WHAT ARE DREAMS?

For many of us dreams are a mixture of subconscious memories, things that have happened during the day, the books we have read and films we have seen.  Most of us have had dreams where we are on a journey, which in itself needs no explanation, except that we should be asking ourselves where we are going.  And many of us have had dreams where we are being chased and again, we should ask ourselves what we are running away from, what is it that we fear?  And sometimes they tell us about a situation, they give us a warning.  For example, you might be concerned about going into partnership with someone and dream that the two of you are playing poker.  He bluffs so effectively you throw in your hand and he wins.  But when he lays down his cards he only has two pair.  He tricked you.  So in reality is the dream telling you that he has less capital to put in than he makes out?  That he’s bluffing?

When we dream we are usually watching ourselves, watching the whole scene, seeing a situation unfold. And if we want to understand ourselves more or have an insight into situations, than we need to tell ourselves as we settle down to sleep that we want to remember.  It is best to go to bed with a pad and pencil by our side to write down what we have experienced immediately on waking.  In this way, we can understand what is happening to us on a deeper level, although this in itself takes some insight and we might need to meditate on it.  Dreams can also tell us about ourselves, our situation and other people in our lives through symbolism.  There are books that can help us interpret our dreams although sometimes it needs a more individual approach.  For example, if you dream of a bear, is it a sign of danger, as some bears are ferocious, or is it telling you that there is something in your life that you cannot ‘bear’, or maybe it is neither of these?  For example, if you are into the Red Indian Medicine cards you will know that the bear represents connection through intuition and introspection.

 And if you dream of your shoes falling apart which means you can’t walk, is it telling you that your life is going to fall apart, or is something preventing you from moving forward, and if the sole has come off, is there something wrong with your soul?

But there is another type of dreaming, sometimes called lucid but which I call ‘living’ and it is where we are taking part fully.  We are not watching ourselves because we are in the dream and can only see ourselves by looking down at ourselves.  We feel we are living now, that this is real.  So what is happening here?

There are several answers to this and it is not parallel lives.  We only have one physical life at a time, but we do have a multi-dimensional self which operates on other levels simultaneously.

Firstly, when we dream, our soul leaves our body. It is attached by a long silver thread which on waking brings us back to life.  Sometimes we only leave our bodies to the extent of staying within our immediate environs.  This is why some people say they never remember their dreams.  They haven’t ‘gone anywhere!’

 So what are these dreams where we feel we are living now?  And why are we not watching ourselves?

The reason is that this is not a subconscious viewing: you are in one of your light or subtle bodies.  This could be the astral, mental or any of the others.  In this subtle body you can think and feel and if you are very evolved, even make decisions.

I had one myself recently that was extremely weird.  I have a neighbour whose small child is always crying and screaming.  In this ‘dream’ he came to see me with the child and I was able to tell him that the child’s problems were caused by past lives.  In this dream I was able to deduce that which I hadn't known in my conscious waking body because I had not gone into the cause as I had not been asked to do so, so this information was new to me.  In this dream the past lives were so awful that I walked into my kitchen and retched in the sink and could think and feel as if it was really happening.

And what difference does it make whether we experience them in our astral, mental, celestial or other bodies?

Just as different clothes are appropriate for different places, (you wouldn't go to work in a ball gown or a tuxedo), so the subtle body you use depends partly on your own level but also to whatever plane or dimension you are visiting.  If you are going to, say, a planet that functions on an astral vibration, you’d need to go in your astral body so that you would feel solid to everyone else there.  In a higher body you’d become a ghost like figure only able to be seen by those who were clairvoyant and as we usually go to places to help and teach, this higher form is not practical.

We can also go to the corresponding spiritual planes of soul or even revisit the past, our past lives or the time those lives were set in, or just those times, even if we weren't there but there is a reason for us to see what it was like.  Again, if we are visiting a community on the astral plane that is very narrow or hostile, that hasn't moved on, it is better to go in a lower form and ensure we are dressed like them, even if we are only watching from the sidelines, because they can see us.  If we are looking at records from the past or even our future, than we would have to be in a higher form because these are kept on the seventh or celestial level and in fact not everyone is allowed to go in and read them.

For those of us who are evolved we can go into hell realms to get people out, and just as in real life, there are some very nasty people around who would do us *harm.  A visit to these regions might well result in us waking suddenly from a ‘nightmare.’

These experiences are also training for those who later on will be able to bi-locate in both sleep and waking state, in full consciousness, for when we come back we do not always remember these trips, but by practicing we gain a greater control over our subtle or light bodies which will expand our consciousness and help our spiritual progress. And in order to remember, all we need to do is tell ourselves that we want to remember and write down what we have experienced immediately on waking.

Going into the akashic records or visiting other planetary systems can also cause confusion where past lives are concerned for we may think we have lived in this or that era when in fact we haven’t.

Another type of dream one may have, which is neither subconscious memories nor a living dream is the Holodek.  Fans of the second Star Trek series starring Patrick Stewart and featuring the android ‘Data’ will be fully conversant with its purpose and function.  The Holodek is a simulation that can replicate any place, any time and any person!  It is a great training ground because in this you can be faced with any situation and it is so real that you think you are living then and there and what is happening is really happening, until you wake up.  I've been on this several times to experience events that I would not experience, thank G-d, in real life, like running someone over in a car or being in an earthquake.  I can’t tell you how thankful I was when I woke up!

Recurring dreams are also very important.  They are there in some cases to warn us, or to tell us that there is something important we have to deal with, often on an emotional or psychological level.  And then there are the nightmares.  These could be things that we fear at a deep level, or an encounter with the forces of darkness.

Misinterpreting Dreams

Freud said that dreams are wish-fulfillment.  I don’t agree, or at least only in part.  Freud was dealing mainly with middle class women in the second half of the 19^th century.  Married women were reduced to filling their time with charity work, painting, sewing and giving dinner parties, whilst the unmarried ones, well, they couldn't do very much at all!  They couldn't get a job unless they were penniless gentlewomen, in which case they had the choice of being a governess, teacher or companion!  Certainly there was no chance of being a doctor or doing anything that was considered intellectually stimulating.

As to the unmarried ones, or the unhappily married ones, I am sure they had a multitude of unfulfilled wishes! Freud was not taking into account the expansion of the mental and other subtle bodies which would allow for spiritual truths and prophecies to be brought through in the dream state.  How could he?  Not that I am decrying his work, quite the contrary, I have found it very useful for myself.

I had a complicated dream on the night of Friday 3th July 2015, which I will relate so that you can see how careful one has to be when interpreting them.  Dreams often appear to be a mishmash of unconnected themes and it is easy to dismiss them as rubbish.  So here is a perfect example of what appears to be nonsense, but isn't.

I dreamt I was at home although it didn't actually look like it and people had left money for me, putting it through the door in cash so as to be anonymous.  This could (dare I say it!), be wish fulfillment because at the time I was broke and wondering how I was going to manage over the next eight months whilst I did some further training and would be unable to do much in the way of work.  In fact I was hoping for just that, a donation. It did not mean that money would come.  This is something to be aware of in dreams, that when something good happens it doesn't necessarily mean that it will. 

The dream then took a totally different turn.  I dreamt I had woken up in a panic thinking I had overslept as I was expecting someone at nine thirty.  It was actually ten o’clock in the dream and I rushed out, still in my dressing gown, to look for the person who was coming at nine thirty and found him, walking towards me.  This refers to several things.  First, the person who I was expecting the next day is invariably late, second I never book anything in the morning if I can help it because I work for the good of the world at night and sometimes don’t get to sleep till the early hours of the morning and am fit for nothing before midday, and lastly, rushing out in my dressing gown, a recurring theme in my dreams, because I never feel ready for the work I have been trained to do and know that I never will, just as tennis stars rarely feel ready for centre court at Wimbledon, they just have to get on with it!

The dream moved on to a hotel room which I was sharing with a girlfriend. Two other women came in and we were discussing getting a take-out.  One of the women said that she didn't want to get food from the restaurant next to the hairdresser’s because she didn't like the hairdresser.  Now, in the dream, my friend and I both went to the hairdresser, she was a friend of ours and perfectly alright.  Also the woman said she wanted a mushroom omelette and she was sure the restaurant only used tinned not fresh.

This part was easy to interpret because the day following the dream I had planned to do my hair but put it off because the night before I had got the offer of a lift to the supermarket, which brings me to the next point, the food.  I had been telling a devotee that same day that I was anaemic because the iron rich foods I needed I couldn't get from the local shop, as they didn't do organic and so were probably GM, and it was impossible for me to get to the supermarket.  By the dream saying that the hairdresser was alright and knowing that the restaurant did fresh mushrooms not tinned, I took this to mean that the food I had been avoiding, because it wasn't organic, wasn't GM and was therefore safe to eat.

Next two girls in their early twenties came in looking for something but we told them they were in the wrong place.  They didn't leave at once and went to the window and pocketed some of my cosmetics.  I accused them of stealing and took them back off of one girl but the other would not let me search her bag.  I knew she had taken a precious metal fountain pen case with the pen inside it.  In the dream I used it specifically for writing up notes on anything sacred, so in the end I told her I would have to take her to the manager and call in the police.  I also told her, in a bid to avoid this step, that the item, because of its sacredness would rebound on her and do her no good.

I always use a propelling pencil to write up my notes, but it is not expensive, so it does not refer to that.  No the precious metal box is my body and the pen my spirit, and it is about being stopped in my spiritual progress.  Again when I was talking to my devotee the day before, I was saying that I hoped I would have moved before the neighbour from hell came back, a student who lived above me who had parties that started as early as eight in the evening and finished about two or three the following morning!  I had, on two previous occasions, had to put up with this for a fortnight and with my sensitivity I knew I could not go through this again especially as the university summer holidays last for ten weeks!  I also did not want to go to the police as I couldn't call them out before midnight and my sensitivity would not be able to deal with their energy bearing in mind the work they do.  Also when I told them who I was they would think I was some religious nutter and not take me seriously, hence, in the dream my attempt to reason with the thief so as to avoid the police.   I also intended to try and reason with the student if I wasn't out of here by the time he returned.  So this was a personification of my fear I had mentioned on the previous day because it would be impossible for me to go through this again and would destroy me, represented by the loss of the box.  So much of what I had dreamed was to do with events and feelings arising from the previous day.  In fact many of our dreams are to do with what has happened the day before.  This, of course, is not the full story. I could go on for pages more as there are deeper aspects to it.  This, I feel, is sufficient to show how complicated dreams are but also so very important.  Start taking note of yours!

*You will find more information on this in my free e-book Soul Journey available from