A Question About Dreams

Here's a question I received via email:

If I dream about people I don't know, does that mean I used to know them long time ago? Why do I dream of other peoples pets?

My answer:
Dreams fulfill all sorts of needs for people. Basically and most importantly they are a way for the person to process their own stuff. So, even when you think a dream might be of others or prophetic in some way look first to see if there isn't some meaning for you personally in the dream.

After you have examined whether a dream is a personal message for you and decided that it was not then go after the idea that maybe these are folks who are visiting you or who you knew from long ago.

So, yes, it can happen that you are dreaming of people you knew in other lifetimes. It can also happen that you are exploring connections you have (everybody has them) with folks you don't personally know who with you are working on some sort of lifelong project. In the Michael teachings they explain that we do have these connections. They've told me that the person I am working with is a female presently living in China. I don't know her personally. Could be she and I get together occasionally in dreams to compare notes. Who knows? It sounds logical to me.

My advice would be since you have expressed an interest in your dreams is to begin keeping a dream journal. Keep a little notepad beside your bedside and before you go to bed promise yourself that you are going to awaken after your dreams and record a bit of them. What you record is nothing more than a couple of words. No detailed explanations. It is in the morning when you fill in the gaps. Those three words you recorded at 3 am will be enough to remind you what the dream was about. And, not spending a whole lot of time doing this at 3 am will ensure that you're not going to awaken anybody who is sharing your bed and you are not going to rouse yourself so much that you can't go back to sleep easily. Maybe keep a little book light next to the bed so you don't have to even turn on the bigger bedside light.

It might also take a week of the promising bit before you actually begin to awaken after your dreams to do the recording. I know with me that's what happens.

So, once you are in the practice of keeping a dream journal you might also notice that you're actually recording more than one dream a night. Good.

And, the next step would be to read, "Lucid Dreaming" by Stephen LeBerge. It didn't take me until I was just half way through reading the book myself when I began having lucid dreams. That is like going from riding the merry-go-round to flying along on a roller coaster. Big difference and a fantastic dream for sure.

A Dream I Had

I love it when I channel in a dream. So, here’s my dream from this morning:

I was at a birthday party. Except, I’m normally very shy and I don’t do the mingling thing well. And, I really didn’t know anybody at this party. I hung around in the background and in the back rooms of this house until I figured it was time to go. To be polite I felt I needed to say thank you to somebody and to be really polite it ought to be a thank you to the birthday boy. Except, I didn’t even know who he was. To make things worse all the people I’d come with were gone and I didn’t think they were hanging around outside waiting for me to show up in order for us to all pile into the car and go home. Well, I’d figure that one out once I was outside. Maybe I could walk home.

So, I made my way to the front door. There appeared to be a host of sorts standing there and I wondered if maybe I’d lucked out and this was the birthday boy. I said thank you and as I was standing there in front of him I thought what a chicken I was and maybe this wasn’t the guy. There wasn’t such a large crowd anymore in the front room so I went in there in search of more people to thank.

There were a bunch of folks sitting on the floor scattered around the edges of the room. I walked in and began greeting them and making small talk. I still wasn’t comfortable, but at least it wasn’t as bad as it had been before when I’d been doing the wall flower thing in the back of the house.

Everybody at this party was black. I’m white and I was feeling sort of out of place. But, they now appeared to be friendly and I was sort of settling in now that the party was breaking up.

I was not letting on that I am psychic. I did not feel that it was appropriate and I felt that if I said anything it would raise more questions than it answered, so I was keeping mum about it. Except, this new lady comes in and starts moaning about something. I glance at her and I can’t really understand what she’s talking about. I lean in closer. She is talking to me. Now, she’s getting really upset and she’s crying and the best I can figure out is she is super worried about a number of people. She’s almost crying and her agitation is getting worse.

I have white gloves on. I take the one on my right hand off. I grab her right hand. The ladies in the room with us are suddenly enlightened as to who I am. I am the psychic. The one who reads palms. Except, I don’t read palms, but I was busy with this upset lady and I didn’t want to be explaining what I was doing to the rest of the crowd. I needed to concentrate on her.

I thought to myself, though, reading palms might not be such a bad idea. I looked at the lady’s palm. No good. I don’t read palms. So, I covered her palm with my hand and one of the bystanders says to the room, “She’s warming it up.” Well, that sounded good. I am a 2nd degree Reiki practitioner, maybe that would work, though I haven’t used it in a really long time, but who knows? The lady is still upset and I still can’t understand what she’s talking about. I’m thinking I really need to know what is wrong in order to offer some advice and with all the people making comments in the background this is getting harder and harder.

Then, this sort of loud guy gets into my face. He was probably the birthday boy and figured he could take liberties or something, but he’s really interfering with what I’m trying to do. I’m getting irritated between the lady who has asked me for help and who won't stop crying and moaning, the ladies in the background with their comments and now this nut who is really in my face making revealing comments about how I’m the psychic who reads hands and such.

That’s when Spirit stepped in. I felt it happening. I started swaying. I didn’t stand up, but I kneeled up. I’d been hunkered down on the floor with the lady, but now I’m on reared up on my knees. I’m taller than I was, but I’m still holding the lady’s hand. Now, I’m swaying. In my mind I know that Spirit has moved in and they’re being really dramatic, more dramatic than I normally am, but measures because of the crowd need to be taken. Okay, I’m game. What are you going to do? And, I start swaying. I’m in the grip of Spirit. Folks are starting to be awed and stand back and give me the room I need. This is a show now. I’m thinking this is totally unnecessary and Spirit is putting on a show and now we are going to be scaring people. Except birthday boy is not standing back. He’s really in my face now. He’s excited as all get out. Oh, shit. I’m swaying and thinking that the movement is very much like a cobra and wondering what the hell is going to happen next. I’m still holding this lady’s hand.

That’s when it happened. You know how a lion roars? Right. That’s what came out of my mouth. Birthday boy is 2 inches away from my face, dancing and keeping time with my swaying cobra movements and Wowwwwww Roarrrrrrrrr comes out of my mouth. Except it was more along the lines of Gnnnnnnngggggtththththhhthth. It was the snore to end all snores. I’m surprised I didn’t wake myself up.

Anyway, birthday boy stands back real quick and that’s when the channeling part starts. I am now channeling and it’s all coming out in a deeper male voice which is how I channel. My husband says it is very weird so I usually don’t do it in front of him. But, I was in this dream. Here’s what the guides (Seth) said to the lady: "When everything around you is in turmoil you can be at peace. You must be the one to make a choice as to what you will be. You cannot control what is happening in the lives of others. That will continue to unfold according to their wants, desires and needs. But, you have a choice to make and you can be at peace in the midst of turmoil. It is your choice."

I’m thinking I still didn’t know exactly what this lady’s complaint was, but the advice from Spirit sounded good, so maybe I worry too much about stuff. They seemed to have taken care of whatever needed to have been taken care of. Then, I snored again and woke myself up.

I guess I just need to chill out.

Lucid Dream

I had a lucid dream this morning. I’ve had a few over the years, but it had been some time and this one was different in that it lasted longer than any other one I’ve ever had.

The scene in the dream began as a normal dream. Normal for me, anyway. There were hundreds of people all around. They were all from the Middle East. There was terrible trouble going on and everybody was fleeing that-a-way. I was with them. So was DeeDude. But, we kept getting separated. If you’ve ever seen DeeDude and me in Cost-Co it’s the same thing.

We were all fleeing before a huge tsunami of water which, in the dream I remember thinking was a pretty odd phenomena seeing as how we were in a desert. Not only was it a wall of water that everybody was running from, but there were also a bunch of bad guys. Total pandemonium.

Right before I went lucid in the dream I had been cornered in an area of a long building that was being used as a hospital for people who’d been injured in the war and the flight. A helpful nurse injected my knee with something that was supposed to help protect me.

Again, I’m separated from DeeDude and I began hollering for him. Now, I’m out of the building and on the land. Guys are reaching out from the dunes to drag at me and I’m trying to evade their hands. These are getting to be the bad guys. Not totally bad guys, but bad enough. I’m hollering again for DeeDude. Normally, in any dream where I’m going to start hollering I can’t get enough energy or breath together to make much of a satisfactory dent at all in the hollering aspects. It comes out like a really wimpy breath of soft whisper. Not a good holler at all. Never. And that’s how this segment of hollering for DeeDude was going. Except, in this dream I didn’t give up like I usually do. I kept hollering.

So, here’s part of the dream going on and I try the hollering bit. No DeeDude. Then, mysteriously he shows up for awhile. Then, he’s gone again and I try hollering again meanwhile fleeing for our lives. This went on for a long time through the dream. Lots of hollering for DeeDude. Lots of being separated from him.

What finally cracked it from a normal nightmarish sort of dream to a real valid lucid dream was the hollering. And, it went from the wimpy dreamish hollering to really loud, long, full lung fulls of breath hollering. Bingo. I’m lucid. DeeDude is now holding me. I’m laughing and crying and saying, “I’m dreaming. Look at this! I’m dreaming!” I look around from the protection of his arms around me to really notice now the stuff on the walls of the inside-outside room we are in. Lots of pictures on the walls. And, I’m crying and each and every single tear that falls from my eyes sparkles like a diamond.

What was really interesting to me is that 95% of this dream was normal dreaming quality and that tiny 5% at the end was lucid. But, this lucid part was longer than I’ve ever experienced before and I got to share it with DeeDude.

Cool dream.

A Talking Turd

I had the weirdest dream I’ve ever had in my life. It was a talking turd. I’m not kidding. Right before I awakened this morning in my dream I walked by a toilet that hadn’t been flushed. It wasn’t me, folks. Anyway, the turd to end all turds lay in the water. I flushed the toilet and it wouldn’t go down. I realized why whoever had left it that way had gone. It just wasn’t going to go down. It began to rise up. I mean the turd rose up on its end. Really large now.

I’m thinking that this is really strange. I’m starting to get freaked out. I think to myself if I can break it up maybe it will go down the plumbing. I consider doing a karate chop on this standing on its end turd when it suddenly develops a mouth and begins to speak. And, to sing. I’m totally freaked out. I realize there’s no way I can kill a talking turd with a karate chop. Off somewhere in the room I hear two guys talking on a radio. They’re having a good old time talking about this talking turd. They began to imitate how the turd talked: “Well, pppfffrrrt, whatpppfffrrrt, do you thinkppppfffrrrrrrt. And…I woke up. Now, somebody analyze that one for me please.

Straight Laced Psychic

Last night we were watching a show on television about folks who were investigating haunted places. It was on the Biography channel and called Dead Famous – Ghostly Encounters. In this episode they went looking for Lucille Ball. There have evidently been a number of sitings of Lucy since she passed on and off to Stage 2, The Queen Mary and the Hotel Del Coronado we went.

On the team is a sensitive and a skeptic. Nicely balanced and in this particular show the skeptic got it with both barrels. Whether it was Lucy or somebody else’s spirit I don’t know. I think Lucy was more than likely in there some place since they were looking for her, however, my own personal opinion is that there were a bunch of lookie-loo spirits who were attracted to the ghost hunters.

At the end of the show they did a séance and the sensitive went into full blown unconscious channeling mode. He twitched. He flayed himself out all over the table. He flung his head back. It was a show. I looked over at DeeDude and said, “This is why I never wanted to do unconscious channeling. I was afraid of making a spectacle of myself.” I said, “I have come close, but only if I have 3 drinks under my belt.” It has to do with relaxing and surrendering your space for awhile. I’ve just never been real comfortable doing that. Just call me a psychic with a stick up my ass. Think of your old 5th grade teacher. That’s me.

On the flip side there’s no show to what a conscious channel does. It’s blah. How can you tell they’re doing anything other than talking to themselves? Well, with me the guides do speak in a different voice. It’s a sort of 18th century or older voice. The words they choose are usually different than the ones I speak. I sometimes think it’s a voice of a European dude. A male voice. It’s deeper than my own and gravelly at times. But, that’s my style, I guess.

Wanting as far as flamboyancy goes. Jane used to give it up and channel Seth from the unconscious mode. I’ve just either not progressed that far or will never go that far. I don’t know. I can remember twirling around my kitchen once a long time ago channeling Tupac, gyrating and with a brother’s rapping voice. The lady I was channeling for just about wet her pants she was so thrilled. But, I guess that’s the extent of it.

Which all leads me to the dream I had this morning right before I woke up. I’m on the telephone talking to a man and a woman who want me to find their cat. I’m thinking I can’t do that. I don’t do that. I’m hopeless as a psychic to find this animal. But, somebody I was with urged me to try anyway. Somebody says, “Feng Shui” and I put the telephone to my ear. I begin hearing music and a white ring forms at the edge of my vision and narrows to a point in front of me. A whole bunch of them one after the other after the other. And, then I fall down to the floor (spectacle, folks) and begin writhing and singing with the music that I’m hearing over the phone. And, I think that maybe I can psychically find this missing cat.

Look Into My Crystal Ball

I had an interesting dream this morning. I only remember parts of it. Here’s one: some lady was behind a counter serving up refreshments. She handed me a completely squashed down soda can. You did something to it and it expanded and became a can full of soda. It was some sort of new space saving technology.

Then, as I sat there enjoying my beverage I looked up to see a crystal clear glass of water. It caught my eye it was so clear and sharp. Then, as I looked at it I began to see things. A little boy. Blond hair. Different times, different scenes. Always the little boy. I awakened thinking it might have been a son I once had (former lifetime?) but I got a no on that. Then, I thought of one of my grand-nephews. Maybe.

What does it mean? I don’t know. I can’t remember what I was looking at other than it was a blond haired little boy. No trouble. Nothing scary. Just like I was looking through a crystal ball.

Night Sweat Nightmare

I had a bad dream last night. It started with a huge menopausal night sweat that morphed into the bad dream. Somewhere along the line a couple of friends had asked me to help them with some sort of graphic project. I was to take art work and copy and scan and get it all into a book. And, I was supposed to do it as a favor. It was a lot of work and it needed to be done as quickly as possible. They’d approached me just as I was heading out the door to go to work.

I listened to what they wanted. In the beginning it was presented to me as a short, quick job. As they showed me the things they wanted included this short project began to get a whole lot bigger.

I remember getting angry that they were taking advantage of me and I said I would only do it for $25 a page. Then, this medium sized to large project morphed into a humongous project. I gulped and thought about charging several hundred dollars for it and then decided that I was not going to do it at all. I was so angry that I couldn’t even get the words out. It was like I was gasping. The words just came out in little huffs.

But, I did manage to get my point across. They were pissed. But, I felt better.

What Would You Do?

Okay. You want to increase readership. And, you start thinking about the kinds of things that people post on their blogs. At least, you’re thinking about the stuff that gets read a lot. And, you’ve got some options: Bad News and its opposing force Good News. Also, you’ve got Boring News and Non-News. I suppose the stuff I write about would come under the heading of Non-News.

I don’t address current issues, so it’s not news, is it? If that is true, then what I do here isn’t even Non-News. What is it I do in this blog?

It’s more along the lines of a journal, I suppose. Nothing wrong with journals, but you’re supposed to talk about really private stuff in journals. And, I don’t here. Okay, I do get close to the mark with occasional reports of hemorrhoids and things like that. But, there are things I don’t talk about, much anyway. Like where I work. I don’t talk about the folks I work with. Not that they aren’t an interesting bunch of people. They’re actually a hoot. But, I wouldn’t want to embarrass them if one of them happened to see themselves in print. So, work-place things are not discussed here. With the exception of every once in awhile when I’m acting like a bear or Spirit intervenes to save my butt from a fiery work mistake.

Now, I will relate work related dreams occasionally. Like this morning’s dream on how I hung up on a customer who was there to complain and I couldn’t understand him. He had some sort of speech impediment and was also trying to carry on a conversation with people while he was on the phone with me. I hung up on him figuring that he’d call back when he was less distracted. But, I was also hot. I suppose the goal would be to not get hot. I really was hot…physically hot. I’d gone back to bed a couple of hours earlier to catch a lovely Saturday morning go back to bed because I don’t have to go to work snooze. Also, my feet were freezing so I turned the heating pad on high and put it down at the bottom of the bed for my frozen tootsies. Voila. I got hot in a dream. And, not a sexy hot either. Mad hot.

Okay, so how to smooth through life, enjoying yourself and not allowing events and people to get you hot? The answer was in the dream. Hang up on the guy and he’ll call back later. Maybe. The other solution was to stay on the line waiting for him to clarify his position and make his complaint. Meanwhile I have to suffer through his shit. I suppose another option would be to stay on the line and not suffer through his shit but to do a crossword puzzle or something to keep myself amused. Or, just fire up the computer and do some surfing. So, there are 3 different possible solutions to an angry customer. Actually, there is a fourth solution. Stay on the line with the guy, have an incredible amount of patience, figure out what his beef is and try to solve it.

What would you do?

Lucid Dreams

Everybody dreams. Everybody without exception dreams. That said, now, let’s make it interesting.

What can you do with your dreams? Well, for starters try to remember them. Make a real commitment to yourself that you’re going to remember your dreams. Say this to yourself, remind yourself several, many, lots of times during the course of the day. Morning, noon and night. Say, “I remember my dreams.” Say, “I awaken after my dreams to write them down.”

Now, in writing down your dreams just jot down five or six key words. Not the whole thing. Not two pages of detailed explanation of your dream. Just five or six words. In the morning look at your list and then write your dream out. Give yourself an extra 20 minutes in the morning. Keep a special notebook. They sell all sorts of wonderful, colorful, fun notebooks for the kids. They don’t cost much. Keep a little flash light next to your bed so you don’t awaken your spouse while you’re writing down the significant words of your dream.

It will happen that as time goes by you’ll be able to remember more of your dreams each night, but, in the beginning just try to get one.

The next thing, then, after you’re remembering your dreams is to decide that, now, you can dream lucidly. What? That’s all? Yes. You decide to do it.

What exactly is a lucid dream? Well, compare it to a regular dream. A regular dream you don’t have a whole lot of control over. It happens to you. A lucid dream you consciously decide to do something in your dream. You have control.

Say, it’s a nightmare. These people are chasing you. You’re afraid. You’re running and mired in the muck of the earth as it sucks up around your feet to prevent you from getting away from the bad guys. Sound familiar? Right. So, if this nightmare morphed itself into a lucid dream what would happen? Why, you’d decide to remove yourself from the danger. Superman swoops down and scoops you up to carry you away to a wonderful island paradise. Or….this bulldozer comes in and plows through the bad guys like a bowling ball through ten pins. Or…the bad guys start inflating and explode. Whatever. It’s your dream and you are in control.

A lucid dream is when you feel like you’re awake. It’s when you know in your heart that you are dreaming and you can observe the dream while it’s going on. You can feel things. You can hear things. You can smell things. It’s pretty amazing.

A lucid dream I had once began as a regular dream. I found myself on a path and that’s when I got lucid. I reached down in my dream to pull the seeds off of a piece of tall grass that was growing beside the path. I felt the seeds pulling off of the stalk into my hands. That’s when I realized I was dreaming. I was so excited that I straightened up and began shouting to a bunch of guides I saw in the distance that I was dreaming. I said, “I’m dreaming! I’m dreaming!” I was jumping up and down too, my arm raised in the air to show them the grass I had clutched in my hand. I was so excited I woke myself up.

Once you’re accustomed to dreaming lucidly use this skill. Use it to practice those awful presentations you have to give and agonize over. Use it to practice learning to play the mandolin. Use those dreams to work out your emotional and psychological hurts. Use those dreams to meet other Folk in Spirit.

I recommend Stephen LaBerge's book, "Lucid Dreaming". You'll start having lucid dreams even before you've finished reading it.

A Dream I Had

This is from my journal: Just a quick note. I want to conserve my writing energy for the Thing I’m channeling for NaNoWriMo. It’s 2:47 am. I went to bed at 7:30 last night. Enough sleep and up to write. Writer’s hours. I awakened from a dream. Coming from university again. Walking with a girl toward our digs. Talking to her and said something like I wanted to have a few minutes to read over my English notes. Military. Naval. Then, lying in bed with dogs and cats all around. I said to one of the cats, “It was always more interesting when Mama Cat was around.” She said to me, “Yeah, she was our leader. We always followed her and she found neat things for us to do.” I was talking to her daughter, but it didn’t seem that it was either Samantha or Mattie.

Then, an Airedale terrier lay on the bed and stretched. I rubbed him. And, another dog was within reach. I reached up to pet a cat sitting on a window sill away from the dogs. There were kids all over the place. The mother stood at the kitchen sink and as the two husbands came in the door I thought to myself how young they all looked. The one husband went to kiss his wife and I noticed that his hair was different, shorn on the one side and curly dark locks on the other. I thought how things had changed in the military. And, she said announcing to all that if we got up then and got ready to leave we’d be in East Oookem by noon. There was another place name that she said. This was a British place and British place names. I wonder if there is an Oookem? I was thinking that I was to be included with the group leaving.