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Spiritual Work and Paranormal Investigations (Part 3 of 3)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Everyone dreams.\u00a0 Humans and other animals require sleep, and yes, they all dream.\u00a0 Our mental and physical health is dependant on how we sleep and how we dream.\u00a0 A common belief is that gods speak to us through dreams.\u00a0 For example, according to Islamic belief, Muhammad talked to the angel Gabriel several times through his dreams.\u00a0 As a result dreams are very important to followers of Islam and a person\u2019s dreams are highly respected and private between the individual and the divine.\u00a0 Some cultures believe we are nothing more than someone else\u2019s dream.\u00a0 Some shamanic cultures even say that what we perceive as the physical world is the dream and reality exists while we sleep.\u00a0 Many of the higher levels of mediation and trance-states of altered consciousness allow us to communicate with our animal spirits, spirit guides, and divine entities.<\/span><\/p>\n But what if we can communicate with spirits through our dreams the way we do while awake?\u00a0 Many cultures believe that this is a matter of fact, and stories of this type of phenomenon are not few and far between.\u00a0 We\u2019ve seen that communicating with spirits on the physical plane can be difficult.\u00a0 Factors such as the observer\u2019s level of awareness and the entity\u2019s ability to affect the physical world come into play.\u00a0 But what about the world of dreams?\u00a0 If we are all energy; if we can understand and communicate with spirits verbally through the collective unconscious; and the fluidic reality of the dreamscape can lead to premonitions, then would it not make perfect sense that spirits can utilize the thinning of the veil between our conscious and subconscious minds in order to communicate in real time and one to one?<\/span><\/p>\n Anthropological studies suggest that a belief in life after death originated from dreams of deceased relatives and friends. The research of Dr. Carla Willis Brandon argues that it is indicative of the survival of consciousness in her article Death Bed Visions<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n Edgar Cayce once said, \u201cDreams, visions, and impressions to the entity in the normal sleeping state are the presentations of the experiences necessary for development, if the entity would apply them in the physical life. These may be taken as warnings, as advice, as conditions to be met, conditions to be viewed in a way and manner as lessons, as truths, as they are presented in the various ways and manners.\u201d There are different levels and types of dreams.\u00a0 Many are just random images and thoughts from our subconscious thrown into a big mixing bowl.\u00a0 I like to think of general dream states as the mind\u2019s version of defragmenting a hard drive.\u00a0 It sorts all the data that is collected, deletes broken or corrupted data, and frees up space by rearranging things.\u00a0 The random images that flash across our eyes during this process are the basis of the majority of our dreams.\u00a0 That\u2019s why they range from the hilarious to the downright bizarre.\u00a0 Lucid dreams are those in which the dreamer is consciously aware that they are dreaming and can interact, change, and direct the course of dream events.\u00a0 What we call \u201cvision dreams\u201d and \u201cspirit communication\u201d dreams cross the boundaries of the physical universe\u2026 as we know them. These include the telepathic dream, the shared dream, the clairvoyant dream, the astral dream, the psychokinetic dream, and the precognitive dream. The subconscious mind is very powerful and when we are asleep we are in an alpha state of being.\u00a0 The body is relaxed, and the conscious mind is at rest and usually peaceful.\u00a0 This allows the boundary between our conscious self and our subconscious mind to be more open, thus allowing the dreams to be experienced.\u00a0 Our friends and family that have passed over can and do come back to visit us in our dreams.\u00a0 \u00a0These spirits will find a way to communicate with us, whether to just let us know they are alright, or to give us a message.\u00a0 I’ve got several stories in my family of these encounters.<\/span><\/p>\n Some of us are fortunate enough to have developed our natural abilities to the point that we can see and hear them through psychic awareness; others will sense them around them.\u00a0 Sometimes these spirits will manufacture a scent we associate them with.\u00a0 I was told a story of a woman who communicated with her father and whenever he was around she would smell Electroshave.\u00a0 Whether or not this is evidence of his presence is subject to debate.\u00a0 Smell is the strongest sense tied to memory.\u00a0 If she smelled that or a similar scent then her subconscious mind would think about her father, thus implanting the suggestion in her dreams.\u00a0 Similarly, she could be thinking of her father and her olfactory sense misfires and tricks her into thinking the scent is in the room.\u00a0 Still, there are many cases where s particular scent correlates to paranormal activity. <\/span><\/p>\n While we are sleeping they can enter our state of consciousness to communicate with us.\u00a0 Time and time again we have heard stories of those who passed on visiting and talking with their loved ones while they were sleeping. <\/span><\/p>\n The death bed vision that Dr. Carla Willis Brandon discusses is \u201can otherworldly experience the dying and their family members encounter just before death. The dying will report visions of angels, deceased loved ones, or religious figures mere moments, hours, days, or even weeks before actual death occurs.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n One spine-chilling story I can think of involved my grandfather.\u00a0 This was many years ago in Florida and they didn\u2019t have a phone in the house, the closest one was down the street.\u00a0 He had a dream in which his brother came to him and was calling out his name.\u00a0 He awoke very startled from the dream and in the commotion he wrote the time, 3:30 am, on the wall.\u00a0 The next day he received a call that his brother had died during the night at that very time; in another incident, my grandfather came to my uncle in a dream and told him if he didn\u2019t stop smoking he would die.\u00a0 My uncle quit cold turkey the next day.<\/span><\/p>\n Usually when someone visits you in a dream it will be very vivid, often in living color, you will have total recall of the dream, and it appears to be happening to you in real time.\u00a0 You will wake up knowing that you indeed had a visit from beyond.<\/span><\/p>\n There are several techniques you can use to increase your <\/em> level of awareness and recall of these types of dreams.<\/span><\/p>\n First, test reality.\u00a0 Whenever anything in the waking state looks out of place or unusual, ask yourself whether or not you are dreaming.\u00a0 Habitual practice of this technique will make questioning come naturally and to occur automatically while dreaming. Before you go to sleep say a simple prayer of protection and ask the person with whom you wish to communicate to appear in your dreams.\u00a0 Communication can occur through conversation or through images and symbols. And, of course, use a dream log to write down all that you remember from the dreams so that you can go back and decipher the meanings and messages later.\u00a0 If you start to focus your analytical skills on every detail at the same time you\u2019re trying to recall it things will get lost in translation.\u00a0 Write it down first THEN go back and explore the meanings.<\/span><\/p>\n This could take several days to produce results so don\u2019t give up if you don\u2019t succeed the first night.\u00a0 Try it for at least four nights then stop for a day or two and try again.\u00a0 If after two weeks you still have no results then take a break and try to communicate with someone else.\u00a0 Perhaps the person you are trying to contact is not able or willing to communicate at that time.\u00a0 Perhaps they are not responding because that particular individual has moved on to their next level of existence elsewhere.\u00a0 Keep positive, stay alert, and be persistent and you will succeed.<\/span><\/p>\n We now see that speaking with those who have passed can take many forms and levels of skill.\u00a0 Whether you communicate with the other side through the lens of a camera and a recorder, through the use of clairsentient skills and psychic abilities, performing a soul cleansing, or using the power of the subconscious mind to reach those who have crossed over through dreams, a vast array of options now exist to aid in your paranormal investigations. <\/span><\/p>\n May your dreams be peaceful, plentiful, and productive.\u00a0 May you continue to expand the boundaries of your personal and spiritual journey.\u00a0 Until next month… <\/span>J<\/span><\/p>\n The article, Death Bed Visions, by Dr. Carla Wills-Brandon can be read in its entirety at <\/span>http:\/\/www.pararesearchers.org\/Psychic\/dbv\/dbv.html<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n![\"leight-fljune\"](\"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/leight-fljune.jpg\")
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\nHowever,\u00a0Carl Jung\u00a0said dreams are \u201cthe main source of all of our knowledge about symbolism.\u201d\u00a0 This means that the messages you receive from your dreams are expressed symbolically and must be interpreted to find their true meanings.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nThe average person spends approximately ninety minutes a night in a dream state. Some of us can remember all, or many, of our dreams; others have trouble remembering that we dreamt at all. <\/span><\/p>\n
\n <\/em>Use dream incentives.\u00a0 Outside stimuli can induce consciousness in the dream but are not strong enough to awaken the dreamer (such as lights, perfumes, and music). Incentives work differently on everyone, but the most powerful incentives are those that are tied to something of importance to the dreamer or the spirit you wish to contact.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n <\/em>Interpret your dreams on a personal level.\u00a0 The plethora of \u201cdream dictionaries\u201d available is nice, but they\u2019ll often have different interpretations for the same symbols.\u00a0 When interpreting the symbology of your dreams take into account cultural and societal references and what different objects and places mean to you through your personal experiences. <\/span><\/p>\nFor further reading, Raymond Moody wrote several best-selling books on life after death.\u00a0 I personally suggest <\/span>Reunions: Visionary Encounters with Departed Loved Ones<\/strong><\/span><\/a> and <\/strong><\/span>Induced After-Death Communication: A New Therapy for Healing Grief and Trauma <\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/h1>\n