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.
Showing posts with label dreams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dreams. Show all posts
Monday, April 2, 2012
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Healing in Dreams
People have asked for healing dreams as far back as written records. Results came in dreams to the ancient Egyptians. Aristotle spoke of them in early Greece. From those days until now, sick people have wanted to experience a healing dream and believed it could happen.
Our minds affect our bodies, as demonstrated in modern times by hypnosis and biofeedback where patients modify their blood pressure, dissolve warts, stop the growth of cancerous cells, among other changes.
Scientific experiments have proven the placebo effect works, that is, one third of the time patients get well when they only take sugar pills rather than medication. Unfortunately the reverse happens too, and a person can sicken from the belief that he has been poisoned when he has not been. This is why curses sometimes work or why a patient dies from a misdiagnosis or from the doctor's statement that no one can recover from such an ailment.
There are three types of healing dreams:
First, dreams that show a problem developing in the dreamer's physical body. For example, a woman dreams she buys a pair of shoes that are mismatched; one has a flat heel the other a three-inch spike. Later she learns her shoes have caused her hip pain.
Second, dreams that prescribe a medicine, foods, or other regimen. For example, a man with painful dry eye dreams a cop stops his car and gives him a ticket for wearing sunglasses in a dark tunnel, citing him for not following the rules. The same scenario happens over and over. The dreamer can't understand why the cop is angry. Once he awakens the man remembers eye drops prescribed as a cautionary by his doctor in case of a problem. He starts using the eye drops, and the pain goes away.
Last, dreams that cure the condition directly. Some of these categories can overlap in the same dreams.
Barbara Menezes-Ferreira of Portugal relates a dream that cures. The dream story is complex and includes a mutual dream, a near-death experience, and a cure. Here is the dream in her own words:
Over twelve years ago, back when I was still married, my husband was dying in hospital in a coma.
The doctors had said he had no hope at all. His blood count was way too low and he was hemorrhaging. My reaction was and I quote what I told the doctors, "You don't know him. He's the kind of person that will do exactly the opposite of what you are thinking." They looked at me with a certain pity. I left him there because you cannot stay with the patient overnight in a public hospital. I picked up my daughters at school and took them home. I remember my mother-in-law calling me asking what the doctors had said and I replied, "He's going to be fine," without even thinking.
That night I dreamed I awoke with someone screaming my name over and over again. I sat up in bed and saw my husband standing at the foot of the bed.
I asked him, "What do you want?"
He replied that he didn't know if he should stay or if he should go.
I calmly explained that was his choice. If he wanted to leave, I would take care of our daughters and they would be fine, but if he chose to stay, he would suffer. He would have to change his life, and he would have to stop drinking. I could understand that this would be a big sacrifice, so I told him, "It's really up to you".
He disappeared then and I went back to sleep.
The following morning my brother-in-law came to pick me up to drive me into town for visiting hours. He was very concerned that his brother would not make it. I said I thought he would pull through because I had had a strange dream that had in some way told me he would be ok. My brother-in-law had no reaction whatsoever.
I arrived at the hospital and only three people could see my husband for just a few minutes. I told my mother-in-law to go in first. She came out very distressed and told us she thought he was going. I then told his brother to go in. He came out crying and shaking his head. Then I went in and saw my husband lying in bed asleep.
I kissed his forehead and he woke up and said, "Please tell me the truth. Am I dying?"
I smiled and said "No. You were but you aren't anymore."
The doctor called in the other doctors and they started to ask him questions: "What day is it? Do you know where you are?."
Two weeks later he was out of hospital.
Almost six months after, we were going for a walk, and he told me that he had seen a tunnel and a light and that he had gone towards the light, and as he was walking he had a long conversation with someone he thought was God where he was given a choice to stay or to go. He decided to stay because of the children.
The conversation he described was exactly the one I had had in my room. At the time I started to laugh and he thought I didn't believe him. I just told him that I had had a dream exactly like the one he was describing.
Any analysis of Barbara's dream and her husband's dream will likely mention they experienced a shared dream, in other words, they dreamed the same scenario. The husband's dream includes the popular dynamic of the near-death experience: the light, the tunnel, and the decision to live. His is a particularly revealing segment.
The husband's dream resulted in a cure of his condition.
Think a minute about a time you've healed, whether from a mosquito bite, a burn, or the flu. Perhaps you applied salve and bandaged yourself. Perhaps you visited a doctor. Perhaps not.
In all cases, who was the healer? The inner you. You probably had dreams that helped you heal even if you didn't recall them.
Although we all have this skill, some people need help developing it consciously. Some psychologists, including Ed Kellogg, offer workshops to teach health professionals and regular dreamers how to heal through dream work.
Here's a Tip
• The next time you have any ailment, from a cold to something serious, consult a medical practitioner if you normally would, but augment that visit with requests to your dreaming self to bring you healing dreams.
• Your dreaming self will definitely oblige.
• Oh, and ask to remember the dreams too. They are most empowering and among the most compelling evidence for the value of dreaming.
Our minds affect our bodies, as demonstrated in modern times by hypnosis and biofeedback where patients modify their blood pressure, dissolve warts, stop the growth of cancerous cells, among other changes.
Scientific experiments have proven the placebo effect works, that is, one third of the time patients get well when they only take sugar pills rather than medication. Unfortunately the reverse happens too, and a person can sicken from the belief that he has been poisoned when he has not been. This is why curses sometimes work or why a patient dies from a misdiagnosis or from the doctor's statement that no one can recover from such an ailment.
There are three types of healing dreams:
First, dreams that show a problem developing in the dreamer's physical body. For example, a woman dreams she buys a pair of shoes that are mismatched; one has a flat heel the other a three-inch spike. Later she learns her shoes have caused her hip pain.
Second, dreams that prescribe a medicine, foods, or other regimen. For example, a man with painful dry eye dreams a cop stops his car and gives him a ticket for wearing sunglasses in a dark tunnel, citing him for not following the rules. The same scenario happens over and over. The dreamer can't understand why the cop is angry. Once he awakens the man remembers eye drops prescribed as a cautionary by his doctor in case of a problem. He starts using the eye drops, and the pain goes away.
Last, dreams that cure the condition directly. Some of these categories can overlap in the same dreams.
Barbara Menezes-Ferreira of Portugal relates a dream that cures. The dream story is complex and includes a mutual dream, a near-death experience, and a cure. Here is the dream in her own words:
Over twelve years ago, back when I was still married, my husband was dying in hospital in a coma.
The doctors had said he had no hope at all. His blood count was way too low and he was hemorrhaging. My reaction was and I quote what I told the doctors, "You don't know him. He's the kind of person that will do exactly the opposite of what you are thinking." They looked at me with a certain pity. I left him there because you cannot stay with the patient overnight in a public hospital. I picked up my daughters at school and took them home. I remember my mother-in-law calling me asking what the doctors had said and I replied, "He's going to be fine," without even thinking.
That night I dreamed I awoke with someone screaming my name over and over again. I sat up in bed and saw my husband standing at the foot of the bed.
I asked him, "What do you want?"
He replied that he didn't know if he should stay or if he should go.
I calmly explained that was his choice. If he wanted to leave, I would take care of our daughters and they would be fine, but if he chose to stay, he would suffer. He would have to change his life, and he would have to stop drinking. I could understand that this would be a big sacrifice, so I told him, "It's really up to you".
He disappeared then and I went back to sleep.
The following morning my brother-in-law came to pick me up to drive me into town for visiting hours. He was very concerned that his brother would not make it. I said I thought he would pull through because I had had a strange dream that had in some way told me he would be ok. My brother-in-law had no reaction whatsoever.
I arrived at the hospital and only three people could see my husband for just a few minutes. I told my mother-in-law to go in first. She came out very distressed and told us she thought he was going. I then told his brother to go in. He came out crying and shaking his head. Then I went in and saw my husband lying in bed asleep.
I kissed his forehead and he woke up and said, "Please tell me the truth. Am I dying?"
I smiled and said "No. You were but you aren't anymore."
The doctor called in the other doctors and they started to ask him questions: "What day is it? Do you know where you are?."
Two weeks later he was out of hospital.
Almost six months after, we were going for a walk, and he told me that he had seen a tunnel and a light and that he had gone towards the light, and as he was walking he had a long conversation with someone he thought was God where he was given a choice to stay or to go. He decided to stay because of the children.
The conversation he described was exactly the one I had had in my room. At the time I started to laugh and he thought I didn't believe him. I just told him that I had had a dream exactly like the one he was describing.
Any analysis of Barbara's dream and her husband's dream will likely mention they experienced a shared dream, in other words, they dreamed the same scenario. The husband's dream includes the popular dynamic of the near-death experience: the light, the tunnel, and the decision to live. His is a particularly revealing segment.
The husband's dream resulted in a cure of his condition.
Think a minute about a time you've healed, whether from a mosquito bite, a burn, or the flu. Perhaps you applied salve and bandaged yourself. Perhaps you visited a doctor. Perhaps not.
In all cases, who was the healer? The inner you. You probably had dreams that helped you heal even if you didn't recall them.
Although we all have this skill, some people need help developing it consciously. Some psychologists, including Ed Kellogg, offer workshops to teach health professionals and regular dreamers how to heal through dream work.
Here's a Tip
• The next time you have any ailment, from a cold to something serious, consult a medical practitioner if you normally would, but augment that visit with requests to your dreaming self to bring you healing dreams.
• Your dreaming self will definitely oblige.
• Oh, and ask to remember the dreams too. They are most empowering and among the most compelling evidence for the value of dreaming.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Problem Solving and Creativity in Dreams
A cool thing about dreams is they support you in your waking life. That is, they can help you solve problems or give a different perspective on them whether you remember the dreams or not. You may even consciously intend to dream about a problem and ask for help from your dreaming self.
I think of my dreaming self as a somewhat different persona from my waking self. I can ask her to dream about a problem and help me out. She has a different perspective on my problem because she doesn't have to consciously deal with any consequences from the solutions. She has a greater depth of memory of everything that has ever happened to me. She can access all of my long-term memories, as well as any human race memories, plus she lives in the dream world that I can only remember while awake. I guess you could say she and I have a different experience of living the same life.
During rehearsals for a production of the musical Pippin in 1980, I remember experiencing difficulty directing a particular scene in the show. It was a short love scene between the two leads, then the chorus came in and the action changed. Every time I watched the scene in rehearsal I didn't like it. When I told the actors it wasn't working, they agreed and one said, "Tell us what you want us to do and we'll try to do it."
The problem was I didn't know what to tell them. I drove home from school worrying about the scene and carried that worry through the evening and into bed. At that time I was recording my dreams and interested in them, but I hadn't realized yet that I could intend dreams, that is, decide in advance the subject of the dream. So I considered what happened with the Pippin scene just good luck.
During my dream I watched the troublesome scene as if I were in a theatre myself watching the show. The actor and actress moved around the stage in a different manner, a more interesting way, and the scene played perfectly when the chorus came in. I awoke excited to get to school because I knew exactly how to change the scene to solve the problem. At rehearsal I explained how I wanted to redo the scene, the actors did it, and it worked perfectly just as it happened in my dream. The actors liked it better too.
I felt extreme gratitude to my dreaming self for solving the problem.
Another time the influence of a problem-solving dream was not so obvious. One of my English students had begun to behave aggressively in class. With minimal provocation he snarled at other students and called me bitch under his breath. Because I'd had his older sister in class the year before I knew their home could get unpleasant with the father's threatening presence. I went to bed worrying about the boy's aggressive behavior and what I ought to do about it. My choices were to talk with him personally, to call the mother in the hope of her intervention, or to write a referral so the principal would deal with the situation. I feared none would solve a worsening situation. I also feared aggravating their home life problems myself.
Despite my worry I slept well. I did not recall a dream in the morning but felt confident my dreaming self had been working on the problem. I intended to trust the first impulse that came into my mind. When I started thinking about what I would do about the boy at school, I knew immediately the best action to take. I kept the boy after class and told him the truth, that I was worried he would follow his father's ways and spoil his chances to have a girlfriend. I told him girls would like him very much because he was handsome and loving and fun to be around, but I emphasized his aggressive behavior would spoil those chances with girls. The boy responded in an open and warmhearted manner. He didn't want to end up like his father, and he felt flattered that I thought he was handsome. I don't know what happened at home but in class the boy turned an amazing corner. He started talking to the girls so much I had to tell him to be quiet. He grinned like we had a secret. His grade went from a C to a B by the end of the semester.
Thank you, dreaming self.
There are well documented cases historically where dreams helped people solve big problems, including the invention of the sewing machine, the discovery of the benzene molecule, and artistic creations by such authors and composers as Robert Louis Stevenson, Voltaire, and Tartini.
Recent scientific studies have shown students do better on tests after they have slept because of the dream activity of shunting material from short-term to long-term memory. Other studies demonstrate the benefits of waking imagery, hypnotically-induced dreams, and regular dreams in solving problems and unlocking creativity. Psychotherapy uses dream analysis commonly because of the belief that dreams can help the client solve problems.
Here's a tip.
The next time you have a problem that seems to consume time and energy, try sleeping on it. It could be anything that bothers you, from a problem at work to your love life. Mull it over during the evening. After you get into bed, say, "Dreaming self, help me solve this problem." Don't imagine scenarios of how to solve it. Just trust it will be solved. Then go to sleep.
After you awaken the next morning, write down any dream or fragments or thoughts. If you have none, don't worry. When your thoughts turn to the problem, go with the first answer that comes into your mind. See what happens.
If it works for you, a little more trust will build between you and your dreaming self.
I think of my dreaming self as a somewhat different persona from my waking self. I can ask her to dream about a problem and help me out. She has a different perspective on my problem because she doesn't have to consciously deal with any consequences from the solutions. She has a greater depth of memory of everything that has ever happened to me. She can access all of my long-term memories, as well as any human race memories, plus she lives in the dream world that I can only remember while awake. I guess you could say she and I have a different experience of living the same life.
During rehearsals for a production of the musical Pippin in 1980, I remember experiencing difficulty directing a particular scene in the show. It was a short love scene between the two leads, then the chorus came in and the action changed. Every time I watched the scene in rehearsal I didn't like it. When I told the actors it wasn't working, they agreed and one said, "Tell us what you want us to do and we'll try to do it."
The problem was I didn't know what to tell them. I drove home from school worrying about the scene and carried that worry through the evening and into bed. At that time I was recording my dreams and interested in them, but I hadn't realized yet that I could intend dreams, that is, decide in advance the subject of the dream. So I considered what happened with the Pippin scene just good luck.
During my dream I watched the troublesome scene as if I were in a theatre myself watching the show. The actor and actress moved around the stage in a different manner, a more interesting way, and the scene played perfectly when the chorus came in. I awoke excited to get to school because I knew exactly how to change the scene to solve the problem. At rehearsal I explained how I wanted to redo the scene, the actors did it, and it worked perfectly just as it happened in my dream. The actors liked it better too.
I felt extreme gratitude to my dreaming self for solving the problem.
Another time the influence of a problem-solving dream was not so obvious. One of my English students had begun to behave aggressively in class. With minimal provocation he snarled at other students and called me bitch under his breath. Because I'd had his older sister in class the year before I knew their home could get unpleasant with the father's threatening presence. I went to bed worrying about the boy's aggressive behavior and what I ought to do about it. My choices were to talk with him personally, to call the mother in the hope of her intervention, or to write a referral so the principal would deal with the situation. I feared none would solve a worsening situation. I also feared aggravating their home life problems myself.
Despite my worry I slept well. I did not recall a dream in the morning but felt confident my dreaming self had been working on the problem. I intended to trust the first impulse that came into my mind. When I started thinking about what I would do about the boy at school, I knew immediately the best action to take. I kept the boy after class and told him the truth, that I was worried he would follow his father's ways and spoil his chances to have a girlfriend. I told him girls would like him very much because he was handsome and loving and fun to be around, but I emphasized his aggressive behavior would spoil those chances with girls. The boy responded in an open and warmhearted manner. He didn't want to end up like his father, and he felt flattered that I thought he was handsome. I don't know what happened at home but in class the boy turned an amazing corner. He started talking to the girls so much I had to tell him to be quiet. He grinned like we had a secret. His grade went from a C to a B by the end of the semester.
Thank you, dreaming self.
There are well documented cases historically where dreams helped people solve big problems, including the invention of the sewing machine, the discovery of the benzene molecule, and artistic creations by such authors and composers as Robert Louis Stevenson, Voltaire, and Tartini.
Recent scientific studies have shown students do better on tests after they have slept because of the dream activity of shunting material from short-term to long-term memory. Other studies demonstrate the benefits of waking imagery, hypnotically-induced dreams, and regular dreams in solving problems and unlocking creativity. Psychotherapy uses dream analysis commonly because of the belief that dreams can help the client solve problems.
Here's a tip.
The next time you have a problem that seems to consume time and energy, try sleeping on it. It could be anything that bothers you, from a problem at work to your love life. Mull it over during the evening. After you get into bed, say, "Dreaming self, help me solve this problem." Don't imagine scenarios of how to solve it. Just trust it will be solved. Then go to sleep.
After you awaken the next morning, write down any dream or fragments or thoughts. If you have none, don't worry. When your thoughts turn to the problem, go with the first answer that comes into your mind. See what happens.
If it works for you, a little more trust will build between you and your dreaming self.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
The Dreaming Self
Imagine your waking self without the responsibility of looking after the physical body and all its needs. That’s your dreaming self. There’s no reason to fear or to ignore the dreaming self. It’s one source of learning and self-understanding, one way of connecting to the higher power, however we define it—God, Goddess, Allah, Brahma, Universal Love, the Life Force. I even knew a minister who called that power Skippy.
Dreaming may be considered not so much a psychic activity as a different framework for the mind. When we’re asleep, we suspend many of our mental blocks. Our inner critic sleeps, the one that pesters us with thoughts that we’ve been stupid or rude or incompetent. In dreams, our creative mind can come out to play.
The dreaming self acts as our gatekeeper to the wider universe. I believe that the knowledge and love of the Higher Power flows through the dreaming self to the waking self. The best attitude is not one of awe but of appreciation. Just as our physical body gets us around in the physical world, our dreaming self gets us around the imaginal realm.
The openness of the dreaming self allows many different types of experiences to happen besides precognition, problem solving, or personality analysis. Encounters with dead loved ones pepper the literature.
Hello from Heaven by Bill and Judy Guggenheim describes visits from the departed to grieving loved ones. The messages, often in dreams, contain words of comfort, such as “I’m okay, I’m in a beautiful place. Stop grieving and go on with your life. I love you.” These are sentiments we all need to hear from those we’ve lost.
Patricia Garfield has codified many encounters in The Dream Messenger. In her view, whether one can prove the actual visit from the other world or not, there’s no denying its impact. Dreamers remember details for a long time, and the experience often makes a profound difference in their beliefs. That definitely describes the dream I had about my grandmother and uncle.
On the other hand, many people experience frightening or sad dreams about their departed loved ones. Often the dead seem even sicker, suffer more, or die more horribly. It’s normal in the grieving process to initially have such dreams then get past them.
What can we do about nightmares or other troublesome dreams? Turn and face them, fearlessly and with humor. The mind creates nightmarish elements like hands strangling or tigers chasing. We can make the threatening images do whatever we want if we just stand up to them. That takes some work, but it’s certainly possible. Dream work becomes more effective if we develop lucidity, conscious awareness while maintaining the dream state.
Excerpted from Out of the Psychic Closet: The Quest to Trust My True Nature. The book is available in Kindle, e-book, and paperback at Amazon.com, bn.com, and the publisher, TwilightTimesBooks.com.
Dreaming may be considered not so much a psychic activity as a different framework for the mind. When we’re asleep, we suspend many of our mental blocks. Our inner critic sleeps, the one that pesters us with thoughts that we’ve been stupid or rude or incompetent. In dreams, our creative mind can come out to play.
The dreaming self acts as our gatekeeper to the wider universe. I believe that the knowledge and love of the Higher Power flows through the dreaming self to the waking self. The best attitude is not one of awe but of appreciation. Just as our physical body gets us around in the physical world, our dreaming self gets us around the imaginal realm.
The openness of the dreaming self allows many different types of experiences to happen besides precognition, problem solving, or personality analysis. Encounters with dead loved ones pepper the literature.
Hello from Heaven by Bill and Judy Guggenheim describes visits from the departed to grieving loved ones. The messages, often in dreams, contain words of comfort, such as “I’m okay, I’m in a beautiful place. Stop grieving and go on with your life. I love you.” These are sentiments we all need to hear from those we’ve lost.
Patricia Garfield has codified many encounters in The Dream Messenger. In her view, whether one can prove the actual visit from the other world or not, there’s no denying its impact. Dreamers remember details for a long time, and the experience often makes a profound difference in their beliefs. That definitely describes the dream I had about my grandmother and uncle.
On the other hand, many people experience frightening or sad dreams about their departed loved ones. Often the dead seem even sicker, suffer more, or die more horribly. It’s normal in the grieving process to initially have such dreams then get past them.
What can we do about nightmares or other troublesome dreams? Turn and face them, fearlessly and with humor. The mind creates nightmarish elements like hands strangling or tigers chasing. We can make the threatening images do whatever we want if we just stand up to them. That takes some work, but it’s certainly possible. Dream work becomes more effective if we develop lucidity, conscious awareness while maintaining the dream state.
Excerpted from Out of the Psychic Closet: The Quest to Trust My True Nature. The book is available in Kindle, e-book, and paperback at Amazon.com, bn.com, and the publisher, TwilightTimesBooks.com.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
The Comet's Return Opening Scene
Here's the opening of the 2011 EPIC finalist novel - enjoy!
One - Vague Longings
Phoenix, Greater Hispania—May 25, 2061
In a dream, Angela huddled on hard ground. She heard a popping sound and looked up with a sense of dread. Yellow flames burst through the air. Something huge was on fire above her. Heat seared her skin. The stench of burning rubber sickened her. She felt the coarseness of the cloth in her dress.
Someone lay nearby. She reached out to help him. When she turned him over, his face was burned and blistered beyond recognition. Desperately she cradled him. She didn’t want him to die, but it was too late. She screamed for help.
The scream rattled in Angela’s throat and awakened her. She bounded out of bed then glanced involuntarily at the other side terrified that she would see the burned body lying next to her.
Her movement across the carpet turned on the lavender light recessed in the wall, allowing her to see and assure herself that she was alone in her bedroom. Her nightgown damp from perspiration clung to her skin.
The digital clock read two in the morning. What an awful nightmare. She’d never dreamed the same dream twice before that she could ever recall. And now for the past three nights this horror had been visited upon her in her sleep. Why? She pressed her hand to her rapidly beating heart and feared bad dreams could cause her to have a heart attack. She had to calm down.
Too exhausted to remain awake and unwilling to go back to her bed, Angela headed into the white-carpeted living room, grateful for the pale blue lights that welcomed her. She didn’t want to remain alone in the house. How comforting it would have been to have a man with her right now, the right man.
Her condo with its sleek styling and transparent furniture looked as lonely as she felt. The decision to remain single and focus on her career worked far better in the daylight than in the middle of the night. Intellectually she accepted herself as cool and focused and not at all needy. But beneath that persona seemed to dwell another, more passionate self, one capable of tremendous love and devotion, perhaps even obsession. Those feelings poured out of her for the dead man in her dream. That must have meant she could feel those emotions awake too.
Who was the man in the dream? Someone she fantasized? Maybe her intuition meant she would meet the man, but why would she want to meet him if she were doomed to experience such despair because of him?
Who was she in the dreams? Her clothes seemed old-fashioned and an ugly style she’d never choose. That detail present in all the dreams seemed important, but how she didn’t know.
Nothing made sense. She felt like she had a bomb in her mind that went off when she fell asleep. She understood herself less with every passing day.
Buy the eBook or book on Amazon:http://www.amazon.com/Comets-Return-Alma-Chronicles/dp/0981996140/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288897122&sr=1-2
One - Vague Longings
Phoenix, Greater Hispania—May 25, 2061
In a dream, Angela huddled on hard ground. She heard a popping sound and looked up with a sense of dread. Yellow flames burst through the air. Something huge was on fire above her. Heat seared her skin. The stench of burning rubber sickened her. She felt the coarseness of the cloth in her dress.
Someone lay nearby. She reached out to help him. When she turned him over, his face was burned and blistered beyond recognition. Desperately she cradled him. She didn’t want him to die, but it was too late. She screamed for help.
The scream rattled in Angela’s throat and awakened her. She bounded out of bed then glanced involuntarily at the other side terrified that she would see the burned body lying next to her.
Her movement across the carpet turned on the lavender light recessed in the wall, allowing her to see and assure herself that she was alone in her bedroom. Her nightgown damp from perspiration clung to her skin.
The digital clock read two in the morning. What an awful nightmare. She’d never dreamed the same dream twice before that she could ever recall. And now for the past three nights this horror had been visited upon her in her sleep. Why? She pressed her hand to her rapidly beating heart and feared bad dreams could cause her to have a heart attack. She had to calm down.
Too exhausted to remain awake and unwilling to go back to her bed, Angela headed into the white-carpeted living room, grateful for the pale blue lights that welcomed her. She didn’t want to remain alone in the house. How comforting it would have been to have a man with her right now, the right man.
Her condo with its sleek styling and transparent furniture looked as lonely as she felt. The decision to remain single and focus on her career worked far better in the daylight than in the middle of the night. Intellectually she accepted herself as cool and focused and not at all needy. But beneath that persona seemed to dwell another, more passionate self, one capable of tremendous love and devotion, perhaps even obsession. Those feelings poured out of her for the dead man in her dream. That must have meant she could feel those emotions awake too.
Who was the man in the dream? Someone she fantasized? Maybe her intuition meant she would meet the man, but why would she want to meet him if she were doomed to experience such despair because of him?
Who was she in the dreams? Her clothes seemed old-fashioned and an ugly style she’d never choose. That detail present in all the dreams seemed important, but how she didn’t know.
Nothing made sense. She felt like she had a bomb in her mind that went off when she fell asleep. She understood herself less with every passing day.
Buy the eBook or book on Amazon:http://www.amazon.com/Comets-Return-Alma-Chronicles/dp/0981996140/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288897122&sr=1-2
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Inception Poses Compelling Questions
The new movie Inception poses important questions. Can one person enter the dream of another person? Can a person change the thoughts of another through dreams? If so, is there danger to either person? And, what are the moral implications? Many people would say no to the first question and be done with it, but not shamans, who practice such activities in their line of work. There are probably ethical and unethical shamans, so dreamer beware.
Regardless of your position on the answer to the first question, the movie posits some interesting, even compelling ideas about dreams.
That we have no control over what's in our subconscious mind. Since it's the sum of all the experiences we've had in our own lives, plus genetic information, plus species-type aspects like archetypes and myths, it's probably true that we can't control all the contents of our subconscious. However we can control some input like not watching scary movies, something I make it a practice to do. I made an exception for this movie because of its important subject matter.
That we can have a dream within a dream within a dream. I've experienced this quality. as an example, I dream I am living in a valley. I go to a school then home and to bed where I fall asleep and dream I am living in a forest. I hunt for quail then I lie down, fall asleep, and dream of...flying a kite. You get the idea.
That we always come into a dream in the middle, never at the beginning. I'm not sure whether this is true, but it might be. I intend to try to monitor my dreams to find out.
That we can consciously control our dreams and those of others. In the movie the dreamers inject a magic elixir into their veins with an IV to help them dream consciously at will. Research on this subject, often called lucidity, indicates people have varying degrees of abilities, some a great deal. It is a potential for human development. It's definitely one of my personal goals to dream more consciously.
That we sometimes don't know whether we are awake or dreaming. It's a common occurrence to awaken in surprise at realizing one is dreaming. It's also true that we sometimes exhibit slower brain-wave patterns while we are awake that allow us to daydream in much the same manner that we dream at night.
That our minds are more vulnerable when we are dreaming. Seems right to me. Our dreaming minds are also freer to travel, experiment, and play than our waking minds.
I enjoyed Inception. Despite the fact that all the main characters were criminals on a heist with no concern at all for the morality of their acts or for the pain they were inflicting on their victim, the film's idea and subject matter trumped the other issues. I loved seeing the human potential of conscious dream control dramatized.
Here's the link to the website, in case you want to look for yourself. http://inceptionmovie.warnerbros.com/
Regardless of your position on the answer to the first question, the movie posits some interesting, even compelling ideas about dreams.
That we have no control over what's in our subconscious mind. Since it's the sum of all the experiences we've had in our own lives, plus genetic information, plus species-type aspects like archetypes and myths, it's probably true that we can't control all the contents of our subconscious. However we can control some input like not watching scary movies, something I make it a practice to do. I made an exception for this movie because of its important subject matter.
That we can have a dream within a dream within a dream. I've experienced this quality. as an example, I dream I am living in a valley. I go to a school then home and to bed where I fall asleep and dream I am living in a forest. I hunt for quail then I lie down, fall asleep, and dream of...flying a kite. You get the idea.
That we always come into a dream in the middle, never at the beginning. I'm not sure whether this is true, but it might be. I intend to try to monitor my dreams to find out.
That we can consciously control our dreams and those of others. In the movie the dreamers inject a magic elixir into their veins with an IV to help them dream consciously at will. Research on this subject, often called lucidity, indicates people have varying degrees of abilities, some a great deal. It is a potential for human development. It's definitely one of my personal goals to dream more consciously.
That we sometimes don't know whether we are awake or dreaming. It's a common occurrence to awaken in surprise at realizing one is dreaming. It's also true that we sometimes exhibit slower brain-wave patterns while we are awake that allow us to daydream in much the same manner that we dream at night.
That our minds are more vulnerable when we are dreaming. Seems right to me. Our dreaming minds are also freer to travel, experiment, and play than our waking minds.
I enjoyed Inception. Despite the fact that all the main characters were criminals on a heist with no concern at all for the morality of their acts or for the pain they were inflicting on their victim, the film's idea and subject matter trumped the other issues. I loved seeing the human potential of conscious dream control dramatized.
Here's the link to the website, in case you want to look for yourself. http://inceptionmovie.warnerbros.com/
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Book Recommendation for The Things They Carried
I just finished The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. It was an odd reading choice for me because I've never been a fan of war stories or of war, for that matter. Still, it would be inappropriate for me to present myself as a pacifist. I believe in peace but I know there's no such thing as a good story or an interesting life without tension and conflict. People go to war because they can't figure out a way to resolve their conflicts otherwise. I believe this is the reason we come into incarnation, to learn that process. Earth is a school.
The Things They Carried turned out to be a remarkable book. I read it because I knew the author wrote it as an exploration of memory, writing fiction in first person in a nonfictional voice, using himself as a character, a fascinating undertaking. O'Brien does not disappoint, far from it. I identified with his emotions in war, not as if I had participated in it myself but through my own life experiences. He doesn't call them psychic experiences, but they are.
He tells of wrapping dead bodies and strapping them to helicopters. That reminds him of the first time the death of someone traumatized him. Whether fiction or non, he tells of the death of his little girlfriend who died of a brain tumor when they were both nine. Then she came to him in dreams, dreams he learned to intend before falling asleep, where they played, talked, and carried on their friendship. I couldn't help recalling when I was seven because my best friend died in a car wreck. Two months later she leaned over a cloud and talked to me in waking life, an event that helped shape my beliefs about possibilities.
During another grueling experience in my life, a divorce, I found my consciousness floating outside my body. I often had the feeling that my spirit might just slip out and leave my body. I feared I would simply abandon it and not return; but because I was so distraught, sometimes I feared I wouldn't and would have to stay. O'Brien, the character, experiences the same angst when in a battle or performing some of the hateful duties of a soldier. His consciousness seems to leave his body.
O'Brien, the author, invokes the familiar aspects of the Viet Nam War that we all recognize from news reports, movies, and books as well as the portrayal of post-traumatic stress syndrome, the psychological condition that exemplified the conflict. He invokes in an original way through a personal exploration of memory, what's real and what isn't, but also what could have been. He toys with erasing memories, a cleverly appealing outcome for negative ones. His conclusions apply not only to memories of war but also to all our life experiences. His use of magical realism, a valuable technique I rely on it my own writing, adds verisimilitude to his conclusions.
The Things They Carried speaks to us all. I recommend it with gusto.
The Things They Carried turned out to be a remarkable book. I read it because I knew the author wrote it as an exploration of memory, writing fiction in first person in a nonfictional voice, using himself as a character, a fascinating undertaking. O'Brien does not disappoint, far from it. I identified with his emotions in war, not as if I had participated in it myself but through my own life experiences. He doesn't call them psychic experiences, but they are.
He tells of wrapping dead bodies and strapping them to helicopters. That reminds him of the first time the death of someone traumatized him. Whether fiction or non, he tells of the death of his little girlfriend who died of a brain tumor when they were both nine. Then she came to him in dreams, dreams he learned to intend before falling asleep, where they played, talked, and carried on their friendship. I couldn't help recalling when I was seven because my best friend died in a car wreck. Two months later she leaned over a cloud and talked to me in waking life, an event that helped shape my beliefs about possibilities.
During another grueling experience in my life, a divorce, I found my consciousness floating outside my body. I often had the feeling that my spirit might just slip out and leave my body. I feared I would simply abandon it and not return; but because I was so distraught, sometimes I feared I wouldn't and would have to stay. O'Brien, the character, experiences the same angst when in a battle or performing some of the hateful duties of a soldier. His consciousness seems to leave his body.
O'Brien, the author, invokes the familiar aspects of the Viet Nam War that we all recognize from news reports, movies, and books as well as the portrayal of post-traumatic stress syndrome, the psychological condition that exemplified the conflict. He invokes in an original way through a personal exploration of memory, what's real and what isn't, but also what could have been. He toys with erasing memories, a cleverly appealing outcome for negative ones. His conclusions apply not only to memories of war but also to all our life experiences. His use of magical realism, a valuable technique I rely on it my own writing, adds verisimilitude to his conclusions.
The Things They Carried speaks to us all. I recommend it with gusto.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
The History of Christmas
Many of our traditions today are age-old and originated in Germanic and other Indo-European cultures.
This time of year has been celebrated for millennia because December 21, the winter solstice, marks the end of the shortening days. People knew that soon the days would grow longer, food would become plentiful again, and new plants would break through the ground. The holiday could have been called the return of light and often the gods were associated with light and the sun. Evergreen trees were revered as symbols of the renewal of life in the land.
Agrarian societies often slaughtered animals in the fall to eliminate the need for feeding them in the winter and to provide food that could be preserved for the humans. Also the wines and beers had sufficiently fermented. People had to stay inside because of the cold climate. Wine, beer, plentiful food, and a blazing fireplace naturally resulted in a festive atmosphere, humans being what they are.
Early Norwegians feasted for twelve days after the solstice. They believed that each spark of the fire log symbolized the birth of a pig or cow.
In Germany people believed that the god Oden (sometimes spelled Odin) flew through the sky, checking on them and deciding who would die and who would prosper. The image later transformed into St. Nicholas, honoring a third century Christian cleric. The legend says that he was born into wealth and gave all his money to the poor. Our modern Santa Claus also has a much kinder agenda, evolved from the Dutch version of Sinter Klass and the German Kris Kringle.
In Italy the Romans celebrated Saturnalia, the god of agriculture, through the month of December. A later version of the religion popular with Roman soldiers honored the god Mithra (sometimes spelled Mithras), revered in other cultures, including early Iranian. Born on Dec. 25 of a virgin mother, Mithra could take on the suffering of others and could intercede on their behalf with the supreme deity. Saturnalia often included boisterous public festivals with much drinking, dancing, and revelry.
The Catholic Church did not celebrate the birth of Jesus until about the fourth century. There is some discrepancy about the date of his birth. Some authorities say Dec. 5, some say January, some say March. In any event, Pope Julius chose Dec. 25 as the holiday, probably in the hope that the festivities surrounding winter solstice and the birth of Mithra would encourage people to turn the celebration to a Christian purpose. He succeeded very well since sixteen hundred years later many people believe the birth of Jesus is the only reason behind Christmas.
However much the purpose for the celebration has changed, the method of celebration became endlessly entangled with the other holidays. Throughout the Middle Ages the faithful attended church on Christmas but then indulged in raucous celebrations with the election of a lord of misrule, who led people in drinking, dancing, and playing tricks, in much the same style as at Mardi Gras.
The English Puritans who came to America were the complete opposite. They did not celebrate Christmas as a holiday and frowned on merry-making for any purpose. However the early German pioneers brought with them the practices of decorating fir trees, Christmas markets, gifts, and candy. Their traditions overcame the English traditions, thank goodness.
During the nineteenth century Christmas transformed into a family celebration with good deeds for the unfortunate in our midst. Social changes underpinned much of that thrust as the dispossessed in our country were rioting in some cities. Gang riots in New York City caused the creation of the police force along with more aid for those without means. The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, gent. by Washington Irving and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, works by two influential authors, helped visualize a more nostalgic holiday.
Mistletoe and caroling came from England, the Yule log from Sweden, poinsettias from Mexico. Father Christmas from England filled children’s stockings gifts under the tree from Germany. The United States has added greeting cards, Rudolph, and lamps in the shape of a woman’s leg, among other things. Our American melting pot has made Christmas a spectacular holiday.
Some writers suggest that the similarities with Mithra, and with Buddha, Krishna, and other deities diminish or malign the story of Jesus. I believe otherwise. I love the traditions because they connect us with our own past, thousands and thousands of years of it. Despite different details of stories and custom, the message is the same – of love, rebirth, and light in a world that sorely needs light even more so than when I penned these words in 2006.
Blessings on you and yours now and through 2010.
This time of year has been celebrated for millennia because December 21, the winter solstice, marks the end of the shortening days. People knew that soon the days would grow longer, food would become plentiful again, and new plants would break through the ground. The holiday could have been called the return of light and often the gods were associated with light and the sun. Evergreen trees were revered as symbols of the renewal of life in the land.
Agrarian societies often slaughtered animals in the fall to eliminate the need for feeding them in the winter and to provide food that could be preserved for the humans. Also the wines and beers had sufficiently fermented. People had to stay inside because of the cold climate. Wine, beer, plentiful food, and a blazing fireplace naturally resulted in a festive atmosphere, humans being what they are.
Early Norwegians feasted for twelve days after the solstice. They believed that each spark of the fire log symbolized the birth of a pig or cow.
In Germany people believed that the god Oden (sometimes spelled Odin) flew through the sky, checking on them and deciding who would die and who would prosper. The image later transformed into St. Nicholas, honoring a third century Christian cleric. The legend says that he was born into wealth and gave all his money to the poor. Our modern Santa Claus also has a much kinder agenda, evolved from the Dutch version of Sinter Klass and the German Kris Kringle.
In Italy the Romans celebrated Saturnalia, the god of agriculture, through the month of December. A later version of the religion popular with Roman soldiers honored the god Mithra (sometimes spelled Mithras), revered in other cultures, including early Iranian. Born on Dec. 25 of a virgin mother, Mithra could take on the suffering of others and could intercede on their behalf with the supreme deity. Saturnalia often included boisterous public festivals with much drinking, dancing, and revelry.
The Catholic Church did not celebrate the birth of Jesus until about the fourth century. There is some discrepancy about the date of his birth. Some authorities say Dec. 5, some say January, some say March. In any event, Pope Julius chose Dec. 25 as the holiday, probably in the hope that the festivities surrounding winter solstice and the birth of Mithra would encourage people to turn the celebration to a Christian purpose. He succeeded very well since sixteen hundred years later many people believe the birth of Jesus is the only reason behind Christmas.
However much the purpose for the celebration has changed, the method of celebration became endlessly entangled with the other holidays. Throughout the Middle Ages the faithful attended church on Christmas but then indulged in raucous celebrations with the election of a lord of misrule, who led people in drinking, dancing, and playing tricks, in much the same style as at Mardi Gras.
The English Puritans who came to America were the complete opposite. They did not celebrate Christmas as a holiday and frowned on merry-making for any purpose. However the early German pioneers brought with them the practices of decorating fir trees, Christmas markets, gifts, and candy. Their traditions overcame the English traditions, thank goodness.
During the nineteenth century Christmas transformed into a family celebration with good deeds for the unfortunate in our midst. Social changes underpinned much of that thrust as the dispossessed in our country were rioting in some cities. Gang riots in New York City caused the creation of the police force along with more aid for those without means. The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, gent. by Washington Irving and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, works by two influential authors, helped visualize a more nostalgic holiday.
Mistletoe and caroling came from England, the Yule log from Sweden, poinsettias from Mexico. Father Christmas from England filled children’s stockings gifts under the tree from Germany. The United States has added greeting cards, Rudolph, and lamps in the shape of a woman’s leg, among other things. Our American melting pot has made Christmas a spectacular holiday.
Some writers suggest that the similarities with Mithra, and with Buddha, Krishna, and other deities diminish or malign the story of Jesus. I believe otherwise. I love the traditions because they connect us with our own past, thousands and thousands of years of it. Despite different details of stories and custom, the message is the same – of love, rebirth, and light in a world that sorely needs light even more so than when I penned these words in 2006.
Blessings on you and yours now and through 2010.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Paranormal in Our Lives
If you love exploring the way the paranormal works in our lives, as I do, check out my fiction.
In the Alma Chronicles, the characters see ghosts, dream true, remember past lives, predict disasters, and have visions. Souls, bound together in a circle of love, passion, betrayal, and murder, reincarnate lifetime after lifetime from the ancient Celtic world through twenty-first century Arizona.
2009 releases in this series are Luke's Covenant and The Comet's Return.
This series of five books also includes the re-release of revised editions of Alison's Legacy, Lainn's Destiy, and Angie's Promise.
All my books are available at Amazon.com.
Write to me. I'd love to hear from you.
Love and light,
Toby
www.tobyheathcotte.com
In the Alma Chronicles, the characters see ghosts, dream true, remember past lives, predict disasters, and have visions. Souls, bound together in a circle of love, passion, betrayal, and murder, reincarnate lifetime after lifetime from the ancient Celtic world through twenty-first century Arizona.
2009 releases in this series are Luke's Covenant and The Comet's Return.
This series of five books also includes the re-release of revised editions of Alison's Legacy, Lainn's Destiy, and Angie's Promise.
All my books are available at Amazon.com.
Write to me. I'd love to hear from you.
Love and light,
Toby
www.tobyheathcotte.com
Friday, May 9, 2008
Five Ways Out of the Psychic Closet
If you have psychic experiences such as seeing a ghost or knowing beforehand that something will happen, you’re not crazy. These experiences are a part of life. If you have trouble convincing yourself of that fact, maybe this acronym will serve you, as it has served me.
TRUST, The Five Ways Out of the Psychic Closet
T. Track your dreams
R. Repel ridicule
U. Use it or lose it
S. See your ability as a divine gift
T. Trust yourself
Track Your Dreams A direct route to your psychic self, dreams surface while the rational, analytical layer of consciousness sleeps. Focusing on psychic experiences that happen in sleep, such as precognition and encounters with departed loved ones, entices them to occur. You can track your dreams by recording them each morning in a dream journal. You dream about five times per night. Assuming you sleep every night, that’s more than eighteen hundred dreams per year. In thirty years of journal keeping, I managed to write down approximately one hundred dreams per year. That means at least seventeen hundred went out of memory, unrecorded. No wonder the sages say we go through life like automatons, using only a tiny portion of our brain’s ability. After you’ve attained the habit of writing down your dreams, read back through the dream journal at the end of each year and mark the dreams that have come true. If you’re like me, you’ll average four to twelve percent per year, the number of precognitive dreams found in research. You’ll also receive other benefits from tracking dreams, such as help in dealing with emotions, problem solving, self-understanding, and experiencing lucidity. All contribute to a better life and spiritual growth.
Repel Ridicule Scoffers come in two varieties: ones you can ignore or leave without looking back and ones you can’t. Tolerating ridicule from those with whom you have work, family, or love bonds can be difficult. Also, people deride psychic experiences, yours or anyone else’s, out of ignorance or in an attempt to deny their own. You can’t change anyone except yourself, but you can work to discover why your loved ones mock you. Explain to them what you are experiencing and ask them to respect you even if they don’t understand. It’s not easy to keep the fears of others from invading you, but encountering the situation with your loved ones invokes personal growth and builds self-esteem because you are honoring your experiences and your perceptions.
Use It or Lose It Psychic experiences, especially angel visitations or intuition, often come at critical moments to save our lives or give us insights. Unchecked self-doubt can deter positive outcomes if you’re not careful. I wish I’d come to this conclusion earlier. I wasted a lot of time. Once I had a horrible dream where someone I loved died in a car wreck. Because a few dreams with minor implications came true, I feared this one would also. I called the person and described the dream. Nothing bad happened to him in a car, but something bad happened to me. I took on myself awful responsibility by confusing awareness of the future with control over it. For a while I practiced automatic writing. Two spirit guides spoke to me and through me. They gave some excellent insights on life. I rejected those wonderful entities out of fears for my sanity so I also lost the ability to do automatic writing. No one knows better than I that, if you don’t use your psychic ability, you lose it. And if you fear it, it sometimes goes away.
See Your Ability As a Gift You understand synchronicity if you’ve ever picked up the phone to call someone, only to find that person on the other end having just called you. Or, you’re trying to remember the name of the actor who played in an old movie, then he appears on the TV screen, narrating a documentary. Some coincidences are bound to happen by the law of averages. Synchronicities are those that have such special meaning that they seem to have been designed. They let you know you are in the flow. Impulses can save your life. One morning I changed my route to school for no apparent reason then learned from the radio that two wrecks had happened on my regular route at precisely the time I would have been there. Premonitions can help you face bad situations that happen in everyone’s lifetime.
Trust Yourself Parapsychologists have already proven ESP exists with clairvoyance, psychokinesis, telepathy, and more. Now they’re trying to figure out how it works. As increased funding becomes available, more scientific proof will aid people in accepting this fragile facet of their being. The mystics have always known that psychic experiences can set a person on the path of spiritual growth that leads to lucidity and cosmic consciousness. Self-esteem grows when you honor your psychic experiences. Allowing rather than forcing helps them to occur. William James said it only takes one white crow to prove they’re not all black. One genuine psychic experience, if we’re honest with ourselves, is all it takes.
TRUST, The Five Ways Out of the Psychic Closet
T. Track your dreams
R. Repel ridicule
U. Use it or lose it
S. See your ability as a divine gift
T. Trust yourself
Track Your Dreams A direct route to your psychic self, dreams surface while the rational, analytical layer of consciousness sleeps. Focusing on psychic experiences that happen in sleep, such as precognition and encounters with departed loved ones, entices them to occur. You can track your dreams by recording them each morning in a dream journal. You dream about five times per night. Assuming you sleep every night, that’s more than eighteen hundred dreams per year. In thirty years of journal keeping, I managed to write down approximately one hundred dreams per year. That means at least seventeen hundred went out of memory, unrecorded. No wonder the sages say we go through life like automatons, using only a tiny portion of our brain’s ability. After you’ve attained the habit of writing down your dreams, read back through the dream journal at the end of each year and mark the dreams that have come true. If you’re like me, you’ll average four to twelve percent per year, the number of precognitive dreams found in research. You’ll also receive other benefits from tracking dreams, such as help in dealing with emotions, problem solving, self-understanding, and experiencing lucidity. All contribute to a better life and spiritual growth.
Repel Ridicule Scoffers come in two varieties: ones you can ignore or leave without looking back and ones you can’t. Tolerating ridicule from those with whom you have work, family, or love bonds can be difficult. Also, people deride psychic experiences, yours or anyone else’s, out of ignorance or in an attempt to deny their own. You can’t change anyone except yourself, but you can work to discover why your loved ones mock you. Explain to them what you are experiencing and ask them to respect you even if they don’t understand. It’s not easy to keep the fears of others from invading you, but encountering the situation with your loved ones invokes personal growth and builds self-esteem because you are honoring your experiences and your perceptions.
Use It or Lose It Psychic experiences, especially angel visitations or intuition, often come at critical moments to save our lives or give us insights. Unchecked self-doubt can deter positive outcomes if you’re not careful. I wish I’d come to this conclusion earlier. I wasted a lot of time. Once I had a horrible dream where someone I loved died in a car wreck. Because a few dreams with minor implications came true, I feared this one would also. I called the person and described the dream. Nothing bad happened to him in a car, but something bad happened to me. I took on myself awful responsibility by confusing awareness of the future with control over it. For a while I practiced automatic writing. Two spirit guides spoke to me and through me. They gave some excellent insights on life. I rejected those wonderful entities out of fears for my sanity so I also lost the ability to do automatic writing. No one knows better than I that, if you don’t use your psychic ability, you lose it. And if you fear it, it sometimes goes away.
See Your Ability As a Gift You understand synchronicity if you’ve ever picked up the phone to call someone, only to find that person on the other end having just called you. Or, you’re trying to remember the name of the actor who played in an old movie, then he appears on the TV screen, narrating a documentary. Some coincidences are bound to happen by the law of averages. Synchronicities are those that have such special meaning that they seem to have been designed. They let you know you are in the flow. Impulses can save your life. One morning I changed my route to school for no apparent reason then learned from the radio that two wrecks had happened on my regular route at precisely the time I would have been there. Premonitions can help you face bad situations that happen in everyone’s lifetime.
Trust Yourself Parapsychologists have already proven ESP exists with clairvoyance, psychokinesis, telepathy, and more. Now they’re trying to figure out how it works. As increased funding becomes available, more scientific proof will aid people in accepting this fragile facet of their being. The mystics have always known that psychic experiences can set a person on the path of spiritual growth that leads to lucidity and cosmic consciousness. Self-esteem grows when you honor your psychic experiences. Allowing rather than forcing helps them to occur. William James said it only takes one white crow to prove they’re not all black. One genuine psychic experience, if we’re honest with ourselves, is all it takes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)