memories of present life and past life, observer or active participant
Before I begin, I want to make a statement of clarity. My intent with this series is not to have you control your dreams, as one person commented that we should just “let them flow” and thought that “control” was a negative term that could act like a dog’s “choke collar” (not their words; don’t stop me, I’m on my soapbox preaching). There is so much available in the unconscious mind, where we live almost a third of our lives. To stay in your own comfortable corner is very limiting. The universe has given you a 16-room mansion to explore, so why just stay in your safe place? It’s like Aesop’s fable of the “Sour Grapes,” where the fox who couldn’t successfully reach the grapes justifies their failure by declaring, “I wouldn’t want those grapes anyway, they are probably sour,” and that prejudice prevents them from making further attempts and gives absolutely no opportunity for success. So my objective is to open doors and windows, to guide you through hallways and up staircases so that you can fully explore that mansion and its 16 rooms. There’s a backyard patio and a greenhouse on the side of the house, and don’t forget the circular driveway lined with cypress trees and a fountain at the center!
Now let me introduce you to a well-known “Dream Master” of the past, one of many, who wrote that he attributed his vast and varied library of poems and novels to “brownies” who visited him in his dreams and gave him the ideas that inspired his creativity and his success as an author. Any guess who that was? Hint: he was Scottish. Okay, another hint: he traveled extensively in the South Pacific; Hawaii, where he tutored a princess; Tahiti, where he designed a lighthouse; and Samoa, where he died too soon at 44 and where they built a museum in his honor. He was:
These types of dreams are essentially a replay of events or memories of things that happened, which get stored in the filing cabinet of a person, place, or event. These dreams have a deep emotional content where familiar people become symbolic of the portions of the subconscious where they are stored. Example: a sister with whom you had fights and arguments may appear in your dream to help you deal with a conflict in your present-day life. In some cases, a good memory will be repeated to reward you; we call these fun zone dreams. They serve no greater purpose than to help your body and mind release helpful endorphins to aid your healing process. Unresolved traumas can be given as repetitious dreams, and they can be presented as a rerun of that event or in the form of symbols, depending on how ready you are to release that trauma and resolve those issues in your “Now.”
As you keep your dream journal, try to associate the “flavour” of your dream. This will help you identify the type of dream you are having and what part of the mind it originates from. Past dreams, because of their emotional triggers, have a deeper, richer essence to them. It’s very possible to have dreams slip in multiple forms and patterns. Often, dreams will be more intense when you first go to sleep because you bring into your sleep state the last memories of that day. You remember being told not to watch scary movies near bedtime because “they will give you nightmares.” This sets the stage for not all of your night’s dreaming, but for the first stage of the night. So watching uplifting content or reading an uplifting book or even a bit of meditation before sleep can set a better stage for blasting off to bedtime.
One of the most interesting types of dreams is past life dreams, where you experience memories of another time. Long before I had seen the first TV show or movie focused on Petra in Jordan, I had dreams of it. The canyons of rose-colored carved buildings were something I immediately was familiar with. I’ve had dreams where I was riding horses before I got to experience that in real life, and my fear of horses (and other big animals) in real life was not a factor in my dreams. Maybe you have a similar place, thing, or activity from your dream state that has no bearing on your current-day experiences? I would love to hear it.
I could go on and on about “memory” dreams, and in today’s world of media influences (movies, TV, computers, gaming consoles) we are stimulating our brains with information and content like no generation before. This has a factor on our dreams as well as our ability to grow and express and learn. Creativity is exploding as well. Just as today’s music sounds horrible to older generations, it comes from a more enhanced palette of creative diversity. I was raised by my grandparents who loved Lawrence Welk and his accordion and his variety show. I hated it growing up on Saturday nights in the 50’s and 60’s, and they hated American Bandstand and the rock music I grew up liking. That was the theme of “Bye, Bye Birdie,” which made fun of Elvis, that generation gap.
So here is a theory of mine which addresses the evolution of the mind, and I’ll use the evolution of music to help you understand it. We have a very short history of modern music and the invention of instruments where most compositions come from. It was said that if you played any song composed in the last 100 years for someone living in the days of Julius Caesar it would sound like cats fighting in a burlap sack. Their senses would find it offensive noise. Along with that surmise, when Beethoven composed his Ninth Symphony, “Choral – Ode to Joy,” he wrote it when he had gone deaf. It was an advance, a leap forward in music composition. Beethoven could only hear the sounds in his mind where his physical hearing would have been limited and might have stunted his creative process. He created something he knew was innovative, and he feared it would not be well received by the fickle Viennese audiences of his day. At the end of the performance he had to be turned around to see the applause because he could not hear the audience’s cheers. Today this symphony has the distinction, 200 years later, of being considered a masterpiece and one of the most frequently performed symphonies in the world.
How does all this relate to dreams, you ask? I believe that all our sensory input has the ability to evolve where our minds take us. However, the peace and quiet needed for our minds to function properly is lacking and missing from our daily lives. We never used to need to go to the gym to be physically fit; we were fit because we worked physical tasks for our livelihoods. Nowadays, we sit at a desk like I’m doing right now (not burning many calories, nope), so as our lives evolve, would it be too much to suggest we need to have similar rules for gym workouts and embed them into our dream lab and other ways to help our conscious and unconscious minds develop as well? Sounds like an idea for a franchise business that is sleep-based. An hour at the gym is the norm versus 6–8 hours of sleep. Oh well, we are all living in the Matrix anyway, right?
Michael Forrest-Modern Mystic, Intuitive Mentor, Wizard of Awes!
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