Current and Future Plans

Recently, I have reviewed my posts of this past year and found I have covered the main topics concerning dreams. I have collected all my posts in the form of a book with posts categorized by major topic. This collection provides my views and experience with a wide variety of subjects. 

This is not the end of my posts, but they will be less frequent in the near future. If I have an interesting dream or something to say regarding some topic related to dreams, I will still create a post and send out a notification as a tweet. But I am no longer trying to publish two posts a week as before.

My intent is to publish my posts through July of this year as a book with the following chapter headings or something similar:

• Dream Basics

• Health and Health Dreams

• Daily Challenges and Dreams

• Precognition in Dreams

• Mind, the Psychic, and Spirit

• Dreams of Death and Dying

• The Nature of Time

• Additional Topics

The table of contents will include a description of each post and corresponding page number. Any person interested in my views will be able to quickly find my posts related to a specific topic of interest. My best estimate is that the book will be available in the first half of next year. My current thought for a title is Commentary on Dreams and Related Topics. 

I also intend to finish preparation of a book of short stories. This has been in the background for a long time and I now feel the need to finish it. These two efforts will consume much of my time, which is one of the reasons for less frequent posts. Also, things are changing in my life and I feel the need to expand the subject matter of my posts, but cannot do it until I finish my books. 

I expect future posts to deal with other topics such as healing and personal transformation, which have only been touched upon in relation to dreams. They will become major topics in themselves.

Remembering Dreams and Improving Memory

This morning I was reminded of the frustration that can result from the inability to remember a dream that was once very clear. Yesterday, I took a nap in the afternoon and remembered two dreams upon awakening. The second one seemed more important, so I focused on its possible meaning. After that, I dismissed it, certain I could later recall it when I was ready to record my dreams.

When I recorded my dreams from last night, I intended to include the two dreams from my nap the previous afternoon. I easily recalled the first dream, but I drew a blank for the second one. For a brief moment, I found it frustrating because I was certain I would have no trouble remembering it.

If you find yourself in this situation, don’t despair. Leave space in your notebook for recording the dream later and continue with your daily activities. You will discover that something that seems completely unrelated can often trigger your recall of the dream. In my case, I went through my normal morning routine and then drove to a mall. Later when I returned home, as soon as I stepped into my house, the dream flashed back into my mind. I can now record it with full details.

Of course, the dream is never really gone from your mind. It has simply gone into a part of your consciousness that is not easily accessed at will. 

One approach to recall a forgotten dream is to just relax as you do when entering meditation and give yourself suggestions that you will easily recall the dream. Often, you will find that the memory of it will pop back into your conscious mind. 

You should never tell yourself that you have a poor memory and cannot remember your dreams. By so doing, you reinforce to your subconscious this condition.

Another approach is the one I took. I avoided being stressed out about it. I forgot about it and just carried on with normal activities. Later, the forgotten dream popped back into my conscious mind without any effort on my part.

The use of suggestion in a relaxed state is a good way to improve your memory. You can do this by feeding suggestions that affirm you have a perfect memory and can easily recall any information you desire. The repetitive message eventually reaches your subconscious, which tries to make it reality. You may have to play with the words to get a phrase you are comfortable with, but if you are persistent, you will see results. 

Unfortunately, many people do the exact opposite of what they should do. As they age, they often complain that their memory isn’t what it used to be. They convince themselves that their memory will continue to deteriorate as they get older. The subconscious, being fed this message repeatedly, accepts it as fact and responds accordingly.

Dreams and the Stock Market Plunge

In an earlier post, I indicated that I am reluctant to relate dreams that I have had which deal with the stock market. I do not want to be responsible for someone else’s financial decisions. I am not a financial planner. Also, my dreams that convey messages about the markets are experienced by me to address my concerns at a given moment in time. They may not literally be about the stock market. 

In any case, my dreams may be of little use to someone else and can even be misleading. Your answers to concerns you may have need to come from your own dreams. The main emphasis of my posts has been to encourage you to get help from your dreams and show you how to proceed. The objective is not to show you how to get rich, but to show you how to become a better you and experience a richer life.

I write this today because of the recent plunge in the stock markets in the United States and around the world. You may wonder if I have had any dreams about this sharp downturn. I will say that my dreams continuously monitor all aspects of my life, often previewing events to come. So this applies to my financial health as well as my mental and physical health. 

My dreams sometimes relate to my investments and do provide warnings when appropriate. I do not know what the stock market is going to do next week or next year, but I am warned when I take some action that might be risky or when economic conditions change. Sometimes I am advised to purchase an asset that will do well in the future, as described in my book.

A few months ago, I saw a sharp correction or downturn in the market as a distinct possibility. This should not surprise anyone because the market has been overdue for a correction. The market goes through cycles and corrections naturally occur. 

However, I am concerned that the market has been driven to an artificially high level by the Federal Reserve. In fact, a year or more ago I dreamed that the bull market was experiencing a drug-induced marathon run, which I believe was due to the Federal Reserve’s actions concerning quantitative easing and keeping interest rates near zero. 

In the actual dream, I was told the market was at a 54-year high. I associated the number 54 with Studio 54, where drug use was reportedly common. In other words, the market was on a drug-induced high, and I took the drug to be the actions of the Federal Reserve.

If you want to feel more secure about your investments and any financial decisions you make, get a financial adviser and pay attention to your dreams. Your dreams are not a magic genie you can stroke to make you rich, but at times advice from your dreams may be forthcoming that greatly benefits you financially. If you have the right purpose and keep your life in balance, you will receive guidance and benefits from your dreams. 

In any case, you should have a financial plan. If you have investments, you may want to see a financial planner who can help you structure a plan to meet your needs.

My longer-term concern about the health of the economy involves climate change. The economic impact of these changes could be monumental. Without considerable preparation by the United States and other nations, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and severe flooding and drought could devastate the world’s economies.

A Matter of Faith

The subtitle of my memoir The Man Who Sees Tomorrow in His Dreams is With Faith, So Can You. This is not just an afterthought; it is essential to everything I say you can achieve through dreams. 

First, let’s examine the word faith. The dictionary usually defines it as a strong belief in something without having concrete proof. Now the lack of proof, which scientists require, is what causes some to consider those of faith as weak-minded and hoping for something that doesn’t exist. I think this is a misconception of how faith works.

There are laws of cause and effect that govern the universe in which we live. They form the very foundation of physical existence. The concept of causality goes back to the ancient Greeks and extends into all of modern science. We find it in the major religions such as Christianity and Hinduism; the phrase reap what you sow and Hindu laws of karma are familiar to most of us.

However, I am not going to discuss the scientific aspects or even the religious ones. Instead, I would like to focus on some of the metaphysics regarding cause and effect and show how it relates to faith.

Several times in my posts, I have mentioned the book The Law of Psychic Phenomena by Thomson Jay Hudson. This classic work is important because it examines a possible framework for the operation of many phenomena that are not part of hard science, but are recognized by diverse segments of the population.

I am referring to paranormal phenomena, which seem to exist, but cannot be adequately explained with current scientific theories. In this realm, I include aspects of dreaming that involve precognition and telepathy. I am often asked how such dreams are possible. My answer usually is to the effect that it is the nature of things.

The Law of Psychic Phenomena also explains that it is the nature of things, but it defines and explores the aspects of mind that make such phenomena possible. According to Hudson, there are two aspects of mind: the objective and subjective. The objective is our normal conscious reasoning mind and the subjective is our unconscious or subconscious mind, which is the creative force that maintains and builds the lives we desire.

According to Hudson, the subjective mind has abilities our objective minds do not possess such as clairvoyance and telepathy. These powers can be activated in various ways, such as through meditation, hypnosis, and even severe trauma.

Through our daily activities, we are constantly feeding information to the subjective mind. Our constant mind talk is taking our strongest beliefs and impressing them upon our subconscious or subjective mind, which then tries to carry them out. So if you have a strong belief about something, faith in something, your subconscious mind will use all its powers to bring it about.

If you are sick and believe you will get well, your subconscious mind will try to restore your health, provided you are not also sending it negative or contradictory thoughts. If you have faith in the ability to get answers and daily guidance from your dreams, your subconscious mind will try to bring that about, which is easy for it to do since it creates the dreams.

My point here is that faith has a real and tangible effect whether it is related to your health, finding a job, or solving some other problem in your life. There is a law of cause and effect, just as real as with normal physical phenomena, only here the initiator is mind.

Perhaps the scientists will say it is all still physical, that certain thoughts cause certain electrical impulses or electromagnetic effects that in turn cause other physical effects related to the subconscious. I don’t intend to argue those points, but I will say that the processes that can be activated in the subconscious include abilities not yet adequately explained by science.

The principle I just described forms the basis of many of the self-help books written in the 20th century. It is integral to the Edgar Cayce philosophy from the readings. At least one reading suggested using repetitive thoughts during pre-sleep to convey requests to the subconscious to correct problems or for dream guidance, since it is easier to reach the subconscious while in that state.

Cayce himself used self-induced hypnosis to reach the trance state from which he responded to questions during the readings. The use of suggestion is also prevalent in the books of Jane Roberts that are based on channeling through Seth; belief is central to the recommendations for improving one’s life provided in The Nature of Personal Reality by Jane Roberts.

The principle of faith is used by successful athletes who work to convince themselves that they will achieve a certain result. They must see it as happening so strongly that the subconscious does everything in its power to make them succeed. There can be no doubt, and no maybe I can. There is only I have succeeded.

This same approach applies to true religious faith. If you want a healing or to heal as Christ did, there can be no room for doubt. Doubt just serves to send a contradictory message to the subconscious, and now the subconscious is torn between two different messages. You want an unambiguous message sent to the subconscious so your orders are completely clear. It is a matter of faith.

Some may question how religion enters into this picture at all. In The Law of Psychic Phenomena, Hudson states that he believes the subconscious can apprehend the laws of the universe. In the Cayce view, there is an aspect of mind called the superconscious that never left its source, the Creator.

Messages from the superconscious are direct messages from God. Through meditation and in certain dreams, the superconscious can be reached. If your purpose is spiritual and consistent with the Creative or Universal Forces (Cayce expression), the power of God resonates within you and strengthens your power so anything is possible. Your mind is now operating through the superconscious mind and is in tune with the Universal.

Now suppose you desire something that is a selfish or harmful goal—one that is best described as unloving toward yourself or others. You can attempt to enlist the power of your subconscious mind to achieve that result, and may even have some success. 

However, your desire will not be in harmony with the Universal or your superconscious, something your subconscious will recognize, and the results will be ambiguous or may cause mental or physical problems as your subconscious tries to tell you that something is wrong. Your abilities will eventually dry up because they are being misused.

As a simple analogy that illustrates the importance of having individual efforts in sync with external forces, suppose there is a force pushing a child on a swing. If the force to the back of the child is applied at just the right time, the swing will travel farther on each cycle. This is because the applied force is synchronous with the movement of the swing and aids the child’s efforts. 

Now, if the force is applied at the wrong time, the swing distance will decrease and the swing movement may become chaotic instead of smooth. If this continues, the swing will stop and may result in the child being thrown to the ground.

If you go with the flow—your thoughts and actions are in harmony with the flow— your life gets easier and you become successful in what you undertake. If you are out of sync with the flow, you may experience frequent disappointment and problems.

There is a second volume to The Law of Psychic Phenomena called Physical Manifestations and Philosophy of Christ. You should read this if you want to better understand the work of Hudson and his view of Christian faith. For those interested in becoming healers or in receiving a healing, I think you will find this a fascinating read.

Your faith activates the creative force within you. There is a real cause and effect relationship. But doubt can undo this by sending a conflicting message to your subconscious. Also, any selfish motives will be in opposition to your higher mind and cause conflicts at deep levels within yourself, resulting in eventual disappointment and sorrow.

If you want to be certain that your beliefs and desires are the correct ones, find your soul’s purpose. Then bring your desires into alignment with that purpose. Now you are operating in harmony with your higher purpose and cannot fail. You are going with the creative flow that some call the Holy Spirit and others call the Tao. There are many names for it, but it simply is The Way.

You cannot simply tell yourself that you believe and expect results. The subconscious cannot be commanded in this way. Either you believe or you don’t. 

The operation of the subconscious remains hidden from the conscious mind and your conscious mind cannot just order it to do something. It operates based on your real beliefs, not your pretended or hoped for beliefs, and possesses its own unique drive toward a loving creativity.

Even in hypnosis, when the conductor of the session gives instructions that appear to go directly to the subconscious mind of the person hypnotized, the morality of the individual in trance cannot be overridden. People under hypnosis who believe committing a crime is wrong simply fall out of hypnosis or become very confused if ordered to commit a crime.

Your work with dreams will aid you in understanding yourself and your real beliefs. You can keep beliefs that work for you and are in harmony with your soul’s purpose, and you can change beliefs that don’t work and are limiting you in various ways. As the subtitle of my book states, with faith you too can see tomorrow in your dreams.

A Dream About Edgar Cayce and Climate Change

Last night I dreamed about Edgar Cayce and climate change. In the dream, I was viewing a large vertical panel that contained a chart of some kind describing distinct periods in the history of the earth. There was also some mention of Edgar Cayce and his prophecies concerning earth changes. 

My attention focused on what was labeled Period 6. This period was concerned with the present and near future. An inner voice told me that the weather would get much worse during the next 10-15 years. It said that some current landmasses would be under water due to flooding. I saw the year 2030 as the end of this period.

We have already recently seen a climatologist report telling us to expect severe weather this coming winter in many parts of the United States. Climate change is already affecting many parts of the world such as Myanmar, which is experiencing severe flooding and loss of land. My dream seems to be saying that flooding will get much worse as storms increase. 

In the dream, I was aware of Period 7, but I did not focus on it to see the content. Perhaps it will be revealed in another dream. As always, there is the possibility that the dream was symbolic of something else entirely. However, the dream is consistent with the weather changes we see occurring and predictions made by others such as Edgar Cayce and Gordon-Michael Scallion.

Sex Dreams

Sex is a subject that many associate with dreaming due to the Freudian view that dreams represent our repressed drives and desires. One source worth considering for the basics, particularly for teenagers experiencing wet dreams, is WebMD. 

This site also references a study in which 8% of the adults had dreams with some sexual content. However, one should accept these results with caution since the average age was about thirty, making the group non-representative of the broader population.

The 8% of dreams with some sexual content, which includes kissing, intercourse, and masturbation, might be lower than many people expect. With the enormous focus on sex in our everyday lives, from news to entertainment, 8% does seem like a low number. However, this is what the study found.

There are many possibilities in sex dreams, from an expression of conscious desires continued into the dream cycle to symbolic representations of other situations that nothing to do with sex. I find that an intimate or deep verbal intercourse with another is often shown as sexual intercourse in a dream. 

This may occur with someone of the same sex or opposite sex. So if you dream that you have had sexual relations with someone of the same sex, do not assume that this means you have homosexual tendencies. That is one possible meaning. Another equally likely meaning is that you had a deep conversation with another person where real bonding occurred, and the dream has nothing to do with the sex act or having sexual desire for that person.

Both types of dreams, symbolic of a bonding and indicative of homosexual activity, were found in the Cayce readings. Often the sex dreams were warnings about the dangers of irresponsible or excessive sex. 

Some will find the Cayce view of sex difficult to accept, and others will applaud it. In his readings, he states that sexual intercourse outside of marriage is unacceptable to God. Of course, one might ask what he means by marriage. Regardless of the definition, I think that few would consider the relative free sexual expression that occurs nowadays as constituting what Cayce and most others mean by marriage, whether it is homosexual or heterosexual.

Edgar Cayce strongly believed in the bible and claimed he read it once for every year of his life. He was active in the Disciples of Christ church, and during his early life, he would probably be considered mainstream in his Christian beliefs. 

The life readings he gave that referred to previous lives began to change that. He eventually accepted reincarnation, but it was only after a long struggle with what he initially considered a strange concept that he worried was counter to biblical teachings.

I think one can naturally question whether Cayce’s personal views affected the information that came through him in a reading. During the readings, his biblical views based on his Christian upbringing did not filter out references to past lives and the doctrine of reincarnation that he found foreign in his waking state, but his personal views of sex and marriage could still have colored the readings.

Some believe there is a need for chastity to achieve true spiritual enlightenment. In the early 1990s, a great many people were shocked when it was revealed by a woman that Jiddu Krishnamurti had carried out a long love affair with her mother and wife of his close associate. 

This was particularly shocking because many thought that Krishnamurti was above sexual desires and had achieved a spiritual state without carnal desire. As a young man, some thought that Krishnamurti was the second coming that the world waited for, and an entire spiritual organization was built around him.

You must always remember that your dreams are about you. If you find warnings in your dreams about your sexual activity, don’t try to make a general statement that applies to all of society out of it. 

Look at yourself, your beliefs, and your activity. Is your activity consistent with your moral code, or does it violate it? Is your action beneficial to you and others around you? Or does it expose you or others to dangers such as disease, emotionally instability, or responsibilities for which you and they are ill prepared?

There is nothing free about free love. Many teenagers have seen their college and career dreams evaporate as the result of a momentary bad decision. And even excessive safe sex that you feel you can handle emotionally does not protect your partners from psychological or emotional trauma, and it may indicate you have an addiction. 

We affect everyone we contact; we leave them better off or worse off as the result. And if we leave them worse off, that is something we will eventually have to face in ourselves.

During my lifetime, I have encountered several women whose lives were unalterably changed during their early teenage years as the result of a disastrous sexual relationship for which they were not ready. They gave themselves to their partner totally, believing it was true love. And when it ended badly, they were devastated. 

Years later, these women were still struggling with deep-seated psychological problems and wounds that may never heal. And perhaps the men involved also carried with them unresolved psychological trauma. 

There are other dreams with sexual connotations that normally are not related to sex. Sometimes in a dream, you may see someone naked, or find yourself partially or completely naked. The dream could be saying the other person is an exhibitionist or you are an exhibitionist, but more often it is because someone has become exposed emotionally. 

If you see another person naked in a dream, the person who is exposed in waking life is probably not that actual person. The person naked in the dream is someone who reminds you of the person actually exposed. 

Update to Dreams About Storms and Food Shortages

In my post of 5/07/2015, I said that on April 22, 2015 I dreamed about storms hitting South Carolina. There was also a feeling of huge amounts of water in the dream due to continuous rain. 

Recently, we have seen record amounts of water in the Tampa Bay area due to continuous storms from the Gulf of Mexico. Fortunately, the area where I live has not experienced any flooding. I do not live in a flood zone, something I checked out carefully before I bought, and the area appears to be safe. However, this is not true of many areas. 

I watched an interview with the Mayor of Tampa on the local news during which he discussed problems in South Tampa, which has seen severe flooding with many roads and intersections closed. I even heard him use the words climate change as one of the possible causes of all the rain.

I am providing this update to the earlier post because it is possible that the storms I saw in the dream were the storms that have recently affected South Tampa and other parts of the Tampa Bay area. 

My dream indicated the area was South Carolina, and I associate South Carolina with severe weather that has devastated parts of the coast in the past. If the dream wanted to highlight South Tampa, South Carolina would be a natural association. Also, I received the information in the dream from a TV news report, which is how I received the information about South Tampa. 

Time will tell if this interpretation is correct. I will continue to watch for any storm activity near South Carolina as the hurricane season comes into full swing. Also, in the dream, I was concerned about this type of weather spreading to other regions around the world, a concern I have felt during the past few days with the flooding in Myanmar (Burma), now under a flood emergency.

The other earlier dream I had on April 19, 2015 that was mentioned in the previous post was about food shortages in China occurring in three years. I was shown a map of where the food shortages occur, which appeared to be near the central part of the country. 

If food shortages are literal and do occur somewhere in three years, China may just be an association my subconscious made for the actual area. At this time, I don’t know of any obvious association other than China being the country with the largest population in the world and a rapidly growing economy.

Perhaps that association translates into some other highly populated country or area that experiences severe food shortages. Of course, we are already seeing huge problems with food shortages in several regions around the world due to conflicts in the Middle East and Africa and flooding in Myanmar and Bangladesh.

As always, dreams are about the dreamer. The storm dream appeared to tune into to a future event that would have some impact on my life. Sometimes we dream about future events that will be of interest to us, even if we are not directly involved. I suspect this will be the case for the dream about food shortages. It will mostly likely relate to China or some area of the country or world in which I have an interest, so I will closely follow any major news story related to it. 

Of course, the dream may not be about food at all, but since the storm part appears to be literal as an event that occurred, I tend to think the food shortages will be as well.