An Encounter with a Famous Faith Healer

Last week, I said I was going to address dreams and healing this week. But before I talk about dreams, I decided to relate a couple of stories, both dating back more than forty years. These stories will provide some background for my discussion of what I learned about healing through my dreams. 

The first story is about my encounter with a faith healer and occurred before I began my work with dreams, and the second story is about a man I met who had a reading from Edgar Cayce. That encounter took place shortly after I began a study of my dreams. 

It was during the 1960s, and I had only been married a short time. My wife and I learned a famous faith healer and evangelist named Kathryn Kuhlman was going to hold a crusade in Columbus, Ohio, where we had both attended college. 

At this point in my life, I can longer recall why we decided to make the drive and attend her revival because we were not even religious in the traditional sense. I think it was because we were both searching for meaning and were curious about what happened during one of her crusades. As I recall, we were investigating different beliefs, churches, and approaches to God at that time. However, I was quite skeptical about seeing a faith healer. 

The crusade was held in a large auditorium, and when we arrived, I was stunned by what I saw. We could not get into the main auditorium because it was filled to capacity. We were in an adjoining building surrounded by wheelchairs and cots filled with people who were not ambulatory. I saw a sea of human bodies suffering from a multitude of afflictions. Many made this trip as a last hope. 

We heard Rev. Kuhlman give an emotional sermon, and during the sermon she pointed to various people, some with critical diseases, and proclaimed them healed. After her sermon and audience healing, she began her signature process of inviting people to the stage for her touch and gift of the Holy Spirit that resulted in their collapse to the floor where they lay motionless for several minutes. 

As people lined up, my wife and I saw an opportunity to enter the main hall. When we did, we entered an aisle that led to the stage. Now, I was introverted and had no intention of going on stage. However, a large crowd of people surged up the aisle as she invited more to come to the stage, and the crowd caught me and carried me onto the stage. 

There was no place else to go and the force of the bodies pushing me was enormous. So I found myself standing on stage looking out over thousands of people. I remember thinking this is crazy. Rev. Kuhlman walked up to a person, said a brief blessing, touched the person on the head, and the person collapsed into the arms of men who stood behind each person as catchers who gently laid the person on the floor. 

As she conducted this process with the people in front of me, I thought that she was going to be surprised and embarrassed when I was still standing after she touched me. Frankly, I thought it was just a show and I was beginning to become irritated by the heat and crowd. Then my turn came. Tomorrow, I will describe what happened.    

Dream Benefits and Avoidance—Continued

By ignorance about dreams, I simply mean lack of knowledge about dreams and their possible benefit. Perhaps you don’t recall any dreams and no one has ever explained the benefits of dreams and that you can train yourself to remember them. 

Disbelief is involved when you think you can remember your dreams, may see some limited benefit, but don’t believe the benefits are worth the effort. You do not think that dreams can provide answers to pressing personal problems. 

I believe fear is one of the key reasons people largely ignore their dreams. Most of us are doing some things in our lives that we know are not beneficial, and we are avoiding doing some things we know we should do. These are the famous sins of commission and omission. 

The thoughts about our shortcomings help form our self-image, and if our self-image is already weak, we may be terrified by what we will find in our dreams. The response is often, “I’d rather not know.” Now, you can overcome this, for a time, by selectively filtering out dreams that show you or your actions in a bad light and focusing on the positive dreams that show them in a good light. But to progress, you must eventually face the self in the other dreams.

I think it is much like taking a test. If you don’t think you have done well, you are not anxious to get the test results.

If you are unwilling to change, you will probably continue to see the same dream themes occur nightly. You may even have a recurring dream. Perhaps you gotten the message on an intellectual level, but have not understood what you must do to progress. In this scenario, you will probably lose interest in a short time with the belief that the dreams aren’t really helping much. 

Finally, we have limited time. You may really believe that dreams can do everything I listed as benefits, but consider it too time consuming to seriously pursue them. You tell yourself that you will take up dream study when you have more time, which generally means never. Serious dream study is just not a priority for you. 

However, I point out in my book how dream study can save a person hundreds or even thousands of hours of grief over some situation the individual would not be in had the dream messages been deciphered and acted upon. The time spent working with dreams will pay dividends many times over the effort expended. 

The great 20^th century psychic Edgar Cayce said many things about dreams in his readings. He said that we could all do what he did through our dreams, if we are willing to pay the price. And he said that every significant event in our lives is foreshadowed in a dream. This second claim is what launched me into my serious study and work with dreams many years ago and is the subject of my book. 

I have pointed out the most common of the reasons people largely ignore their dreams. If you don’t work with your dreams, you have to decide if you want to remain in one of the categories or start changing your life by tapping into this immense power available to you each night while you sleep. 

Your dreams are part of your life, and they are there even if you ignore them. By discounting them, you are dismissing two hours or more of your life each day as insignificant. Next week when I begin to discuss dreams and healing, I will show you just how significant they can be.

Dream Benefits and Avoidance

Now, if you follow my suggestions or those of some other source and begin to remember your dreams, what do you do? What can you expect from your dreams? 

I indicated in a previous blog that dreams are for the benefit of the individual. This is a strong theme in metaphysical writings and confirmed by scientific studies. 

This benefit can affect all aspects of your life: physical, mental, and spiritual. As you remember dreams, you are beginning to tap into an immense reservoir of knowledge and uncover forces with a power that often transcends your conscious understanding. Your dreams can help heal your mind and body, if you are open and sincere about seeking help from this source. 

In my book, I describe how I improved my health, removed mental blocks, and gained in spiritual understanding through my dreams. As I said earlier, my approach to dreams was a practical one, and these benefits occurred in real, measurable ways. 

If we all have this fantastic source of help at our disposal, why don’t more people incorporate dream study into their daily lives—I have encountered few people who even attempt to do what I have spent over forty years doing. Dreams appear to be a magic genie, and I think most people would want that. So why don’t more people pursue dreams? 

I believe there are many reasons people ignore their dreams. The main reasons I have observed during my life are the following: ignorance about dreams, disbelief, fear, unwillingness to change, and limited time.

More on Remembering Dreams

As you begin to remember dreams upon awakening, focus on the dreams before getting up. Make sure the details are firmly set in your memory before moving around. Otherwise, you will discover just how fleeting dreams can be. The simple act of getting out of bed, or even moving about in bed, can result in the loss of the dreams if you haven’t made an effort to commit them to memory. 

In this regard, I find trigger words can be helpful, particularly if you don’t want to record the entire dream when you awaken in the middle of the night. Sometimes the recall of a single word associated with the dream will bring the entire dream back into conscious memory. 

Your dream cycles can be affected by your sleep patterns. Try to get into a regular sleep pattern that provides an adequate amount of sleep. Also, the importance of daily meditation cannot be overstated. Regular periods of meditation will bring peace and harmony into your nighttime sleep and dreams, as well as your conscious life. 

Meditation opens the channels for guidance and makes clear your intent to your subconscious. Spiritual dreams and visions, in particular, seemed to increase in frequency and clarity when I started meditating regularly, an experience shared by others on a similar path.

          

Remembering Dreams

Dream study was natural for me because I remembered dreams even as a young child. During my years growing up, I was always aware of my dreams, but an attempt to uncover their meaning did not come until I was out of college.

When I was ready, the dreams were there and I just needed to record and examine them. You may well say, “That is fine for you, but I don’t remember any dreams.” I understand your dilemma and offer some suggestions that I believe will help.

The real key to remembering dreams is the desire to remember them. You must want to remember them and be serious about deciphering their messages. You can’t just dabble with an occasional dream that you find interesting. Working with dreams is a process that involves more than a halfhearted attempt to remember one. 

If you are serious about working with and learning from your dreams, you should do the following. Before falling asleep and as you gradually drift off, repeatedly tell yourself that you will remember your dreams. In whatever words or form you find most comfortable, establish that message to your subconscious as a fact. 

Keep a notebook or recorder by your bedside for recording your dreams upon awakening. This also further establishes your seriousness about remembering your dreams. Some have even suggested drinking water before going to bed. Getting up during the night to use the bathroom will increase the chances that you awaken during a dream cycle. 

The key is intent. You must want to remember your dreams. If you are afraid that they will frighten you, you are likely to inhibit their recall. Or if you are only mildly interested, your ability to remember them is likely to suffer. 

Do not become discouraged if you do not remember any dreams after trying my suggestions the first time. The message must be registered on your subconscious and it may be several days before you achieve success. Be persistent each night before falling asleep, and you will eventually be successful.

An Early Precognitive Dream?

In my book The Man Who Sees Tomorrow in His Dreams, I discuss what I said was my first precognitive dream. Actually, this only applied to my adult life. I did not mention a clear memory of a recurring dream as a young child. 

My father was still alive, so I was at most five years old, my age when he died. In the dream, the scene was one of winter, which I found familiar living in Vermont. I saw an enormous ball of snow and ice that started rolling down the hill toward our house. It reached the house and began crushing everything in its path.

After my father died, my life and my brother’s life rapidly changed from one of comfort and security to one of scarcity and fear. My mother was overwhelmed with medical bills, and she had not been in the work force for nearly twenty years. 

She soon was working several jobs to buy the basics and keep us in our house. Calls from bill collectors became common, and doing without what many of our friends took for granted was just accepted. Our standard of living had been crushed by my father’s death, and I no longer had the recurring dream.

Why We Dream

Your dreams are about you, the dreamer. A friend, a dream interpreter, or a book may suggest possible meanings to you, but the real discovery of their meaning must be made by you. 

The full significance of the words and images in the dream is unique to you. Your subconscious chose them out of an infinite reservoir for a reason, because they convey its message better than other words and images. And only you can know the full impact of their emotional content. 

Also, awareness comes when we discover a truth for ourselves. Others may have told us things about ourselves for years that we accept intellectually, but the light comes on when we really feel it and understand it on a “gut” level. 

So why do we dream? Why is our subconscious sending us messages? The answer is not simple because there is no universal agreement about the true purpose of dreams. 

Scientists have developed theories that have evolved over time, and mystics and psychics have added their own perspective. For Freud they represented our repressed fears and desires with deep sexual overtones. Carl Jung took a more enlightened approach and saw them as representing our heritage and our potential. 

Edgar Cayce gave many readings on dreams, and in the view expressed in the readings, dreams were for the “benefit of the individual.” They serve a problem solving function and lead to the discovery of new talents and abilities. 

However, this assumes the individual is sincerely trying to improve his or her life. Otherwise, the dreams are likely to be chaotic and of little use. I found that my dreams are the clearest when I meditate on a regular basis, establishing my purpose as one seeking help from the spiritual forces.