Part 3 (1/2)
During sleep the will is suspended, leaving the mind often a prey to its own fancy. The slightest attack of an enemy may be foretold by the unbridled imagination exaggerating the mental picture into a monstrous shark or snake, when, indeed, a much less portentous sign was cast from the dream mold.
A woman may see a serpent in waking life and through fright lose reason or self-control. She imagines it pursues her when in reality it is going an opposite direction; in a like way dreams may be many times unreal.
The mind loses its reason or will in sleep, but a supersensitive perception is awakened, and, as it regains consciousness from sleep, the sound of a knock on the wall may be magnified into a pistol shot.
The sleeping mind is not only supersensitive as to existing external sounds and light, but it frequently sees hours and days ahead of the waking mind.
Nor is this contradictory to the laws of nature. The ant housed in the depth of the earth, away from atmospheric changes, knows of the approach of the harvest, and comes forth to lay by his store.
In a like manner, the pet squirrel is a better barometer of the local weather than the Weather Bureau. With unerring foresight, when a wintry frown nowhere mars the horizon, he is able to apprehend a cold wave twenty-four hours ahead, and build his house accordingly.
So in sleep, man dreams the future by intuitive perception of invisible signs or influences, while awake he reasons it out by cause and effect. The former seems to be the law of the spiritual world, while the latter would appear to be the law of the material world. Man should not depend alone upon either. Together they proclaim the male and female principle of existence and should find harmonious consummation.
In this manner only can man hope to achieve that perfect normal state to which the best thought of the human race is aspiring, where he can create and control influences instead of being created and controlled by them, as the majority of us are at the present day.
G.o.d, the highest subjective source of intelligence, may in a dream leave impressions or presentiments on the mind of man, the highest objective source of intelligence.
The physical sun sends its light into the dark corners of the earth, and G.o.d, the Spiritual Sun, imparts spiritual light into the pa.s.sive and receptive soul.
Man, by hiding in a cave, or closing the windows and doors of his house, may shut out all physical light; so he may steep his soul in sensual debauchery until all spiritual light is shut out.
Just as the vital essence of the soil, the mother of nature, may be extracted by abuse, either from omission or commission, until neither the light of the sun, nor the moisture of the heavens will wake the flush of life, so may the spiritual essence be deadened when the soil of the soul is filled with the aged and multiplying weeds of ravis.h.i.+ng materiality.
The dream mind is often influenced by the waking mind. When the waking mind dwells upon any subject, the dream mind is more or less influenced by it, and it often a.s.sists the waking mind in solving difficult problems. The personal future, embodied in the active states of the universal mind, may affect the dream mind, producing premonitions of death, accidents and misfortune.
The objective mind rejoices or laments over the aspects of the past and present, while the spiritual mind, striving with the personal future, either laments or rejoices over the prospective conditions.
One is the barometer of the past, while the other is the barometer of the future.
If we study carefully the spiritual impressions left upon the dream mind, through the interpretations of this book, we will be able to shape our future in accordance with spiritual law.
Thus our temporal events will contribute to our spiritual development, and in turn our spiritual knowledge will contribute to our temporal welfare. Without this harmonious interaction of the two great forces in man, the Divine plan of destiny cannot be reached.
This can only be accomplished through the material mind or reason dominating the animal emotions of the heart. In this way we would not covet our neighbor's goods, or grow angry with our brother over trifles.
The house vacated by the sefish{sic} appet.i.tes of the world would be filled with the whispers of spiritual love and wisdom necessary to the mutual welfare and development of body and soul.
The theory used in this book to interpret dreams is both simple and rational. By the using of it you will be surprised to find so many of the predictions fulfilled in your waking life. We deal with both the thought and the dream. The thought or sign implied in the object dreamed of and the influence surrounding it are always considered in the interpretation.
Thoughts proceed from the visible mind and dreams from the invisible mind. The average waking mind receives and retains only a few of the lessons of life. It is largely filled with idle and incoherent thoughts that are soon forgotten. The same may be truly said of the dream mind. Many of our day thoughts are day dreams, just as many of our night dreams are night thoughts. Our day deeds of evil or good pierce or soothe the conscience, just as our night symbols of sorrow and joy sadden or please the objective senses. Our day's thoughts are filled with the warnings and presence of the inner mind and our night's thoughts are tinctured and often controlled by our external mind.
Some writer has said: ”Everything that exists upon earth has its ethereal counterpart.” Christ said: ”As a man thinketh so is he.” A Hindu proverb says: ”Man is a creature of reflection; he becomes that upon which he reflects.” A modern metaphysicist says: ”Our thoughts are real substance and leave their images upon our personality, they fill our aura with beauty or ugliness according to our intents and purposes in life.” Each evil thought or action has its pursuing phantom, each smile or kindly deed its guiding angel, we leave wherever we ign.o.bly stand, a tomb and an epitaph to haunt us through the furnace of conscience and memory.
Closely following in the wake of our multiplying evil thoughts are armies of these ghastly spectres pursuing each other with the exact intents and purposes of the mind that gave them being. If we consider well these facts we will be forced into thinking our best thoughts at all times. Thoughts are the subjective and creative force that produces action. Action is the objective effect of thought; hence the character of our daily thoughts is making our failure or success of to-morrow.
The impersonal mind deals with all time and things as ever present. The objective mind is constantly striving to penetrate the spiritual realm, while the spiritual mind is striving to enter matter, hence our actions have their subjective counterparts and their subethereal counterparts. The universal mind, in harmony with the evolutionary plans and laws of the macrocosms, materializes through functions of the microcosm, imparting to each, with its routine of failure and success, its daily objectivity. The inner or pa.s.sive dream mind may perceive the subjective types or ant.i.types many days before they objectify through the microcosm. Their meaning is often wrapt in symbols, but sometimes the actual as it occurs in objective life is conveyed. Our own thought images which have pa.s.sed before the objective mind may be perceived by the clever mind reader, but those ant.i.types which are affecting our future, but which have none other but subjective existence, are rarely ever perceived by any one except by the power of the higher self or the spirit within. For this reason we are enjoined by the sages to study self. With the physical mind we only see physical objects, with the subjective mind we see only subjective objects. This was Paul's doctrine and it is the belief of the best psychic thought of this century. By means of our reason- an objective process for divining the future-aided by mathematical and geographical data, we may outline the storm centers and the path of the rain days before they appear in certain localities. After eliminating all contingencies arising from clerical error and counteracting influence, the prognostication is sure of fulfilment. For centuries ahead the astronomer foretells the eclipse of the moon and the sun and the arrival of comets. He does not do this by crossing the borderland dividing the spiritual from the physical world. In a like manner the subjective forces operate upon their own planes and know very little even of their own corporal realm, just as our physical senses know little, if anything, of the soul or spiritual habitation. They know that by gross living the sense of conscience may be dulled, or that by right living it may be strengthened. In like manner the subjective mind perceives by its own senses certain invisible types of evil seeking external manifestations in the microcosm. It knows that these forms of error will work harm to the objective mind, and that if persisted in they will pervert all intercourse or interchange of counsel between the two factions of the man. In this there is no spiritual perception of physical objects, any more than there is in mundane life a sense perception of spiritual images and ant.i.types. The former only sees the forms that manifest on its plane, while the latter can note only those common to its sphere. Each may recognize and feel the violence or good that these manifestations will do to their respective counterparts, but we have no reason to believe that normal objective or subjective states have visional powers beyond their own plane. The mind of man acting upon the mind of the macrocosm will produce, according as he thinks or acts, ant.i.types of good or evil in the imagination of the world which is reflected upon the spiritual aura of the microcosm previous to taking on corporal form. While in this state they may be perceived by subjectivity, and thus the images seen are impressed on the dream mind during sleep, or on the pa.s.sivity of the objective sense.
Evil or righteous acts recently committed will more acutely affect the present waking mind than those enacted at a more remote period. In a similar way future disaster or success which is soon to occur will impress the dream mind more vividly than those which are to transpire at a later date. But in the lives of all men there are past incidents which they will never forget, and which will never cease to fill their hearts with pride or remorse. So, too, in their distant future there are important events to transpire which are struggling through tumultuous infinitude to leave their ghastly or smiling impress upon the dream mind. If your mental states are pa.s.sive you will receive the warnings. There are cases on record which show events have been forecast years ahead of their occurrence.