Why We Have Dreams about the Future

I am going to focus in this post on why we have dreams that relate to the future. They may be dreams about some person we meet in the future, an illness not yet visible, an opportunity not yet seen, or a global event such as climate change. First, I want to repeat something I stated in an earlier post, which is the relative infrequency of dreams of global events. Most of our dreams relate to our personal lives in some way and do not extend beyond the sphere of family, friends, and coworkers. Very few of the psychic readings of the even famous psychic Edgar Cayce, who is often regarded as a prophet, related to global events. Most related to the individual for whom the reading was given.

I believe we have certain dreams about the future for several reasons. First, during the course of the day, and especially right before falling asleep, we may be thinking about some aspect of our future or the broader future such as for the economy. Our conscious focus triggers a subconscious response in the way of a dream, which may provide an answer to our concerns. As an example, if I am single, I may despair about ever meeting someone with whom I can share my life. If you have spent the day obsessing about this, you might have a dream that shows you with someone you do not now know, but will later meet as your future partner.

The subconscious is part of a universal consciousness and can receive information from an unlimited number of sources. It is not restricted by time or space. Your subconscious filters out most of the information it receives and does not pass it to your conscious mind through a dream. However, if you consciously seek some answer related to the future, the subconscious will reveal the answer based on current conditions and pass it to your conscious mind in a dream. Your conscious desire is the trigger for the dream. This applies to your personal life as well as for global events.

Another reason for a dream about a future event relates to the unconscious mind and its purpose. You have entered this life with a purpose, and your conscious choices may be taking you in the wrong direction. The subconscious creates a dream with a message that is intended to steer you into a direction consistent with your soul’s purpose. Sometimes the message is subtle, and other times it comes as a stern reprimand.

Still other reasons for dreams of the future involve warnings and missed opportunities. If something in the future is a threat or danger, your subconscious sees the threat and creates a dream containing a warning. If dreams of warning are ignored, catastrophic results can occur. Also, sometimes we are shown the future we could experience, but are not experiencing, if we lived up to our potential. The dreams are provided as encouragement to more fully utilize abilities we possess.

Anything the unconscious mind thinks we need to know about the future will find its way into a dream, if the unconscious thinks that is the right way to inform us. However, the dream may not be remembered upon awakening, so the message may be lost. If the subconscious considers it important enough, the message is repeated in different ways in further dreams until we do remember them and get the message.

Dreams of the future can relate to the next day, or they can concern an event many years into the future. When I was thirteen or fourteen, I had an extremely vivid, powerful dream that showed me the entire course my life would take. Now in retirement, I realize that my life has evolved exactly as depicted in the dream. However, most of my dreams about the future relate to the next day. 

When interpreting your dreams, you may have a tendency to see events depicted in the future as happening soon—within days or weeks at the most. Often this is the case, but time to the subconscious mind is not the same as to the conscious mind. The subconscious may see an event as a certainty and show it as occurring in a dream, but in our material word, the event may be years or even decades away. 

Precognitive Dreams and Time

In precognitive dreams, time can be an elusive element. If you dream about something happening as a future event, often no date for the occurrence is provided. However, sometimes a specific time may be provided such as when a voice says something like the following: this will happen in thirty days or by the end of the month. The event can also be linked to another event, and the event of concern may occur shortly after the other event occurs. 

The lack of a predicted time can be a frustrating thing to experience. I have had dreams where a specific date was provided for the predicted event, and I have had dreams in which no date was provided for the predicted event. Once I dreamed a health-related event would occur in ninety days, and it happened in exactly ninety days. Another time I dreamed about food shortages beginning in China in three years (the dream occurred in April of 2015), a date that is fast approaching. However, when I dreamed about major storms hitting South Carolina, a date was not provided. The actual storms occurred a little over five months after my dream. 

Last year in July, almost one year ago, I dreamed the stock market would crash. A date for this event was not provided. Obviously, this has not yet happened yet. Also, in my posted dream about seeing a graph of the unemployment rate, no time scale was shown for the graph. I could only see the steady decline, which has occurred, followed by a steep increase from the bottom, which has not yet occurred. 

Over the years, I have had many dreams about future personal events, and usually I will experience their occurrence within a few weeks. However, this may only be my perception. Perhaps, other events that will not occur until years into the future were forgotten because nothing occurred within a few weeks or months. I know that some of the events shown in my precognitive dreams about future personal events did not occur for several years. 

I believe we are shown things in dreams a certain way for a reason. When time is not provided, perhaps it is not yet known. Or maybe the higher mind wants the dreamer to spend some time exploring the possibilities along with potential ramifications. I have spent considerable time contemplating the possibilities for my dreams about the stock market and the graph of the unemployment rate. At the time of the dreams, I believe the events indicated were likely events. Whether or not they actually occur is still an open question. However, I do not think we will have to wait much longer for an answer.

New Book Now Available

The paperback version of my latest book, A Prophetic Dreamer’s Reflections on Life, is now available on Amazon.com. The Kindle version will be available within two weeks. Availability of the paperback version through other sales channels such as bookstores and other online retailers can take up to eight more weeks.

About New Book Available Soon

My latest book titled A Prophetic Dreamer’s Reflections on Life will be available soon. I will post an update when I have a firm date. In this book, through a collection of short essays, I offer my perspective on many aspects of ordinary life. The essays represent my views, greatly affected by my beliefs, which in turn are influenced by over forty-five years of meditation and working with my dreams. 

My views have evolved through my life experiences, as well as my inner work with meditation and dreams. In the essays, I reveal my thoughts about topics such as belief, reality, the inner voice, the duality of time, fear of the self, personal responsibility, true aloneness, seeing the future, and faith. Although the collection of essays is not a book about dreams, I often propose using guidance from dreams as a way out of the dilemmas many people face in their daily existence. 

A few of the topics have also been discussed in my previous books about dreams, but most of the material is not covered in those previous works. However, I have tried to show the connection between my experience with dreams and my current beliefs that led to the views expressed in the essays.

Dreams about Impending Death

In my books, I have provided some common examples of dreams of impending death. Recently, I have thought about a few others that are not included in my books, but I believe are also dreams of an impending death. The first relates to an actual encounter that occurred many years ago with a co-worker, and the second involves an encounter in a dream with a co-worker. 

In both cases, other interpretations are possible, and dreams like these could represent something other than an impending death. People who have such dreams have to evaluate the possibilities based on current conditions and their own dream associations. 

The individual in the first example was a man who worked in the company’s manufacturing department. Occasionally, he would pass my office and strike up a conversation. One day I learned that he had some health problems that the doctors were having difficulty diagnosing. During subsequent discussions, he would update me on his progress. Then one day he came by my office to tell me about a strange dream he had experienced the previous night. (He was not aware of my work with dreams.) He said that in the dream he was walking up a spiral staircase to a higher level. He asked me what I thought it meant, but I did not comment. A short time later, he passed away.

In the second dream, which occurred last year, I was in the supermarket I had worked in as a part-time employee while in high school and college. I encountered a co-worker, who was also a friend. In the dream, I said I was glad to see him and wanted to talk with him. However, he said he could not stay and had to leave. He then abruptly left. 

I had not seen him or spoken to him since his graduation from college. We attended the same university; he graduated a few years before me and then joined the military.  So I was curious about his presence in a dream fifty years later. The answer soon came when I received the latest alumni news a few months later. I learned that he had passed away around the time of my dream.

A Dream About Weather

A week ago, I had a dream that appeared to be about weather. I say appeared to be because that would be a literal interpretation. I think there is also another interpretation that I will describe.

In the dream, I saw a large map. First, my attention was focused on England and surrounding area. A voice said the weather would gradually worsen. My attention was then drawn to the United States. I saw a mixture of colors that were reddish (closer to lavender) in a band extending from north to south in an area that appeared to be around the middle of the country. The band seemed to be moving east. I think there was another band of some type by the West Coast, but I did not focus on it. My attention then focused on the East Coast and a band of green that extended from Maine to the tip of Florida.

If you look up the color codes for weather advisories, there are several possibilities. The reddish colors I saw in the middle of the country seemed closest to the code for extreme wind. And the green band that covered the East Coast would signify a flood warning. Flood effects of climate change are already being felt in areas like Miami Beach.

If we discount the literal interpretation, then we have to think about the possible symbolic meaning of storms and weather related events. England is certainly experiencing some political turmoil due to BREXIT, which appears to be spreading to Ireland. The United States is also experiencing political turmoil due to Donald Trump’s election as President and early decisions. However, I am having some difficulty understanding the color bands and their locations in that context. While the East Coast may represent a different political and economic climate than the middle parts of the US, Donald Trump did receive support in some key East Coast states.

There is a third possibility that the dream relates to my internal states, but I cannot make sense out of the dream in this context.

I think the meaning of the dream will become clear in time. My current feeling is that it is a literal preview of future effects of climate change. I believe the weather will worsen as indicated in some earlier dreams and we will begin to see flooding along the East Coast and violent wind storms in the mid-sections of the country.

Update on Dreams about the Economy and Stock Market

This is my first post since the election. I did not post anything ahead of the election because there is little to say when there are only two possible outcomes. I would have a hard time claiming precognition. In fact, I did not have any dreams about the outcome, but I did see the result while meditating.

Today, I think an update is needed concerning my earlier dreams about the job situation and stock market. Fears by many of a stock market crash prior to the election seem to have subsided, and now there is enormous enthusiasm among investors for President-elect Donald Trump’s plans. The stock market surged after the election and is still rising with many people expecting a new period of growth. This may happen, but the current gains in the stock market are not due to improvements in companies’ earnings. The gains are due to expectations for next year. 

If the expectations for the economy fail to materialize, those same people piling into the market may quickly exit, which could result in a market crash. So I am saying that the evidence is not in yet to say that a crash has been avoided. In fact, the conditions may have been created for a crash to occur.

My earlier dream in which a voice said the stock market would crash did not give a timetable for this event. My subconscious could have been tuned into events a year or more in the future. The future for jobs in this country will most likely be interrelated with events that affect the stock market.

It is possible that Donald Trump’s unexpected victory changed the probable future, which included a stock market crash, into a better future. However, it is equally possible that his election ensured a horrific downturn. Sometimes, the market will surge right before a major downturn, so the current activity does not mean all risk is gone. I wish I could say my dream was wrong and meant something else, but while meditating I do not see the stock market reaching 50,000 or even 30,000 in the Dow, as some are predicting. I see a collapse. 

Maybe I am seeing this because of my earlier dreams about the stock market. Perhaps my conscious mind does not want to accept that my dream was wrong (or wrongly interpreted), so it is showing me a dire outcome. 

I would be more likely to accept this explanation if it were not for my visions before the election. My conscious mind was quite certain the Hillary Clinton would win; there seemed to be little doubt. But as I entered into meditation, I was shown just the opposite. I could not shake the vision of a Donald Trump victory. 

Now I can’t shake my dire vision for the stock market. This does not mean that the stock market will change course tomorrow. The Dow may reach the 20,000 mark, and even far beyond. But next year might be a completely different story. And, of course, some event completely beyond the government's control may trigger a crash.

I continue to monitor my dreams and am hopeful that I will have a dream about the economy and stock market by early next year. Any dream or dreams will be posted on my blog and website.