Balance, Health, and Dreams

I started working with my dreams, making changes to my diet, and began a regular exercise program over forty years ago after being introduced to the material in the Edgar Cayce readings. After I read There is a River, the story of Edgar Cayce, by Thomas Sugrue, I found that it rang true and something within me said that I should pursue a study of Cayce’s work. One of the aspects of the readings that particularly appealed to me was Cayce’s emphasis on having balance in one’s life. 

I soon realized that I couldn’t change just one thing like diet; I had to take a holistic approach and make many changes while keeping my life in balance. In addition to analyzing my dreams, I had to meditate, exercise more, and change my attitude in a number of areas. 

I had to make time for play as well as work. By constantly keeping balance in mind, I was able to avoid some of the potentially dangerous pursuits that I saw others follow. I will say more about this in a later post. 

I did not consider the changes I made to my diet and exercise some heroic effort that somehow placed me on another level. The changes were not made because I thought they would elevate me spiritually, although I did begin to meditate for spiritual reasons. 

My approach to Cayce and his recommendations has always been a practical one. They had to help me live a better life.

In the early days, I did a certain amount of experimenting with diet and exercise to see what worked best for me. In the final analysis, the changes were made because I felt better and had more energy. 

Sometimes I changed my diet for a period and then relapsed back to my old ways. However, I quickly found that I did not feel well compared to how I felt on the Cayce-inspired diet, so I returned to the diet. 

The same can be said of exercise. I have always enjoyed walking, so I made it a habit to walk for a half hour each day at a fast pace. Again, there were brief periods when for various reasons I did not walk for several days. Each time, by the second day, I would fell a little stiff in the morning, and after several days, I did not have the same energy that I had with regular exercise. (I should note that Cayce recommended walking as the best all-around exercise, which fit me perfectly.) 

My holistic approach to health kept me healthy over the years. Despite times of extreme pressure at work, I was able to stay healthy and function at a high level. This I attribute to meditation and my dreams, as well as my diet and exercise.

Regular meditation has been shown to have medical benefits and is now recommended by medical professionals as a way to reduce stress. My day at work always seemed to be more harmonious when I meditated in the morning prior to leaving for work.

My dreams provided a great feedback mechanism for any changes I made. Sometimes I would have dreams about my diet and exercise program, and other times I would be shown that I needed to adjust my thoughts to improve my overall well-being. 

My focus was always on the practical; any changes I made had to improve the quality of my life in some way. And my dreams kept me in balance by quickly showing me when I was getting out of balance in some area of my life. 

There is no shortcut to a healthy, productive life. It is true that sometimes people with an extremely obsessive behavior achieve a great deal in some field, but I have no desire to emulate their lifestyle because I believe there is a great deal they miss. 

Sometimes they barely know their own family and rarely experience the joy of their own children. And often a lack of attention to their physical health cuts short what could have been an even more productive life.

Dreams of Encounters with the Dead

Death is a transition we all will experience. But it is a new beginning and not an end. Dreams can help us understand this transition and prepare ourselves for the new life. 

My mother passed from a physical existence when her body was a burden and could no longer function in a meaningful way. In my dream, she saw her death as a release from these restrictions. Insights through meditation and dreams into her continued existence have shown me that she is present and aware of my circumstances and is often about me. 

After her death, I meditated and had the following experience. A long tunnel of light opened up before me. At the end of the tunnel, I saw my mother accompanied by a luminous being who appeared to be a helper. She waved to me, and after a few moments, her companion indicated it was time to move on and led her away. 

Since her death over ten years ago, she has appeared briefly in dreams to render advice or assistance. I say dreams because the visits occurred when I was taking a nap, but they were often more of a psychic experience than a dream. 

Many years ago, I went to a talk given by Hugh Lynn Cayce, the son of Edgar Cayce. He told the audience about a dream he had as a young man that concerned a friend of his. I will do the best I can in recalling the details, but it was over forty years ago that I heard this story. 

Hugh Lynn and his friend were out one night driving around in his friend’s car. Hugh Lynn decided to go home and call it a night, despite his friend’s protests. 

When he went to sleep that night, he had a dream in which a hand came down from the clouds. A voice said, Hugh Lynn come up here with me. It’s great up here. Hugh Lynn recognized his friend’s voice, but told him he could not join him. 

The next day Hugh Lynn learned that his friend was killed in an auto accident after he left him. 

I once dreamed about an elderly woman, who was someone I had not seen in many years. In the dream, I saw her dressed in black.

She asked me about a difficult family situation and wanted to know what had happened. I explained the circumstances to her as best I could. She seemed satisfied with the answer and I watched her float upward until she disappeared from sight.

A few days later, I learned that she had died around the time of my dream. 

From what I have experienced and read, someone's death and contact with those who have passed over can occur in many different ways. This is another reason you should interpret your own dreams. 

You must become familiar with your own symbols and their meaning in your dreams. No one else can do it for you. If you rely on another to interpret your dreams, you are handing the power of your life over to another to decide its significance and the actions you should take. 

There is a special sense of achievement when you finally get the message and reach that aha moment. Other people can offer advice and tell you things that might be true, but when you become aware for yourself, it is completely different.

I decided many years ago that the life I experienced was mine to determine and I should take personal responsibility for it. If I have a regret, it is that I didn't start my work with meditation and dreams sooner.

Dreams of Death and Dying

In my posts, I have started to focus more on symbols in dreams because dreams are normally not literal, with a few exceptions that I will discuss in later posts. Dreams of death can provide good examples of this. 

If you have a dream in which you die or a loved one is dying, you are likely to very fearful and suffer anguish. If the dream is about you, it does not mean you need to rush off and get your affairs in order, unless you are in failing health. More likely, the dream means that you are dying to something, perhaps the old. Your life may be undergoing a transformation that is symbolized by your death in a dream. 

The same applies to another person. Once I had a dream in which my mother was in a coffin being lowered into the grave. This dream did not mean my mother was about to die; in fact, she lived a great many more years. It did mean that something, which my mother symbolized, had died and been laid to rest. 

That something in this case was attachment to sweets that were in abundance during my years growing up. My mother was a cook and we always had pies and cakes in the house. I had recently changed my diet and gave up all sweets in the form of snacks and deserts. 

So how is someone’s actual death shown in a dream? There are probably many different ways, but I have experienced a couple of the common ones. 

In one dream, I saw an image of a woman I knew and then the movement a short distance of the hands of a clock. I instinctively knew it was an indication that she would not live much longer. At the time, she appeared healthy, but a few months later she was diagnosed with a cancer that took her life quite quickly.

When my mother’s health began to fail due to her advanced age, one night I had a dream in which I saw my mother coming out of a small room. As she walked by me, she said, I'm so glad to not have those restrictions anymore. She passed over a few days later. 

Others have described dreams of a boat crossing a river as representative of a physical passing. And there are still other ways such as taking a train to another reality. 

Summary Comments on Health Dreams and Subject of Next Post

I have made several posts about dreams relating to one’s physical and mental health. Dreams of this nature are often easy to interpret, and they can be quite direct in their messages. But in order to benefit, the dreamer has to want to take action and actually follow through. If the dreamer is willing to accept his or her condition and believe that nothing can be done, I can offer little hope that dreams will be beneficial. 

I think we have all encountered people, sometimes as family members, who have struggled or are struggling with serious physical or mental issues. The effects of current lifestyles with little exercise and over eating are all too apparent. And the pressures of the fast pace of modern society and dissolution of the family unit have contributed to widespread drug use. 

Drugs have been used by previous generations; smoking and alcohol use were certainly commonly depicted in movies made in the 1940s and 1950s. But I think today’s explosion of drugs of all kinds, both prescription and non-prescription, is different and has wreaked havoc on families. And some of the new synthetic drugs people take to experience a high or escape from their problems have far greater dangers associated with them than alcohol or tobacco.

Nowadays, many people seem to accept what was once unacceptable. If I were providing counseling to teenagers heading down the wrong path, I would advise them to start recording their dreams. Perhaps dramatic and frightening images in dreams that show a troubled future might get their attention when other methods have failed. The undesirable future they see is likely to be all too true for many if they remain on their current path. 

Although I did not have weight or drug problems as a teenager or adult, I did have other health issues in my twenties. After I started working with my dreams, they were soon addressed, which enabled me to make corrections before they became a serious detriment to my quality of life.

We all know that eventually our lives on this earth will end. Our bodies will gradually wear out, even if some disease does not claim our lives. So what do our dreams show when our physical lives are nearing an end? If a loved one is about to pass over, how is this shown in a dream? 

Dreams of death and dying will be the subject of my posts in Section 6, in which I describe some of my dreams that related to the death of a loved one. The dreams, along with some experiences in meditation, have allowed me to see death as the transformation that it is rather than an end.

Reasons for Symbols in Dreams

Why don’t dreams just deliver a verbal message? Why don’t they just say what they mean? Sometimes they do as I have illustrated in some of my dreams, but more often we find symbols that must be interpreted to unlock the meaning of the dream.

The reason for symbols is not strange if you think about how your conscious mind makes associations. If someone asks you about your mother or father, you are likely to immediately picture her or him and reflect upon some characteristic and feeling. If you reflect on a hectic day at work, you don’t just list in your mind all the things you did. You might do that for someone who asks, because you can’t show the person the image that you have in your mind.

We all know the power of an image to capture both an event and the emotional content associated with it. I can still recall some of the photographs that depict the horrors of war. An entire page in the newspaper could not capture what one image shows.

So when a dream includes a symbol such as an automobile, house, or animal, there is a tremendous economy associated with that image because it includes all associations etched in my memory. The subconscious has access to all of those memories and associations, and it selects the ones that best convey the message of the dream. If a dream wanted to tell me that I was worn out physically and near collapse, the words might not have the same impact as seeing my car heading to the junk yard.

There are other aspects of the use of symbols in dreams. We grow by making efforts to understand our lives and ourselves. If you have experience with children, you know that simply telling them that something is true is not always sufficient; they often have to experience it for themselves. And sometimes the lesson is a bitter one. 

The symbols in dreams cause you to apply yourself to understand your life and help you grow as you uncover associations that were not in your conscious awareness. Let’s suppose you behaved in a childish manner. If you have a dream about a badly behaved child you know or see yourself pushing a baby in a carriage, that symbolism is likely to get you attention more than a voice saying you behaved in a childish manner. 

Another aspect of symbols is the possibility that a direct message might be filtered by your mind before it reaches conscious awareness, particularly if you don’t like the message. There would not be a dream to recall upon awakening. The same message hidden in symbols will not be filtered because it is not yet understood. 

I strongly believe, as did Edgar Cayce, that you are best qualified to interpret your own dreams. All of the relevant associations for the symbols are in your memory, and only you can know the special significance of some symbols. 

As an example, two people may dream about an airplane, but the meanings could be quite different, particularly if one person had been in an accident or lost a loved one in an accident involving an airplane. In my first Edgar Cayce study group, one of the women was terrified of flying because her husband had been killed in an airplane crash. 

In interpreting symbols in dreams, I recommend taking a practical approach. The symbols most likely deal with ongoing issues and events in your life. Don’t look for bizarre or esoteric interpretations; think about the events in your daily life, including your thoughts and emotions. Strong emotions can trigger dreams, and your daily concerns and worries are frequently shown in your dreams. 

For the clearest and most meaningful dreams, you have to want to improve your life and find approval from your higher self. That is why I recommend daily meditation for people seeking guidance through their dreams. If someone says, my dreams are a meaningless jumble, this person is also saying something about his or her life.

Symbols in Health Dreams

As promised earlier, I am now going to focus on some common symbols in health dreams. This will lead into a more general future discussion of symbols in dreams, but for now, I will concentrate on a few simple examples. First, I am going to discuss the body in relation to dreams. 

The physical body is how we experience life, existence, on this earth. The body is marvelously adapted to the environment in which we find ourselves. Our senses allow us to experience life and protect us from harm. We can think of it as the soul’s vehicle to experience life on earth. 

Now if the body is a vehicle for the soul, what is a vehicle for the body? How does the body navigate on this planet? Some ways involve a vehicle like a car, truck, bicycle, motorcycle, or for long distances, a plane. 

The implied analogy here is clear: the vehicles I mentioned are to the body what the body is to the soul in certain respects. So it is not surprising that in many health dreams the body is represented by a vehicle such as a car. If you have another type of vehicle, that vehicle may serve the role that a car serves in my dreams. 

The condition of vehicles in dreams often depicts the condition of our physical bodies. A beautiful car in perfect working condition can symbolize excellent health, and a rusty car that barely operates can symbolize bad health.

Many years ago, one night I dreamed that the battery on my car was dead. This reflected exactly how I felt at the time. I lacked energy to get started in the morning. 

Another time I dreamed there was a problem with an axle on my car, and there was a problem with a corresponding limb. 

Both dreams simply reflected what I already knew, but other times I dreamed I dropped my car off at a garage for a mechanic to examine and repair. Later in the dreams, the mechanic told me what he found and what was needed to fix the problem. I could relate what was wrong with the car with corresponding areas of my body. 

When I started working with my dreams, I made changes to my diet and made sure I had regular exercise. One night I dreamed I had just purchased a new high-performance sports car. 

Dreams about cars, or other vehicles, are a quick, clear way for the subconscious to reveal the overall state of the physical body. Sometimes they are just a reminder of the body’s condition, and other times they may show that parts of the body are not functioning properly and need to be examined by a physician. 

If you are new to dreams, you may naturally wonder why the dreams don’t just comment directly on our physical body. Sometimes dreams do, as I described in earlier postings, but often it is done symbolically. I think there are several possible reasons for this that I will comment on in the next posting.

Health, Dreams, and Symbols

I have recently provided several examples of health dreams. I believe these dreams were quite clear in terms of the message because there was limited symbolism. Sometimes my dreams are even simpler and more obvious. 

After retirement, I was having a problem with my lower right hip, probably resulting from an activity in my preteen and early teen years. One night, I had a dream about a man serving the role of an adviser. He referred to my hip and said, “The problem is deep. You should see an osteopath.” 

I did see an osteopath, whom I still go to once a month for a spinal adjustment that keeps me tuned for about a month. In fact, I went yesterday and found some new office personnel. The new employee who took my blood pressure and checked my health history asked me for a list of the medications I was taking. I told her I wasn’t taking any, and she said, “That is unbelievable. It’s rare to find someone who isn’t on medication.” 

I have gotten the same question and reaction from several other medical assistants over the years as well. My blood pressure is still excellent and overall health very good. And I did not miss a day of work due to illness the last 25+ years of my career. 

My dreams certainly contributed to my good health all these years. As I mentioned before and describe in my book, this wasn’t always the case. But a good diet, regular exercise, and giving up smoking in my twenties all helped. 

However, this isn’t the total story. We are all complete systems with an amazing ability to compensate for and adjust to our surroundings, and for this to occur properly we must have the right thoughts. The mind has an enormous effect on our health. 

I recall a conversation with one of my colleagues many years ago. He had just learned that he needed a triple heart bypass. I was surprised because he was slender, ate a good diet, and exercised regularly. 

His doctor told him that there are three main causes for heart disease: improper diet, lack of exercise, and stress. He did well on the first two, but not on the third one. Stress did him in. He was in a very stressful position for an extended period and it had affected his health. 

Dreams do not just deal with the physical issues that begin to limit and affect the quality of life. They deal with the causes, which often involve the person’s state of mind. A person’s beliefs can be at the core of the problem; for healing to occur, the beliefs must change. 

Physicians often just treat the symptoms, and if a patient gets a remission of the symptoms, he or she is considered healed or at least not needing further treatment. If the symptoms return later, then often the answer is more drugs. 

The number of drugs consumed in this country, legal and illegal, is staggering. We have become a society of instantaneous gratification and solution for everything from the foods we eat to the medicine we take. 

The problem is not entirely with the doctors. Many people want a pill to fix the problem; they don’t want to put forth the effort that is really needed to heal. They don’t want to change, and a doctor doesn’t have the time to try to persuade them to change their lifestyles, if they ignore his or her suggestions. 

Dreams are about change, just like in the case of the man I met who had a health reading from Edgar Cayce. The restoration of his health required that he make changes to his life and the results took time. 

The doctor’s solution was for him to take a prescribed medicine, but it didn’t work in his case. He was having frequent blackouts and wasting away. 

The Cayce regimen took about six months to restore his health, but it dealt with the fundamental causes. Cayce sometimes compared a person’s dream guidance to what he did during his readings. He said we could do what he did through our dreams, if we are willing to pay the price. 

I realize that most people will not want to work with their dreams in a serious way. My hope is that a few will see them as a better way, as I did, and make the effort to incorporate them into daily life. Then they too can experience the amazing benefits in their lives. If you don’t think you have time to study your dreams, think about how much time you have expended to deal with a difficult situation that may not have occurred if you had seen and heeded the warnings in your dreams. 

Sometimes we spend the rest of our lives trying to correct for a mistake in judgment. And if you don’t think you can face the self that is revealed in your dreams, be aware that the real self, both the good and bad, is most likely seen by family and friends, even if you do not want to face it. Ignoring it or hiding from it does not make it go away. 

My next entry in a few days will start to examine common symbols in health dreams. You can often get a snapshot of the state of your health from a common symbol and its depiction in the dream.

A Remarkable Health Dream

The following health dream is different from the others. In this dream, a condition or problem not visible at the time of the dream is shown as occurring in the future. I believe it was illustrative of a warning to help prepare me for an impending event that could not be avoided. This dream and associated comments are taken directly from my book.

“In still another dream (precognitive), I watched a single drop of blood as it fell to a surface. A voice said, ‘In ninety days.’ Suddenly, the scene changed and I was sitting in a chair in what appeared to be some type of doctor’s or surgical office. A nurse stood beside me and a doctor performed some type of procedure. Then the dream ended. 

As ninety days approached, I became a bit apprehensive about what might occur. At what was exactly ninety days, I got out of bed in the morning to find the vision in my left eye quite blurred, as if some huge particles had found their way into my eye while I slept. I looked into the mirror, but could not see anything. I already had some floaters, but this was quite different. I made an appointment with my ophthalmologist, who said what I was seeing was dried blood, usually the result of a tear in the retina. He couldn’t see a tear, but quickly got me an appointment with a retina specialist, and within two hours I was seated in a chair with a nurse beside me as the doctor sealed a small tear in the retina with a laser.” 

This dream accurately predicted the nature of the problem and timing to the exact day. Prior to this occurrence, I had regular checkups with an ophthalmologist and no problems with the eye were ever found. 

In addition, the dream accurately showed the medical environment where the problem would be addressed. Over the years, dreams have repeatedly shown me the remarkable ability of the subconscious to know every aspect of my physical health. It is unfortunate that more people, including physicians, do not take advantage of this resource.