down steps. I realised I was going into a slightly sunken garden. On the way down there were some Chinese hangings. Once in the garden I was wandering about alone and my mood changed into one of immense blissfulness, or perhaps intense peace. I started singing something like Gloria, Gloria, a Latin song of praise. As I sang I changed into a woman, the virgin Mary. This was because I was in a mystic state of consciousness, at one with the holy or god.

Taking the word spiritual to mean the sum total of all these linked interactions and dependencies within our body and the universe that enable our personal existence, then our spiritual life is a very basic and practical thing. It arises out of our recognition of our intimate connection and life in the web of existence. It comes from some measure of experience or sense of this connection and integration.

It is a love affair between the visible and the intangible.  It is an affair between oneself and the cosmic mystery.  This grand lover penetrates one as deeply as any physical lover.

 

When I viewed religion from the viewpoint of the man or woman on the street, I witnessed this conversation with them, and the man says, “Religion; that’s surely a direction for failures and people who can’t really cope with facing reality.”

 

And the woman he is accusing of this inability to face reality says, “You poor person!  Is your mind or awareness so tiny that you have never realised the forces and processes of your own body are beyond anything you understand?  Can’t you see that your very existence is brought about by things so far beyond your knowledge that it is only a statement of your impoverishment to suggest religion is an expression of some sort of smallness and failure.  Have you never understood that?  Have you not seen that religion is not only an acknowledgement of what we fail to understand and yet depend upon, but it is also an opening to it, a willingness to relate to it?  It can also be something far more even than that.  It is can be an active loving relationship.  And such love is an exchange, a sharing, a way of merging one with another. It is an exchange – a sharing of bodily fluids – the very substance of life.  Is that something you are afraid of?”

For me that love is the very substance of life.

Do you wash your hands of yourself?

When looked at from this viewpoint, none of us can escape the spiritual life. We can, however, relate to it in many different ways. These ways are depicted in the New Testament as the manner in which people related to Christ. Taking Christ as a symbol of the cosmic web of sentient life, people can love it, wash their hands of it, crucify it, ignore it, be healed by it, lie about it, offer themselves to it, worship it – and so on and on. The stance we take in our relationship with this larger life we are an integral part of, is the basic stuff of how we live, and the quality of our life.

In the end though, the experience of that bigger life in which we are a part, is a transcendent one. It moves our awareness beyond the limitations of thinking. It eliminates the boundaries of personal awareness. It enables us to experience, not just think about, our life as an eternal part of a great mystery. As Priestly says in describing his wonderful dream of the birds, ‘ nothing mattered, nothing could ever matter, because nothing else was real but this quivering and hurrying lambency of being.’

 

Remembering Your Dreams

Your Dream

I can imagine you, having become interested in your dreams saying, ‘Possibly dreams do have something in them that we can learn. The only thing is, I never dream!’

Of course, before one can start dealing with a dream, one has to remember it. So many people cannot recall having dreamt, that the act of remembering becomes a necessary prelude in our technique. Fortunately, one can be assured that the attempt to remember is not a waste of time. In other words, there is something to remember. In laboratory experiments up to the present time, no person has been found who does not dream. These experiments have been conducted in many countries, with various aims in view. Groups consisting of people who claim they have never dreamt, all have been found to dream. This has been done by fixing electrodes just above the eyelids. These are sensitive to eye movements, which always occur during dreaming. Thus, when these ‘non-dreamers’ exhibited the eye movements they were woken, and realised they had been dreaming. Such tests were also carried out on those who claimed total insomnia. It was found that although these people slept less than normal, they did sleep and dream; which was proved by their eye movements, and the recorded patterns of brain activity that change during sleep. However, these people would exclaim the next morning, ‘There, you see, I never slept a wink.’ Their recorded responses, and the watch kept upon them, proved otherwise.

It was found by Shapiro and Goodenough, that particular psychological mechanisms may underlie such dream forgetfulness. Testing groups of those who did and did not remember their dreams, they found that the non-rememberers took much longer to awaken when roused. In each bedroom was an electric bell and microphone. When a sleeper began the rapid eye movements typical of dreaming, the bell was sounded, and the person asked if they had dreamt. The non-dreamers, to recall their dreams had to be woken suddenly by a greater bell volume, otherwise the dream was lost to recall. Many years previous to such experiments, Freud had said that, ‘The forgetting of dreams depends far more on the resistance (to the dream elements) than on the mutually alien character of the waking and sleeping states.’ Shapiro also felt, from the experiments, that the person who does not remember dreams, may be one who deals with his problems by denying (forgetting) them. For during the delay in waking experienced by the ‘non-dreamers’, the mechanism of their forgetfulness erased remembrance of dream portrayed emotions and desires they may not wish to be conscious of.

Due to the information such research has uncovered, it would be reasonably easy for a ‘non-dreamer’ to prove that in fact, he or she dreamt. For instance, apart from showing that everyone dreams, it was also discovered that one’s dreams occur in regular cycles. During a period of seven hours sleep, it was found that every person tested, went through the same cycle of five periods of dreaming. As Edwin Diamond has said in his book The Science of Dreams, ‘This nightly pattern is as universal as sleep and as regular as the motions of the heavenly bodies.’

The dream periods run as follows: sixty to seventy minutes after falling asleep, we dream for approximately nine minutes. After a further ninety minutes or so, one dreams for about nineteen minutes. Then after another ninety minutes one dreams for about twenty-four minutes. After the next ninety minutes the dreaming period increases to twenty-eight minutes, and the last stage, after a further ninety minutes, one dreams more or less until waking.

So to ‘catch a dream’, the ‘non-dreamer’ could set an alarm to go off after about six hours of sleep. This should catch them well into the fourth dream of the night. Realising that such cycles begin only from the time one went to sleep, this would have to be accounted for. Also, the alarm would have to rouse the person suddenly, due to their mechanism of forgetfulness. If this did not work first time, then the alarm could be set below or above the six hours. One would naturally have to make some record of the dream, as a further period of sleep could easily obliterate the hard won memory.

Fortunately, this ambush type technique to catch a dream may not be necessary. It has been noticed time and time again by those working on dreams, that once a sincere interest in dreams has been aroused, one usually begins to remember them. While you are reading this book for instance, you are undoubtedly unaware of your big toe. However, now that your big toe is mentioned, you begin to become aware of the sensations of its form, clothing upon it, position in relationship to the rest of your body, etc. Similarly, when one’s interest is aroused regarding dreams, one begins to become far more aware of them. If one subsequently writes them down and tries to understand them, then such remembrance becomes even easier. Therefore, allowing one’s interest and enthusiasm full rein, will in itself usually pierce the veil of forgetfulness. In fact, you will probably remember a dream tonight!

There are also a number of ways in which we can further and extend such remembering. Realising what was said concerning the mechanism of forgetting, we can use these same principles for remembering. It was said, for instance, that one may forget because there is an unconscious wish not to face the symbolised emotions, desires and fears of the dream. Therefore, if we change our attitude, release it, so to speak, we may find dream memory more forthcoming. To do this we have to realise that the main aspects of our being can be summed up as instinct and sex drives – feelings and emotions – thoughts, principles, philosophy and the unknown parts of ourselves. Do we, for example, hold rigidly on to particular ideas, unwilling to explore new thoughts, other religious codes, extensions of learning? Do we limit ourselves to only a particular set of emotions and sensations, preferring not to explore the ranges of our feelings? Do we deal with our instincts by denying any such part of our being? And what of the unknown? Is it disclaimed; denied? Or are we willing to tread carefully into it?

Asking oneself such questions, as sincerely as possible, may help one to discover whether or not there is a strong unconscious desire to ‘forget’ anything outside of one’s present experience. These parts of ourselves might be summed up by the words, Sensuality – Sexuality – Sympathy – Empathy – Insight – Understanding – Transcendence. If we are shutting any of these forces or factors out of our experience, we may be missing some element of ourselves necessary for completeness. Admitting the possibility of such incompleteness, is an important step in remembering dreams.

Finding Ones Dreams

Obviously, the putting aside of emotional or mental attitudes is important in any type of remembering. This includes memory of real events just as much as dreams. Therefore, to understand the workings of our everyday ability to remember might also be helpful. This is because we can use it as a technique to ‘call up’ dreams.

If we take the trouble to analyse carefully any act of memory, we see that a very special state of mind is necessary. This becomes more obvious when we remember the times of not being able to recall ordinary memories that usually are so available. Supposing there has been an accident for instance, and I am telephoning for an ambulance. If I know the injured person well, and am asked to give their name and address, because of the emotion of the moment it might easily happen that I am flustered by the question and find it difficult to answer. Or else, if in a situation such as an exam, where questions need a speedy reply, and a great deal rests upon being able to answer, one might very well find known information beyond recall due to one’s fear of forgetting, or overactive attempt to remember. One other typical situation is the attempt to remember somebody’s name, which somehow seems ‘on the tip of one’s tongue’, yet never emerges. When analysed, this is often due to feeding into our memory system a wrong re-call stimuli. Or, put more simply, we may feel sure the name begins with ‘B’ and are searching through the ‘Bs’; while in fact the name is Miller, and thus should have been called up under ‘M’. So holding the ‘B’ in mind has actually blocked the memory. Then, as soon as we drop the search. and thus drop the blockage, up pops the right name.

From this very quick summary of memory tactics, we can build a method of recalling dreams that will work if used correctly. It is obvious from the examples used that strong desires to remember are as blocking as the fear of failure. Particular emotional or mental biases are also causes for blocking. So also is the search conditioned by information that is thought to be right, such as our search through the ‘Bs’.

As for the actual method, it is this. As soon after waking as possible, ask the question ‘What has been dreamt?’ Having formed the question, one now has to realise that as one has never been conscious of the answer, one is looking for information one has never known. Therefore, all attempts to search for the answer must be avoided, as one does not know where or how this information is filed, The question must be held steadily without even a hope of response, or fear of failure.

Also, as we have no idea of the subjects or images of the dream, we have to leave ourselves wide open to all images and ideas. I can only describe this as standing in a stream of images and ideas, letting them all drift past without interference until the right one comes. When the actual memory comes, there will be an immediate realisation that this was a dream, despite all the other images. Why this is so I cannot explain. But just as, when the right name is remembered, there is a feeling of sureness, fitting the name to the face; so there is immediate sureness fitting the memory to the question. Such a technique has many other uses, but is excellent for bringing dreams to consciousness, and with practice, one begins to feel one’s way around in the technique. If all this seems rather technical, then the simple expedient of trying to recall dreams as soon as one awakes, will work wonders.

Recording The Dream

If remembering the dream is the first step, recording the dream is definitely the second step in dream interpretation. The importance of this lies not simply in having a record of the dream. Having already mentioned the tricks memory can play with dreams, we can see that the recording of the dream is also to guard against such vagaries. One should therefore attempt to write down the dream as soon as possible. All relevant details should also be included. The following example of a dream record shows two possibilities of recording the same dream.

‘I dreamt that a short slightly glowing bolt had entered into my side, and I knew in that moment I had become pregnant with my child. I turned and told my husband, but as he did not seem to hear I did not repeat it. It seemed only to matter to myself.’

If we analyse the feelings in the dream closely, however, the description of the dream might enlarge as follows:

‘I dreamt that a short, slightly glowing bolt had entered my side. I felt great excitement at this, as if I had long awaited it, and was now fulfilled in my waiting. In the dream I knew that the bolt was something divine that had now entered my being. I also knew in that moment that I had become pregnant with my child, and it would change my life. I told my husband about this, but it was as if he couldn’t hear because I was speaking on a different wavelength or something. Then I realised that this should be kept to myself. That I was to give myself over to the child within, that it would grow strong.’

These little additions are so important in correct dream analysis. If they are lost much relevant information arising from them in interpretation is lost also. If we are earnestly working with our dreams, such a record should be made of every dream. Even those that seem inconsequential should be noted down. Why this is so will be explained in later chapters. Therefore, even such a small scrap of a dream as this next one is important: ‘Dreamt that the vision in my left eye was distorted at times, making me see things out of focus or as one would see the reflections in water after a stone is flung in.’

To anyone who has worked on dream interpretation the meaning is very obvious, and also reveals helpful advice to the dreamer. If you cannot yet see its meaning. come hack to it after reading the next few chapters. In this way you will see that an apparently unimportant fragment should be recorded.

A large, stout notebook is best for recording, as in this way all one’s dreams are kept together for easy reference. Possibly a loose-leaf notebook is most adequate, as interpretations and further comments can then be added. But if one cannot find time to write one’s interpretations, at least write down the dreams and date them.

There are also other methods of recording the dream, such as drawing or painting it. Writing it in story or poetry form also is excellent. These methods are more fully dealt with under the chapters on ‘Interpretation’. Although it is not necessary to use these other forms, they do have a very real place in dream analysis; and where the dreamer feels an inclination towards them, should be indulged in. I have only mentioned writing, painting and drawing, but any art form can be used to express and give concrete form to the dream content. Always record it as a straight description first, and then express it in art form, if inclined, later.

Such methods of recording the dream are by no means new. In our mention of the Naskapi Indians, it was said that the individual Naskapi tried to follow the instructions of his dreams. ‘and then to give permanent form to their contents in art’.

Many dreams have thus been the basis of plays and religious rituals. In this way, whole groups could take part in the dramatisation and experiencing of the emotional, instructive and transforming influence of a dream. If it is wondered what point there is in this, we have to remember that as individuals and as a society, we face certain difficulties. We may have terrible depressions that block our normal activity in life, or it might be eruptions of anger, aggressiveness, or sexual drives, that we find difficult to deal with. In other people or races, lethargy, intellectual inertia or fear may prevent a balanced life. Dreams sometimes portray to us an antidote to such states of being. This is usually done in the dream by the release or expression of a new realisation, a new emotion, a new symbol, or a new energy. But the dream happens in the subconscious. So the task is to bring this ‘antidote’ to our everyday life. To ‘bring it home’ to oneself and others, a permanent record of the dream’s content in art form or drama is tremendously effective.

In recording our dream, our temperament can be given free rein. Basically, however, it is sufficient to write it down in full.

Secret of the Universe Dreams

Writers commonly quote the experience of William James who, while under anaesthetic dreamt he found the secret of the universe. What he was left with was the doggerel ‘Higamus Hogumus women are monogamous – Hogumus Higamus, men are polygamous.’ Their conclusion is that dreams cannot be truly revelatory. While it may be true to say that some such dreams contain little which adds to the dreamers understanding, many dreams give insights which profoundly alter the dreamer’s future attitudes or actions.

Revelatory dreams are more common to men than women. This may be that more men concern themselves with questions of what the universe is. If the dreamer creates a mental or emotion tension in themselves through the intensity with which they pursue such questions – and we need to accept that often such intensity arises out of anxiety regarding death and one’s identity – then the self regulatory process of dreaming might well produce an apparent revelation to ease the tension.

On the opposite tack, research into mental functioning during dreaming, or in a dream like state as in research using LSD, show that there is an enormously increased ability to access associated ideas, allow feeling responses, and achieve novel viewpoints. Freud pointed out that dreams have access to greater memory resources and associated ideas. P. H. Stafford and B. H. Golightly, in their book dealing with LSD as an aid to problem solving, say that this dream like state enables subjects to ‘form and keep in mind a much broader picture…imagine what is needed – for the problem – or not possible…diminish fear of making mistakes.’ One subject says ‘I had almost total recall of a course I did in thermo dynamics; something I had not given any thought to in years.’

Although humans have such power to scan enormous blocks of information or experience, look at it from new angles, sift it with particular questions in mind and so discover new connections in old information, there are problems, otherwise we would all be doing it. The nature of dream consciousness, and the faculties described, is fundamentally different to waking awareness, which limits, edits, looks for specifics, avoids views conflicting with its accepted norm, and uses verbalisation. A non-verbal, symbolic scan of massive information, is lost with people who have not developed this other level of thinking, when translated to waking consciousness. See Dimensions of Human Experience

My experience is that the full content of revelatory dreams is almost wholly lost on waking. Dream images are like icons on a computer screen – You have to ‘click’ on your dream images to make them come alive. Thinking about them doesn’t work. You need to open yourself to the magic of them. To make them into the wonderful gateways they are you may have to learn certain skills.

If the individual explores the dream while awake however, and dares to take consciousness into the realm of the dream, then the enormous waves of emotional impact, the massive collection of details, the personality changing influence of major new insights, can be met. The reason most of us do not touch this creative process is in fact the same reason most of us do not attempt other daring activities – it takes guts. See: Big Bang and God are the Same – creativity and problem solving in dreams; Being the Person or Thing; Grof’s Influence.

 

Secrets Learned From Dreams

The First Great Secret

One of the great secrets observed from over fifty years of dream watching concerns health. It is that many of us carry within us fears about our health, or about our own personal adequacy. This is natural enough, but in dreams these feelings are shown as being like a hypnotic suggestion for the body to be ill. These negative emotions are like bad infections or viruses we have contracted. To counteract their influence we must take time to feel the basic force for life and survival in us. Become aware of the force that is constantly renewing body and mind. Imagine it pervading every part of you and work with it toward healing and renewal. Whatever feelings of pleasure you can find, let them spread to areas of pain or discomfort. Let them fill your body and restore it. See Life’s Little Secrets

The Second Great Secret

The second secret is that behind the facade we may erect to tell people who we are, each of us want to be capable of loving and supporting at least one other human being. We want at least one other person to be glad we exist. This secret of love permeates your sexual drive. Even the sex cells – the sperm and ovum – when they meet, burst asunder and give themselves completely to each other. Dreams suggest we have an urge toward this at a personal level. We deeply desire our lover to so open to us, and we to them, that we take them into ourselves and are enriched by the merging of the other personality without compromising our independence. If you are frightened of this giving of yourself, you remain frustrated in a large degree. And one of the great themes in dreams is the constant reminder of the fears and hurts that stand in the way of such love. See: second example in Wife; Learning to Love 

The Third Great Secret

The third secret is about death. A huge number of dreams reviewed in my work on this site are about death. Most of them reflect the fears and images we have of death, and show us running from these painted masks. Many such images are what we have inherited from our culture, through its lack of positive statements about death. The secret witnessed in dreams is that if you dare stop running from these emotions and cut-out cartoons of death, with their maggots and rotting bodies, you will break through the screen the images are projected upon. The wondrous reality of life will be waiting for you there, ready to share the love and transformation that lies in death. Dare to challenge the mirage. See second example in Creative Dreaming and Problem Solving; Dreams of Death and Beyond.

A man had died. I was his son and had just been told. Walking along the road to my home in the dark evening I passed an empty house. –  It silently said to me DEATH. On my left as I walked was the undertaker’s. Again it spoke DEATH. In the empty street a cold wind blew fallen leaves., telling me of my fathers DEATH. Further along the way a house was brightly lit from within, and I could see people inside. It shouted to me LIFE. A young girl child rode by on a bicycle and she was LIFE.

Nearer home I met my young son and carried him in my arms, wrapped in my coat against the wind and I was holding LIFE. And in that way I realised that always and everywhere, everything is living and dying. And pain dropped away from me.

The Fourth Great Secret

A fourth secret is that we can communicate with the deeply unconscious aspects of our nature such as body processes. Dreams portray the life process as intelligent and purposive, as something existing in all things and synthesising all individual experience. Life as presented by the unconscious is responsive to our own actions and attitudes. If we care for and love the innate process of our being, such as daring to face the cultural and childhood sources of internal pain, and heal them, then life loves us, responds more fully to us, and opens its treasures to us. See Opening to Life

 The Fifth Great Secret

I arrived at the view that one of the great secrets of life is that every event of love or hate is recorded in the Temple of our body. The other great secret was that we cannot feel sure about ourselves, we cannot be truly alive, while there are parts of our nature and history that we do not acknowledge. This felt like a revelation I wanted to promulgate. It was of enormous significance. See LifeStream 

 The Sixth Great Secret

I saw that dreams expressed an archaic wisdom. It expresses that wisdom that the collective awareness has gathered through unimaginable variety of life experience. It expresses the possibility of all the behavioural responses that it has learned. For instance, in human society there are all manner of forms of relationship between the man and the woman. There are men with one wife, no wife, many wives. There are men who never enter a relationship in their life. There are women without a husband, with one husband, with several husbands, or several partners. Of course the unusual forms of sexuality such as prostitution and homosexuality explore yet more varieties of personal experience. It isn’t that any of these are right or wrong, but simply variations on a theme. As in music that satisfies, the theme may explore conflicts, pain, discord, as the music moves toward integration, toward synthesis and satisfaction.

A single cell, which is a seed from which all life forms evolved from, doesn’t become old or die because it is immortal, for it keeps dividing and doesn’t die. In dividing it constantly creates copies of itself, but as it does  so it gathers new experience, it changes what is copied, so becomes the ‘seed’ for multi-cellular organism. We all started from the original one cell, and we, you and I,  are the result of gathered experience.

No plant or creature grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories, education and programming you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very ancient self. To explore it see Opening to Life

Our genetic coding presents us with a body and its possibilities, but there is also an experience that lies behind that coding. There are the millions of years life experience that led to the code. The archaic in us exists because of connections. The whole matrix of life exists because of connections. Many of these are obvious as we see in the food chain, as we see in the relationship between plant life and the sun and the earth. We see these connections in the way that bacterial life and plant life and human life work together. One thing relates to and depends upon another thing. At that deep level we all acknowledge that dependence. We feel it as a sort of holiness or awe. We see it as a fundamental truth and unfortunately often ignore it.

Our tribal religions often, unfortunately, get disconnected from that archaic source of life. Frequently the religion, although it states it is about the creative impulse in us all, often doesn’t help us to connect with that creative source, with that internal archaic awareness. So dreams, and the love that people there for each other, are always a direct route to reconnection. They take us back to that wisdom, that tried and true experience. They arouse again the awareness of our connection with each other. See Life’s Basic Functions

The Seventh Great Secret

Dreams are an expression of biological life forming a dim awareness of itself, an ill-defined awareness of itself as it came alive in the creatures swarming on our planet. Life became conscious in that way millions of years ago. From the point of view of human consciousness we do not see it as a powerful form of consciousness. But the focused self-aware consciousness of human beings feeds back into that unfocused ocean of awareness. That fundamental awareness, or what the Australian aborigines call the Dreamtime, and what a lot of people probably mean when they use the word God, is transforming constantly through the impact of new experience. This transformation comes about through an interaction between the focused self-awareness of human beings and that fundamental awareness behind existence. That core awareness is archaic and, ancient, a collective experience of everything that has lived. That core awareness is unfocused, but in that is its wonder. It doesn’t particularise. It doesn’t end up being any one thing. It remains all encompassing, a collective. Because of the interaction between physical life forms and that core awareness it is evolving all the time.

Example: The only way I can describe it is to say that it felt as if I am standing in an open space in a town without any other people about. But what I was standing in was the many images, felt threats, fears, longings that assail human beings. So in one sense I was standing in the middle of a dream, and I was surrounded by the images of the felt threats, fears, hopes, that in fact impact on human consciousness every day. They impact in a way that are for many people torments, perhaps even life-threatening, and that for some may lead to suicide. But as I stood in the middle of these things and they came at me one after the other in the form of images, but images that were deeply felt, I was like a burning flame. I don’t mean that I looked like a flame. I mean that as each image impacted on my consciousness it burnt out. I was naked consciousness, and as each form, as each image attacked my nakedness it was burnt away, perhaps by my recognition of it as simply an emotion, a feeling, an image that in itself was a passing show of things.

I don’t think I have ever before felt such an amazing feeling as that magical sense of being able to stand amidst anything and everything that came towards me and yet remaining as pure, naked awareness.

This led me on to looking at, or wondering, why, as human beings we should be so dominated by images and imagery. In particular I was thinking about how our culture, and how we as individuals, are so manipulated by the images that are thrust at us day after day week after week, and year after year. The images of the big powerful male, the beautiful female, big tits and perfect teeth, the whole business.

So many things happened here it is difficult to remember them all and to record them in any sort of real sequence. But it seemed to me, and it was an incredibly powerful experience to find my way through, that the influence of the images deeply pervades us. It leads to a culture in which millions of human beings are led to want the next gadget, it leads millions of us into a consumer society where we constantly feel the need to get something, to buy something, to be a consumer.

But also, at the end of burning through all the imagery, and the recognition of what an extraordinary thing that was, I stood in the middle of something that I did not at first recognise and so was once more caught up in. What I mean by this is that my nakedness burnt through image after image, emotion after emotion, but suddenly one came that appeared to be real to me and so I was carried along by it, became lost in it. And what I became lost in was the sense of purposelessness that I see as underlying much of our culture, and also one of the big driving forces in being consumers. In imagery this was like looking around and seeing okay, I am this naked consciousness, but so what? Here I stand in the middle of rather grubby and ugly streets and houses. Here I exist in the middle of a culture whose games have no great quality to excite me. Is that all I am? Is there nothing else?

What is important here is that for many of us the meaninglessness, the purposelessness, is as real as bricks and mortar.

The experience of being naked awareness, of burning through image after image, feeling after feeling, viewpoint after viewpoint, left a great impression. Out of it realisations were emerging. The major one was that there is no danger in being awake in ones dreams, but one must beware, or be aware of, the fact that sometimes, as happened with myself in meeting the feeling of pointlessness, one can become possessed by the image, at least for a while. When that happens the image, the emotion, the viewpoint takes on a concrete reality, a supreme sense that there is nothing beyond it. Perhaps a way of describing this is to say that if you could imagine that you are standing in an open space, and by some trick of technology an image of a house is built around you, with walls, furniture, windows, etc. If you can imagine that you discover in imagery that the doors are locked, then you are completely trapped. But you are trapped by nothing but what you take to be real.

Perhaps the central secret of this is that what happens in life and in our dreams is that what we do tend to see as real what is created out of our own mind stuff. It is created out of our own emotions, our own fears and hopes. There is no way out of that unless we recognise the material it is made out of it is the energy of consciousness.

This is so like the ending scenes in the film Matrix, that I am sure whoever wrote the script had a profound awareness of this. The hero of Matrix breaks through the surface appearance of things and enters into the very programming of the apparent world around him. This is what happens when we wake up to what underlies all our experience whether as a physically external world, or as our own dream world.

The point is that whatever we believe we are; whatever we believe the world is; it becomes that because we create it out of our mind stuff. I am not suggesting that the external world is a figment of our imagination. What I am saying is that our feelings about it, our perception of it, are shaped by our own innate nature. Truly, the Buddhist search for Moksha, or freedom/liberation, does arise by recognising that all experiences are a play of consciousness.

Perhaps the central secret of this is that what happens in life and in our dreams, is what we do tend to see as real is created is out of our own mind stuff. It is created out of our own emotions, our own fears and hopes. There is no way out of that unless we recognise the material it is made out of it is the energy of consciousness – our own thoughts, beliefs and convictions. See Archetype of the Search for Self; Dimensions of Human Experience

Quick And The Dead

If you walk along almost any thoroughfare you will meet a lot of nearly dead people walking. Strangely, most of us are not disturbed by this. Is this because we are one of the nearly dead ourselves?

If you doubt this then consider for a moment the tens of thousands of people who manage to live their life because they are using anti depressants. Do a little research and look up how many millions of gallons of alcohol people consume each year, and how many billions of cigarettes are smoked. Both are know to be downers, influencing the nervous system, making the users a little more dead to sensation and finer feelings, a little nearer death.

But there is more to being quick or dead than what we drink or use to manage carrying on existing. Apart from dealing with depression, if you look at the faces you pass on the street you will see etched in misery or emotional pain. You will see whole faces and bodies carved by years of rigidness and anger. Perhaps more than anything else you will see most people stricken by blindness that is if you are yourself not stricken. And if you are not one of the blind you will understand that many people with an adult body are still infants or children inside.

So what is the difference between being quick and dead?

Well, to be quick has it meaning from the biblical term ‘the quick and the dead’. The word quick means to be alive, and was originally linked with the awareness of a baby’s first movements in the womb. That was named ‘the quickening’. To be dead is to lack that ability to move or express any response to the process of life and the environment. Something or someone who is ‘dead’ does not have the ability to grow, to develop, to move on from a given situation. So the baby who does not quicken does not go on to grow, to respond, to develop a relationship with anyone or anything. It does not unfold its innate qualities or potential.

At the beginning I used the term ‘nearly dead’ and this is because many people in today’s world are only partially expressing the qualities of life. For instance if we planted a seed and it pushed up its first leaves, grew a little but never flowered, we would think there was something wrong with it. Human beings are the most magnificent animals on this earth, and yet look around and see how many shine with this glory, or are really expressive of their potential. Of course there are many causes for this, but at the moment I only want to define what it means to be ‘quick’ and ‘dead’ in the context of what has been said.

Briefly, to be ‘quick’ means to be fully human, and expressive of all the possibilities of humanness. This means to be whole, and to be whole means to be in touch with and capable of expressing all the facets of oneself.

If a person is paralysed through illness or injury we and they can accept that they are not whole. They may struggle to regain that wholeness, and medical science is racing along in its research to help people do that. However, if a person has no real memory of their infancy or childhood; if they have no real experiential awareness of the animal impulses and instincts that drive them; if they cannot vitally know their integration and dependence on their environment and the universe, it is not considered worthy of mention or of frantic medical research.

Just one small example for instance. If your environment of solar energy, plants and plankton stopped functioning, then shortly you would not be able to breathe and you would die. Food would also end, and as your existence is actually a result of flowing air, water and food through your system, you would cease to be as a physical being.

That is an example of he blindness most people suffer. They cannot actually see themselves as a part of this flow, and as integrated totally in their environment and the cosmos.

Another example of the blindness leads to a totally false sense of who we are who you are. Everything you are is an expression of, or has its roots in the past. Every word you use, every thought, although it may be personal, could not exist without the immense past of culture, language development and brain structure. If this is difficult for you to see, then you are suffering some level of blindness. But it is psychological blindness rather than physical. Although obviously it also influences your physical sight, otherwise every plant you looked at, every tree you passed, every person you met, would be seen as an outcrop of aeons of past events, and with visible connections with the totality of their environment after all, what are roots and leaves? Such blindness arises from a level of deadness caused by some facets of yourself being injured, prevented from developing, or suppressed because of pain or anxiety. Your body would be recognised as millions of years old, the recent emergence of the life form that began at the very beginning of life on earth, and has reproduced itself through countless development, in an unbroken chain from that ancient beginning, over three and a half billion years ago. That is how old your body is. There was never a gap in those early life forms reproducing themselves and your body today. How could there be?

And that brings us to what was said about the forgotten childhood and the unknown inner animal. We easily understand now that archaeology and palaeontology uncover information through delving through the different strata of the earth, and that beneath today’s streets and cities lie hidden strata showing enormous differences of life forms and environment.

However, our own growth from a primitive cellular life, seen in the sperm and ovum, through an apparently aquatic body form, to our present physical shape and orientation, show us that as a total being we are everything in our inner strata from single celled creature to complex and self aware human. If we think of this as one might an archaeological dig, then just under the surface of our urbane self lies our own childhood, infancy, and life in the womb. If you cannot access them, then you have lost awareness of the factors, forces and experiences out of which your present self is formed. As such you are partly out of control of your life.

The layer beneath the baby self is the animal, and below that is the reptiles. These are actually part of your physical structure, and are reflected in the parts of the brain. (See Brain Levels.) Again, if you are not aware of how they affect and influence your conscious behaviour, you are in some degree deadened.

The foundations of choosing a partner and developing a relationship lie in the animal brain. But the foundations of that are in the reptile brain. Unconscious damage or suppression of these lead to distortions in the way we love and relate emotionally and sexually. Having worked as a therapist and also explored my own infant and animal self, I know that traumas or engraved behavioural responses at those levels can lead to the inability to truly merge and love another human being. It can lead to the longing to get close, but a pain that closes the gates as closeness develops. When those levels of self are badly injured or disrupted, instead of love and ability to cherish, there arises murderous rage.

If we lack easy expression of our child self we will lack full playfulness and bonding in sex and love. It is from the child level that we learned love or pain in a relationship. It is from there we really bond or fail to bond with a partner.

Becoming whole and alive means awareness of our inner baby and child, and a loving relationship with our animal self neither of them easily found in a culture that is so oriented toward money and possessions, and that has as its very basis, the obtaining of what somebody else has money, property, and territory.

Coming alive may mean going down into the cellar in which your child has been locked in the dark. It means undoing the trap and the desire to kill that we have visited on the animal within us. So many people now have sympathy with external animals, but unfortunately they are still killing or torturing their own animal.

Watch your dreams and witness it for yourself. They show you the world beneath you the hidden strata of your existence.

Recurring Dreams

If we keep a record of our dreams it will soon become obvious that some of our dream themes, characters or places recur again and again. These recurrences are of various types. A certain theme may have begun in childhood and continued throughout our life – either without change, or as a gradually changing series of dreams. It might be that the feature that recurs is a setting, perhaps a house we visit again and again, but the details differ. Sometimes a series of such dreams begin after or during a particular event or phase of our life, such as puberty or marriage. There are several types of dreams such as recurring body dreams, recurring sex dreams, recurring death, etc. These are all similar in how to deal with them, but you might find other information under – Dream Body – Body – Parts of – Body Dreams –Sex and Dreams – Sex and Identity – Energy, Sex and Dreams – Sex – Dreams of Death and Beyond – Dreaming of Death – The Archetype of Death – Rudolph Steiner’s Philosophy of Life and Death

The theme of the dream can incorporate anxious emotions such as the example below, or any aspect of experience. One woman, an epileptic, reports a dream that is the same in every detail and occurs every night.

In general dreams recur because there are ways the dreamer habitually responds to their internal or external world. Because their attitude or response is unchanging, the dream that reflects it remains the same. It is noticeable in those who explore their dreams using such techniques as described under Practical Ways of Understanding Dreams – processing dreams, that recurring themes disappear or change because the attitudes or habitual anxieties that gave rise to them have been met or transformed.

Also we often dream about the same place again and again. It is because we each have an inner life that is real in its own way. We built and revisit such places again and again because we learnt or experienced something connected with it, and so gradually add to it or need to revisit it. See Inner World

Example: A woman wrote to me that she dreamt the same dream from childhood. She was walking past railings in the town she lived in as a child. She always woke in dread and perspiration from this dream. At forty she told her sister about it. The response was, ‘Oh, that’s simple. Don’t you remember that when you were about four we were walking past those railings and we were set on by a bunch of boys. Then I said to them, ‘Don’t hurt us our mother’s dead!’ They left us alone, but you should have seen the look on your face.’ After realising the dread was connected with the threatened loss of her mother, the dream never recurred.

People often dream about a place they knew over a period of years, like a school, college, the house they grew up in or experience things that are marked in their memory. They have recurring dreams about these places because we are all largely created as a personality by the things we experience and remember. It is out of such memories that our dreams are created, and the recur because they have contributed to things we face in the present, for from them we develop attitudes, skills or even negative feelings, all that influence us.

Sometimes people are puzzled by dreams about a country they lived in during their youth and now have lived in a totally different country and environment. In our youth or in the past we have absorbed so much and experienced so much that laid the foundations of our responses and behaviour, so dreams use the place again because there are problems from the past we need to review, or simply because we are always upgrading the past from present experience.

 Example: ‘This dream has recurred over 30 years. There is a railway station, remote in a rural area, a central waiting room with platform going round all sides. On the platform mill hundreds of people, all men I think. They are all ragged, thin, dirty and unshaven. I know I am among them. I looked up at the mountainside and there is a guard watching us. He is cruel looking, oriental in green fatigues. On his peaked cap is a red star. He carries a machine gun. Then I looked at the men around me and I realise they are all me. Each one has my face. I am looking at myself. Then I feel fear and terror.’ Anon.

A recurring environment in a dream where the other factors change is not the same. We use the same words over and over in speech, yet each sentence may be different. The environment or character represents a particular aspect of oneself, but the different events that surround it show it in the changing process of our psychological growth and experience. Where there is no such change, as in the example above, it suggests an area of our mental emotional self is stuck in a habitual feeling state or response.

Some recurring dreams can be ‘stopped’ by simply receiving information about them. One woman dreamt the same dream from childhood. She was walking past railings in the town she lived in as a child. She always woke in dread and perspiration from this dream. At forty she told her sister about it. The response was, ‘Oh, that’s simple. Don’t you remember that when you were about four we were walking past those railings and we were set on by a bunch of boys? Then I said to them, ‘Don’t hurt us our mother’s dead!’ They left us alone, but you should have seen the look on your face.’ After realising the dread was connected with the loss of her mother, the dream never recurred. Another woman who repeatedly dreamt of being in a tight and frightening place, found the dream never returned after she had connected it to being in the womb.

Recurring dreams such as that of the railings, suggest that part of the process underlying dreams is a self regulatory homeostatic one. The dream process tries to present troublesome emotions or situations to the conscious mind of the dreamer to resolve the trauma or difficulty underlying the dream. An obvious example of this is seen in the recurring nightmare of a young woman who felt a piece of cloth touch her face, quoted under nightmares. See: nightmares; processing dreams.

But recurring dreams can arise because there is a need to learn something. Also the growth instinct is incredible powerful one and pushes us through growth, sometimes unwillingly. And if we resist it can cause recurring dreams. Here is an example

Example: A young girl kept coming up to me and placing my hand upon her breast. She was just developing her breasts, and they felt so very beautiful.

Still asleep I asked myself what the dream meant, and saw that the young girl is the divine female that I long for. At present she can only relate to me as a young girl whose breasts I caress, due to the fact that my sexuality is still developing. In other words, I have not yet developed out of my sexual stage of growth. But if I simply allow this stage to go on being experienced, it develops into a new relationship with her. She herself develops or grows as I grow, and this suddenly threw a new light on all my sexual dreams in the past.

recurring body dreams When we have recurring body dreams it can point to a psychological problem, because the body is often used parts of the body to represent such problems. See Body – Parts of to find the psychological meanings.

Problems we have not resolved show up in our dreams first. If the mental problem is not dealt with it may then show as a physical difficulty.

recurring themes If there is an overall activity such as walking, looking, worrying, building something, or trying to escape. Define what the action or theme is and give it a name, such as ‘waiting’ – ‘searching’ – ‘following’.

 Example: Feeling tired – exhausted – just lying drained of energy. I am conscious of people talking, saying I was ill. I thought I was just tired. Then asked what the matter was. I was told it was my heart, ‘dry and hard like a boiled egg’ they said. Found I couldn’t talk. Tried to write, wanted A. to know that I loved him, but the pen kept drying up. Finger and feet began to get cold. An icy coldness slowly spread all over my body. A liquid warmth was then all around me. I thought I was hemorrhaging. A needle was stuck in my left arm and my chest was being cut open – it didn’t hurt. There was a lot of activity. They said I had gone. I was trying desperately to let them know I was still there. Then I was in a bag and sliding off a table. The bag was tied above my head. Then from the confined darkness I was free. There was a brilliant light all around. I could still see the sack with a body still in it far behind me. I was incredibly happy and full of energy. Trish L.

Well, what do you make of the dream? What is suggested by Trish’s hard-boiled heart? What does it imply that Trish is ‘gone’ but still there?

There are several themes here that are worth noting. The first is the theme of tiredness. Then there is the theme surrounding her heart and the inability to express her feelings. Perhaps we can contain those two by saying it is about ‘emotional dryness’ or coldness. Then there is the theme of death/life, neatly packaged together. And something that we might miss is that overall an enormous change is going on. Trish changes from feeling exhausted and dying, to being ‘incredibly happy and full of energy’.

So if such themes recur often it suggests there is something needing attention because you are stuck somewhere. If you feel stuck in your life in some way see Stuck in Life

recurring nightmares Are those that happen again and again, weekly or even more frequently, and have the same basic plot. These are of course the same as ordinary nightmares. Their recurrence however is something to consider.

Dreams appear to present clear indications of what you are facing in your present life. They reveal past experience that through trauma may need to be met in order to live your life more satisfyingly or efficiently. There is neurological evidence that brain cells undergo a learning process during dreaming. In the area of personal growth, inquiry into dreams such as recurring nightmares shows them to be an attempt to bring to consciousness and release past traumas such as abandonment in childhood, involvement in war environments, or car accidents.

Hundreds of ex-soldiers suffer recurring nightmares about battle scenes. The dreams re-presented the original experience, often accompanied by the original body movements made to escape the horror being faced.

 Example: ‘I dream night after night that a cat is gnawing at my throat’ Male from Landscapes of the Night, Coronet Books.

The dreamer had developing cancer of the throat. These physical illness dreams are not as common as the other classes of nightmare.

A young woman told me she had experienced a recurring nightmare of a piece of cloth touching her face. She would scream and scream and wake her family. One night her brother sat with her and made her meet those feelings depicted by the cloth. When she did so she realised it was her grandmother’s funeral shroud. She cried about the loss of her grandmother, felt her feelings about death, and was never troubled again by the nightmare. The techniques given in processing dreams and Being the Person or Thing will help in meeting such feelings.

 

Reincarnation And Dreams

When people have accepted the idea that they may have had previous lives, they frequently then wish to remember what was experienced in the past, who they were, and what lessons were learned or failed. And of course one of the biggest arguments against past existence is the very obvious lack of memory. ‘If I had lived before,’ they say, ‘then I would surely remember it.’

People tend to believe their life began at birth or at conception. That is quite a false concept, for the seed or cell that you developed from wasn’t a new thing, for no plant or creature grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories you gathered this time are what you built your personality from.

Remember your memory as a seed/cell stretches back much farther than your brain memory, so an old house can represents a past dwelling place. Although most of your actions arise from your conscious personality, behind that lies the immense experience of the long past, so your mind that is unconscious gives you stature, breadth, and quality, like the body beneath the clothes/personality.

Before we can properly understand how to work with dreams to recover our lost selves, we must see just why we do not, in general, remember our past. Imagine a tulip bulb in the earth, unseen, unexpressed. In the spring it produces leaves, a stem, and a flower. If the flower were a conscious being, it might look at what was visible of itself. From such a study it might say, ‘I have a physical body which has never existed before. I am a unique individual, I am born, I live, I will fade again and perish.’

The self and the Overself

Indeed the tulip flower and leaves perish, but the bulb draws back into itself their essence as they fade. Next spring up comes another tulip. Once more it may look at itself as if it were a conscious being. But suppose this one were more persevering than the first, and went beyond the obvious: supposing it went beyond its personal awareness into consciousness of the bulb which gave rise to it. Then it might say, ‘I am certainly a unique being who has never previously existed. Yet, at the same time, I am created from the essence of other tulips existing in the past, and the part of my being which lies beneath normal awareness exists beyond my personal death, and holds in it the experience of many other tulips.’

This is a helpful but not perfect analogy. Our present personality has never existed before. Searching within its own experience and memories it could never find memory of our past lives, for it has had none-but yet it has been created out of the ‘essence’ of other past personalities. Tendencies, unaccountable fears or talents, give the clue to these past selves. But behind the personal consciousness lies what Jung calls the Self, or Overself, the Spirit, which gives rise to being after being, in search of self-realisation, and only when we become aware of this aspect of self do we become aware of our link, in the overself, of all these past selves. Our personal consciousness does not reincarnate; it is the overself that unfolds into physical life in order to experience itself in particular ways. See Mushrooms

Example: The plan of man went into action. Downward he went from heavenly knowledge to mystical dreams, revealed religions, philosophy and theology, until the bottom was reached and he only believed what he could see and feel and prove in terms of his conscious mind. Then he began to fight his way upward, using the only tools he had left: suffering, patience, faith, and the power of mind.

At present man is in a state of great spiritual darkness – the darkness which precedes dawn. He has carried his scepticism to the point where it is forcing him to conclusions he knows intuitively are wrong. At the same time, he has carried his investigation of natural phenomena to the point where it is disproving all it seemed to prove in the beginning. Free will is finding that all roads lead finally to the same destination. Science, theology; and philosophy, having no desire to join forces, are approaching a point of merger. Scepticism faces destruction by its own hand.

Things other than pattern concern the soul in its selection of a body: coming situations in history, former associations with the parents, the incarnation, at about the same time, of souls it wishes to be with and with whom it has problems to work out. In some cases, the parents are the whole cause of a soul’s return; the child will be devoted to them and remain close to them until their death. In other cases, the parents are used as a means to an end-the child will leave home early and be about its business.

The personality is shaped by three or four incarnations, the portions of the earthly experience on which the individuality wants to work. The emotions and talents of the person reflect these incarnations. The dreams, visions, meditations-the deep, closely guarded self-consciousness of the personality is the pat­tern of experience among the other states of consciousness of the solar system. The intellect is, roughly speaking, from the stars: it is the mind force of the soul, conditioned by its previous experi­ence in creation outside the solar system, and dimmed or brightened by its recent experiences within the solar system. Quoted from The Story of Edgar Cayce

If it is our eternal overself that holds the awareness of many lives, and if we lack consciousness of our eternal nature, then it is obvious we will also lack memory of past existences linked with our present life. And because we are woven of the wisdom and folly, hates and loves, of these past selves, we carry with us yet another possibility of forgetfulness. Many of us, even in this life, have no memory of our own childhood and infancy – I mean detailed memory. But thousands of people undergoing psychotherapy where they meet the traumas of their past, recover a detailed experience of their infancy, or even their birth and life in the womb. Painful past experiences causes us to shut out memory. Such barriers are also built between the small self we know as our present identity, and the enormity of the self we are in our eternal aspect.

Thousands of people at present only know tiny parts of their complete nature because of this. If you cannot remember your childhood in its unfolding; if you cannot remember your life in the womb; if you cannot remember your life in eternity, then you really only know a tiny part of yourself. No wonder you cannot remember the much greater and more challenging memories of past lives linked with the present. Such remembering needs courage. It needs the gradual melting away of the subtle and crucial barriers built between consciousness, between our present identity, and our fuller memory of self.

These three things (a) different centre of consciousness between overself and ego (b) wilful turning away, and (c) barriers of bitterness, grudges, pain and unforgiveness, effectively shut us off from knowing who we are in our entirety.

But there is one other excellent reason our present ego is exploring experiences it might never gain if it knew all. One of the reasons the Overself takes up physical life is to develop waking awareness in a self-conscious state. To be self conscious we must of necessity exist within very small boundaries of awareness. If we were aware of ALL-there would be no self – or self would be very difficult to hold onto. Certainly we would not be able to experience the world in the way we do. Once this ego, this self, has been developed and is strong enough, then gradually the boundaries can be enlarged, but not too quickly, for the ego is a very vulnerable thing. In an evolutionary sense the self aware identity is a tiny infant newly arisen on the world scene. In fact enormous numbers of people breakdown into mental illness, alcoholism, drug addiction, medical sedation or depression because of this vulnerability. And we must remember it is difficult enough to cope with the problems of this life. Memory of others would bring back the urges, fears, pains, and talents of the past.

First of all heal the present

Therefore, if we are approaching the study of dreams for the purpose of discovering our relationship with our overself and through this our experiences, karma, and talents from the past, we must expect to meet certain activities in our dream life.

Firstly, it does not often happen that dreams show us our past lives until we have fairly well integrated the aspects of our present personality. When we first come to dream study, we usually have to work for some years on using the dreams to integrate our present psychological state. If one is a woman, one has to learn properly to express to a fair degree one’s own femininity and also to be capable of meeting and expressing the masculine side of self. Conversely, the man has to meet and integrate his feminine nature. The problems of our infantile relationships with our parents; our sexual nature; our ambitions; all have to be faced in some degree before any real entry into past life contact is made. Some memories may arise before this if they are important to what is being met in the present, but to begin to actually integrate the past cannot take place until we have integrated the beginning of this present life. See Ages of Love

The simple fact is, if we have not the mental, spiritual, or moral strength and ability to integrate our present life we obviously also lack the equipment to face and integrate the past ones, and this is why integration of the present stands like a barrier in the way of exploring the past. But another barrier also stands before us: like the barrier of integration, it exists in the invisible realms of our soul, intangible but very real.

It lies in our relationship with the overself. As memories of the past are only in our eternal nature, to reach them we must relate to, enter into, or become aware of, our overself. Therefore, when we have begun to develop qualities that enable us to deal with psychological problems, our dreams begin to instruct us more and more how we may then nurture attitudes in our soul which will extend and deepen our relationship with the overself.

Such dreams may instruct us in certain types of meditation or the development of particular attitudes of mind or behaviour, and we should apply them to the best of our ability.

Only then does a particular type of dream begin to occur, marking the start of a process which, if persevered in, will frequently lead to the unconscious life actually breaking through into waking consciousness, bringing direct experience, of past lives.

A man of twenty-one who was interested in dreams but had not particularly worked with them had the following dream.

‘I seemed to be a young man, not myself as I am, living in Germany in a past age. As this man I was a well-known writer or poet, yet I was of peasant stock and lived in the forest. My writings had become fashionable, however, and because of this notoriety I had been invited to a ball given by the local nobility. This was not because I was liked or admired by these people, but to enable them to say they had seen me. In fact, I was somewhat despised or looked down on because of my background even though I was well educated and capable of the necessary social graces. Because of this, at the ball, the younger men took every opportunity to discredit me. But I did not seem at all perturbed, dancing with the best of the ladies, young and old.

‘As the evening drew on, however, the young men became more aggressive. I was pushed or tripped in ways meant to look accidental. They wanted me to lose my temper so they would have an opportunity of attacking me. When I did not respond as they wanted me to they became openly aggressive and encircled me, pushing, insulting, and trying to start a fight. I knew if I did, they would beat me badly. Suddenly, when violence could no longer be avoided, I cried out a call. It was the call of the Zimmermen (the woodsmen) for I had expected the crisis. Immediately, my friends of the forest, who had been waiting at the windows and doors, leaped into the room with a shout, and a battle royal began. Nobody was really hurt, but both sides relieved their dislike for each other, and afterwards my comrades and I walked back through the dark woods to our homes . We sang the song of the Zimmermen as we marched, and this song I remembered even when I woke.’

This dream may seem to contradict much of what has been said, for the person had not given time to self study, but it is typical of the occasional dreams people do get before a substantial contact with the past has been made. The dreamer had recently stayed in Germany for some months and had begun to write poetry there. During the years that followed he in fact wrote much poetry. No further dreams of that nature followed.

This dream may seem to contradict much of what has been said, for the person had not given time to self study, but it is typical of the occasional dreams people do get before a substantial contact with the past has been made. The dreamer had recently stayed in Germany for some months and had begun to write poetry there. During the years that followed he in fact wrote much poetry. No further dreams of that nature followed.

Example: I noticed a large rag doll on the floor. I seemed to know the doll belonged to Joan, and was unconsciously used as a substitute for her deep longing for a son. I held out my hand to the doll, with love, and it came alive and crawled to me. It came to me as a lonely child might come into one’s arms hungering for love. I held it close to me, and Joan came over and I held her too. Then all barriers seemed to melt, and everything disappeared from view. All that existed was I as a united being and consciousness. It was, I think, beautiful. I used the word think, because I find it difficult to describe the experience. We melted into each other beyond the sense of being separated by the surface of one’s skin If one literally entered during sexual intercourse, and melted together like drops of water uniting, this is how it would be.

We stayed like this, in a sort of darkness, for some time. Then I seemed to be just myself again, and was blowing down my nostrils clearing mucus. Breath came out and out and out without having to breathe in. In some way I breathed into the rag doll and it became an actual child. But then I explained to Joan that the doll had been a lifeless manifestation of her longing for her son. But her longing was part of what a mother does on giving a child an inner life. I had breathed life into the doll and it now had a soul, which was why it was now human. But it would soon die. This was because it needed to die in order to reincarnate as one of their family. Its soul would be born soon in a body they would form – in a baby they would have – a boy child.

But We Are Dealing with the Dream Process

The Guardian of the threshold

In this type of dream a fairly straight memory is presented, and is not repeated. It is a spontaneous event, a gift as it were, from the Self, and it cannot be repeated because the personality has not forged they key which opens the door to its source. The dreams which arise when we develop into higher awareness are usually of a different nature and nearly always bring, not only memory, but also the lessons to be learnt from the memory. They come loaded with comment from the Overself on how these memories relate to present situations we face.

To understand this process let us look at a series of dreams experienced by a man over a period of about three years. He had been studying his dreams seriously for a long time, and had even been shown in dreams a particular type of meditation, which he had thereafter practised daily for at least two years.

Dream 1.

Before I went to sleep that night I focused on the question -Who am I, really?

The dream was vivid, and still gives me shivers to this day. I dreamed that I looked up and there was this incredible star that was emanating points of light in the sky. It got brighter and brighter and the bottom-most point reached down to where I was and transported me up to the star. The points of light came out from the centre in all directions, and I found myself on the end of one of the horizontal points. A wonderful (female) voice spoke to me and said this is who you are, and I had the strong sense of being located at the end of the horizontal light bar. Then she said and this is who you are and carried (transported in some way) me to the next bar of light, where I saw another version (incarnation?) of myself (in a different time and place, although I knew that the essence of this version of me was really me)

She continued transporting me from bar to bar where I experienced myself in many different versions in the past, present, and future. I had different skills and interests that were the focal point of each version of myself–a musician in one, a farmer in another. Some of the versions were females, although I experienced the same sense of self in all of them. Then she returned me to the horizontal bar of my current self and said to me that all of this is who I am, but that now she was going to show me who I really am. Then she drew me into the centre of the star (light, energy source) where I merged with her and could see each of the emanating points of light as manifestations of a single source or spirit.

It was one of the most incredible feelings of being integrated and whole that I’ve ever experienced, and I basked in the feeling for awhile just absorbing and soaking it in. Then she returned me to myself (with a cosmic wink) and I slept peacefully for the rest of the night. Ever since then I haven’t felt the need to ask who or what I am, and I’ve seen my various abilities and struggles in life in a totally new way. C.A.

But although not as dramatic, here is a dream that sums it up.

Example: ‘I dreamt I was in the jungles of Vietnam, standing near a railroad track, when I felt a sharp pain in the back of my neck. I felt myself rise out of my body, enter a large room, and sit down beside a young man. I asked him what had happened. He said: `We were both dead. I was killed in an automobile accident.’ I didn’t believe him. I saw two doors through which people were coming and going. Some looked happy, others unhappy. Then my name was called, and the young man said I was to go through one of these doors. I found myself standing in a large room facing a group of people seated behind a long table. The man presiding had an open book in front of him at which he looked from time to time. He spoke to me and said: `John Walter Mc-Gregor, you are physically dead and this is where you are judged. You have been found wanting because of your failure to heed the teachings of the woman, Nancy McGregor, your mother in this life.’ I insisted I was still alive. The man took me to the jungles of Vietnam and showed me my physical body lying there dead. He said again: `You are physically dead. You will, however, have another chance. You will return to earth in the body of a newborn baby, once again to learn these spiritual teachings.’ ”

One month later, in September of 1965, the man was sent to the jungles of Vietnam.

I believe this dream came as a symbolic warning to change his destructive attitude toward life lest his own life be cut short. This dream had a profound effect on him. He began to take religion seriously, and I am thankful to say that, after two years of service in the jungles around Danang, Vietnam, he is out of service and planning a career as a psychologist. Through this dream experience, the High Self was most effective in bringing about the desired change. Quoted from Dreams Your Magic Mirror.

Here is clearer evidence

Captain and Mrs Battista, Italians, had a little daughter born in Rome, whom they called Blanche. To help look after this child they employed a French-speaking Swiss “Nanny” called Marie. Marie, the nurse, taught her little charge to sing in French a lullaby song. Blanche grew very fond of this song and it was sung to her re­peatedly. Unfortunately Blanche died and Marie returned to Switzer­land. Captain Battista writes: “The cradle song which would have recalled to us only too painful memories of our deceased child, ceased absolutely to be heard in the house … all recollection of it completely escaped our minds.”

‘Three years after the death of Blanche the mother, Signora Battista, became pregnant, and in the fourth month of pregnancy she had a strange waking dream. She insists that she was wide awake when Blanche appeared to her and said, in her old, familiar voice, “Mother, I am coming back.” The vision then melted away. Captain Battista was sceptical, but when the new baby was born in February, 1906, he acquiesced in her also being given the name Blanche. The new Blanche resembled the old in every possible way.

‘Nine years after the death of the first Blanche, when the second ‘was six years of age, an extraordinary thing happened. I will use Captain Battista’s own words: “While I was with my wife in my study which adjoins our bedroom. We heard, both of us, like a distant echo, the famous cradle song, and the voice came from the bedroom where we had put our little daughter Blanche fast asleep. … We found the child sitting up on the bed and singing with an excellent French accent the cradle song which neither of us had certainly ever taught her. My wife asked her what it was she was singing, and the child, with the utmost promptitude answered that she was singing a French song. “Who, pray, taught you this pretty song?” I asked her. “Nobody, I know it out of my own head,” answered the child.’

Here is another experience, received in a dream state.

‘I lay in my bed unable to sleep, and because of this decided to try an experiment. We had been discussing earlier the possibility of emptying the mind completely and I decided to see if this could be done. After quite a time had passed in trying I felt it was impossible, gave up and fell asleep. The next thing I knew I was suspended above my body which was asleep on the bed. I felt as if I had returned to the womb, but it was not the physical womb but the cosmic womb. There was a wonderful feeling of love and bliss and being cared for, that completely enveloped me. There was also an awareness of my oneness with God and every other creature and being in the universe, and yet also remaining an individual. There were several questions on my mind at that particular time, and I found that without actually being told the answers I knew them intuitively. I knew my forthcoming marriage was right; also the doctrine of reincarnation and karma which I had at that time been wondering about. I knew that I was surrounded by a love and protection that made all my actions right because I could not go against that which was right in the face of this experience. I wished that I might stay always in this wonderful state and knew that this was akin to what death felt like, and knowing this one should not fear death which was an expansion of oneself. Gradually I returned to my normal sleep-state and woke up, but the feeling of the experience stayed with me for quite a while afterwards.’ B.C.

But here is one with proof.

Example: It began after a father-son bonding trip to the Cavanaugh Flight Museum outside of Dallas. Bruce picked up a video of the Blue Angels navy flight exhibition team for his 2-year-old son, James, who had become instantly enamoured with the jet fighters in high speed formation.

However, soon afterwards James began to smash his toy airplanes repeatedly into the coffee table screaming that the aircraft was on fire. It was then that the nightmares began. His mother Andrea would find her son thrashing around on the bed letting out blood curdling screams, shouting, ‘Airplane crash on fire! Little man can’t get out!’

The disturbing nightmares were physical too, with James kicking upwards on his bed as if trying to kick open the canopy from inside an aircraft.

It was over a bedtime story that James suddenly began talking to his parents about the nightmares, turning them from night terrors to lucid details and conversations.

James told his staunchly Christian parents, that he was flying a Corsair during the Second World War and that the Japanese shot him down. ‘Mama, before I was born, I was a pilot, and my airplane got shot in the engine and it crashed in the water and that’s how I died.’

He told his parents he flew off a carrier called the USS Natoma Bay and his name was James and that he had died during it in a horrific plane crash. The growing implications of what their son was telling them began to trouble the religious beliefs of Bruce and Andrea. When James was two-and-a-half he was sitting on his father’s knee going through a book on the Battle for Iwo Jima.

Opening the book to a picture of Mount Suribachi, James exclaimed, ‘That’s where my plane was shot down. My airplane got shot down there daddy.’ James began to draw disturbing pictures of fiery plane crashes – Dr Tucker believes this kind of compulsive repetition had all the hallmarks of how children deal with PTSD.

Bruce in particular wanted to get to the bottom of his son’s insistence that he was indeed describing the past lives of a downed pilot named James. He attended a reunion for USS Natoma Bay veterans under the ruse of writing a book and was stunned to discover the only pilot killed during the Iwo Jima operation was a 21-year-old from Pennsylvania named James Huston.

Further unnerving research revealed that Huston’s plane had been hit in the nose and lost its propeller – exactly where James had intentionally damaged all his toy planes.

As their belief in their son’s extraordinary claims grew, Bruce and Andrea began to take what he said seriously. One night Andrea said that she was told by James that his past-life father was an alcoholic and when James Huston was 13, they put their drunken dad in hospital for six weeks.

By now they had tracked down Huston’s sister Anne, who was in her 80s by now and asked her if these claims were true – which she confirmed. More staggering coincidences began to occur. James knew details that no four-year-old or even 40-year-old would know about the operational details of a Second World War fighter.

		He knew that Corsairs were notorious for getting flat tires and when handed a model of the FM-2 planes he would fly aboard the USS Natoma Bay he noted that a small antenna was missing from the side, which research by his father noted to be true.The most incredible moment though was when James attended his first USS Natoma Bay reunion. There he was stopped in the hallway of the hotel by Bob Greenwalt, a NatomaBay veteran. When he asked ‘do you know who I am?’ James replied, ‘You are Bob Greenwalt.’ Asked how he knew that by his father, James replied that he simply remembered the man’s voice.
James Leininger with his parents Andrea and Bruce

Indeed, after that, back at home in Dallas, James was sweeping the front lawn with his dad when Bruce bent down to hug his son and tell him that he loved him. James replied that when he saw Bruce and Andrea eating dinner in Hawaii on Waikiki Beach he knew that these were the right parents for him.

Bruce still has no idea how his son knew about the romantic trip he and his wife went on to start their family – before James was born. After this he was invited to Japan where he was shot down and was honoured by the Japanese officials who said he was obviously a reincarnation because he knew so much about them.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2509769/New-book-reveals-children-believe-reincarnated.html#ixzz2uWJkLKb1

Maybe we don’t want to see who we were?

One dream was that my wife was mad and had to be locked up, the other that she had suddenly become religious and had retired from the world. I treated her like an animal. She had in fact nearly gone mad, but had developed a real religious inner life of forgiveness and surrender which had saved her from insanity and had also given her an inner beauty which was apparent, and which angered me still more. Now I made her strip naked and washed her in front of my friend, doing so with much roughness. The friend begged her forgiveness for the part he had played in this, as he had never seen her before.

The dream not only shows a past relationship but also depicts the mans inner life and his relationship with his own femininity and emotions. He realised he had to accept the feelings of being a prisoner, just as his wife in the past had done. If he allowed them full consciousness in his life, and yet did not seek to escape, they would burn out and he would have dealt with that part of his karma. He managed to do this, although sorely tried, and it worked. Not only did the feeling of being trapped gradually fade, but he began to find spontaneous love for his wife. Of course, this was not a quick process.

There then followed a number of dreams, well spaced, about the integration of his feminine self, i.e. his marriage to her. In one he dreamt he had intercourse with an Indian girl on a beach and afterwards he wanted to marry her. But although nothing seemed to stand in the way of illicit relationships with her, to legally marry her presented enormous difficulties and he had to prove himself worthy. In fact, he had taken LSD twice prior to this, and longed to further investigate the inner world it exposed. He knew the Indian girl was this inner life, and his illicit, easy intercourse, the LSD. But he wanted to be personally capable of experiencing the inner world, not have to depend on a chemical, and the dream showed him the difficulties he would have to meet. Nevertheless he decided to do this rather than use an artificial method.

In a later dream, he was going with a dark, slightly oriental girl, to the Quaker Meeting House in Euston Road. Some big event was taking place. As they reached the entrance, however, they were asked for tickets. The girl had a ticket, so only she was admitted; he was ushered through another door into the Euston Road, where a battle was raging. He lay down on the ground feigning death.

The dream shows how he still did not have the ‘ticket’ the capability to enter the innermost part of himself, where the big event will be experienced. It again implies marriage or unity with his feminine nature. It also says, to do this, he must first face his conflicts, which he is avoiding by not wishing to become involved in them.

Through determining to face his inner conflicts, and allow himself to experience them, he gradually began to have dreams in which he was dressed as a soldier.

 

In his dreams this meant he was now inwardly willing to become involved in his inner battle or conflicts. He then had the following dreams.

Dream 5. I had dreamt I had joined the army, and was going to face the enemy. With many other troops I was on a boat. It was night time. Ahead, land loomed. On the left, flashes of gunfire showed, raining shells on a defenceless and innocent town on the right. Our task was to deal with these guns.

About a week or fortnight after this, I not only dreamt earthquakes occurring releasing prehistoric monsters from the depths of the earth, but also of battle. I was in the trenches. We were all keyed up. In the previous dream of war, I had experienced a tremendous fellowship, or mystical union between myself and the other troops. Now I wondered how I was going to face open combat when it occurred. But there arose in me a feeling of certain commitment to face whatever came. Then it was upon us. Bullets were flying, the signal was given, and I was out of the trench running toward the enemy, all fear gone, only the total feeling of destiny, or complete involvement. Whatever happened, I would face it.

In the light of the other dreams, I think these speak for themselves. The gunfire on the left was the arising to consciousness of the effects of inner conflict and fears. The town on the right was his outer life, being devastated by inner explosive emotions. I will let the dreamer describe the result of these years of working on himself.

The Door Opens

“The very day of dreaming I was going into battle; I began to express an uneasy trembling. The years of inner search, coupled with as much or more outer search through books and organisations, had readied me for this. I had read of others having similar experiences, and in fact had been through the same thing with LSD. But never before had it occurred naturally. I lay down and let it happen. To my astonishment not only did I remember and actually relive a childhood scene, I went right into an event from my past of great painfulness, and relived it, thus healing and integrating the emotions it had locked up.

After that time, I could enter this inner experience anytime I opened myself to it. Events from my present life and childhood were slowly brought to consciousness and healed. Then, still slowly, a wider awareness gradually emerged showing me how this life was part of a continuum stretching from the far past. But quite apart from the past, I began to be able, over some years of entry into this inner world, to be capable of moving around in it, asking questions, being taught, and discovering who I was in eternity and not just in time. It had taken me, not just counting working on dreams and meditation, but also with my exploration of occultism and so on, twenty years of searching to find this. Nevertheless, it was worth it. But of course, this must not be thought of as an end. No, it is only a beginning, for like so many others who discover their own inner immensity, in this new world I am but a baby.”

See: The House of the Ancestors; deja vu; past lives in dreams.

 

Possession And Dreams

                         I dedicate this feature

                        To the Former Me

                       Tormented as I was by Demons and Devils

 

Contents

The Devil of Public Opinion

Possession by Conviction

The Struggle with Sex

The Stranger Inside of You

The Child in the World of the Vampires

Meeting with the Devil

Possession by a Dark Shape

We are all Possessed

The Connections that can be Heaven or Hell

Possession and Dreams

In our everyday life, things such as love, anger, fear, dependence or similar interests, frequently link us powerfully with another person. Again and again I have observed that when a couple are in love, they often start saying exactly what is in the mind of their partner. This suggests they may be sharing a unity or togetherness at some level of their consciousness.

Also, a few people experience exactly the same dream on the same night, as in the example.

‘I dreamt my sister was attacking me with a pair of scissors. She backed me against a wall and stabbed me. During the day after the dream my sister phoned me at work and said she had an awful dream in which she stabbed me with scissors.’ D.

But sharing feeling links is different to feeling possessed. Love links us with another person, and maybe even allows a blending of minds, because we want to experience that. Possession refers to an apparently outside being or influence controlling us, perhaps against our will, or even without our awareness.

As an example of this, Mrs M. F. dreamt:

I was going mad. I was crawling around on my hands and knees and wailing and behaving in a most peculiar manner. I actually felt mad. But inside my head a tiny voice kept saying, “You aren’t completely insane yet — there’s still a chance.” People around me kept saying to each other, “We think she’s possessed by devils.” My sane voice then said, “Make the sign of the cross. Cast out the evil spirit.” I kept trying to do that but my hands wouldn’t or couldn’t complete the sign. I woke still feeling disturbed.

This dream clearly illustrates the frightful conflict going on between M. F. and what she experiences as a controlling influence.

Such dreams are frightening and need to be understood. The power we struggle against must be dealt with in some way. In doing so the subject needs to be clarified, and this alone can help.

Some years ago I listened to one of my stepdaughters talking with my wife. My wife started to comment on her daughter’s current boyfriend. Suddenly my stepdaughter butted in with strong feelings and said, “Don’t even say anything mum. Whatever you say influences me so much I can’t even think for myself.”

 

The Devil of Public Opinion  

Being influenced in judgment or action by somebody else is extremely common. Perhaps all of us are deeply influenced by public opinion, or what someone else will think, feel or do. A married man or woman taking a lover will usually meet their new love carefully or secretly. Their actions arise out of knowing how other people would respond. And how many of us can undress in public, or even walk along a crowded street without socks and shoes?

The degrees of such influence range from mild to the point of us not being able to do something even if we wanted to. Losing our will to that degree could be seen as possession.

Because dreams portray the different influences within and around us as external beings and things, such a controlling influence could easily be portrayed in a dream as a possessing entity.

There are many other things that “possess” us in this way, many of them unknown to us unless we confront them. If we do, a struggle of will or decision usually occurs.

I once met a reformed alcoholic, John, who told me that his doctor had given him an ultimatum. The doctor had said that John must either give up alcohol or die from liver failure. John then stopped drinking and found that the doctor had got the ultimatum wrong. This was because, when John stopped using alcohol, he started meeting feelings and anxieties he had suppressed most of his life through alcohol use. He started experiencing the everyday anxieties about paying his bills, the feelings about his past and failed relationships, about his own behaviour and who he was in the world. These were difficult for John to face, so he was tempted again and again to use alcohol to suppress or deaden such feelings. Therefore John changed the wording of the ultimatum to, “Feel my feelings or die!” As can be seen, John did not confront his difficulty until he stopped using alcohol. Sometimes it is an event or change in life circumstances that confronts us with what possesses our will.

How many of us use alcohol, cigarettes, painkillers, prescribed drugs, or street drugs, for similar reasons? Perhaps we failed to face the depression arising from a failed marriage, difficulties in parenting, anxieties about financial security, or in meeting our own past. If so, what is it that possesses us? After all, we are not fully in possession of our own mind or soul if we need foreign substances to deal with our own feelings and fears.

Take a while to think about this. How many people use alcohol, tobacco, or antidepressants? What is it, as with Mrs M. F., that is driving them mad/depressed/unhappy?

Well, I know from personal experience that it can be a feeling that we do not have the strength, the resources, to deal with our own pain or depression, our own inadequacies. See Avoid Being Victims

 

Possession by Conviction  

Having worked for many years as a counsellor using dreams, one of the awful forms of “possession” I have met in several people is something we call conviction. It is a positive word, but conviction can be a terrible influence to be possessed by. For instance, some people I dealt with over the years were convinced they were mentally ill because of the personal problems they faced. That conviction was a major cause of their misery and conflict. Once that conviction was melted and they recognise themselves as human beings with difficulties to deal with, they could begin work on reconstruction.

In a similar way, we might be convinced, or possessed by, a set of beliefs, as for instance religious convictions. And I am talking here about convictions of any sort that make a person completely rigid, and unable to take in or listen to any new experience or idea.

Sometimes we use such convictions like castle walls, to defend ourselves against anxiety, against uncertainty, against actually meeting the vulnerable and perhaps young and lovely self we were before the castle walls went up.

One of the most deadly convictions, one pressed into us frequently in today’s world, is that we do not have a central core within us, out of which healing and growth can emerge, out of which we can gain a sense of unity with the beautiful mystery that is the universe and our life in it. Without a sense of that core, we have no feeling of strength to face our own depression, our own darkness or childhood pain. Instead we have the conviction we are victims of a harsh life. As the words of the song say, “Life’s a bitch. Then we die!”

Whatever we may believe about that core, or the human spirit, we have incredible potential, amazing resources. But very often, what holds us back from accessing them is, as with John, the fear of meeting our feelings in any depth, or the lack of tools to deal with them when or if we do. Working consistently with your dreams is a path that can lead you to real transformation. It is an approach that is totally related to your own situation and needs in life. But it must be done in a way that brings you into a practical meeting with your personal history here and now, and does not fly off into fantasy about what you might be spiritually, or in past lives. See  Life’s Little Secrets  

The Struggle with Sex  

However, there is another form of apparent possession arising out of ignorance or being misinformed. The following dream illustrates this.

Example: I am 18 and recurrently dream my house is haunted or possessed by the devil. I am not religious, but in the dreams with the devil I try to remember prayers to scare him away. In every dream my family and I have to pack our bags and moved back to the old house I lived in as a baby until 7. The dreams really frighten me and I can’t sleep. Barbara.

Barbara is a young woman, and is faced with either meeting herself as she is now — a sexually maturing young woman — or returning to a way of dealing with life relevant to a seven-year old. What Barbara is in conflict with here, and fears as something alien, is her own sexual drives, her own urges toward womanhood, toward independent life.

I grew up in a society, a religious indoctrination, that portrayed sexual urges as dirty, as degrading, as something to be controlled. I, like Barbara, in fighting my own natural urges, felt possessed by the devil. Fortunately I was helped to see my own inner drives — sex, anger, the desire to exist and flourish — as natural and not devilish.

Although Barbara says she is not religious, she is obviously talking about her surface sense of herself, because in the dream she prays for help. As with Mrs M. F. 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? See Amulet

In 40 years of dream work, I have not personally come across a case of possession in which there is an actual external entity fastening on the person involved. If I did come across such a case, I would still first explore the person’s own desires, their convictions and inner conflicts. I would try to uncover what desperate longings, dependencies or fears they are not admitting to themselves. These, I believe, are the underlying causes for the apparent possession we might be facing in our dreams and in life.

However, I would be very lacking in my understanding of possession if I did not take the description of it a little further. Also, I would be hiding the truth of it if I did not admit that I have experienced it myself.

In my own case, while dealing with personal problems, and delving into the unconscious to find their roots, I have passed through a whole territory of my inner life dominated by demons that were in various measures possessing me. It took me a long time to understand, or perhaps to put into some rational definition, what these demons and possessing influences were.

My understanding today is as follows — during our life we give tremendous amounts of time and energy to certain interests, ambitions, longings and desires. Everything we do influences our body, our brain, and produces changes. Anybody who gives a great deal of time and effort to the study of colour and form, actually alters their brain structure to some extent and becomes much more perceptive in those areas. What this means is that the brain, the mind, has set up a sort of focal point around which all the information, feelings, and flow of energy, circulate. Sometimes, these interests or ambitions become so powerful they have a life of their own to a certain extent. In a very real way they possess us, and divert energy toward the goals, hopes, longings, involved in them.

 

The Stranger Inside You  

The unconscious, especially in its processing of dreams, depicts these focal points and their influence as actual things. They might be depicted as a dark shape, a demon, or a powerful figure trying to direct your activities. These dominating influences may actually be detrimental to your fundamental nature, to your happiness and health. As such they really are possessing influences sucking our energy. For instance a man might be so dominated or possessed by the desire to earn enormous sums of money, then he works himself to an early death.

In earlier cultures, they did not have our psychological language to explain these phenomena. Nevertheless, human beings like ourselves suffered the consequences of them, were haunted by them, and made ill or afraid. These cultures developed ways and means of dealing with them appropriate to their times. One of these is illustrated in the New Testament where Jesus casts out the demons. Those demons were almost certainly possessing psychological influences such as I have described. Such an influence might be a focal point for hate, for murderous rage, or even for a crazy irrational state of mind. In the case of Jesus, we see a clear unconditional love and attitude to life confronting the possessive and dominating influence of what we have called the demon. This state of unconditional living and clarity still works today. If you can arrive at such a state of mind, and maintain it in the face of the awful influence of the possessive forces at work in your nature, they will be “cast out”. This may be fast, or it may take time, but it will happen. Sometimes these influences in us exhibit extraordinary power in their hold over your mind and emotions, and in their being dealt with we face a great deal of uncertainty, and sometimes emotional upset. See Autonomous Complex

But there is yet another level of possession that is much more frequent than I believe our medical profession admits. To illustrate this I quote a dream sent to me by a woman.

I was in what looked like huge white ribs. In the ribs was a big heart beating. Beyond that was my homeopath. I could hardly breath, struggling to live. I could hear the heart beating, but as I listened I could also hear another heart beating. It seemed to me it was my sister’s heart connected to my own invisibly. The homeopath came forward and stretching open the ribs, reached into them, took hold of the invisible heart – it was like a shadow behind the other heart – and pulled it out. Immediately I could breath again and felt I was whole. In everyday life my sister and I have been incredibly linked, even to the point of having cramps at night on the same nights, though living in different parts of the world. I had become ill recently out of this connection, but as soon as I had this dream I was well again, but my sister became ill. She has just been diagnosed as HIV positive and is dying.

What this woman experienced is not uncommon. Our links with certain people are much more profound than we usually admit. A friend recently telephoned me to talk about a feeling that he was deeply possessed by his mother. He is a man in his fifties, but nevertheless feels his mother is an incredibly powerful force in his life. He said he feels almost as if she is a demon living within him, penetrating his very cells, sapping away his resolve and positive feelings.

These links can be formed through close relationship, such as that between parent and child, but also through enmity, and certainly through sexual relationship.

 

The Child in the World of the Vampires  

There is a very relevant point in ones development as a child, that explains another aspect of possession. In many cases it appears that as children there is a point where our personal will develops, and through sheer necessity to survive, conflicts with the will of mother and others. It is possible that prior to this the will and awareness was in union with the mother or its objects of love. At this point of separation the will or identity has to be defended lest it be swallowed or vampirised by mother or adults. Possessive, over caring, or dominating parents can especially be cast in the role of the vampire.

Put simply, as a child your will might not be strong enough to confront that of the adults around you. In imagery of dreaming, it would seem that your very strength is being sucked out by an attacking vampire.

As a child, the means of defence against this are many — anger — hate — revulsion — a temptation to become invisible. Therefore you might develop a strong repulsion or anger against your mother or father. This enables you to separate yourself from them, and what they want you to do.

What has struck me so forcibly as I explored this situation, is that when we come to the point of learning to love as an adult, we face again this original behaviour pattern of defence. We defended originally against the loss of identity, now, to love, we come again to the melting of our identity in another person, and the original defence and fear arise once more — in fact they had never gone — until we dissolve them by conscious understanding. At such a time, the images of possession, of demon or vampire arise again, along with the feelings connected with them. See Individuation

 

Meeting with the Devil

Having watched a person meet the devil in their dream exploration, what they arrived at is very helpful in understanding any feelings about being possessed by the devil. She saw that her lack of self esteem, her self doubts and depression were like an open door that allowed destructive feelings and fears to enter. She also saw that this awareness of evil living in her, along with the attitudes or feelings described, were in part inherited from her recent and ancestral family.

Once this is understood it is easy to see that other things leaving such a door open are childhood trauma or abuse, and the attitudes and standards we often pick up – rather like infections – from others around us, and our culture. When this ‘devil’ enters us it can lead to self criticism, negative comparisons, the denial of ones own talents and ‘light’, and in bad cases, crime, murder and the infliction of child abuse and trauma. Such feelings, such entrance of foreign and destructive forces, is seen by our unconscious as the devil, demons or even a vampire. They suck away the life force and create illness in our body. Recognising them is very important for our health and person wholeness. This is called a dybbuk in Jewish folklore. Remember that devil is lived spelled backwards, and evil is live backwards. They both suggest the turning of your life force back on itself. See Satan; Secret of Time and Satan

 

Possession by a Dark Shape  

Many people either see, feel or dream about an awful dark shape that threatens to envelop them. This can terrify them as in the past it terrified me. But understanding where such awful fears emerge from is helpful.  Here is a dream that has in it the dark threatening shape.

Example: I woke from a strange dream this morning . It was set in a small semidetached house – at least that was the feel of the place. My young children lived in the house, and there was a terrible sense of poverty and fear. All the windows were blacked out with curtains, so the place was constantly in a state of semidarkness. There seemed to be one or two Indian men, but always in the background somewhere, in a slightly threatening way. In one part of the room, in the darkness, a tall black figure stood. That is, draped in black, in what looked like a gown flowing from the head right down to the floor, with the face hidden in a pool of darkness.

One of the Indian men had somehow procured a great deal of money, but this was hidden or kept upstairs in rooms that the children never ventured into. There was a feeling that the man would kill anybody who got near the money. Also at some point it seemed that my young son had either hung himself, or he had been violent with the other children and while he slept they put a noose around his neck and suddenly pulled him upwards.

This dream was explored at length and here are the comments on what was realised.

“I am feeling in myself what the children are. I sensed them as the many flowing urges, curiosities, feelings that are in me from youth. Today this developed further. The overall and underlying background to the dream became conscious. It is all about fear, apprehension, not daring to reach out, extend myself. I recognised that feeling because at present in the relationship with my partner I went through that darkness again recently. It is made up of many different feeling states, but part of it is that contact is too painful to go anywhere or do anything. At times the only thing I could do was to read or to watch a film to completely divert my attention from this dark room, this dark place in myself.

Another aspect of it is the fear that I will do something wrong and will become the victim of somebody else’s distress or anger. Of course that links with my mother. I never saw her in that light before. Of course I recognise that she in some ways smashed me emotionally, but she had never seemed to be somebody who threatened me or punished me much in an exterior way. But as the fear clarified I could see that the threat she used was that unless I were good, unless I did exactly as she wanted me to, she would put me away from her – the ultimate threat. This of course terrified me. So some part of me cowered in that dark room. My youthful intelligence, curiosity, desire to explore relationships, all these were turned back on themselves as illustrated in the dream by the aggression that my son showed, and the children hanging him. Such held back feelings often turn into murderous rage.

Looking back I can see that I gradually, and especially in teenage, possibly from the wonder of reading such things as science-fiction and books about yoga, shut the door to that room, to that house with its latent threatening death all the time. So I encapsulated that place, sealed off those feelings, and those fears. I kept it all so dark by my own efforts. The only way to escape was to be somebody else, to be another sort of person! But of course, in the background and behind the scenes, that dark room has always been there. I revisited this part of myself in and through my relationship with my partner, and the fear I faced was again that I wasn’t loved, that there was no future in the relationship, that I am trapped in the dark place of loneliness and fear, and that whatever I do will antagonise another woman friend and bring down some sort of punishment or judgement on me. So I have recently had to confront all these and pass through them. My sense in this is that it allowed the dream and what it portrays to surface and be dealt with. And this was why and how I managed to transform the place into the dwelling of light and change.

The dark shape was of course my feelings of doom, the unspoken threat, and death. The Indian man or men represent forces or things that I couldn’t deal with, or are foreign or alien to me, a further sense of helplessness and being trapped. And all the money is really the potential that has been locked up, the value in my being that has never been recognised or used, and is there now to become a part of my life as it is has been in recent years.”

As can be seen, when it is understood there is nothing to fear, but an awful lot to digest. The fear before it was understood was so bad it paralysed the dreamer in his ability to act.

But here is another type of dark shape that is the essence of what many people fear. At first the dream:

Example: Then the scene changed and I was walking up the several flights of stairs to get to the attic room. I was holding a small dog in my arms – one of those rather flat nosed toy dogs. I arrived at the attic and put the dog down. But now the attic was empty and dark. I could feel my hair stand on end and my skin ‘crawling’. Actually I feel it all again as I write this. The feeling arose because there was an unformed dark shape creeping around at the far end of the room. The dog was really afraid and jumped into my arms.

Then the dark creature leapt at me, transforming into a massive mouth with huge fangs and awful demonic face. Immediately I leapt at it in the same way and smashed against its face with my own huge fangs. This utterly disarmed it because it had felt, in its primitive way, to terrify me. It surprised me too that I could so immediately transform into a monster when necessary. 

Then I approached the dark form, back in its original condition, trying to find out what it was and why I had met it in that way. Gradually I experienced its situation. It had originally been a human being, but had gradually lost its humanness and become this slinking darkness. I was slowly able to help it realise that it could once more take the path to become human if it wanted to. Then it asked me how that could be done. I told it that first of all it had to come out of this dark and empty place to mix with people. The human environment created a different surrounding and influence that would penetrate it and help it to change. It also asked me how I knew about its condition and how I could transform into its own monstrous form. I told it I had once experienced that condition, and that’s how I knew it was possible to come out of it.

This extraordinary dream doesn’t need much interpretation. It shows that with courage and love you can meet almost anything. The love shown was in his way of dealing with a threat and showing the person the way to a new life.

When you sleep and dream your voluntary muscles are switched off. This can mean that any dream activity that not only originates the spontaneous images of dreams, but also gives rise to all the muscular impulses that are part of the dream movements, so it would seem to you that an alien force or being has taken over. In other words because it is spontaneous, and because we do not believe that anything other than you can originate movement, it feels as if something other than you has taken over.

Also dreams arise from a very deep part of us, the Core, from which all the impulses of existing, growing and surviving originate. Even when you are awake such processes control you – for instance your breathing is only partly under your control, but all the vital things are purely unconscious and you are thereby controlled all the time. Try holding your breath and see how strongly you are possessed by Life itself.

But of course you are used to those everyday massive controls. However, sometimes our Core wishes to make us move, to control our movement, usually in sleep, but sometimes while awake. These movements are in fact as natural as the urge to breathe, but because in our culture we are so out of touch with how life works we are often terrified of spontaneous movements. Such movement are about growth of some part of us that we have not allowed before. If we can allow these and not react fearfully, then we will be shown the wonders of our life and how it originated – what is usually called the unconscious. For a fuller description ‘see’ LifeStream.

 

The Connections that Can Be Heaven or Hell

From the point of view of the deepest teachings about the nature of human life, we are all, at our very core, connected. Such links are therefore part of our very nature. But many of them are positive and supportive. Usually, the negative link, such as those described above, only occur because we, perhaps in some unconscious way, invite or support it. But of course, during our infancy, such a depth of feeling connection is natural and part of our development. It is only in adulthood and in the attempt to become independent that such powerful merging can be a threat.

Having experienced such a linkage, I say again, that the discovery and expansion of the unconditional attitude in your life is the prime force for dealing with these life sapping links. And by unconditional I mean a way of living that does not cling, does not desire to possess, looks upon jealousy and rage as a sickness, and reaches out to love and life despite pain. Possessiveness, jealousy, the rage at being left or abandoned, of being overlooked, can all become focal points for the energy that becomes a possessive demon. This is sickness — and until we admit it as such, it can still dominate us and rob us of the richness and fullness our life could attain otherwise.

There is another explanation about possession in the feature Autonomous Complex

May love go with you on your journey.

 

 

Secrets of Power Dreaming

How can you find your way through the good dreams and bad dreams you meet while you sleep? What can you do to move on from anxiety dreams and nightmares? How can you open up the possible wonders of dreaming?

Research and human experience over many years have shown ways we can work with the wonder of your dream process. From such research Dr. Nielsen and Levin suggest that dreaming attempts to create ‘fear extinction’ to deal with painful or fearful dream experience. The dream process succeeds at this when we do not wake from a fearful dream. When we wake from a nightmarish dream it has failed. As Dr. Nielsen points out, ‘If you feel yourself falling spread your arms and learn how to fly’. See Example 15 – Life Changes

This is not a crazy suggestion. Dreams are simply feelings put into images. Nothing can actually hurt you while you dream. If you really take that in and decide to confront your dream fears – don’t confuse this with externally dangerous things – you can transform your inner world of anxieties, heal past hurts, and open up the treasure house of your potential. When this happens it flows into confidence and pleasure in daily life.

Remember that in dreams you cannot be hurt or die. Whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen, so that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear; so, all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind.

Example: An actual example of this is of a woman who wrote telling of a recurring dream in which she discovered a door in her house she had never seen before. Beyond it was a whole apartment she has never known or used. It was obviously an area of her life she had never lived in, but she had no idea what it was. So, the technique of exploring the dream while awake was explained, and she imagined walking into the new apartment and observing what she felt and what memories arose. A soon as she entered the apartment she began to remember and feel again things that had happened in her childhood. Her mother and father had separated when she was very young and her mother had constantly presented her father as weak and of no value. But the feelings that arose were of the love of beauty and art that her father had shared and helped unfold in her. But she had kept that part of her closed because of what her mother had said. Now it was open to her again and she could allow it to unfold further in her life.  An important point here is that the woman did this working alone on her dream, not with professional help or supervision. See Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Potential

The steps to doing this are:

1. While awake and relaxed imagine yourself back in the dream and continue it as fantasy or a daydream and move it toward satisfaction. Alter the dream in any way; experiment with it; play with it, until you find a way to fully feel at ease with it. In doing this you must not ignore the feelings of resistance and spontaneous emotion and fantasy that may occur. Satisfaction comes only when you have found a way of integrating these into your conscious imagining. See Being the Person or Thing
2. Recognise that every part of your dream is an expression of some aspect of yourself such as sexuality, creativity, ideas, fear, and so on. In the world of dreams our most intimate fears and longings are given an exterior life of their own in the form of the people, objects and places of our dream. Therefore our sexual drive may be shown as a person and how we relate to them; or given shape and colour as an object; or given mood as a scene. Our feeling of ambition might thus be portrayed as a business person in our dream – our changing emotions as the sea or a river; while the present relationship we have with our ambition or emotions is expressed in the events or plot of the dream. So even the monsters and fears of your dreams are part of you. If you run from them you are actually afraid of yourself, of your own emotions and memories. So, in this step, you gradually meet, change, and even imaginatively become the fearful image. In that way you transform your anxiety into available energy. You overcome your fears.
3. Your dreams are a unique area of self expression. They are a safe area to experiment and experience things in any way you wish. Often we introvert, or take into our dream life, rules and fears that have no place there. For example, while dreaming, you may fall into the sea and be terrified you will drown. But that is impossible because you are only experiencing images of your feelings and thoughts. All you can do is to feel fear. You can easily breathe under water in a dream, or fly, or die and be re-born. So remove such limitations from your inner life by visualising such changes into your dreams when awake. Imagine yourself being what you can in your dreams. Even passive people who couldn’t stand up for themselves can change as they do this.
4. Recent research into how the brain works shows that it creates an interpretation of what you take to be a real external world. We each create our own internal reality in that way. Take time to wonder what reality you have created unconsciously and what your dreams portray of it. In doing so remember that any evil, any good, any demon or any god that you meet in your dreams, is any expression of your own potential to create. They are not externally real. So what world do you want to live in? One dominated by internal fears and demons? A life restricted and imprisoned by old habits and rigid rules of right and wrong? What about moving toward one that allows you to love and unfold your potential? Dream a new life!

See: Masters of Nightmares – Summing Up – Nothing Can Hurt You in Your Dreams – People Animals and Objects of our Dreams are Projections – Life’s Little Secrets – We are Paralysed –

Prayer And Dream Interpretation

In many ancient cultures the interpretation of dreams was often approached by the use of prayer or meditation.  If this were not done directly than an individual might approach it through a priest or holy man or woman who could approach the dream in this way.

One of the best known descriptions of this is in the Old Testament where Joseph has shown that he can interpret dreams. When Pharaoh had a disturbing dream he hears about Joseph and sends for him.  The meeting is described as follows:

Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I have dreamed a dream, and there is no one who can interpret it. I have heard it said of you, that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.”

Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, “It isn’t in me: God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace.”

Clearly Joseph is saying that he does not know how to interpret a dream, but God will interpret it.

To understand what this means we have to at least attempt a reasonably clear description of what happens to Joseph when he receives the interpretation of the dream.  Or perhaps another way of putting it is to ask the question, how does he receive the interpretation?

The problem of believing in God

I think it is fairly obvious that when somebody prays it is rather like asking somebody else a question.  To get an answer they have to listen and put aside their own ideas.  So we can presume that in asking for an interpretation, Joseph quietens his own personality and thoughts, and listens for an answer.

Obviously there is a problem here for many people because they cannot believe there can be a spontaneous answer from God or other than from a person’s own imagination.  The story of Joseph interpreting the dream of Pharaoh suggests that Joseph did not know through his own thinking process what Pharaoh’s dream meant, but sought help from God. Whether we believe in God as described as a sort of father figure or not doesn’t matter. We are looking at a piece of anthropological information couched in the language of the times.

The core information is that a person can gain information, help or power from a source other than their conscious thinking and knowledge. Experiments with hypnotism suggest that we are all experts on understanding dreams, but not with our conscious mind. Only when we are in a semi sleep state or a passive open state of being such as prayer or meditation might be, can we access this inner source of insight, information and power.

Everybody dreams every night as shown by sleep laboratories, and their dreams are spontaneous, and with the characters in the dreams speaking without forethought by the dreamer. So there is a source of information other than our conscious mind or imagination. In certain circumstances, such as sleep, and the passive receptive state brought on by hypnotism, meditation and other mental disciplines, it is easily observable that certain parts of our nature can express with sometimes astonishing uniqueness, without the conscious mind taking any active part in it except being quiet and receptive. See How I became a Virgin

Personally, I believe that the process behind the creation of dreams can break through into consciousness and produce similar phenomena as experienced in dreaming, when the conscious personality becomes passive and receptive. This is observable in creative people like William Blake who could witness ‘dream’ images while awake. See The Waking Lucid Dream

Joseph could of course experience and interpret in a variety of ways, but if you are uncertain about the possibility of it I suggest reading the history of the phenomena of hypnotism and of meditation and prayer.  I suggest this because the reason I am writing this feature is not to argue the point but to share something that I was involved in witnessing; namely, the contemporary use of prayer to interpret dreams.

During a lengthy period I was involved with a group of people who attempted to learn and use the passive receptive state of mind mentioned above.  I have written about this elsewhere in such features as Life’s Little Secrets and LifeStream

Some of the group developed unusual abilities in terms of how they related to their own unconscious content and what I have called the dream process.  They could, while awake, experience what appeared to be lucid waking dreams.  Very moving experiences often emerged during this practice.  Also, they demonstrated speaking in tongues, as it has been called by the Christian church. This is I feel an example of the dream process being accessed by our conscious mind. Because we join the unconscious and the conscious there is a marked difference in the responses.

To explain this in another way, people experiencing the spontaneous voice felt they were simply accessing another part of themselves that is usually called “the unconscious”.  This spontaneous voice would respond to questions from the person experiencing it.  And because of that it was sometimes used in an attempt to understand dreams.  Even when such interpretations were received, they were not taken as absolute truths, but as extensions to what could be arrived at by normal conscious thinking.  In fact, often such interpretations were truly helpful, and sometimes quite startling. This has in the past been called mediumship or being psychic. But often the stated theory behind such statements are often misleading. See There Is A Huge Change Happening

In their book Three Faces of Eve by Thigpen and Cleckley, they describe very clearly how a clear understanding of a dream can arise from the unconscious. In fact, they suggest that the master dream creator, the unconscious, understands its own language so well it can easily explain dreams, both from the person or those of a stranger. This occurs despite the conscious personality being quite mystified by the imagery and drama of the dream. This occurs because most people try to think up an interpretation, and dreams are product of the non-rational mind – the unconscious.

Dreams Understood By Using Prayer

In the book Myself and I by Constance Newland, she gives several examples of spontaneous understanding of dreams.

I think you can see from the following examples of dreams interpreted by prayer what a wealth of information can be gained. I also have to stress that the dreams had not made any sense to us before the answers we got from asking in the way described.

The first dream shows the struggle and direction from the unconscious/God/the Life Process the dreamer felt.

The dream was that I was at home in North Devon, and for some reason had decided to leave with Gwen. Somehow it was my father and mother I left.

Gwen and I were going to tramp the country, moving south. We started toward Barnstaple on foot. Gwen was going to take the road through Lee, Morthoe, and Saunton. I said why go such a long way? I tried to explain how much longer it was, and then with a smile said, “But of course, you must know all about that, as you have done this all before.”

I am not sure which way we went, but we were on the move. I suddenly realised I had left home without money, blankets, food, or anything except the clothes I stood in. I was very disturbed for a while, thinking of turning back to get money. However, I then felt if I was going on this journey I must commit myself to it. Even so I wondered how on earth I would manage without blankets, sleeping outdoors in the cold. Gwen didn’t seem disturbed, and I went on.

We came to a hill sloping down. Somehow we were then airborne and rushed downwards and across the valley. Then we became frightened because we were hurtling towards the opposite hillside at the wrong angle. We would hit it instead of gliding along above the ground until we landed like planes touching down.

A power cable was crossing the valley. For a while I held it to guide our glide, but was frightened of the current, and it was the wrong angle anyway. But somehow we managed to land okay.

I cannot remember the details too clearly, but I do remember going from door to door begging for food. Also of thinking I would perhaps meditate somewhere in a cave, and beg for my food.

The scene changed and I was in London, looking in Paddy/Charlie’s bookshop. I believe there were a lot of records there. We spoke about something. Then he led me through some streets to a woman’s house. She was in the front garden. I saw she had some sweet corn coming up. It was very vigorous. I asked her how she managed to grow it so strong. I remember noticing my feet were bare and in the earth. She said something about not wanting bare footed hippies in her earth. She was going indoors.

I was then alone trying to find my way back to the bookshop. It seemed a part of London I had traversed many times in other dreams. I recognised landmarks. It was generally to the left.

Here is the response to the dream: This was recorded as well as we could.

Gwen means that in the awakening and turning to God the desire awakes sexuality in you very strongly. But although this is awakened by God, fear of where it will lead, of what relationships it will lead into, occurs.

The argument with Gwen about going south – going south is the descent of consciousness to the body, into the sexual realm. Obviously the problem, even Gwen, doesn’t want the direct route. The problem diverts the flow of descending energy.

Going without money, etc, is the holding onto my sexual feelings. The fear of letting go of them, letting go of relationships, and the insecurity this involves, but the letting go nevertheless. One is thereby not directing or possessing one’s sexual energies. They are left to God to direct.

It is a looking around fearing what people might think.

The food is also the personal “hold” on relationships. The holding onto people, because one “feeds” on the security they bring. Not taking one’s own food or blankets is to let go of people and the warmth and support they give.

Gliding down – The descent into experiencing the problem. The flying is the being carried along by the inner forces to face or experience the fear of the problem.

The power line is the descending divine energies. I let go because I am involved in fear of failure, of being hurt. The power line is also the humility before God; the turning to God. The turning and the descending power are one.

The begging and meditation – The holding the mouth again. It is, I am here shown, the turning away from receiving what God holds out to us to partake of. The turning away through shame and fear, but through humility the acceptance of that sustenance God gives. Then the making whole of one’s inner and outer life, and the flowing of the higher life, the living waters, into the inner and outer life.

Paddy’s shop – The shop is once more the search for self, and one’s actions arising from self. Having sensed consciousness and God, there arises a working with people bringing balance between their inner and outer life: or making them aware of their inner life.

Paddy – Jock is the inner and outer life, working on the mundane, sexual, materialistic side of human nature.

Being led to the woman’s house is the release, healing; and being cast out of sick sexual attitudes and feelings. Thus enabling one to look into the people’s inner life – or something to do with the dead or inner world.

The woman is the casting out of the forces holding back the real sexual feelings. The sweet corn is the area of self difficult to grow before. But is the release, the fruitful growth of them.

The last part of the dream is the finding again of a state of inner awareness, of integration and higher consciousness, I know, or lived in, in the past, a re-establishment of old abilities.

The dreamer, Cliff, was experiencing a great deal of struggle with his sexual feelings. Some of this was in connection with his moral attitudes. There is a feeling in the interpretation that there is not a moral difficulty if Cliff is guided by the ‘divine descending forces’ – presumably the forces behind the dream process.

The interpretation also tends to lead the dreamer toward greater independence in the advice about not hanging on to security in relationship and fear of letting go. So although it mentions God and trust, it is also good psychological advice.

There are also some interesting suggestions as to the meaning of some of the imagery used. The power lines are seen as descending divine energy or influence, and the difference between Paddy and Jock. Such duality is often shown to highlight the polar opposites inherent in human nature. Because Paddy’s shop is where Cliff found several books on the inner life, it becomes for him a symbol of inner influence. Jock on the other hand was a very material minded person, and led Cliff as a youngster into various money earning activities. Such balance is essential.

Here is a very long dream and its interpretation in prayer/meditation.

Dreamt I was by a large river which I seemed to recognise from another dream. Across the river a man and boy were going to start fishing. The man had a very smart case on a bike which was carrying his rods. On the radio a pop show was interrupted to say the fishing season had begun, and interviewed the man opposite me. One of my children was shouting, and I could hear them on the wireless.

Now I realised I had been waiting by the river for Sheila. I had thought she was coming back, for she had been there, but now wondered whether she had expected me to follow on. I went up some steps across the river from where I had been standing. They were by the side of a tunnel out of which the river flowed. I seemed to be also inside the tunnel looking down on the river and seeing many fish or fish shapes in the water flowing or moving to the tunnel end. I seemed to think that these fish had been released from the other end of the tunnel as it was the fishing season. Some were just fish shapes, and if you caught one – or a special one – there was something precious in them, or a prize to be gained.

The scene changed. I was in a room with a group of people, adult men and women, sitting on the floor. It was a group led by a young fair haired man in a suit – a psychiatrist. I was sitting at the back of the group. Something happened in the group that I cannot remember. But I felt the man had not seen it, or missed the implication of it; or at least, I felt he had, although there was some doubt about this as events developed.

But then the most powerful part of the dream occurred. A silver haired, middle-aged woman came and took my hand as an act of thanks and love. In some way I had helped or touched her. Maybe it was in recognising what was going on, but there was no memory of this in the dream. I now held her close as a deeper communion, and took her in my arms holding her across my lap as one might a child, cradling her head. Then I closed my eyes, surrendered, and seemed to collapse in upon myself – not in body but in consciousness. This was experienced as an intense entrance into formlessness, blackness and bodiless consciousness. I had become one with the woman and she also was taken into this experience. She cried out as it happened, “Bill! Oh no. No.”

I felt perhaps it was too much for her so opened my eyes and “came out”. But as I did so my head nodded vigorously, “Yes”. So I took this as a sign from within to carry on. I surrendered again, in oneness with the woman. She moaned but did not cry out this time. One with her I seemed to be leading her to some great inner experience or initiation through the depths of my surrender.

In the dream however, I never did seem to reach the climax of the event, or experience its end result. But from there on I slept or lay in such peace my whole body was bathed in it.

The interpretation in prayer to this dream was as follows:

This dream was brought about because you “slept” with your wife. She brought to you much that her conscious self cannot express. She will become the womb you realised in the dream.

The first part of the dream represents your lower forces flowing into consciousness. The river really represents the stream of life that flows ever on. The man is your new self dipping within for the spiritual life living within you. He brings his new equipment with him. You see the rod case as a gun case because it is transformed aggressiveness or sexual energy. The boy with the man represents your young son. He will stay with you in your spiritual search. He is the way of looking within also. The wireless is merely public announcement. Your new/present way will begin to come to the notice of the public. This is the beginning of your public recognition. Through living with love you have brought this to you.

Now you realised Sheila has been waiting for you or you for Sheila. This means that some love between you, which up until now could not flower, will now begin. Expecting you to follow means she has led the way in this area of thought, but you would not let yourself follow. Through bringing your love to life, you can now express what is necessary in your relationship with her. Your present life situation will lead you to relate to people in a way that will break through their closely guarded barriers.

The river really lives within your soul; the fish are released from another reality beyond your own personal life. The reason you see living fish and shapes represents long-term benefits. Your present life brings into being factors that will not really live except in other lifetimes. These fish will nevertheless afford prizes in the form of bonus outflows from the one life. Your present life will release much that arises from the future. You are a gateway for the future to pour into the present. The past releases the living fish. Past and future are from the one source.

The next part of the dream brings you to your real problem. Your present life was brought about by much thought and love. Your situation at present is one in which love will redirect your life. The group represents the part you will play in much future activity. The man represents the scene in which you will find yourself. Your real situation is not to lead that to love. The man is your thought processes. They miss much of what goes on. The suit is orderliness of thought. Your present self relates more to what is going on beyond the intellect. The group is the people you mix with.

Unconsciously you will touch their lives deeper than you know you have. The event is people’s reaction to what you are doing outwardly. You misunderstand much of this, but your inner self sees and understands. The woman represents those who realised how you touch them. She realises through her feelings how you have entered into her. She represents the mature feelings, the spiritualised life of men and women. They will come to you, then you will bring to them your own inner life. When you close your eyes, this means you drop your outer self and allow the cosmic to lead you in relationship with that person. She cried out because the relationship will be very real and intense. This will cause you to question what you are doing, but nevertheless surrender is maintained. The lack of end to the dream means there is no end to this. The entry into other lives will be so deep, end results will not be visible. The peace is that peace you will find in this. 

Here is a dream that was not understood intellectually, but prayer led to the following insights about far future events.

Dreamt one of the children was smoking a length of rubber electric wire. It didn’t seem to have any wire in it. I told them it was better to smoke cigarettes than that, because that really was poisonous.

 Interpretation in surrender.

The dream was trying to tell you that your son B will smoke. The trouble with B is that he tries to live with three great problems. The first problem is that he lies to himself. When he lies he believes. This causes him tremendous inner confusion. The second problem is that B will live with girls (prostitutes). When this problem becomes real, B will try to give himself reasons for living in this way. The third problem is that B lives within his dreams. The power of his fantasy is that he finds it difficult to adapt to real-life demands.

The smoking brings to Mark the life which he thinks he wants. The rubber means B tries to disguise his desires, but this is more poisonous than direct expression. Let B be told that one should experiment in life to see if that is what one really wants.

When this dream was lived, you brought to B the realisation that he must live life directly.

This dream was experienced when the dreamer’s son was only young, 11, and hadn’t started smoking or going out with girls. In his adult life he became a heavy drinker, smoker, and had a lot of experience with prostitutes. It shows how penetrating such interpretation can be.

Again an illustration of long foresight.

A dream about one of my son in college, sometime in 1989

I dreamt this dream when my son was in the throes of deep depression and I could not see a light at the end of the passage. At about this time a lady that I worked with was telling me about her son who was causing her deep anxiety by running away from home with some friends, abandoning his college course and plans for the future. That night, when I was doing my usual praying for my son, I included this young lad in my prayers. I then had a dream in which I knew the boy would return home and back to college within the week; I also knew that my son would return to college at the end of seven years. The boy did return within the week and went back to college, and as proved later, so did my son at the end of the seven years.

The following dream illustrates how you can gain insight into another person dreams.

I am 23 years old and have been married for 2 years. Recently I dreamt I was on holiday in Egypt with my husband and parents. We were in the desert and I saw sand dunes ahead and camels with 2 humps. One of them licked my face. I also got very sunburnt. Could you please tell me what it means?  Eliza.

Here is the interpretation given after not understanding the dream at all.

I get the feeling from this dream that you want children. Your life is empty – a waterless desert – without them. That is not to say you have an unhappy life, because the dream shows you in holiday mood and relaxed with your family. So you obviously have their support for becoming a mother.

The big thing in the dream though is when the camel licks you. Its two humps suggest you either want or will have two children, and the lick is a sign of approval and agreement. So the sun is shining on you in this area of your life as you move on to a new and previously unexplored experience of parenthood. And the sunburn warns you to take it slowly. Don’t rush things.

Later a letter was received about the interpretation:

Today 9/11/94 you printed the answer to my letter on my dream about the camel that licked my face in the desert. I would like to thank you for this and say that your interpretation of my dream was absolutely correct. I am desperate to have a baby and have been trying to conceive for over 12 months. I have full support on this matter from my mother as you suggested, she provides a shoulder to cry on through this trying period of my life.

Yours Sincerely Eliza

Later still another letter arrived, this time from Eliza’s mother.

Dear *****,

Many thanks for your fax note sent just now to our daughter Eliza.

As Liz’s parents we know how much she wants a child, and we also know that she is aware how much we love and care for her.

Your interpretation was uncanny!!  We give you many thanks for the encouragement to our daughter.

The best regards

P and B Hanman

What is a wonder to me, even though I am involved in seeing these things happen, is that how can anyone who is totally at a loss to the meaning of a dream, receive such an accurate interpretation. And I cannot say it is through cleverness or worthiness, so I believe in Life/God as a provider of such information.

Here is another interesting dream.

My wife and I were walking out in the countryside. I looked around suddenly and saw my four year old son near a hole. He fell in and I raced back. The hole was narrow but very deep. I could see water at the bottom but no sign of my son. I didn’t know whether I could leap down and save him or whether it was too narrow. Then somehow he was out. His heart was just beating.

This dream occurred to a newspaper reporter. It was so tricky to understand so the reporter was asked to call back while the dream was investigated by praying for help. Here is what was told.

The son here represents the marriage. That is because the son was the result of your marriage. You had an awful row with your wife. It was so bad you felt it was the end of your marriage; that was why the child fell down the hole and you felt he was dead.

But suddenly the child is beside you and his heart was beating, and this show that although it was bad, there is still a heart beating between them and your marriage is okay.

That was what was told but it was difficult to believe because how could it be so definite. However when the reporter rang back he acknowledged he had an argument with his wife and he thought it was the end of their marriage. Also it was such a relief to see the son was depicting their marriage and was not a prediction.

Here is fascinating dream about spiders, and its exploration:

I found your email on the internet for dream interpretation. If this is not correct, I am sorry to be bothering you.

I have had the same dream as I fall asleep for several years. I have it nearly every night just once, sometimes, rarely, twice as I fall asleep. I dream that I find a dried piece of skin or scab somewhere on my body, usually my foot or my hand, though it has varied over the years. I begin to pick at the skin/scab and scratch it until it comes off. When it comes off it unleashes a flood of seed spiders that engulf me. Another variation is I find some odd black hairs growing out of my body and when I examine them more closely they are regular sized spiders crawling out of me and they begin to engulf me.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. Again, if this is not correct, I am very sorry for the disruption of your time. Best C

  Here is the interpretation. It was tricky because what was given seem too serious, that is why it was only mentioned in a small way:

Dear C – What I see with your dream of spiders is that there is a possibility of an underlying fear, so that when you begin to sink just below waking, just under the surface of your mind, this feeling of being overwhelmed arises. If it were a big thing that emerged it would be easier to deal with. But thousands of little things are difficult to handle because you kill some but there are so many left to get at you. A big thing you could hit with a cricket bat or kill it in some way, but the small things are more difficult. They are a sort of ultimate enemy. You need to find an image that enables you to deal with those feelings. An image that might be helpful is that of jumping into a very hot shower, one you can just about cope with. The water is pouring down and is going to burn up the little bugs. Another image might be that you walk quickly through flames that you are big enough to pass through with perhaps only your hairs being burnt, but the little spiders are going to get burnt up.

Were you at some time frightened of sickness? A sickness that could engulf you and you would be powerless against? If not that, then perhaps an image of something, or an idea of something that has stayed with you just under the surface of your mind.

And here is C’s reply: Dear *****: Thank you….THANK YOU for getting back to me with the dream information. I am fairly well educated about things but could not come up with anything for myself. I think I may have been too close to it.

You mentioned several things that seem to “hit the nail on the head” and I will explore those. The most important thing you mentioned was that of being “powerless against” illness. I do have a life long disease that is manageable but could be fatal. I think this is where I am going to start as that is what seemed to really set off bells.

I really do thank you for this. It has not interfered with my sleep and the dream only occurs as I fall asleep….once asleep, I am fine.

I thank you so much and I am sure that my partner thanks you as well……

Thank you…thank you….thank you…. With gratitude, C

The dreams and interpretations that follow are the result of the dreamer desperately searching for meaning. They may seem strange, but I include them here because of their great interest.

Two dreams. I am in the basement of our house at Woburn Walk. There is a great drain, about a yard square, which is blocked and flooded. With a poker I unblocked it and the water flows quickly away.

Now I noticed that the drain leads to an enormous sewer. My son and I go down. It is as large as big rooms, stretching away chamber after chamber. My son goes off into the sewer and I am very afraid of him being lost, as the sewers are like an immense uncharted realm, with countless turnings. I catch him and blaze a trial to give orientation. There were rats.

Now I go tentatively into the sewers. Underneath a house and a few doors up Woburn Walk, I see the outlet of their sewer blocked with an old coat, perhaps an overcoat. I poke it with my poker. It could easily be dislodged, but I am hesitant as I realised a lot of foul water will pour out and down, making an awful smell. But I feel that if I stand to one side, it will pour harmlessly into the sewer.

Second dream – In the place I live as a youth. Opposite our house is a large printing firm. It takes up several houses knocked into one. Writing this, I remember this has been the scene of many past dreams

I go to a locked doorway on the left of the building. The lock – padlock – is securing the top of the door, but by pushing very hard I forced entry through the bottom, the lock still in place. I cannot recollect why I entered, but now a man comes from another part of the building and catches me trespassing. He accuses me and I make all manner of excuses. I say I could not find the proper entrance, etc. He shows me some visiting cards. At first I am not interested, but become fascinated in colour, beauty and variety of the cards, which have flowers, butterflies and leaves on, all drawn. I feel we were working toward a resolution, but I wake before this happens.

Interpretation in surrender.

When you received this dream you brought to life within you long withheld strength. You were being strengthened by the one life. The present life could not until now reach deeply enough into itself to remove those blockages that stopped the outflow of rubbish from your system. This dream leads you through the blockages which were previously there. Through – breakthrough.

The sewers represent lower levels through which the mind travels. The sewers represent the present source of your strength. Through exploring them you will discover your past – yourself. The rats are love which was betrayed.

When your son runs away, your soul was eager to explore, but your critical mind restrained it. The reason being that when you explore the sewers you will find much that explains why mankind is in the present condition. The sewers were built by men thousands of years ago. They are the level at which mankind once lived. They are the ancient past. They are revealed now because you can face what they will show. Some of the things you find will be the things you have yourself left behind in the sewers. Through your present life you will give to many a way of lifting the sewers back to the surface. For the sewers represents a man’s sunken past. The reason they act as sewers is because in the past man acted as the means for tremendous cosmic forces to flow down into the earth. This faculty was desecrated and now what is represented as the sewers acts in man as the means by which, through which, destructive thoughts, energies, are released, lest they destroy man.

When you were a child and watched the man cleaning drains, you knew that part of your life purpose was to help people bring this function to life so they could be healed.

The strength you will find in exploring the sewers is that of being able to face the worst in human beings, and also see within it what was once whole and designed. Your strength will pierce them to a remembrance of their own sublimity.

Remember, when God brought destruction/the flood, it was to cleanse man of the desecration he had brought upon himself. God does not strike man. Man was cleansed. Then forgetfulness was laid upon him that he might beget a new life. Through breakthrough you have gained the strength to remember who you are, who we were, who you will be.

The last part of the dream means that strength will begin you to bring healing and cleansing to those whose life you touch. Three people need your help now. One is BC, pray for her. Another is Su. Lift her through your love. The third is your wife. Bring her healing by laying on of hands.

The place you broke into was locked because you had cut yourself off from your own business ability. The man is three strengths – Purpose- Prosperity – Thoroughness. Your present attitude brings you into conflict with these. The man shows you how you wish to do things in the wrong way – the wrong door. Your present direction will bring you back into this realm of ability. Let May be the time of your change. It is a printing firm because you will be led to bring ideas to many in book form.

A dream about transformation.

Last night I dreamt I was in bed with a woman B who I was in love with. We were very close, but I never had sexual intercourse with her, and the idea of this was stressed in the dream. That is the idea that I hadn’t. As morning dawned a man came into the room or area of the bed from the left. He was a very shadowy figure, and difficult to define. In his presence I saw that the sheets were very bloodstained, and wondered if he would think I had intercourse with B. I thought B must have had a period or was in some way injured. Now in the morning light I went out to a great elm tree nearby. Catching the lower branches I swung up and up with great delight and ease, to the top of the tree. It was a beautiful feeling.

Looking down I saw a rather fat greasy looking man talking to B, demanding rent she owed him. She seemed to need my help, so I went down and sorted out the difficulty.

I was then walking across a very big area of cultivated land, with thousands of tiny plants growing. I was with my wife and the children, and we were trying to get them to avoid stepping on the seedlings.

We reached a lower level that was covered in shallow water. As we paddled through it, we came to a spot where two wash sinks had been sunk into the ground, making the water much deeper. P and R, my two young children fell into these. I rushed back and pulled P out. Peter, an older son pulled R out. I pumped P’s chest and he began to breathe again. Peter was having trouble so I did the same with R. The fact of the breath pulsing again was emphasised in my awareness.

An interpretation in surrender

The release of rising energies which led by lifting consciousness.

Your lover is disorientation. The influx of massive inner and outer experience that causes a retreat, a curling up. A mass of inner release. Being in bed with her is given as the releasing of the energies. An experience of the state of massive release and conflict.

Not having sex with lover means not becoming deeply involved in the negative release. Not letting the released energies express in outer disordered activity, fears, etc. The release will be interiorised as the direction of energy. The detached watching the process of release.

The shadowy man is shown as the coming of the Christ into ones life. The measure against which one sets ones life. One’s conscience. The higher judgment. The blood is the experiencing in their sexual pain and agony. Really a very primal pain. That she is the inner energies flowing into mature growth. The energy of Life opening to God, the maturing of the individuation process. Growing as a person into higher awareness. Swinging up the trees rising joyfully to higher awareness.

The man and rent – The man is the repressed sexual energies. The back rent is the locked up energies in past repressions of pain etc. These have to be paid up, to right things.

The seedlings are the wonderful and harmonious release of energies that follow. It is the “Dance of Life.” The giving the receiving. The ascent and descent. The whole spectrum of dance.

P and R – Submergence of consciousness beneath emotions, and the breathing again after being expelled from within. The emotions had entered the intellectual realm of consciousness, sudden urging it. Like the Lotus, it is a growing above the water into the air.

Touching the More in you

A simple way of understanding how such amazing result can occur, is to see prayer as a way of opening to the More of who we are. It doesn’t have to be explained in religious terms; because simply being alive is a miracle we do not understand. And if we stand before the miracle of our own existence, and admit there is so much we do not understand, it is a first step to touching the More. We can call it the unconscious, we can call it intuition, but it is still a mystery. If we open ourselves to this mystery it may actually respond in ways we would never expect. But of course we need to open to it without all the clutter we usually put in the way; such things as this is nonsense; nobody I know can do it; I believe in a rational way of living; and so on.

If such thoughts and beliefs are put aside and you open your mind, your emotions, your body and sexual feelings, ready to respond, you have a good chance to receive the More of you.

Paths to the More

I believe there are ways we can make more use of our own level of intuition that are touched by prayer, because from a position of having no observable intuition at all, I have been able to use intuition often enough and well enough to make it an extra tool in problem solving or decision making. I have shown others how to do this, and see from this that it is a skill that can be developed or enhanced.

I have called this necessary state of mind and body the Keyboard Condition. In other words you learn to hold your body, emotions, imagination, sexuality and memories like a keyboard that can be played on by your inner self/Life/God. In this way you are holding your body free to move spontaneously; you are letting go of any control or resistances you might have in connection with your emotions; you are relinquishing your thoughts and goals, and you are leaving the stage free for your imagination – all to be able to respond to something other than your conscious will – all ready to be moved spontaneously.

Remember that when you go to sleep another will creates dreams, body movement, emotions, and all the phenomena of dreams without your conscious will needing to be active. It is this inner process, of dreams that expresses when you can create the Keyboard Condition.  If you doubt that it is the dream process, it might only be because you have not worked with your dreams in the way of asking them for advice.

Also, each person may receive information in a slightly different way. For some it comes as a physical movement, or as when a dowser holds his rod. Often it arises as spontaneous images like a daydream. Some people find themselves talking aloud from other than conscious volition; while others receive through emotional shifts. In each case, however, something spontaneous and unplanned is allowed to arise into consciousness, whether in movement, images, sounds, or emotions, or even direct knowing, exactly as dreams do.

While dreaming we spontaneously move, speak, eat, have sex, and all these arise while our conscious will is ‘asleep’ or surrendered. Therefore we can say the unconscious itself is speaking when we speak in dreams. In fact when we experience a dream we are allowing the unconscious or Life in us to communicate. But dreams are often not easy to immediately understand. But while awake we interpret what arises much more quickly. So when I allowed myself to ‘dream’ while awake the results were often startling, as what was said frequently gave information or viewpoints that were totally new or unknown to me consciously. I could ask questions about almost anything and gain an informative response. The unconscious, and of course the cosmic mind, are immense databanks of information and experience; asking a question starts a ‘search’ and ‘synthesising’ process that sorts immense amounts of data to find something matching the question. The exercises below explain ways of learning to allow your unconscious and cosmic mind to activate your speech. See Using Your Intuition – 1

A Condition of Body and Mind

So you need to practise a condition of body, mind, and feelings that allows unplanned fantasy in whatever way it is going to arise. Jung taught some of his patients to allow their hands to fantasise while they watched without planning moves or interfering, judging, or criticising. And of course, as already said, one of the big interference’s is the thought or feeling that nothing of importance can come of such an irrational activity. Perhaps at first nothing does arise, but maybe our intuition is a little rusty from years of non use and needs limbering up. How would you be physically if you had been tied and gagged for years and now someone asked you to move and speak?

At first you would barely be able to move, and only mumbling would come out of your mouth. So it is a learning process to gain this skill. Practice is necessary, just as one would with the piano or typing.

So keep on approaching the mystery that you are, and let that mystery know itself in you.

See: Life’s Little Secrets; Keyboard Condition; Self Regulation; LifeStream; Aphorisms.