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02 Mar 2020

On the Subject of Dreams and Lucid Dreaming – Part 7

Some of the most joyous dreams I can remember are about flying. There are places we can go in dream states, where flying is as natural as breathing. You know that you are in different states of consciousness inside your dreams when there are sudden changes in the flow of a dream. For example: you might be flying happily and then suddenly you ‘realize’ that you are flying and your mind kicks in and tells you that that is NOT possible. And the moment you have that thought in the dream, you start falling or lose the ability. That, my friends, is the main different between being in your heart and being in your mind. Other incredibly joyous dreams, for me, are about breathing under water and swimming with whales or dolphins. I can feel the gills on my neck sometimes even hours after waking up. It is so much fun!! There were also times when the mind kicked in and then all of a sudden I couldn't breathe anymore and I had to struggle to swim to the surface. Once I actually ‘heard’ the whales laughing at me! “There she goes, going human again, she lost it!” I really think it has to do with us having difficulty being able to stay in that high vibration, of joy and elation, because it is so different from our everyday lives, being in our heads. True joy and peace only exist in our hearts. In my 20s I used to paint my dreams. Once I was flying over the Himalayas and it was so incredibly gorgeous. I was struggling to paint it because it was an aerial view. So, the next day, I asked my grandmother, who passed away, to show me how to finish it. She had been a wonderful painter during her life, and she was the one who gave me my first drawing lessons, at 4 or 5 years old. In a dream state, I showed her the painting, and explained how I was having trouble with my angle, from above. She patiently explained the techniques, and the next day, it was finished. Do you realize the unexplored potential of the information we can access in dreams? Of course, if it is something which is not relevant to our life here on Earth, or our “storyline”, then I know that even if you do ask, and you hear it all, you are not allowed to remember! Believe me, I tried. The first dream I painted was so surprising to me that I felt like I needed to paint it. I didn't know how else to express it. “I found myself in a huge lobby, something like an airport lobby, it was immense. There was this gigantic viewing deck, overlooking a valley down below, up in the top of a mountain. There were clouds outside. I was looking around when I felt compelled to turn around. I noticed that there was an interminable single file line of people behind…
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23 Feb 2020

On the Subject of Dreams and Lucid Dreaming – Part 6

One night in high school, I was having a regular “recycle the day” dream, and I heard my grandmother’s voice getting louder and louder, “Wake up! your brother’s room is on fire!” I woke up and smelled smoke, I run to my brother’s room and sure enough, the whole room was on fire, except for the bed where my brother still slept. He had left a candle burning and it had fallen, setting the room on fire. We were just in time. I woke everyone else and my dad and I grabbed the sheets and pulled my brother out of the room… The last time I saw my grandmother was when I turned 15, and she came in a dream to say goodbye. She showed me a beautiful field and in the middle was a large standing mirror in a pedestal. She explained that now I was old enough to fend for myself and that she had many things to do and that I could always call on her, that she would be always with me in my heart. Then she walked through the mirror and she was gone. There have been many guides since then, and I find that the guides are usually there for me depending on the questions I’m asking, or the issues that I’m exploring at the time. There is this guide I call “old man”, that usually shows up when I’m working on issues, such as fear. In the dream state he takes me to places and times where issues originate. He shows up in a dream, interrupts the ‘regular’ dream and we travel to a different time, ancient times usually. The first time he showed me a place that looked medieval, but I know it was much, much older. It was dark and you could sense malignancy everywhere. The guide, Old Man, gave me a sharp wicked looking dagger, and he told me I had to kill someone… someone evil. I was disappointed, I expected something different. In the center courtyard, there was an ancient tree, and a suffering tortured person, tied to it. There were wild cats like panthers. I wasn't sure if I could be seen, but I walked cautiously towards the person, cut his ties and helped him escape. Then I saw this dark cloaked figure of a man appear. He seemed surprised but quickly attacked me, we fought and as I pinned him down, his hood came out and I could see his face, twisted with rage and fear, and I realized he was me. Wow I didn't see that coming. I dropped the knife and walked away. Still in the dream state, I returned home. I could see my body below lying in bed, sleeping. I apologized to the old man for having failed the mission and I handed him the dagger. Then he smiled and said that I had actually passed the mission. In confusion, it wasn't until I woke up later that I realized what he meant.…
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17 Feb 2020

On the Subject of Dreams and Lucid Dreaming – Part 5

I started having dreams about my daughter when I was 15. She was born when I was 25. In those dreams, I would see her in different stages of development, her looks and personality, her behavior, and the love that connects us. Important relationships would often be in my dreams a few years before they were created. I would be able to recognize them by either their looks or the sound of their voice, or a gesture or smile. Once I was actually told their birth date by one of them. It seems that a strong emotional charge is one of the factors in future recall, like births, deaths, marriages… When my mother was diagnosed with a terminal illness, she was terminal for about 5 years. I didn't have much of a healthy relationship with my mother, as she was bipolar, so I was either very angry or very guarded with her. But at the end of her life, I was determined to make peace with her, and somehow be able to change my attitude and my relationship with her. I feel lucky that I was given those five years to be able to do that. During that time, I had a recurrent dream almost once a week. For five years, it was always the same dream: My mother was young, in her teens, standing by the shore alone, the ocean water lapping at her ankles, it was such a beautiful landscape, the sunset, the calm ocean, the quiet breeze. It was her favorite place and her favorite time of day, golden pink colors everywhere. Suddenly 3 dolphins appeared, in the shallow waters, and they asked her to come and play with them. She was delighted but unsure, so she looked at me, I told her to look at them, they started to morph. Her mom, her dad and her favorite aunt were there, standing with open arms. She smiled at me and rushed towards them, and the dream was over. I woke up sobbing every time. It was so beautiful and very sad too, because I knew what it meant. The interesting note is that in the beginning of this dream, I was inside her body, feeling the water… So the perspective can sometimes change, one moment I’m the protagonist, and then in the next moment, I’m the spectator… There was another instance much earlier, when I was first married, living in Japan, and my mother-in-law was terminal, in Israel. My husband at the time went to Israel, to be with his mother, and I stayed in Japan. I was trying to give him space, so we barely spoke during those 2 weeks that he was gone. One night I fell asleep on the couch and started dreaming: I saw myself in a hospital room, with stone walls, a very old building. I was lying in bed with a lot of machinery attached to me. There was a window in front and a door to my left. I realized…
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10 Feb 2020

On the Subject of Dreams and Lucid Dreaming – Part 4

I came across Catherine Shainberg, the Yoda of Dreams, some years ago. She has a school in New York, The School of Images, in which she teaches people to understand the nature of dreams, their meaning and their connection to different states of consciousness. In one of her classes, she states that, “there is only one dream, from the moment you go to sleep, till you awake. Life is but two types of dreaming, the one when you are asleep, and the one when you are awake.” That was pretty revolutionary for me. I used to experience 5 to 7 dreams every night. But according to Shainberg, it was my unconscious mind trying to bring me different aspects of the same issue for me to look at, in different ways… more possibilities… The different types of dreams are very distinct from each other. Dreams about past lives, parallel lives or future lives are the most intense, vivid ones, because in them I recognize myself as the main character. I can see and feel things. I can see myself, my inner and outer appearance. In many of these, I am difference species, humanoid, but sentient. There are water worlds, in which I look sort of amphibian, breathe under water through gills and swim very fast. I have shiny, translucent skin.  In others, I am sort of avian, with feathers and wings, but still humanoid in shape, intelligent and fierce looking. There are prophetic dreams, when you see things in the future that are going to happen, or, as I like to say, that are more likely to happen, because of the current situation. In this case, I may dream about it often for months or years before it actually happens. I don't know the cause of the repetition, except that maybe it has something to do with emphasis and making sure I’m paying attention. Dreams of the immediate and distant future mark important events or people for me to pay attention to and remember, so that when I actually meet them in the present, I know who they are. But mostly, future dreams are a warning of difficult times to come… Somehow, I always felt comforted by the future dreams, because it meant that I would still be alive.
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02 Feb 2020

On the Subject of Dreams and Lucid Dreaming – Part 3

Guides started appearing in my dreams. I think my grandmother was the first guide that appeared. She died when I was seven, and she stayed with me until I was 15. The day she died, I still remember my parents went to the hospital, but my brother and I stayed in the car. My dad said that she would not have wanted us to see her so sick. I really didn't care about it, I wanted the chance to say goodbye to her and I felt very strongly about it. And so, we were left in the parking lot. After about 20 minutes, I felt an overwhelming sense of loss. I felt my grandmother’s presence and a kiss on my left cheek. My world collapsed, I couldn't conceive of a world in which she wasn't there. We were very close, as my mother and father worked together and were gone a lot of the time. Most of my memories from that time are strange, as if I really wasn't in my body… There was a lot of anger and loss and grief. I was doing strange things in school, all of my writings in notebooks and on the blackboards were inverted, as if I was on the other side, the upside-down ? You could see it all made sense if you used a mirror, but I wasn't aware that I was doing that. Of course, the biggest problem was that I could see and hear my grandmother. Every day we talked, sometimes she would pop up in my classroom, and at night, she continued to tell me stories and sing for me. It quickly became a problem for everyone else. So at 7 years old, I learned to lie, to make everybody else happy. I didn't see anything, and I didn't hear anything. I wonder now how many of us empaths or sensitives have had a similar experience? Over time I kept these extra ordinary things to myself. When I was 8 or so, my dad used to take the boat for a ride in winter to keep the engine running. My dad took just us kids, my brother and I for a ride in a lake, near the ocean. We had been gone for a few hours when dad noticed the gas tank had a leak in it. We had no radio and no lights. We had gone too far into the ocean. We had no gas to come back. Our anchor wasn't long enough to keep us from drifting farther into the sea and we had no way to call for help. It was an accident, and our only hope was that mom would realize that we were gone too long and start a search. That night, of course there was a storm! Dad tied us all to the boat and we clung for dear life as gigantic waves rocked us up and down. It was cold. It rained and stormed. We had no water and no food.…
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26 Jan 2020

On the Subject of Dreams and Lucid Dreaming – Part 2

  At 21 years old, I took a Vipassana Meditation course in the Japanese mountains. Vipassana Meditation is a lovely ten-day meditation retreat, where you make a vow of silence, receive instructions 3 times a day and just meditate. It simulates a monastic life where rules are simple and you just focus on yourself, not socializing. You are given your own room and meals are cooked for you, often by volunteers that have taken the course before. It is always free, but you can make donations of money, food or volunteering time. I highly recommend it. It was there that I had my first experience of expanded consciousness. In other words, after meditating for a few days, all of my senses expanded. For example, my hearing was strengthened, as I could hear leaves falling outside. I could suddenly control my own pain level, body temperature, and interestingly, I could hear everyone’s minds in the room. It’s like when you realize that you are so much more than this tiny body and you have to squeeze tight to fit inside. In the process of trying to fit in this small body, you make all your senses smaller too. While I was there, I could dream while awake or while sleeping. One day I was meditating in my room, looking at the wall and images started forming. The next thing I knew, I was looking into a living Mandala on the wall… a Mandala of my entire life. There was my birth, marriages, a child, traveling to faraway lands, a variety of jobs, and after many convoluted bending roads, there was a mountain top and the culmination of the end of life. It looked like a monastery with golden columns and I saw myself sitting there becoming a ball of light. As I was 21 years old at the time, I just looked at it and said, “cool” and promptly forgot all about it. After all, I was focusing on learning meditation and I was told that everything else was just a product of the mind trying to distract me. Ha! How I wish now, at 53 years old, that I could remember every little detail. Another day as I was waking up before meditation, I was shown that time was actually just “movements.” As I woke up, sat up, looked at the clock and followed a series of slow movements, I actually woke up and observed that I had just dreamt that entire sequence of the next 20 minutes. I then learned that consciousness can move in any direction. Meditating helps you step out of everyday monkey mind, and then expand and become more in tune with our true nature. My next thought: what if all of us can do this, but we are so wrapped up in our minds? It’s as if everything here conspires to keep us distracted – media, phones, gaming, shopping, work… we don't realize our full potential…
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19 Jan 2020

On the subject of Dreams and Lucid Dreaming – Part 1

From as early as I can recall, I remember most of my dreams. As a 5 year old, I dreamt that I was a man riding a motorcycle and chasing women. It didn't make any sense then. As a 9 year old, I dreamt I was an African woman singing jazz in night clubs. I also had a lot of very frightening nightmares. The scariest dream I had as a child, was the recurring dream in which invisible forces were “consuming” people, attacking them where they stood and they would slowly disappear. I was the only one who could “see” them. In the nightmare I would warn people but no one would listen. I saw the scary beings as purple blobs, that descended upon people, and started eating them away. I had these so often that at one point I became afraid of falling asleep, it was unbearable. Soon I had a spontaneous occurrence that changed everything. In the middle of a terrible nightmare that was taking place in a tv screen, I saw myself waking up and changing the channel. After that, regular dreaming resumed. I was so excited when I actually woke up, I understood that now I was in control – I could will myself to wake up inside my dreams and change them. Hmmm, so many possibilities…. In my early teens I learned that I could go places, so I would often fly and see the world. Then of course, I realized that there were other places besides Earth that one can visit. Other planets and other worlds. That led to the understanding that time wasn't linear, I could travel to the past, the future and to parallel realities, in which I was still myself. It was like physically experiencing consciousness in the multiverse. Being a teen in the 80’s, I used to think of time as a cassette tape… It would go one direction, pause, reverse or fast forward. Then came the experiential understanding of time as a sphere. Your point of view is just a dot on the sphere, where past, present and future is all happening at once. Over the years there have been so many experiments. I knew that there were many kinds of dreams. There were the dreams of the past, past lives, in which I recognized that some people in this present reality had been a part of my past. They might have been a bit different physically, but I recognized them as who they are now in my life… Dreams of events in past life are more like “remembering.” Remembering helps you understand that whatever you’re attracted to or interested in is often something that you have done many times before. For me , it was acupuncture school that I’d done many times before. So much so, that when I actually enrolled in the Massage Therapy program, some 25 years ago, I remember seeing “blue dots” on people’s bodies when I was working on them. They were very consistent,…