Dreaming the Future

SIGNS IN DREAMS

Somewhere around 1970, I had my first precognitive dream. There was a second one that signaled the same event, probably around 1972. It would be 31 years before I would understand.

KNOWING

A skeptic can read my interpretations, and shred it, but they cannot take away the profound certainty that I call knowing. I have plenty of hunches, suspicions, and things I wonder about. I could twist events to fit a narrative. I don’t call those knowing. Knowing feels like a mystery has been solved. A past question meets with a big answer that brings relief and validation. I don’t have a million of these events, but no one can take the certainty away, ever. I simply know beyond a shadow of a doubt that something not in psychology or science textbooks has happened. Thus, I suspend disbelief about things like miracles, precognition, healing, spirit guides, mediumship, ghosts, angels, telekinesis, and telepathy, saying, “There’s much too much we need to know before we know enough.”

CAN YOU HANDLE THE (DREAM) TRUTH?

My earliest dreams, I didn’t write down at the time; however, I grew up in a household that had a couple of dream dictionaries. A retelling of dreams at the breakfast table met with encouragement and interest from my family. My brother-in-law-to-be listened to me recount a dream and told me he read an article that said you should keep paper by the bed, and write your dreams down immediately upon waking. I didn’t really start doing that until I was 25, and my mother would die that year. I began journaling my dreams because they were so horrific, long before she died. Now, I wouldn’t consider those dreams horrific. They were just dreams of blood, Christmas, and hospitals. An important lesson I’ve learned about dream interpretation and allowing precognitive information to come to you in dreams is to not be a Pollyanna. Being a little dark can enable you to see unpleasant truth. It is lovely when the truth is kind, bright, and pretty. Too often, it is sad, bloody, and emerges from tons of dishonesty. After all, intuition speaks when the gut senses something shouldn’t be trusted.

A VERY SCARY STATUE

In my earliest precognitive dream around 1970, I dreamt I was at a house we moved away from when I was five years old. The yard where I played most often had been replaced in the dream by a beautiful garden. The white fence was, instead, a tall, green hedge. I was playing on a sunny day with my best friend. There was a dream statute of a woman. I said to my friend, “Doesn’t she look real?”

I was horrified as she came to life, and said, “I am real!”

My friend ran and cleared the hedge. As I tried to climb over with one leg stepping up and the other hanging down, the statue grabbed my leg and began to spin me like an airplane. I woke up paralyzed for a few seconds. I never forgot this terrifying dream. I often wondered why it was a woman. Plus, I kept it alive by telling it and eventually writing it down. In 2001, this dream would come rushing back in a mix of emotions punctuated by clarity.

A couple of years after that garden dream of the statue, I dreamt I was watching a plane circle overhead at the canal and field that bordered our neighborhood. I began to realize the plane was getting lower and lower. I knew it was going to crash in the field. Next, there was worry about fire. Again, the dream was larger than life and very alarming.

THE WOMAN OF MY DREAMS

Virginia was my home in 2001 when the 9/11 bombings took place. I had read a book by an engineer about an Indonesian martial arts healer who had been on 20/20 setting paper on fire. Dynamo Jack attributed chi, and especially, internal chi, with giving him the ability he had. Internal energy was called neikung. I began a search for a master in the United States that taught neikung. I found four. One was too far away. Another was a fruit loop. I amused myself that some ancient Chinese master conked him on the head. A great teacher was in New York. I considered moving there to study neikung, so visiting the dojo was on my wishlist.

My friend, Jack, had an aunt in New Jersey, and the subway made for an easy journey to New York. Jack was newly into photography and had an old SLR, and the film had to be developed. It was 2001, and if digital was available, it was too pricey to have. We decided to visit ground zero and stop in at the dojo. Our first day in New York, it rained. Near Letterman’s studio, there was a mini Statue of Liberty. As I stood by it for a photo, I looked up, and a whirlwind of emotions happened. This was it, and I knew it. I was surprised and felt excitement, relief, validation, certainty and knowing. The 31-year mystery was solved. This was the woman of my dreams. Meanwhile, the reason for the trip, to see ground zero converged, and I also knew beyond all doubt why the dream always felt like a big deal.

Jack snapped the photo. When the film was developed, there was a white fuzz or cloud over the face of the mini Statue of Liberty. I was gobsmacked. It was as if everything I felt as I looked at the face of that female statue showed up in the picture. How could anyone explain it? It was 2001. The film had to be developed, so no digital tricks took place.

A few months after the photo fuzz incident, I read about eye chi. A person with a lot of eye chi can look upon a thing, and impact it. I took this very seriously, and it made sense with some Science of Mind things I had read about not looking at things and opining negatively or being judgmental. For example, you don’t look at poverty, and think “poor children.” Instead, if you must reactively think and cannot help yourself, it is better to think “prosperity is asleep here.” What if you were an elementary school teacher, can you imagine your overwhelming guilt to learn that looking upon a child you find displeasing puts a visible emotional mark upon them, maybe even a dark cloud? To this day, I avert my eyes a lot, even though my chi is not what it used to be. How funny it is that many people think someone who won’t look you in the eye is shifty or untrustworthy. For me, it is kind, responsible and nonjudgey, plus better safe than sorry.

After realizing the precognitive dream details and the parallels to my New York day where the female statue was the Statute of Liberty, the garden was Central Park, and being gripped and feeling extreme fear was 9/11, I began to realize that the dream of the plane crashing into the field also fit with the events in Somerset County. I knew that a guide, or even a future self, cared enough about a big event to make it a dream topic more than once 30 years earlier.

MAYBE DREAMS CAN PUSH PAST THE LIES WE ARE TAUGHT

Some might say, what good is a general prophetic dream without specific dates or locations? Face it, if you did dream or have visions like that and voiced them, you could be mistaken for an advisor to terrorists on what to do. Plus, few would believe you. Further, it may lead you to be urgent and desperate, which would make you seem volatile and crazy.

I don’t believe I had a vague prophetic dream in order to warn anyone. I think it was to prove human potential. We’re told psychics, mediums and healers are frauds. Skeptics set them up like fish out of water, and demand performance of the abilities they claim to have while in the water, so to speak. It is an unkind world for psychics, and mistakes will be made. However, to realize that precognition happens was very powerful to me. Some say, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” However, where fulfillment is concerned, a more positive position is that you will see it when you believe it. My eyes locking on Lady Liberty as dozens of feelings converged, gave me a permanent belief in human potential and that dreams are a tool. Dream interpretation is often in my writing, and I’ve learned many good techniques.

THE ANGEL OF A BILLION PRAYERS

During our rainy New York day, we dropped by the dojo of C.K. Chu. I already had his book about neikung, but I hoped to meet him. He was out, so we purchased a video and eagerly watched it that evening. I realized that I had missed the detail about positioning the spine from reading his book. Naturally, the spine curves, but I had always had an extra ducktail flip upward. The next day, under my winter coat, I tucked my butt for a better energy orbit, and I walked all around the city.

Stopping at a shop window on the way to see ground zero was ceremonious. The before and after pictures of the twin towers said a thousand things. We made the sacred trek to see reality. Jack snapped a photo of me and a friend soon after our recovery from our moment of silence, holding back tears, and sending prayers as we looked upon the rubble. What is it in our fellow man that evokes souls to communicate silently, knowingly, and in unison at those places and times when no words do justice? Understanding is a fleeting glimpse into a world of feelings so complex, only a flash of absolute depth synchronizes everyone. You become one with all.

We left the rubble and walked. I saw a strong flash of light. It was so extreme that I looked to try to figure it out. Nothing made sense. I explained it away as sunlight hitting the chrome on a bumper. Soon, Jack decided to move ahead, and take a picture of us walking. Again, when the film was developed, extremely bright light showed up, as if an angel appeared over my shoulder in the photo. Even if it were a photographic artifact, it symbolized the energy of standing with people of the world and the souls of those who had passed on. It is the angel of a billion prayers dedicated to that location and appearing like the apparition of an angel or white dove. I am so moved by it that forever I will have faith in prayer and human potential.

This is my first entry as I join the Vocal community. I selected it because it ties a childhood precognitive dream to a world event. I’ve had many interesting dreams. Throughout my writing, you will find I consider not just psychology but the unseen things like metaphysics to explain events and people. This story shows why I believe in the importance of looking at what is not there, because sometimes it actually shows up for an important demonstration.