Despite the terror a nightmare causes, it is a positive event in your life. The mind cleanses itself of bad dreams and disgusting thoughts through nightmares.
It's a sign that your dreaming self considers you strong enough to learn something about yourself or fix some problem. However, you may have to work hard to turn the negative into a positive. It could be emotionally taxing but will be worth the effort in relief. .
As various as our own personalities, nightmares often include being chased, brutalized, isolated, forced to do horrible things, and all manner of mayhem humans can think up..
Our nightmares are responses to both inner and outer havoc. I don't have nightmares often, but when I do they are often provoked by the news like this one in 2007:
.
I was in a prison hospital with very real, bright colors. A young man, an Arab, lay on the operating table. He was scared. I put my arms around him. I could feel his heart beat and his trembling. Then the staff took over. They began to disembowel him while he was still alive. They were really enjoying the process. I could see one blue-gowned man pull out guts and lay them on the table. The horror of it awoke me. .
The day before the dream, I had heard about some cases before the Supreme Court of death row victims remaining awake and feeling great pain before death finally came..
Also on TV a Muslim called himself an alien in America. I'm reminded of World War II when Japanese and Germans were interred here in the U S because the people couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad. The same thing is happening now in some places.
The darkness in my soul mirrors the times. I dream about these things because I’m a part of the mind of the world. It’s not all wonderful to be a part of the whole. To be aware of cruelty, to experience it from the point of view of the victim and of the perpetrator—that’s hard to bear..
When I awoke from the nightmare, I felt breathless. I was sweating and my heart thumped in my chest. I didn’t want to write it down but couldn’t get it out of my mind. As I wrote, my physical symptoms abated..
It's possible such dreams are flushing out the system, making sure all the parts work okay. The dreaming self creates the upsetting scenarios to get us emotionally revved up. This works much like our immune system where we catch a cold then manufacturer the anti-bodies to cure it..
When we move from waking to sleeping, we prepare to dream by beginning rapid eye movements (REM). We continue to breathe and our involuntary functions continue, but sleep paralysis keeps our arms and legs still so we don't act out the scenarios we are dreaming. Sometimes, when a person becomes aware that his body is paralyzed during this transition, he becomes fearful and a nightmare results. .
Alien abduction nightmares often include stories of sleep paralysis, which is a normal passage from waking to sleeping when the body's processes change. .
If the person realizes what is happening with the onset of a nightmare or troubling dream, he might be able to convert the experience into a lucid dream. The trick is to realize one is dreaming then change the plot to something more palatable or even enjoyable. .
A recurring dream with no variations in the scenario could indicate post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Don't think for a minute that it just happens to veterans of wars. They do suffer from PTSD frequently, but so do people who are victims of car accidents, floods, fires, hurricanes, and other manmade or natural disasters.
Those who have been abused as children or adults are prone to PTSD as are people displaced by political unrest and victims of crimes. Just watching Nine Eleven happen on TV and the events of the following days caused one third of Americans to suffer from sleep deprivation, according to a Pew Research Center Study. .
Previous unresolved issues in our lives can make problems worse for those who suffer from nightmares or lack of sleep. .
Nightmares are often repressed memories that surface so we can deal with their effects in our lives. The more bizarre the dream, the greater its importance..
Trust each dream as an effort to achieve greater clarity and inner peace for the dreamer. Whatever fragment of a dream is available, even if it's just seeing an image of a tiger, work with that. The next time you have the nightmare, turn and face the tiger. Ask it, "What it is doing in your dream?" It might dissolve into a kitten and become a dream ally..
Recurring dreams where the same scenario repeats or something similar happens tell the dreamer that there is work to be done. The good news is that our dreaming selves know we are capable of dealing with the underlying conditions that cause the dream. .
Nightmares can represent repressed events from our life, often unresolved problems from childhood, for example feeling unloved by a parent or bullied by classmates. Repressed memories of mistreatment by others or abuse by adults, whether physical, emotional, verbal, or sexual, often result in nightmares. .
If such memories emerge for you, there's no reason to feel ashamed or frightened. Find someone to support you in analyzing your dreams and reclaiming the memories. It could be family, friend, or a professional counselor. The important thing to accept is that you are ready at some level to deal with the emotional fallout or your dreams would not occur..
An author friend of mine, Beth Blake, tells of her daughter's nightmare that became a positive learning experience for both of them, once explained by a therapist.
When my daughter was a teenager, we had a sweet black lab named Pepper. Pepper was a big dog who loved to cuddle and, despite her size, was the gentlest dog on earth.
One night, my daughter had a bad dream. She dreamt she went into her room, and it was filled with snakes crawling all over the floor. Panicked, she ran to the living room to find me and screamed for help. I handed her a gun. She ran back to her room and shot the snakes, one by one. Instead of bullets, water shot out of the gun. As soon as the water hit each snake, the snake turned into Pepper, ending up with a room full of Peppers..
A therapist I know, Lillie Weiss, author of Dream Analysis in Psychotherapy, and Practical Dreaming: Awakening the Power of Dreams in Your Life, told me that the snakes represented scary problems in her life. As usual, she ran to me, her mother, for help. Because she was a teenager by now and not a child anymore, I did not go with her but instead gave her the tools (the gun) to handle the problems herself. When she attacked the problems (the snakes), the problems went away and were replaced by our loving dog, Pepper. .
The dream frightened my daughter until I explained to her the therapist's analysis.
All dreams, including nightmares, bring new information. A dream scenario might seem like something you've dreamed many times, but you are either not following the path toward wholeness that you need to follow or there is something new to be gleaned from the dream..
Fear of cancer surgery provoked a nightmare that became a compelling inspiration in the life of another author friend, Cherie Lee..
Two nights before my scheduled mastectomy surgery for breast cancer, I had the worst nightmare I’ve ever had. Pregnant human-animals used their extending jaws to eat part of my body, my breast. Flesh tore from my body, but I did not feel pain. Blood and urine pooled on the floor under stacked cages of creatures. Everything stank..
My heart raced, my body trembled and I wiped sweat from my head as I sat on the edge of my bed. Frightened, I told myself to write everything I remembered down. It had to mean something..
As I wrote my notes, my heartbeats slowed. I wrote faster feeling I’d lose some details if I didn’t rush. By the time I finished scrawling my notes, I realized my fear had fled. Did the act of writing that nightmare down make my fear disappear? I had no clues but I did feel everything would be all right.
To help reassure myself, I whispered, “This is a great story outline. You’re going to survive and write it, too.”.
My self-talk convinced me to go get a drink of water and go back to bed. I quickly said a prayer and had a warm feeling inside me. Soon, I slept peacefully and woke refreshed the next morning..
After my surgery with my recovery well on its way, I focused on writing every day. I made notes and organized emails to remind me about my feelings dealing with cancer. Those notes lead to a published booklet, which covered my feelings as a survivor, as I sought ways to encourage women to get their mammograms as well as let them know having breast cancer doesn’t mean an automatic death sentence..
An even more wonderful result, the nightmare inspired my first fiction publication in a horror anthology. It gave me courage to pursue my dreams of writing fiction..
Our nightmares and troubling dreams work toward greater wholeness, greater self-understanding, and spiritual growth. .
Here's a Tip
• If you have a nightmare, try to understand. Ask yourself why you are afraid. What about the dream makes you not want to finish it? Why did you awaken instead of turning the dream to something positive?
• Invoke your dreaming self. Ask it to become your friend. Ask it to send a dream figure who will help you deal with the nightmares, like an angel or a puppy.
• Re-enter your dream and continue it while you are awake.
• Remember the dream has come to serve your best interest. Try to figure out its meaning in both your dreaming life and your waking life.
• Stay alert for moments when you realize you are dreaming and try to take control of the dream and turn it to your satisfaction.
• There have been reports that some nightmares lead to diagnoses of illness, such as cancer, in time for treatment to be effective. Scan your dreams for such information for your health's sake.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Mutual Dreaming
Mutual dreams are called different names—collective dreams, group dreams, shared dreams. Sometimes discriminations are made among them. For example, in a mutual dream two or more dreamers agree to meet in a particular place they all know in waking life, like the White House. A shared dream might happen spontaneously where two or more dreamers have a dream with the same plot and characters. .
Whether we remember these dreams or not we may experience them, particularly with those related biologically. If a family has a tradition of sharing dreams at the breakfast table, both types of dreams may occur. It's healthy and normal to share dreams, although some people in Western culture shy away from doing so except in clinical settings. .
Dreams involving unborn children either by the pregnant woman or other family members, such as the father or a grandparent, often break through the memory barrier. Such dreams can result in bonding with the unborn child or drawing attention to problems with the pregnancy. .
Most Native American cultures and some African cultures have traditions of dream sharing and respect for the process. They use dreams to help guide community decision making, such as where to hunt or move their village. .
Dream sharing can benefit everyone because it increases intimacy and understanding of ourselves and others. There is an awe factor to simply knowing we can decide to dream about a place and meet others there. .
Researcher Jean Campbell conducted experiments sponsored by the Edgar Cayce Foundation and the Poseidia Institute in the 1980s. Her book Group Dreaming narrates her findings. At first she and her co-experimenters simply wanted to find out if they could meet in dreams. They discovered quickly that they could and went on to develop their understanding and protocols for experiments. They learned to recognize each other and retrieve messages sent by Campbell..
Two prominent researchers and dream counselors, Robert Moss and Jeremy Taylor, sponsor workshops where people can explore their potential for mutual dreaming. An important part of any research or just having fun with this activity is the idea of intention. Once you set your mind that you wish to experience mutual dreaming, you create an atmosphere for achieving a positive result. .
As long as you don't believe you can do it, you can't. At least not consciously. Your dreaming self who is far slyer than your waking self may have adventures despite your waking disbelief..
In 2007 I was lucky to find some online groups experimenting with mutual dreaming. At first I joined a public group that included about one hundred people. The website crashed, but some of us managed to reconnect and stay in touch in a Yahoo group. The International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) sponsors several websites devoted to mutual dreaming, so opportunities are available for those who wish to experiment..
During four years, the group headed by Bill Schuh has accomplished twenty-four experiments. Here is our procedure: We set a date. One group member decides the key we're all to guess through a dream or waking intuition. Then we post our dream reports. The key holder posts a description and sometimes a photograph of the key. There are hits and misses and near misses. It's fun..
In one experiment I dreamed I was in a boat on water hauling up a winch with the wind blowing. The key holder listed the key as a replica of a punt owned by her grandfather, who lived in England. I thought I had missed entirely. Being an American I did not know that a punt and a boat are the same thing, but of course I figured it out when I saw the photograph of a boat. .
Others dreamed of being on their way towards water and of wind blowing, so they got hits too..
In another experiment the key holder chose a silver garden windmill. Some dreamers reported dreams of silver knives, of a gray misty cloud, a mobile hanging from a ceiling, and bicycle spokes. All of these objects reflect what a dreamer might interpret when looking at a silver garden windmill. .
However, when the photo of the key was posted there were two bicycle wheels lying against a shed in the background. The person who said bicycle wheels might have been looking down on the place from afar as if remote viewing. .
My dream didn't hit on this experiment, but my near miss proved interesting, the kind of thing that happens often in our group..
I dreamed the key holder had painted a wall light blue with a rainbow on it. The key holder replied that indeed she did have a light blue wall on her back porch near the garden where the windmill stood. She said she had always wanted to paint a rainbow on the wall but had not done so. .
Did I tap into the key holder's physical location, that is, remotely view her backyard? Did I use telepathy to tap into her mind with its unexpressed desire to paint the rainbow on the wall? Is there another explanation?.
It's risky to codify our discernment in these ephemeral matters, but I keep going back to clairvoyance, also known as remote viewing, or maybe astral travel. I always do better at guessing the key if I know where the person lives, that is, I knew the punt key holder lived in England, and I knew the windmill key holder lived in upstate New York. On experiments where I've had complete misses, I've not known where the person lived..
I think I travel to the key holder's home in mind or in my astral body then actually look down at the key. I believe the person who saw bicycle wheels got his information the same way —by looking down at the garden and seeing the bicycle spokes, then incorrectly interpreting that as the key. .
Not all people participating might get their information the way I do..
Do I guess it? Do I go look at it? I don't know the answers, but I keep searching for them. .
Several of the group members believe remote viewing accounts for their hits. Others suggest clairvoyance, telepathy, and sensing the energy of the person..
One other member of the group lives in Arizona. He is the only one I've met in person. Most of our members live across the United States and a few in England, one in Portugal. So it's not that I'm touching in on them physically in the same sense I dream about a family member or friend whom I know personally already and whose environment I recognize..
The online group decided to do an informal experiment to find out whether intentional dreaming or remote viewing played a more prominent role. We set a date with the goal of visiting my living room and describing it in as much detail as possible. .
Eight people participated, four giving dream intention as their method, the others remote viewing. With a small sample it only has validity as an anecdote. Still the results are provocative. .
The four members who professed to remote view got twice as many hits as the others. Here's one of the best descriptions of my living room by a member named Parodia: I saw arches and possibly an alcove made of arches. I saw a brass or gold-colored drawer handle and a wooden secretary, the type that has a fold down desk top. I tried to get a smell and although I didn't smell anything, the color and name lavender popped into my head..
I finished the remote viewing session and went to bed with the intention of visiting the home and remembering my dream. I was aware of dreaming but had little recall. I remember being in a living room and at one corner was some type of sparkles or glittery light. I remember a sofa which was an olive green or tan color and had a multicolored throw on the back. A voice told me to "Go through the mirror." That's all I got. .
Parodia's description matched my living room in several ways. The furniture and kitchen cabinets are Queen Anne and Chippendale style. The cupboards have arches and there is an arch in the kitchen hall. My writing desk is wood with brass pulls. It is sometimes called a secretary. My roll-top desk does have a top that folds down. I have lavender curtains and patio blinds. My couch is tan/beige. There is a multi-colored throw on the white couch, and there is a tall mirror on one wall. It's hard to imagine Parodia did not actually look at my room with such a detailed description. .
Here's a Tip • With an interested partner, decide on a night to try to meet somewhere. Pick a location you both know and like, perhaps a specific restaurant or a fountain in a park. Agree to record your dreams and compare notes. • Afterward, if you both have recalled dreams, check for similarities. Did your dream actually take place in the location? What happened as to plot? Who were the characters in the dream, and what were they wearing? • Note any similarities. If there are none, you've nothing to lose by trying again.
Whether we remember these dreams or not we may experience them, particularly with those related biologically. If a family has a tradition of sharing dreams at the breakfast table, both types of dreams may occur. It's healthy and normal to share dreams, although some people in Western culture shy away from doing so except in clinical settings. .
Dreams involving unborn children either by the pregnant woman or other family members, such as the father or a grandparent, often break through the memory barrier. Such dreams can result in bonding with the unborn child or drawing attention to problems with the pregnancy. .
Most Native American cultures and some African cultures have traditions of dream sharing and respect for the process. They use dreams to help guide community decision making, such as where to hunt or move their village. .
Dream sharing can benefit everyone because it increases intimacy and understanding of ourselves and others. There is an awe factor to simply knowing we can decide to dream about a place and meet others there. .
Researcher Jean Campbell conducted experiments sponsored by the Edgar Cayce Foundation and the Poseidia Institute in the 1980s. Her book Group Dreaming narrates her findings. At first she and her co-experimenters simply wanted to find out if they could meet in dreams. They discovered quickly that they could and went on to develop their understanding and protocols for experiments. They learned to recognize each other and retrieve messages sent by Campbell..
Two prominent researchers and dream counselors, Robert Moss and Jeremy Taylor, sponsor workshops where people can explore their potential for mutual dreaming. An important part of any research or just having fun with this activity is the idea of intention. Once you set your mind that you wish to experience mutual dreaming, you create an atmosphere for achieving a positive result. .
As long as you don't believe you can do it, you can't. At least not consciously. Your dreaming self who is far slyer than your waking self may have adventures despite your waking disbelief..
In 2007 I was lucky to find some online groups experimenting with mutual dreaming. At first I joined a public group that included about one hundred people. The website crashed, but some of us managed to reconnect and stay in touch in a Yahoo group. The International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) sponsors several websites devoted to mutual dreaming, so opportunities are available for those who wish to experiment..
During four years, the group headed by Bill Schuh has accomplished twenty-four experiments. Here is our procedure: We set a date. One group member decides the key we're all to guess through a dream or waking intuition. Then we post our dream reports. The key holder posts a description and sometimes a photograph of the key. There are hits and misses and near misses. It's fun..
In one experiment I dreamed I was in a boat on water hauling up a winch with the wind blowing. The key holder listed the key as a replica of a punt owned by her grandfather, who lived in England. I thought I had missed entirely. Being an American I did not know that a punt and a boat are the same thing, but of course I figured it out when I saw the photograph of a boat. .
Others dreamed of being on their way towards water and of wind blowing, so they got hits too..
In another experiment the key holder chose a silver garden windmill. Some dreamers reported dreams of silver knives, of a gray misty cloud, a mobile hanging from a ceiling, and bicycle spokes. All of these objects reflect what a dreamer might interpret when looking at a silver garden windmill. .
However, when the photo of the key was posted there were two bicycle wheels lying against a shed in the background. The person who said bicycle wheels might have been looking down on the place from afar as if remote viewing. .
My dream didn't hit on this experiment, but my near miss proved interesting, the kind of thing that happens often in our group..
I dreamed the key holder had painted a wall light blue with a rainbow on it. The key holder replied that indeed she did have a light blue wall on her back porch near the garden where the windmill stood. She said she had always wanted to paint a rainbow on the wall but had not done so. .
Did I tap into the key holder's physical location, that is, remotely view her backyard? Did I use telepathy to tap into her mind with its unexpressed desire to paint the rainbow on the wall? Is there another explanation?.
It's risky to codify our discernment in these ephemeral matters, but I keep going back to clairvoyance, also known as remote viewing, or maybe astral travel. I always do better at guessing the key if I know where the person lives, that is, I knew the punt key holder lived in England, and I knew the windmill key holder lived in upstate New York. On experiments where I've had complete misses, I've not known where the person lived..
I think I travel to the key holder's home in mind or in my astral body then actually look down at the key. I believe the person who saw bicycle wheels got his information the same way —by looking down at the garden and seeing the bicycle spokes, then incorrectly interpreting that as the key. .
Not all people participating might get their information the way I do..
Do I guess it? Do I go look at it? I don't know the answers, but I keep searching for them. .
Several of the group members believe remote viewing accounts for their hits. Others suggest clairvoyance, telepathy, and sensing the energy of the person..
One other member of the group lives in Arizona. He is the only one I've met in person. Most of our members live across the United States and a few in England, one in Portugal. So it's not that I'm touching in on them physically in the same sense I dream about a family member or friend whom I know personally already and whose environment I recognize..
The online group decided to do an informal experiment to find out whether intentional dreaming or remote viewing played a more prominent role. We set a date with the goal of visiting my living room and describing it in as much detail as possible. .
Eight people participated, four giving dream intention as their method, the others remote viewing. With a small sample it only has validity as an anecdote. Still the results are provocative. .
The four members who professed to remote view got twice as many hits as the others. Here's one of the best descriptions of my living room by a member named Parodia: I saw arches and possibly an alcove made of arches. I saw a brass or gold-colored drawer handle and a wooden secretary, the type that has a fold down desk top. I tried to get a smell and although I didn't smell anything, the color and name lavender popped into my head..
I finished the remote viewing session and went to bed with the intention of visiting the home and remembering my dream. I was aware of dreaming but had little recall. I remember being in a living room and at one corner was some type of sparkles or glittery light. I remember a sofa which was an olive green or tan color and had a multicolored throw on the back. A voice told me to "Go through the mirror." That's all I got. .
Parodia's description matched my living room in several ways. The furniture and kitchen cabinets are Queen Anne and Chippendale style. The cupboards have arches and there is an arch in the kitchen hall. My writing desk is wood with brass pulls. It is sometimes called a secretary. My roll-top desk does have a top that folds down. I have lavender curtains and patio blinds. My couch is tan/beige. There is a multi-colored throw on the white couch, and there is a tall mirror on one wall. It's hard to imagine Parodia did not actually look at my room with such a detailed description. .
Here's a Tip • With an interested partner, decide on a night to try to meet somewhere. Pick a location you both know and like, perhaps a specific restaurant or a fountain in a park. Agree to record your dreams and compare notes. • Afterward, if you both have recalled dreams, check for similarities. Did your dream actually take place in the location? What happened as to plot? Who were the characters in the dream, and what were they wearing? • Note any similarities. If there are none, you've nothing to lose by trying again.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Reincarnation Dreams
Reincarnation dreams are easy to distinguish from other dreams because of setting details. You and others in the dream will likely wear unfamiliar clothing and the dreamscape will appear old or futuristic or foreign in some other way. You'll have a sense of yourself as someone else rather than as the dreaming self you're accustomed to identifying in your nightly excursions.
Often unsettling, the dream story may include the manner of your death as the previous personality. You will likely recognize the otherness of the dream as suggestive of a past life. If you're lucky, your dream might include verifiable personal details such as names, places, or times.
A friend of mine from my online dream group, Lorelei from Ohio, relates a reincarnation dream with partial verification. She says:
I once dreamt of walking to a convenience store where my mother was my child. She rode her bicycle beside me. As I went into the store, I felt very self conscious because I had one leg slightly longer than the other and thought people could tell.
I told my mother of this dream and she informed me her mother did have one leg slightly longer. She said it was not noticeable but her mother was self conscious about it.
My maternal grandmother died ten years before I was born. This dream was my first clue. It is possible she was sharing her consciousness with me but I have received many more clues since that suggest a past life as the explanation.
Because Lorelei's past life dream involved a family member, some might assume genetics accounted for the dream. The memory might have passed down like brown hair color. Although this could be true, scientists don't know everything yet about genetic influences.
As you might expect, more stories of reincarnation either in dreams or awake occur in cultures which accept it as a philosophical idea or as part of the religion, for example, Buddhism, Hinduism, as well as some practitioners of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.
Announcing dreams happen in many of those cultures. The pregnant woman or a member of her family dreams a family member intends to return as the newborn. Often the newborn is named for the returning family member. Sometimes the newborn carries a birthmark or other identifying mark that matches the previous personality's birthmark or other wound.
Research has supported some of these stories. Ian Stevenson wrote a book on the subject called Reincarnation and Biology.
The study of reincarnation has been one of my passions. Although I have had dreams that might include past life content, none contained much detail. As part of my personal serch, I've written a series of novels where the main character evolved from a reincarnation memory of a lifetime I lived in England in the 1700s. I knew place names but not enough detail to verify through records, however I felt a strong emotional connection to the woman, who ran an inn and was abandoned by her husband.
My friend Susan, an acupuncturist, dreamed a similar scenario although she knew the other person in her dream. She dreamed she was a peasant woman in Russia around the turn of the twentieth century. As she hoed crops in a field, a strong man abducted her and kept her prisoner, abusing her physically and sexually. She identified the abductor as the man she was dating in her present life.
When Susan told her boyfriend about the dream, he confessed to having a passion for Russian music although he had never been to Russia. A love relationship did not grow from this reincarnation--type experience, but the two remained friends for many years. Susan enjoyed the friendship and felt emotional catharsis from it as if the man had needed to atone and she allowed it.
Whether the past life information presents in dreams or in waking life, much research has been conducted on cases involving children by investigators at the University of Virginia. In hundreds of cases children gave correct details about a previous lifetime, information they could not have known through ordinary means.
The past life material might present as nightmares, particularly in young children.
The small son of Bruce and Andrea Leininger had recurring nightmares involving a plane crash. Eventually they learned he believed himself to be a World War II fighter pilot who crashed in the Pacific. .
They verified information the boy provided about the previous lifetime and wrote a book about their discoveries called Soul Survivor: The Reincarnation of a World War II Fighter Pilot. The Leininger boy was not related to the man whose past life he recalled. Such examples present more compelling evidence than ones like Lorelei's or mine..
As with the Leininger boy, reincarnation dreams or nightmares often reoccur in a way that forces the dreamer to attend to the problem. .
Psychologists and counselors use hypnotherapy as a technique. They hypnotize and regress their patients to the previous lifetime. Sometimes the problem is resolved by greater self-understanding, whether or not verification in records is possible. .
My experience about the woman in England came at a time in my life when I had divorced and needed to establish myself as a high-functioning single person. I drew strength from her personality and confidence that I could make it on my own..
If a past life dream comes to you unbidden, there is probably some unresolved issue in your present life provoking it. Look for similarities and differences between the dreamed lifetime and your present circumstance. Think through what you could learn if the past life personality were a teacher, helping you find new ways to express yourself in this lifetime..
Here's a Tip • If you've had a dream that has some of the characteristics of a past life memory, ask your dreaming self for more details like names of people, places, or important events. Do an Internet search for what you discover. • If you've never had such a dream, ask for one. Your dreaming self is always there.
They verified information the boy provided about the previous lifetime and wrote a book about their discoveries called Soul Survivor: The Reincarnation of a World War II Fighter Pilot. The Leininger boy was not related to the man whose past life he recalled. Such examples present more compelling evidence than ones like Lorelei's or mine..
As with the Leininger boy, reincarnation dreams or nightmares often reoccur in a way that forces the dreamer to attend to the problem. .
Psychologists and counselors use hypnotherapy as a technique. They hypnotize and regress their patients to the previous lifetime. Sometimes the problem is resolved by greater self-understanding, whether or not verification in records is possible. .
My experience about the woman in England came at a time in my life when I had divorced and needed to establish myself as a high-functioning single person. I drew strength from her personality and confidence that I could make it on my own..
If a past life dream comes to you unbidden, there is probably some unresolved issue in your present life provoking it. Look for similarities and differences between the dreamed lifetime and your present circumstance. Think through what you could learn if the past life personality were a teacher, helping you find new ways to express yourself in this lifetime..
Here's a Tip • If you've had a dream that has some of the characteristics of a past life memory, ask your dreaming self for more details like names of people, places, or important events. Do an Internet search for what you discover. • If you've never had such a dream, ask for one. Your dreaming self is always there.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Precognition, Telepathy
For several years I kept an aquarium in my living room. One night as I lay in my bedroom sleeping, I dreamed the fish named Goldie fell with a thud against the aquarium floor. Startled, I awakened and went to the living room to see if she was all right. Goldie was swimming around looking just fine.
The next day Goldie got hung up in the plastic leaf decorations. I set her free and she plunked to the bottom just like in my dream although without making a thudding sound. The fish died later that day.
This is a typical example of a precognitive dream. It was literal in the sense that I saw in the dream substantially the same image I saw in waking life. Although some precognitive dreams take longer to come true, most do within twenty-four hours. Research indicates the same experience I've had personally.
The subject matter was mundane. Well for me, not for Goldie. The subjects of most precognitive dreams generally pertain to the ordinary events of our lives.
These clear dreams predict by showing what looks like reality and give us tips about our waking life. For example, they give warnings, important or trivial, and rehearse alternate futures from which we can choose the same way we consider alternatives while we are making decisions while awake.
Precognitive dreams can be literal like the Goldie dream or symbolic like one I had about a plane crash on January 2, 2009.
I was jumping to safety from a plane crash. Those who had survived jumped into the sea and hoped for rescue aboard ship. I watched myself and others cannonball into the water, which was frigid. I awoke momentarily, realized I was in a dangerous situation, and felt afraid. My heart was thumping. I went back to sleep and dreamed the same scenario again two or three more times.
Over the next few days I dreamed of travel danger.
One day as I drove past Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, my hands shook so much I considered getting off the freeway and stopping the car. Although I drove on home, my distress was so great that I cancelled my plans to go to New York City to visit a friend in March.
I interpret I was getting precognitive flashes of the U S Airways plane, which went down in the Hudson River on Jan. 17. U S Airways is headquartered in Phoenix, so that very plane could well have been sitting in the airport as I passed by and felt so much trepidation. My emotions, although important, served as secondary confirmation to my disaster dreams, specifically the terror of having to jump into the frigid water.
Normally I'm not afraid to fly, so this was an unusual circumstance for me. I honored the dreams and did not take the chance but have gone on other flights since, even U S Airways flights.
Besides literal dreams and symbolic dreams, other aspects of dreaming psi can occur. Psi is a general term to indicate any anomalous experience like precognition, telepathy, clairvoyance, or psychokinesis. It's not always obvious which faculty dreaming psi involves. One of my dreams might have been an example of precognition and telepathy.
I dreamed I ordered a floral arrangement, which consisted of a spray of flowers with a teddy bear. I don’t know who I was ordering for, but definitely a family member.
Four months later my sister had surgery. I asked my granddaughter, Emily, to go on a flower delivery website and pick out something she thought my sister would like so we could send a gift to the hospital.
On her own, Emily picked a floral spray with a teddy bear and balloon. So perhaps I dreamed the future, but telepathy might also explain what happened. Perhaps Emily tapped into my conscious thought or my dream memory. She has on several occasions said what I was thinking. Maybe I subconsciously sent her the message.
Such events happen frequently within families or with people who are close to each other.
Dr. Stanley Krippner, a medical doctor, did phenomenal research on telepathy in dreams at Maimonides Hospital in New York in the 1960s and 1970s. The experimenters assembled a collection of photographs of art prints. On the night of the experiment, the experimenter chose one art print and focused on sending the image telepathically to the dreamers.
The dreamers in the other room went to sleep with the directive to dream about the target art print chosen for the night. They wrote summaries of their dreams. Afterward independent judges were given all of the art print and dream summaries. Their task was to match the art prints with the dream summaries. The high number of hits, far beyond what would have been calculated by chance, showed dreamers dreamed about the target pictures.
The Ganzfeld protocol, developed in the 1930s, is still in use in psi laboratories. It attempts to measure waking telepathy where a sender sent a mental image of a photo or picture to a receiver who was blindfolded and listening to white noise. Over the years these results have consistently come in at one-third where chance would be one-fourth. The hits increase when the sender and receiver are close like husband and wife.
Research on psi began in the 1800s and continued through the 1900s with notables like J. B. Rhine and his wife, Dr. Louise Rhine, at Duke University. They studied precognition among other things. It's even going on today.
You can be a part of it online by going to these websites: noetic.org, gotpsi.org, aspr.com.
In history Calpurnia, the wife of Julius Caesar, had two dreams that prophesied his death by assassination. Plutarch recorded her dreams for posterity. Interestingly, one was a symbolic dream, that the pediment of their house collapsed. We could interpret Caesar himself being the pediment or pillar of their household. Calpurnia's other dream was literal, that Caesar was stabbed, and she wept over him as she held him, murdered, in her arms. If only Caesar had trusted his wife's dreams, he might have lived much longer.
In the Old Testament of the Bible there are several examples of psychic material in dreams and visions. Joseph had dreams that came true and could interpret the dreams of others. Samuel heard the voice of God in dreams. It would seem that interest in psi ability is ages old.
Perhaps we as the human race are developing our abilities in telepathy. Jeremy Taylor, author of Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill and several other books on dreaming, believes that the human race is developing greater telepathic abilities.
Taylor suggests that in our evolutionary past humans dreamed together to develop language. If that's possible, then perhaps we are developing our telepathic abilities now for the next stage of our evolution.
Often when we recall dreams we have the experience of seeing an image of a person in our dream. That person communicates with us despite the fact that his mouth does not move. We just seem to know what he means without his using language. We seem to operate telepathically in our dreams, perhaps helping ourselves to become more telepathic in the waking state.
Regardless, one thing we know for sure is that we can provoke our own precognitive and telepathic dreams. If you intend to have a precognitive dream and ask your dreaming self to assist, chances are you'll be successful. The better record you keep of your dreams, the greater the chance you'll find successful demonstrations.
Here's a Tip
• Ask a partner to select some dynamic looking photos from a magazine. Have him focus on one each night while you attempt to dream about the subject. Then compare your dream notes to the pictures used. You can make it more complex by inviting a third person to judge the dream stories and match them to the photos.
• Set a time for one person to send a telepathic message in words or an image from a picture to another person. Generally images that evoke emotions work better. Make sure you are in separate locations. Then compare your pictures or stories to the target image.
• Ask your dreaming self for a precognitive dream of something that will happen the next day. Write the dream down as soon as you awake so you'll have evidence for a demonstration.
• Set up a precognition dream study with interested friends. For example, "At 6 am (PDT)Pacific daylight time on the morning of Nov. 3 I will shuffle a deck of regular playing cards. Then I will turn up the top card." Your task is to see in your dream or intuition which card I will turn up. Feel free to submit entries anytime up until the drawing.
• Try your hand at games on psiarcade.com, noetic.org, gotpsi.org, and aspr.com.
The next day Goldie got hung up in the plastic leaf decorations. I set her free and she plunked to the bottom just like in my dream although without making a thudding sound. The fish died later that day.
This is a typical example of a precognitive dream. It was literal in the sense that I saw in the dream substantially the same image I saw in waking life. Although some precognitive dreams take longer to come true, most do within twenty-four hours. Research indicates the same experience I've had personally.
The subject matter was mundane. Well for me, not for Goldie. The subjects of most precognitive dreams generally pertain to the ordinary events of our lives.
These clear dreams predict by showing what looks like reality and give us tips about our waking life. For example, they give warnings, important or trivial, and rehearse alternate futures from which we can choose the same way we consider alternatives while we are making decisions while awake.
Precognitive dreams can be literal like the Goldie dream or symbolic like one I had about a plane crash on January 2, 2009.
I was jumping to safety from a plane crash. Those who had survived jumped into the sea and hoped for rescue aboard ship. I watched myself and others cannonball into the water, which was frigid. I awoke momentarily, realized I was in a dangerous situation, and felt afraid. My heart was thumping. I went back to sleep and dreamed the same scenario again two or three more times.
Over the next few days I dreamed of travel danger.
One day as I drove past Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, my hands shook so much I considered getting off the freeway and stopping the car. Although I drove on home, my distress was so great that I cancelled my plans to go to New York City to visit a friend in March.
I interpret I was getting precognitive flashes of the U S Airways plane, which went down in the Hudson River on Jan. 17. U S Airways is headquartered in Phoenix, so that very plane could well have been sitting in the airport as I passed by and felt so much trepidation. My emotions, although important, served as secondary confirmation to my disaster dreams, specifically the terror of having to jump into the frigid water.
Normally I'm not afraid to fly, so this was an unusual circumstance for me. I honored the dreams and did not take the chance but have gone on other flights since, even U S Airways flights.
Besides literal dreams and symbolic dreams, other aspects of dreaming psi can occur. Psi is a general term to indicate any anomalous experience like precognition, telepathy, clairvoyance, or psychokinesis. It's not always obvious which faculty dreaming psi involves. One of my dreams might have been an example of precognition and telepathy.
I dreamed I ordered a floral arrangement, which consisted of a spray of flowers with a teddy bear. I don’t know who I was ordering for, but definitely a family member.
Four months later my sister had surgery. I asked my granddaughter, Emily, to go on a flower delivery website and pick out something she thought my sister would like so we could send a gift to the hospital.
On her own, Emily picked a floral spray with a teddy bear and balloon. So perhaps I dreamed the future, but telepathy might also explain what happened. Perhaps Emily tapped into my conscious thought or my dream memory. She has on several occasions said what I was thinking. Maybe I subconsciously sent her the message.
Such events happen frequently within families or with people who are close to each other.
Dr. Stanley Krippner, a medical doctor, did phenomenal research on telepathy in dreams at Maimonides Hospital in New York in the 1960s and 1970s. The experimenters assembled a collection of photographs of art prints. On the night of the experiment, the experimenter chose one art print and focused on sending the image telepathically to the dreamers.
The dreamers in the other room went to sleep with the directive to dream about the target art print chosen for the night. They wrote summaries of their dreams. Afterward independent judges were given all of the art print and dream summaries. Their task was to match the art prints with the dream summaries. The high number of hits, far beyond what would have been calculated by chance, showed dreamers dreamed about the target pictures.
The Ganzfeld protocol, developed in the 1930s, is still in use in psi laboratories. It attempts to measure waking telepathy where a sender sent a mental image of a photo or picture to a receiver who was blindfolded and listening to white noise. Over the years these results have consistently come in at one-third where chance would be one-fourth. The hits increase when the sender and receiver are close like husband and wife.
Research on psi began in the 1800s and continued through the 1900s with notables like J. B. Rhine and his wife, Dr. Louise Rhine, at Duke University. They studied precognition among other things. It's even going on today.
You can be a part of it online by going to these websites: noetic.org, gotpsi.org, aspr.com.
In history Calpurnia, the wife of Julius Caesar, had two dreams that prophesied his death by assassination. Plutarch recorded her dreams for posterity. Interestingly, one was a symbolic dream, that the pediment of their house collapsed. We could interpret Caesar himself being the pediment or pillar of their household. Calpurnia's other dream was literal, that Caesar was stabbed, and she wept over him as she held him, murdered, in her arms. If only Caesar had trusted his wife's dreams, he might have lived much longer.
In the Old Testament of the Bible there are several examples of psychic material in dreams and visions. Joseph had dreams that came true and could interpret the dreams of others. Samuel heard the voice of God in dreams. It would seem that interest in psi ability is ages old.
Perhaps we as the human race are developing our abilities in telepathy. Jeremy Taylor, author of Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill and several other books on dreaming, believes that the human race is developing greater telepathic abilities.
Taylor suggests that in our evolutionary past humans dreamed together to develop language. If that's possible, then perhaps we are developing our telepathic abilities now for the next stage of our evolution.
Often when we recall dreams we have the experience of seeing an image of a person in our dream. That person communicates with us despite the fact that his mouth does not move. We just seem to know what he means without his using language. We seem to operate telepathically in our dreams, perhaps helping ourselves to become more telepathic in the waking state.
Regardless, one thing we know for sure is that we can provoke our own precognitive and telepathic dreams. If you intend to have a precognitive dream and ask your dreaming self to assist, chances are you'll be successful. The better record you keep of your dreams, the greater the chance you'll find successful demonstrations.
Here's a Tip
• Ask a partner to select some dynamic looking photos from a magazine. Have him focus on one each night while you attempt to dream about the subject. Then compare your dream notes to the pictures used. You can make it more complex by inviting a third person to judge the dream stories and match them to the photos.
• Set a time for one person to send a telepathic message in words or an image from a picture to another person. Generally images that evoke emotions work better. Make sure you are in separate locations. Then compare your pictures or stories to the target image.
• Ask your dreaming self for a precognitive dream of something that will happen the next day. Write the dream down as soon as you awake so you'll have evidence for a demonstration.
• Set up a precognition dream study with interested friends. For example, "At 6 am (PDT)Pacific daylight time on the morning of Nov. 3 I will shuffle a deck of regular playing cards. Then I will turn up the top card." Your task is to see in your dream or intuition which card I will turn up. Feel free to submit entries anytime up until the drawing.
• Try your hand at games on psiarcade.com, noetic.org, gotpsi.org, and aspr.com.
Friday, January 6, 2012
PSYCHIC CLOSET WINS A SHARP WRIT AWARD
OUT OF THE PSYCHIC CLOSET A THREE-TIME WINNER
Out of the Psychic Closet won second place in nonfiction in the 2011 Sharp Writ Awards. The awards just released by Smart Book Lovers are sponsored in part by Mensa International, book-awards.org. The book, by author Toby Fesler Heathcotte of Glendale, AZ, has won two other awards of excellence this past year. It was a Global Ebook finalist in nonfiction and a finalist in the EPIC ebook competition.
Out of the Psychic Closet: The Quest to Trust My True Nature is a self-help handbook in two parts that will show the reader how to step out of the psychic closet, to rise above anxiety and distrust, and to incorporate psychic abilities into a more honest model of personal reality. The first part narrates the author's psychic experiences. The second part details scientific research, historical background, and previously unpublished anecdotes of the paranormal. The second part also includes print and web resources.
Out of the Psychic Closet, published by Twilight Times Books, is available for sale in multiple ebook formats as well as in paperback on Amazon.com and bn.com. Look for further information in the media kit at tobyheathcotte.com.
Out of the Psychic Closet won second place in nonfiction in the 2011 Sharp Writ Awards. The awards just released by Smart Book Lovers are sponsored in part by Mensa International, book-awards.org. The book, by author Toby Fesler Heathcotte of Glendale, AZ, has won two other awards of excellence this past year. It was a Global Ebook finalist in nonfiction and a finalist in the EPIC ebook competition.
Out of the Psychic Closet: The Quest to Trust My True Nature is a self-help handbook in two parts that will show the reader how to step out of the psychic closet, to rise above anxiety and distrust, and to incorporate psychic abilities into a more honest model of personal reality. The first part narrates the author's psychic experiences. The second part details scientific research, historical background, and previously unpublished anecdotes of the paranormal. The second part also includes print and web resources.
Out of the Psychic Closet, published by Twilight Times Books, is available for sale in multiple ebook formats as well as in paperback on Amazon.com and bn.com. Look for further information in the media kit at tobyheathcotte.com.
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