Dreams and the Fear of Death

I think today’s topic is relevant for everyone. Death is inevitable for all of us, and most people have some degree of fear or trepidation when facing it. It is not a question of intelligence with fear of death relegated to only the less intelligent. In fact, some of the most intelligent people in history have exhibited great fear at the prospect of their physical death. John Von Neumann, who many consider the greatest mathematician of the twentieth century and probably the smartest person alive in the first half of the last century, was said to be terrified of his own death when the end approached (see http://www.eoht.info/page/John+Neumann).

The most intelligent people may exhibit even greater fear than that of the average person because their intelligence has served them well in the material world where they have been able to control many aspects of their lives as well as events surrounding them. Death is an unknown for them where their physical abilities will no longer be relevant. And I think this scares them. Also, many of the most intelligent people are either atheists or agnostic. They do not have a belief in the afterlife to comfort them as they approach their end.

I believe the study and interpretation of one’s dreams can help alleviate the fear of death. Edgar Cayce, the famous twentieth-century psychic and mystic, said that in our dreams we were closer to the state we experience after death. If you seriously study your dreams, not just examining an occasional one that seems unusual, I think you will find much evidence that an aspect of you transcends the physical self. In time, you will experience the great movement of your consciousness to other places that occurs regularly when you sleep. Some will say that it is all in the mind and only part of the activity of the physical brain when we sleep. However, dream events will occur that cannot be explained by scientific theories that limit the mind to the brain.

A simple example of this is a visit to a place far away where you see events taking place that are only reported to your conscious self later on. Perhaps you see a family member or friend involved in some activity, experiencing a problem, or undergoing a great change in their state. In your dream, you may see in considerable detail what is occurring, even though you have had no direct contact with the person for some time. And the occurrence in the dream may not be related to his or her normal activity and your knowledge of them. You might dream that they experienced a fire, which you witness in the dream, only to later learn that they experienced a fire on the day of your dream. Now if this only occurs once, you might pass it off to a coincidence. However, regular study of your dreams will make it clear that this is a common occurrence.

Often, when I awake and reflect on my dreams, I realize that I have had a very busy time during my hours of sleep. The actual day may have been uneventful, but I may experience events and situations that leave me exhausted from all that I have witnessed and experienced in my dreams, from personal local events to national and world events. Your subconscious will tune into information of relevance or interest to you and filter out everything else. If someone you know has an undiagnosed cancer, you may dream about it because of your closeness to him or her. You won’t dream about the thousands of other people with undiagnosed cancer because they are not relevant to you in a personal way.

In your dreams, you may attend weddings, sit in on lectures, and visit cities of interest to your conscious self. Your wanderings can be far and wide because you no longer have the physical limitation. Edgar Cayce, in his readings while in a self-induced trance, sometimes described the street and buildings he passed as his consciousness went to the location of the person requesting the reading. He even described any unusual activities of the people he passed, which were later verified as occurring at the time of the reading.

You are not your physical body. Your physical body is your expression in a corporeal world, but you are not limited to it or by it. The study of your dreams will make that very clear. After many years of dream work, I am as comfortable in my dreams as in the waking state. I can pass from one state to another with ease. The real work is done in my dreams because I first dream about future events before they occur. The events I will meet in the physical are first encountered in my dreams before becoming physical. This gives me an opportunity to make conscious changes in my life if I don’t like what is being built in my dreams. And it allows me to prepare myself psychologically for events I cannot change, such as hurricane Erma discussed in a previous post.

Mystics talk about the connectivity of all life. You don’t have to be a mystic to experience this; you can experience it in your dreams. A study of your dreams will soon make it clear that we are all connected in terms of consciousness. We are not the separate isolated beings that some think we are. “Thoughts are things,” as Edgar Cayce frequently said, and they exist independent of the brain. Our thoughts affect others and their thoughts affect us. We are all part of a glorious tapestry that that is interwoven through our shared consciousness, not simply our conscious mind. The conscious mind is only one part of us that rises to address the physical world and may become quite deluded. The deeper layers of consciousness reach far beyond our physical bodies to the Eternal and have a clearer perspective on our real nature and purpose, which is related in dreams to those with a sincere purpose to seek guidance and discover the truth.

Death is merely a transition from one state to another. I would be disingenuous if I said I was not apprehensive about the possible pain associated with death. However, I have no apprehension about what happens after death. If you want to understand death and remove any fear of death, study your dreams.

Dreams and Violence

Acts of violence do not just spring spontaneously from nowhere. Thoughts of attack and revenge for believed affronts often build for many years before finally finding physical expression. They come from a psyche with a dark side that reveals itself through dreams.

In my books, I mention a European study in which it was found that a higher degree of violence occurred in the dreams of people in the United States compared to those of people in certain similar highly developed nations in Europe. We cannot constantly feed our minds with thoughts of violence and expect no impact. We pattern our lives through our thoughts. That is how we create. “Entertainment” in the form of movies, TV shows, and video games is saturated with violence. I can no longer watch most movies or popular TV shows. The carnage that occurs serves no artistic purpose and is meant to shock and horrify. The producers have discovered that violence sells, so now they seek ways that are ever more bizarre to glorify violence and the slaughter of humans.

From the earliest age, children watch their superheroes act as killing machines. The answer to the world of evil is to have greater powers to destroy those of evil intent. So is it surprising that some people with feelings of persecution and a desire for revenge pick up assault weapons and become the avengers for all of the real and imagined offenses against them.

I am aware of studies that indicate there is no correlation between the violent content of video games and movies and physical violence. One argument to support this view is that entertainment in the way of movies and video games is sold internationally and not just a US phenomenon. That is certainly the case, but many years ago when I was in France, I decided to watch a movie in my hotel room. The movie was one I had seen before and I soon realized that all of the most violent parts had been edited out. So just because entertainment, at least in the case of movies, is exported widely, it does not mean the extreme violence in some of the movies remains when viewed in other countries. In the United States, movies shown on network TV have the nude scenes edited out. In Europe, I found that the opposite was the case; the nude scenes were left in and the violent ones were edited out. Obviously, these are my personal thoughts and observations; I do not have carefully conducted studies to support any general conclusions. However, I did find it very interesting as a cultural difference in the approach to violence.

There is another aspect to consider here as well. There could well be a lag effect. It took some time for the American diet to affect other countries, but we now see a growth in obesity in many other countries, especially those where American fast food has become popular. There might be a lag before we see the effect in other countries of the increase in violence in our entertainment. Of course, the ready availability of guns in the United States makes it easy for those with homicidal tendencies to actually carry out their fantasies of vengeance. In many countries, they would have a difficult time acquiring weapons for mass killings.

I believe the causes of violence we are witnessing in our society are complex. What led the German people to follow a psychopath who took the nation into ruin and was responsible for the murder of millions? Most experts on social behavior point to the humiliation of the German people after World War I and the effects of the Great Depression. The people no longer had faith in their government and wanted change. They also wanted someone to blame for their dire condition. And that blame fell on the Jews.

In this country, we are seeing a greater divide between the rich and the poor with a disappearing middle class. Many are frustrated that they are unable to participate in the benefits of technology and find themselves struggling to survive. An undercurrent of frustration has been building and those who feel neglected or ostracized by society look for people to blame. And in deranged individuals, this blame may fuel violence against those they believe are responsible for their condition.

The fast pace of life in the United States leaves many behind, and even those who are highly successful often decry the demands of keeping up with all the voicemail, email, and messages. Now, few families can relax for a quiet dinner together without constant interruptions and distractions: one or more of the family members spends the dinner hour on the phone or a computer instead of interacting with other family members. The very technology that is supposed to make our lives better is enslaving people who have become controlled by their devices. And those who don’t understand or use the new technology may feel confused and helpless, and they often find themselves relegated to lower paying jobs. I fear that in this country we have lost our connection to our inner selves and made technology the answer for everything.

Many people are worried about their second-amendment rights being violated by any change in gun laws. I wonder how many have actually read the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. Here is what it actually says. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” In this statement, I don’t see any intent of the writers of this amendment to let a psychologically disturbed person with violent tendencies obtain a weapon. When this was written on December 15, 1791, people who served in the Militia much like the National Guard today would keep weapons so they were ready if called to duty. In fact, lower courts have repeatedly found that this Second Amendment does not give someone the right to bear arms.

However, in June of 2008, the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision ruled that it does give individuals the right to bear arms, although in the majority opinion, it was stated that this does not give someone free reign in terms of manner of carry and use. Clarification is still needed on what they consider the limitations.

In any case, I am not writing this to enter into a debate on gun rights, although I think it absurd to not have mandatory universal background checks for the purchase of guns. The issue I want to address is how we have gone from a society where murder in the schools was a rare event to what now has become commonplace. When I was growing up, I encountered some individuals who seemed quite disturbed psychologically, but I did not think any of them would murder their schoolmates. But I can also remember the teachers in elementary school constantly emphasizing the right way to treat other people and that it was wrong to engage in physical violence against another person. The heroes in the movies were not characters who could kill better, but they were ones who had a moral code and did what was right, no matter how difficult and how great the cost to them personally.

Our dreams reveal our subconscious minds and the lives that we are building from day to day. Events that occur in our lives first occur on a psychic level and they are revealed in our dreams. If you have an argument with someone, it does not just happen spontaneously as most people think. You experience that argument in your dreams at night before it ever occurs in the material world. If you don’t believe me, you should start remembering and recording your dreams. You will soon see the correspondence I am describing. Of course, it is not just an argument that is reflected in this way; it is every significant event in our lives.

If we want to change the violence we see in society, we must change what is in our minds because the violence occurs there first. Unfortunately, mental issues are often just treated by pills such as anti-anxiety medications, if treated at all. We have a broken society where many of our youth are growing up without guidance, often in households where there is no responsible adult. We are now beginning to see the real result of so many dysfunctional families and broken homes.

Society must change course to avoid disaster. The influencers that include the role models and producers of the entertainment consumed by our youth need to reassess their own values and the effects of their actions. They need to ask themselves the following: are we taking the moral low ground to only increase our wealth, or we taking the moral high ground to increase the wellbeing and mental health of our youth? The course we are currently on as a society will not end well.

We need only look at the published statistics for violence by country to see that we have a problem in the United States. The difference is not small; compared to many countries in Europe and Asia the difference is enormous. In terms of gun violence, we are not as bad as Honduras or El Salvador. But we have twenty or thirty times the rate of gun-related homicides as some countries in Europe like Germany (based on a review of multiple sources for several recent years). And we have a thousand times the rate of Japan. I find this interesting because these countries were the violent nations that brought us World War II. Perhaps their destruction taught them well that gun violence is not the answer. (The comparisons between the United States and Europe or Japan vary considerably with the year, but the conclusion is the same: we have a much higher rate of gun-related homicides and homicides overall.)

The population of Japan is about 127 million. The number of homicides in 2014 was 395 (https://knoema.com/atlas/Japan/Homicide-rate). According to a January 6, 2017 BBC report How Japan has almost eradicated gun crime by Harry Low (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38365729), the number of gun-related homicides in Japan in 2014 was “six”—yes, only six. The population of the United States is about 324 million. The number of homicides in 2014 was about 12,000. The number of gun-related homicides in the United States in 2014 was about 8,000. These numbers are taken from a FBI report.

Many years ago, I was in Tokyo on business for several days. One evening I decided to take the subway to the entertainment district and explore the area. When I boarded the subway around 8:30 pm, I was quite surprised to see young children on the subway by themselves after dark. Later, I learned that Tokyo is considered a safe city. In fact, in a recent list of the safest cities in the world for 2017, The Economist ranked Tokyo as the number one safest city. No US city made the top ten.

While working in a corporate job, I made a number of business trips to Israel. I was part of a group that would meet in in the evening in the small bar/lounge of the hotel to decide where to have dinner. One evening, while waiting for the others in the group, I began to talk with a young female server who had recently finished her compulsory military service. I asked her if she had ever visited the United States. She acted surprised by my question and said, “Oh, I could never do that.” I, in turn, was surprised by her answer, so I asked, “Why not?” She said, “It is too violent there.”

If we want to understand violence in our society, we must start with ourselves. We must see how violence begins, which we can do by studying our dreams. Our dreams reveal what we really are, not what we think we are or idealize ourselves as being. What will become physical is first expressed there. The isolated acts of violence we are witnessing are a reflection of society. We cannot fill our minds with thoughts of violence through TV, movies, certain sports, and video games with no effect. We meet what we have created as individuals and as a society.