Part 2 (2/2)

The statesman, the poet, the philosopher of the Bible were unanimous in attaching prophetic significance to dreams. Has the law of ethereal vibrations undergone any recent changes to debar or molest the communion of the soul with its spiritual father, any more than it has debarred contact with its material mother or environments?

We only understand the great laws of nature by effects. We know that vegetation planted in native soil and properly attended with light, heat and moisture, will grow and yield a certain species of fruit. We may infer how it does this, but we cannot explain the process of transformation any more than we can explain why certain tropical birds are burnished with glowing colors, and that other birds under the murky skies are gray and brown, while in the Arctic regions they bleach.

In sleep we see, without being awakened, the angry lightning rend the midnight clouds, and hear the explosive thunder hurl its fury at us; but can we explain it any more than our scientist can explain the natural forces of thought, of love and hate, or the subtle intuition of woman?

What of the silhouette or the anthelion of the Scandinavian Alps, and the aerial cities so often seen by explorers and travelers? Do not they defy the law of optics? Must we understand the intricacies of articulation and the forces back of it before we can appropriate speech? Must we discard all belief in an infinite mind because we cannot understand it, and therefore say we are not a part of it because there is no Infinite? Should we discard the belief in the infinitude of number, because we cannot understand it, and therefore say that finite number is not a part of the infinite?

No scientist or naturalist is so grossly stupid as to deny the infinite expansion of numbers? If this be so, it establishes the infinite of number, of which every finite number is a part, and thus we have a parallel in mathematics, the very cornerstone of the exact sciences, for a finite and an infinite mind. It is from the prototype of this infinite of number, namely, the infinite of intelligence, that spiritual dreams proceed. They are, therefore, the reflection of truth upon the dream mind and occur with less frequency than do dreams of the other two cla.s.ses.

There are also mixed dreams, due to a mult.i.tude of incidents arising from one or more sources, which being reflected upon the mind at the same instant, produce an incoherent effect similar to that which might be produced by running the same newspaper through two or more presses all of different size type.

Again, if you sit before a mirror where flashlights of faces and other things are reflected simultaneously and instantly removed, you will fail to obtain a well-defined impression of what pa.s.sed before your mind.

If you should pa.s.s on a train, at the speed of two miles a minute, through a forest of flowers and trees, your mind would be unable to distinguish one flower or tree from another.

It is in a similar way dream life and incidents may fall upon the mind.

A woman may dream of receiving a letter, and in the same connection see muddy water, or an arid landscape. Closely following, in waking life, she is astonished to receive a letter in about the same manner of her dream, but the muddy water and the arid landscape are missing.

This is a mixed dream and is due to more than one cause. The first part is literal in its fulfilment, and belongs to the spiritual cla.s.s; the other part of the dream is subjective, and therefore allegorical in meaning. Together with the letter, it was a forewarning of misfortune.

These dreams are more difficult of interpretation than those belonging to the spiritual type. In such dreams you may see water, letters, houses, money, people, and countless other things. The next day you may cross water or receive a letter; the other things you may not see, but annoyance or pleasure will follow.

Again, you may have a similar dream and not receive a letter or cross water, but the waking life will be filled with the other dream pictures and you will experience disappointing or pleasant surprises as are indicated by the letter or water sign.

I have selected the allegorical type of dreams for the subject of this work. Dreams that are common occurrences and are thought by the world to be meaningless.

I have endeavored, through the occult forces in and about me to find their esoteric or hidden import.

Dreams transpire on the subjective plane. They should therefore be interpreted by subjective intelligence. This, though burdened with many business cares, I have honestly endeavored to do. Through the long hours of many nights I have waited patiently and pa.s.sively the automatic movement of my hand to write the subjective definitions without receiving a word or a single manifestation of intelligence, and again the mysterious forces would write as fast as my hand could move over the paper.

I will leave it for my readers to draw their own conclusions as to whether automatic writing is the work of extraneous spirits, through the brain and intelligence of the medium, or the result of auto-suggestive influence upon the subjective personality.

It is argued by the Materialist, with some degree of strength, that the healthy man does not dream, This is, perhaps, true, in a way, but the whole man comprises the past, present, and future. The past and future always embrace more of the conditions that surround him than the present. The present is only the acute stage, while the chronic stage, considered from a personal view, is the past and future combined. Man cannot eliminate entirely these states from himself, for, while they are past and future to the personal mind, they are ever present to the higher subjective senses; he is, therefore, never in perfect health unless these states are in harmony with the present. The personal self, in a normal state, cannot free itself from the past or from the anxieties of the future.

The reader should ever keep before his mind the fact that no man ever had the same dream twice. He may have had very similar dreams, but some detail will be missing. Nature seems to abhor duplicates. You could no more find two dreams alike than you could find facsimiles in two blades of gra.s.s. A man cannot live two days exactly alike. Different influences and pa.s.sions will possess him. Consequently, no two dreams can be had under exactly the same influences. Stereotypes are peculiarly the invention of man and not of G.o.d or nature.

Since it is impossible to find a man twice in exactly the same mental state, it is equally impossible for him to dream the same dream twice; therefore, it is only possible to approximate dream interpretation by cla.s.sing them into families. This I have attempted to do in a more comprehensive way than other writers who have preceded me.

All men are acquainted with health and sickness, love and hate, success and failure. Sickness, hate and failure belong to kindred families, and often ally their forces in such a way that it is hard to say whether the dreamer will fail in love, health or some business undertaking. But at all times a bad symbol is a warning of evil, though that evil may be minimized or exaggerated, or vice versa, according as signs are good.

Thus, if the dream symbol indicates wealth or fortune to the peasant, his waking life may be gladdened by receiving or seeing a fifty-cent piece, or finding a.s.suring work, while the same symbol to a wealthy man would mean many dollars, or a favorable turn in affairs.

It is the same in physical life. A man may hear the sound of a wagon. He cannot determine by the rattle of the wheels whether it is laden with laundry, groceries or dry goods. He may judge as to its size and whether it is bearing a heavy or a light burden. When it objectifies he will be able to know its full import and not before. So with dream symbols. We may know they are fraught with evil or good, as in the case of Pilate's wife, but we cannot tell their full meaning until their reflections materialize before the objective sense.

Death is more frequently foretold by dream messages or visions, as explained in another part of this chapter.

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