Dreams remain an active area of study. They’ve been shown to help in learning new tasks, solve problems while a person’s body is asleep, are involved in fantasy, communication at a distance, and precognition. As to how much of which and how much control an individual has when in the dream state is unknown at this time.
My fictional characters record their dreams in order to better understand their dreams and document those that are of a paranormal nature. In the real world I do occasionally have lucid and/or paranormal dreams, but do not keep a daily journal.
In my last post The Guided Tour, I wrote of a strange encounter with an airport security office and said I’d write about the dream later. While I’m reluctant to reveal too much of what actually goes on inside my head, I believe this dream may be instructive for people who are curious about how to understand the nature of their dreams and whether their dreams are influencing their lives. Or if it’s the other way around?
At this time my personal belief is that most dreams are solitary experiences, many are simply fantasy generated as the brain undergoes maintenance cycles and our consciousness attempts to make sense of what it perceives during these activities. While I hold that it is possible to have shared and other paranormal dreams, these – for me at any rate – are rare and memorable.
Here’s an earlier post from February called On Dreaming and “Going There” for readers who are interested in a more detailed explanation of my opinion.
Earlier this year Dr. Andrew Weil wrote an article titled Why Dreams Are Vital to Emotional Health for the Huffington Post where he says:
There is good reason to believe you must get sufficient sleep, and embrace rather than suppress your dreams, if you want to experience better moods. If you have difficulty sleeping or are not getting enough sleep or sleep of good quality, you need to learn the basics of sleep hygiene, make appropriate changes, and possibly consult a sleep expert. You might also keep a dream journal at your bedside, which will help you develop the habit of recalling your dreams upon waking, which in turn can help you to embrace and value dreaming.
CNN’s Dreams about taking exam, being naked — what they mean is a good starter for people who are unsure about what is going on when they sleep and dream.
If you should decide to do dream work with a person or a small group, it’s important to remember the dreamer has the answers necessary for the interpretation, not the other parties. People listening to the dreamer’s report may be able to help by asking the dreamer how something felt, but it is not their place to say what aspects of the dream might mean.
My Dream during the night before a business trip
I told my friends I didn’t think I’d write a fictional version of this dream. It’s too pat, too stereotypical, but it really happened. Here is the dream almost as I shared with them:
The dream lasted for what felt like close to an hour, but probably lasted no more than 20 – 30 minutes in real time and was a nightmare. The first I’ve had in a long, long time.
I’ve told some of you what my real dreamscape was like. I say “was” because about the time the real Candice began to consider seeing if she could visit it, the dreamscape collapsed and was replaced by one with a much less grand design. Over the last couple of years it’s stabilized and is more lower middle-class than the elegant retreat of the novel. This fact is related to the dream. There are some things people are not permitted to do by the ethereal forces. [visiting with Candice at this time must be on the prohibited list- Ed.]
My dream started in the basic new space, fitted within someone’s home. No one I knew, but as it was a dream, I quickly became friends with them. I saw they were being manipulated by negative beings. Ones who look human, live beyond our reality, and who set up a lot of the situations we find ourselves in.
I warned my new friends they were being manipulated. Walking around a corner in the home, I found one of the beings waiting. Everything went black. I knew details of the next few minutes were being wiped from my memory.
I regained consciousness on the ground outside a small clapboard house with a screened-in front porch. This house was from my childhood adapted to the dream.
In the dream, the house was filled with smoke and people inside were being killed but not in our normal sense. Their existence and what they had learned was being removed from the continuum and its branches. One of the beings was out front and looked at me as I lay on the ground under a pine tree. The message of his gaze was clear – I and my wife were to be next if we continued on our track.
The scene shifted and I found I was in a boundless room – that’s the easiest way to describe it. A place that had walls, but they were more like infinite darkness than walls. The being was in the process of surrounding me and filling me with the darkness in order to utterly destroy me.
I began to channel light and started to roar with laughter at her folly screaming, “I am channeling the Light of the Universe. The power of God! Do you think I need a body to do that!?”
Slowly the dream ended and I woke in the early light of dawn.
Details I have not included are yours to consider.
Analysis and Reflection
I was fairly lucid during the dream and able to analyze most of it in real time. I’ve left a couple of aspects out of my e-mail and this post, simply in case one or two of the people on my e-mail thread had input. By not revealing all, it’s easier to focus on the key aspects of the dream and allows a small element of verification, if someone else felt a tie-in or had a similar dream.
From a standard lay-psychological perspective, it shows a strong influence of spirituality. I did not regard the non-human beings as necessarily evil, though I did want my new friends from the dream to have the freedom to live lives of their choosing and not be limited by external authority in this basic matter.
My actions within the context of this single dream show a curiosity and willingness to confront authority when treated in a heavy handed way.
Looking at the dream from a conventional perceptive, it prepared me for a silent and intrusive figure (in the form of a government employee) who was suspicious of me yet would not talk to me directly. — Remember too, when the guard was trying to tick me into looking at him, I was focused on problems with my laptop and not interested in talking to people.
Extending this a little further
The event at the airport took on a surreal aspect as I watched each actor, self included, commit to actions which felt like they were almost out of our individual control. “Almost” because once we were moving in the main corridor anything else I did would have played into the security guard’s preconceived notions and probably caused me to miss my flight.
Rather than challenging him, I listened to my inner guidance, relaxed, and played my part.
Feedback
One of my friends wrote back to say she was having waking visits by a challenging and threatening non-physical entity. Perhaps my dream was in sympathy to the late night events in her life? It’s worth considering. We have shared our awareness of each other before, though to interpret events in her life as part of my dream experience would be a new form of our communication.
In closing
It’s difficult to rate this dream because there was so much going on. My friend’s trials, my airport experience, and changes in my personal life.
Paranormal dreams have a richer and deeper feeling of truth than average dreams. In declaring a dream to be extraordinary, it is necessary to have additional evidence.
So far I can say there are coincidences that I’ll want to keep in mind as I and my friends share our thoughts.
At a minimum, it set the stage for how I would react to an overbearing individual the next day. At a maximum, the dream demonstrates precognition and clairvoyance. If it had a smidgen more information or deeper ring of truth, I’d be able to embrace it as a paranormal event.
Whether normal or paranormal, it was the first nightmare I’ve had in years. Of course, that may be coincidental as well.
Sleep Tight. It’s just a dream 😉
– Jeffrey A. Limpert
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References:
https://unfoldingseries.com/uncategorized/the-guided-tour/
https://unfoldingseries.com/borderlands/on-dreaming-and-gong-there/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-weil-md/dreams-depression_b_1273422.html
http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/ART02037/sleep-aid
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/05/05/dreams.psychology/?hpt=Sbin
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