DREAMS AND DREAMING

Dreams - The Language of the Soul

Have you ever been told to stop being such a dreamer, get your feet back on the ground, get real, be practical etc. Do you discuss your dreams with others and do you do ask others about theirs? Dreams are somewhat of a “no go zone” for the modern westerner except for many of those on a spiritual path or undergoing psychological counselling. Correct recording and accurate interpretation of dreams can be one of the most important teaching/learning methods for us and speed our spiritual development, showing us where we are on the spiritual path. Even if we haven’t done a lot of work, or shown much interest in things spiritual, dreams will appear in our consciousness to help direct and move us forward. Lets assume, for arguments sake, that dreams are as real as any waking experience and there is in fact no separation between the activities of the real world and the events of our dreamworld. Dreams show us, in symbolic form, all the different “personalities” and sub personalities that interact within us and make up our total self. When people went to the famous psychic Edgar Cayce to have their dreams interpreted he would invariably tell them that the horrible negative person or image that appeared in a dream was in fact themselves.or as Carl Jung put it “the shadow self”. Cayce would say “you meet yourself” to the client and he would explain that an aspect of the person’s own personality was being shown as a way to remedy personality faults and help that person to make spiritual progress by recognizing barriers and hindrances to achieving a higher level of consciousness. . In most, if not all societies through the ages, dreams have always been an important part of everyday life and were accorded great importance by the elders and religious hierarchies. Dreams were seen as a way of seeing in to the future, healing, communing with ancestors, gaining insight into the solutions for problems, and revealing spiritual truths. Dream temples were built so that the ill and infirm were able to seek healing via the dreams of the temple’s priests and priestesses who used dream incubation techniques to access knowledge not readily available in the waking state. Apart from psychologists (possibly only those who have a Jungian training) and therapists, very little attention is paid to dreams and their meanings so that they are relegated to the background in our present society which makes it possibly the first to do so, with the result that we lose many opportunities to progress spiritually as individuals and as a group. A recent (August 2006) study in Germany looked at “lucid dreaming” (conscious participation in dreaming) as a way of learning and practicing skills and the results showed that those who consciously practiced their motor skills while asleep improved and performed better than the groups who only practiced while awake or who didn’t practice at all. Indigenous peoples lived in a world that was a continuous spiritual process with symbols, guides and directions seen in all areas of life. For us dreams are the most obvious and, perhaps the only guide, that we have that come from somewhere different to the normal, everyday life processes. When we are dreaming we process the events of the day, we undergo psychological, emotional and spiritual healing, it is the same as working through and, processing experiences on the physical plane.

Dream interpretation has many levels, much like any spiritual text (the Bible has at least 7 levels of interpretation ) so learning symbolism, mythology, numerology, tarot and astrology is advisable. A basic familiarity is all that is required at first so that when numbers, glyphs, symbols, words and phrases appear, we may be able to determine whether a dream is a communication from our soul, astral body or from the mundane world. A dream which may look as if it is not very important but in fact may carry important messages not readily recognizable to the untrained spiritual eye. Our soul is always attempting to impact upon our consciousness and during the course of our busy lives there is often very little recognition of this process. Opportunities for spiritual progress are lost to the constant demands of life but, when we are asleep and traveling in the next dimension in our astral body, we are unimpeded by our physical bodies. It is in this state, when our analytical mind is disengaged, that the soul can impress on our consciousness that which is unlikely to be comprehended in our waking state.

In talking to many people about their dreams I have heard amazing tales of extremely powerful and high level enlightenment experiences that are beyond the comprehension of most people. These experiences are available to all people of all backgrounds, ages, and spiritual persuasions. They come unasked for, unannounced, they can be a isolated episodes or repeat for years - inspiring, confusing, energizing, frightening or perhaps jolting us out of our slumber and apathy. When I have given up hope and been ready to throw in the towel and call it quits, a dream that is so inspiring, uplifting and awe inspiring has been given to me and I am led into a new area of consciousness. At the same time my dreams have given me confidence, inspiration and hope….dreams have been like my own personal guru showing me the meanings of spiritual texts, guidance for study, indicating my level of spiritual development, as well as direct esoteric teachings on astrology, numerology, alchemy, symbology, and prophecy. I have met high level teachers or perhaps their astral reflection, I have traveled through space, battled the forces of evil, I have been psychicallv attacked, contacted pure darkness, pure light, had my centres (chakras) energized, seen the future and the past as a participant and as a viewer, I have been healed and much more. All of this has been going on my whole life - as far back as my memory will allow.

There are many dream books available out there but very few actually give you the most important and deepest meanings of your dreams. The symbolism is at once universal and archetypal but at the same time it is relative to the individual and their point of evolution – it is therefore not always possible to give the same meaning to the same dream image experienced by different people. One task I have set myself is to write an esoteric dream dictionary because I had a dream in which I shown a book called “Alice Bailey’s Dream interpretation Book”. My aim is to create a reference work that is specifically related to soul inspired dreams. The best book on dreaming that I have read is ”Dreamwork For the Soul” by Rosemary Guiley. Any of Carl Jung’s work is enormously interesting and relevant also.

Prophecy, Vision, and the Akashic Records

D.K.; One of the first things that the aspirant has to learn is to dissociate his own aura in the emotional sense from that of his surroundings and much time is expended in learning to do this. It is for this reason that one of the first requirements of discipleship is discrimination for it is through the use of the mind , as analyzer and separator, that the astral body is brought under control. Secondly, the astral plane is the plane of illusion, of glamour, and a distorted presentation of reality. The reason for this is that every individual in the world is busy working in astral matter, and the potency of human desire produces that constant “outpicturing” and form building which leads to the most concrete effects of astral matter. Individual desire, national desire, racial desire, desire of all subhuman lives causes a constant changing and shifting of the substances of the plane; there is a building of the temporary forms, some of rare beauty, some of no beauty, and a vitalizing by the astral energy of its creator. Add to these forms that persistent and steadily growing scenario we call the “Akashic Records” which concern the emotional history of the past, add the activities of the disincarnate lives which are passing through the astral plane, either out of or towards incarnation, add the potent desire, purified and intelligent, of all superhuman lives, including those of the occult planetary Hierarchy, and the sum total is stupendous. All play upon, around and through every human being and according to the calibre of the physical body and the condition of the centers will be the response. The akashic record is like an immense photographic film registering all the desires and earth experiences of our planet. Those who perceive will see pictured thereon: The life experiences of every human being since time began. The reactions to experience of the entire animal kingdom. The aggregation of the thought-forms of a kamic nature (based on desire) of every human unit through time. Herein lies the great deception of the records. Only a trained occultist can distinguish between the actual experiences and those astral pictures created by desire and imagination. The planetary “Dweller on the Threshold” with all that appertains to that term and all the aggregations of forms which are to be found in that environment. The trained seer has learnt to dissociate that which pertains to their own aura and the aura of the planet (which is in actuality the akashic record). They can distinguish between those records which are: a. planetary, b. Hierarchical or pertaining to the work of the 12 Creative Hierarchies as they bring to concretion the plan of the Logos. c. Imaginative forms, the result of the desire thought activity of the myriads of people, animated by desire for some form of experience or another. d. The historical record pertaining to races, nations, groups and families in their two great divisions on the physical plane and on the astral. It should always be borne in mind that every human belongs to a physical family which constitutes a link to the animal kingdom, and also belongs to an astral family. Through that affiliation on the upward arc he is linked with his egoic group and on the downward arc with the vegetable kingdom. e. The astrological record, or the forms taken on the astral plane under the influences of the planetary forces. These are in two great groups: 1. Those forms or pictures n the “akasha” produced by the inflow of solar force via the planets. 2. Those forms or pictures which are produced by the inflow of cosmic force from one or other of the signs of the zodiac, that is, from their corresponding constellations. These points are enumerated to show how impossible it is that the majority of the claims regarding past lives can be true. They are the result of vivid imagination and the assumptions that the flashes of astral sight, which reveal glimpses of the akashic film, give that which pertains to the one who sees. This is not the case any more than the people and activities seen out of any window in any big city reveal to the onlooker his own relatives, friends and pursuits.