Spiritual Meaning

By Sri Harold Klemp

Dreams—the stuff of wonder, fear, the unknown—are certain to pique our curiosity.

A Dream of Prophecy

As a classic example, there is the case of Samuel Clemens, the American humorist known as Mark Twain. He foresaw the death of his brother Henry, who also worked on the Mississippi riverboats during the 1850s.

One night, Twain awoke from a nightmare in which he clearly saw a metal coffin for his brother. On it lay a bouquet of white flowers, a red rose in the middle.

A few weeks later, Henry suffered severe injuries from a boiler explosion on the river.

He died shortly after.

When Twain arrived a few days later, he found the setting exactly as it had appeared in his dream. People had taken pity upon his brother and had collected money for a metal coffin, instead of the wooden boxes usually used in river accidents.

As Twain paid his last respects, a woman entered the room and placed on the coffin a bouquet of white flowers with a single red rose in the middle.

Dreams for Insight

Dreams touch every level of our life. They may let us glimpse the future, or give suggestions for healing, or share insights into our relationships. Above all, they can and will steer us more directly toward God.

A woman had been running her life by the forces of power and control instead of love. Her inclination was to control other people, to tell them what to do. It was second nature to her.

She did realize she had developed some bad habits, but she couldn’t pinpoint what they were doing to her life.

So the Dream Master, her spiritual guide, gave her an experience about habits.

One night in the dream state, she found herself in a basement with a group of people. Crust-covered leeches were crawling all over the walls and floor. The basement was dark.

The other people felt it was very important to keep plucking the leeches off themselves. They spent most of their time just sitting there, plucking and plucking.

Suddenly a door opened from the outside. Sunlight poured into the basement, and a second group of people came in. They seemed very unconcerned about the crusty creatures.

The first group tried to warn them, “Be careful of these leeches. Keep plucking them off, because they’ll get all over you, and they stick!”

The second group didn’t seem to care. They were too busy laughing and enjoying themselves. The first group simply could not impress upon these happy people that leech-plucking was important.

The second group left the basement, and sunlight poured in through the open door. About this time, the dreamer awoke.

The dream was upsetting and left the woman with a feeling of discomfort. But from this experience she was able to take a bad dream one step further, to a higher level, and raise herself spiritually.

How to Change a Dream Yourself

In contemplation, the woman visualized herself walking out of the dark basement into the sunlight. She made an effort to dispel the frightening effects of the dream by moving from a darker world into a higher, lighter one.

As she did this, she realized that the crusty things that hung on like leeches were actually habits. Her habits. They were the habits of control, fear, power, and other practices that did not allow the people she was with to have their freedom.

She also realized that the people in the second group were simply engaged in the love of everyday life and loving Divine Spirit, the ECK. This love was the Light and Sound, from the greater worlds of God.

A definite effect occurs when you begin working to change your inner space, to uplift it from power to love. Something happens out here.

You begin to have brighter vision; you become more willing to allow other people as much freedom as you would like for yourself.

Lesson learned!

Wisdom of the Heart

Many of the first steps to the higher states of consciousness are taken in the dream state. Dreams are a way for you to find wisdom of the heart.

And once found, no one can take it from you.

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A Stranger in My Dreams

By Larry White

Night after night I had the same nightmare—a dream of being chased by a man with a knife.

It didn’t matter where I was or whom I was with in the dream, he would pop out of nowhere and chase me. Around corners, down unlit streets and alleys, through abandoned buildings, he was always in pursuit.

To make things even less pleasant, the faster I tried to run, the slower my legs would go. It was like trying to sprint underwater. My legs grew heavier, and just before capture I awoke in a cold sweat.

My line of work demands an alert state of mind. The want of sleep was a threat to my job security, leading my boss to ask whether I held a second job. He felt I was sleepwalking through waking life.

I decided to end this dream madness.

The next time this stranger pursued me in the dream state, I determined to turn around and demand, “What do you want from me?”

After all, the Living ECK Master has emphasized how much one can learn from dreams. Confronting a dream situation face-to-face is better than running from it: a reminder to myself.

That night I lay in bed, ready for action. I repeated to myself, “Tonight I am going to confront the man with the knife. Tonight I am going to ask him what he wants from me.”

Eventually, I slipped into repose. In no time I woke refreshed from a full night’s rest—but without the recall of a single dream.

It was a better day at work than usual.

That night I repeated my inner directive to confront the man in my dreams. Again nothing came of it. Was this good? Was getting rid of one silly nightmare worth wiping out all my other dreams?

My boss didn’t care; he was happy to have his employee back full-time.

The third night I repeated the postulate. But I felt more detached.

All of a sudden I awoke in the dream state, flipping through albums in a record store. My search was for one particular album. What did it look like? No idea. However, I had every confidence of recognizing it once my fingers touched it.

About to give up and leave, I spotted the desired album on a wall rack. Its name was Look at Yourself. The cover was an actual mirror, and it was a strange feeling to see my reflection staring back at me: a very sad face indeed.

The reflection held yet another image: a man screaming, “You’ll never amount to anything!”

It was the awful man with the knife.

I took off at a fast run out of the store, then on through the mall. The familiar footsteps pounded hot on my trail. The faster I tried to run, the slower my legs would churn.

An instant later, I remembered my resolve to confront this mysterious stranger. So I stopped dead in my tracks and spun around.

“What do you want from me?” I demanded.

“Thank God,” the panting man said. “I thought you’d never stop running away.”

Shutting my eyes to await the worst, I was startled to hear an odd grating sound. My eyes snapped open. The man, crouched at my feet, was using the knife like a saw to cut a ball and chain from each of my legs, to set them free.

Then, with compassion on his face, he said, “You’ve got to stop blackballing yourself. There. Now you’re free.”

I awoke and recorded the dream. The realization struck how I’d been holding myself back. There was an opening for a much better job at another company that I hadn’t felt worthy to apply for, so the opportunity came to nothing.

Echoes from my past included “You’ll never amount to anything.” It was a message oft repeated and set into old, well-established grooves of thought. This recording played over and over.

But was that a reason to keep sabotaging my life?

The next day after work I drew up a list of all my job skills. Upon finishing it, I was surprised at the breadth of experience. The next step was to create a résumé from the list and submit it to the other company. They called me in for an interview that morning.

The company hired me on the spot.

Since this dream experience I have released many old recordings of fear and replaced them with the unconditional love of ECK. Whether hideous or beautiful, my dreams have been blessings full of truth.

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