We Meet in Dreams: A New Interpretation of Dreams

By Diana Souza and Laurie Conrad

A book for anyone who wants to look more deeply into the true nature of their dreams.

Most of us have had a dream experience that seemed more real than an ordinary dream, a dream that felt like it really happened. Weve wondered what made that dream feel so different, so vivid, so meaningful to us. According to author and clairvoyant Laurie Conrad, there are two kinds of dreams. One is psychological, the product of our subconscious mind, with its endless torrent of thoughts and desires. In We Meet in Dreams, the author presents us with the compelling possibility that some of our dreams are actually visits to other realms or to other places on Earth. These dreams suggest that our relationship to time and space may be less fixed than we think. Through exploring and interpreting a wide range of dreams, including flying dreams, shared dreams and nightmares, Laurie Conrad helps us to distinguish the difference between our ordinary dreams and other realm visits. In the process, many fascinating, unexpected interpretations are offered that defy the ways that dreams have been understood until now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468553338

Diana Souza

Clairvoyant Laurie Conrad is a meditation teacher, pianist and composer living in Ithaca, New York. Be a part of the author’s online community and read her blogs A Mystic’s Journal and A Composer’s Journal at Figarobooks.com. See her paintings and hear her music at Figaropaintings.com. Find her books and music CDs at Artistopia.com, Cdbaby.com & Amazon.com.

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Contents

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

SECTION I

We Meet in Dreams

Dream or Dream?

Whose Message Was It?

Nightmare or Dream Visits?

SECTION II

Introduction

Visits from Grandmother & the School Bus

The Visit

The Letters & the Pink Dress

The Mountain

A Visit to Grandmother

My Friend Christopher Meets St. John the Baptist

The Helpers

The Beautiful Island

A Message from Bert

In the Meadow

The White Room

SECTION III

How Can We Tell the Two Apart?

How to Analyze Dreams

Dream or Dream—A Simple Checklist

SECTION IV

The Sky

JF and Guinivere

In the Hospital

The Bike Ride

The Crash

The Interview

The Sparklers

SECTION V

The Wall

The Shop

The Fence

SECTION VI

Billy

A Visit from a Guru

SECTION VII

The House with a View

Concerts in Another Realm

Nightmares: The White Walls

SECTION VIII

The Crystals

Transparent Realms

Finding Compassion

The Conference

SECTION IX

Introduction

The Room Without Windows

Dave Steals a Car

Dave Takes a Train

On My Own: A Ride in a Stolen Car

At the Carnival

I Bring Adrian to the Lecture

On the Hilltop

The Fake Police & Crooked Priests: More Mayhem

The Moans

Chased by Kidnappers

The Basement Murders

Chased by Men & A Visit to a Punk Realm

The Movie Theater

The Castle

Analyzing Dream Visits to the Lower Realms

Checklist: Nightmare or Dream Visit?

How to Stop Going to Lower Realms in Dreams

SECTION X

Rosie Almost Goes to Bosnia

SECTION XI

Levitation Class

A Meeting with Muktananda

Mabel Gives a Lecture in Another Realm

Fran Visits God

SECTION XII

Learning to Fly in Dreams Using a Slate Rock

Flying with New Friends

Astral Travel

A Flying Master Takes a Student

SECTION XIII

Introduction

Dinner With Grandmother

The Giraffes

Visit to a Heavenly City

Night School Classes with Anthony

Night Classes with Tony: You Were There?

Beyond the Gates

When You’re Ready

The Cave

The Message

My Dream About the Library

The Exam

The Midnight Sun

A Message from Anthony

The Cliff

The Cathedral

The Party

Louise

The New Room

The Cape and the Walkway

The Bells: Springtime at Cornell

Called to Ithaca

Shared Dreams: More Thoughts

A Dream Checklist

Epilogue

Endnotes

Image396.JPG

to MG

with infinite gratitude

for all your help and encouragement

PREFACE

In my second book, Realms of Light,¹I mention and describe many realms I or others have been to-either in waking or in dream state. In this volume I could mention only some of the many realms, on all levels of evolution and virtue, that I have visited while in dream state. I have been to a red hills realm, flatlands with hills in the distance, realms with so much Light I was not allowed to enter, realms similar to ours; I have been to lower realms with endless chaotic activity and buildings and streets as those here on Earth; I have traveled among the stars, visited grand cathedrals and other places on Earth while asleep, realms where people climb metal towers with beautiful countryside below. And I have been to untold others, realms as diverse and varied as we could ever imagine.

INTRODUCTION

In my work as a Healer for the Distant Healing Network,²I am sometimes asked to heal people who are haunted by their nightmares. However, often I read their dream and decide that it was a dream visit to a lower astral realm, not a psychological dream, not a nightmare. How do we know whether our dreams are nightmares or dream visits to other realms?

I am often also asked what signs to look for when a loved one dies-i.e. if we are not clairvoyant, how will we know if our loved one is near us or trying to communicate with us? My first answer is always: if you are not clairvoyant, then most likely you will meet them in special dreams. The next question that usually follows is: How will I know it was a real meeting and not just an ordinary dream?

I have written this book in order to try to answer these, and other questions I have received over the years. In this little volume I will discuss the difference between psychological dreams and what I call special dreams, and speak of many sorts of dreams: dreams that are visits to other realms or other places on Earth, prophetic dreams, shared dreams, symbolic dreams, repeating dreams, slow-moving dreams, dreams of flying-and how to analyze these special dreams and distinguish them from ordinary dreams.

Some of these special dreams will bring us comfort and even messages from those we love who are now in other realms. Some of these dream meetings will lead us to question the concepts of time and space. And some of these special dream visits and meetings will show us that we are capable of all that is embedded in the soul, whether we are consciously aware of those abilities or not.

SECTION

I

We Meet in Dreams

We Meet in Dreams

First of all, I would like to say that this book is not a treatise on dreams.³There are ample works on the subject of dreams, by those who have thoroughly studied the intricate and fascinating workings of the human mind. I have only one real purpose here, and that is to distinguish between what I call ordinary or psychological dreams and what I call special dreams, dream visits or dreams. In this section, I am introducing the idea that all dreams are not solely psychological, i.e. the product of our own unconscious mind and all that is stored there.

In my experience, and in the experience of others interviewed for this book, we can actually visit other existing realms or other places on Earth in what I call dreams. Often, while we are asleep, loved ones who are now in other realms will come to visit us, or we will go to them. The best proof of this that I can offer is in the section Shared Dreams. In a shared dream, two or more people visit the same place or person, either somewhere on Earth or in another realm, on the same night. Later, in waking state, they will have similar descriptions of that person or place, and the events that transpired there.

Those of you who study and analyze dreams for their deeper content and meanings might find these writings especially helpful and interesting. Those frightened or confused by nightmares might find that you are not always creating these dreams from your own psychology, but are sometimes going to lower realms while asleep-and I give suggestions on how to stop going to those realms. And those who have lost someone you love should find solace in the knowledge that at least some of our dreams about them are actual meetings.

The terms I have created for this section of the book: psychological dreams, ordinary dreams, dreams, dream visits to other realms, dream meetings-I use only for the sake of convenience. In the end, all is Mind. The distinctions I am making here are all within the realm of images and forms, and therefore all that I will speak of falls within the category of soul and psyche. We are not speaking of Ultimate Reality here. No realm will represent Ultimate Reality, nor will any image.

Therefore, I have created these terms and mental categories more for the sake of clarity-in the hope that these distinctions might bring us to a better understanding of ourselves and our dream experiences and perceptions.

Let me first discuss the nature of what I call, for the sake of convenience, psychological or ordinary dreams.

The Nature of Psychological Dreams

The soul speaks to us in many ways. This communication is constant. And the soul is in constant communication with the Divine. None of our individual thoughts could exist without this Divine Source, and the highest part of the soul is in some mysterious way directly connected to God. As many saints and sages of many different religions and philosophies have told us-in the true, high Mystical experiences, we humans can experience this Divinity or Higher Consciousness. In this Mystical state there are no images, no thoughts, no forms. There is only the divine Light of the soul, or Consciousness.

However, generally speaking, we humans receive our messages and communications from the soul and the Divine in images and in thoughts. The events and images that we perceive in our daily waking lives are how we learn and evolve, cultivate the virtues, and use the gifts and graces we have been given.

There is another state of consciousness we have been given for the same purpose on the soul’s earthly journey, and that is dream state.

Dream state differs from waking state

consciousness in one very important way:

we all share waking state reality, whereas

dream state is a private, individual reality.

In what I call ordinary or psychological dreams, we experience only our own personal reality. These dream thoughts and experiences are the result of our own individual, personal thoughts and desires and fears. The dream is created entirely from our own individual mind. There is no shared reality with others.

The dreamer of a psychological dream can dream that he is in London, England, on a busy street, holding hands with a close friend. However, this same good friend might say: I wasn’t in England, I was in North Carolina last night in my dreams, out in a meadow listening to the birds sing. There is no larger, shared reality in these two dreams. Much in the same way, a person who is hallucinating will create his own personal reality while in waking state consciousness.

On the other hand, an infinite number of people could be visiting my home, and they would all agree that we are in my living room. We agree on the reality of this physical universe because we humans are all sharing the same human vehicle, with its human perceptions. We all perceive the same conventional reality-assuming all our senses work, that we are not blind for instance-because we share the same human vehicle. And the Divine has given this same conventional reality to all human beings. Therefore, we will all agree that we are in my living room, that it is night, the lamps are on, the fireplace is lit, the grand piano is standing in the corner. Now, within this larger shared framework, we are also allowed more personal perception: for example, one person might notice the stained glass lamp behind the piano, others not. Some might think the room feels chilly, others will describe the room as comfortable or too hot. Some of the visitors might decide the room is too small and cluttered, others might feel that it is expansive and large and well kept. A cat might walk in the room, with all the lights out, and still see the room. So the humans would say the room was dark and the cat would say it was not. A hallucinating person might enter the room and say that we are in the Czar’s Palace in Russia, and there is an elephant standing near the fireplace.

The hallucinating person is entirely in his own personal reality. Dreams, although also a personal, unshared reality, are not a form of insanity. They are meant to help us learn about ourselves, and they can be instructive and creative tools if we use them correctly. They often can be revelatory, in a symbolic way, and bring us needed information about ourselves and our universe that we could not otherwise come to while in waking state consciousness. Only for lack of a better term, and for lack of time and space, am I calling these sorts of dreams ordinary or psychological. I am not trying to belittle the symbology of psychological dreams, nor their importance. All dreams, no matter what their nature, can give us truths about ourselves, our lives, the soul, and the world around us. However, my intent is to present the view that there exist two sorts of dreams: one sort of dream is entirely the creation of our own mind-and another sort is where we actually visit another place on Earth or another realm while in sleep state.

This second sort of dream is not a psychological dream as described very briefly and inadequately above. Instead, in these dreams, we are actually going somewhere while we are asleep. And just as there are many places on Earth to visit, there are also many realms to explore.

And there are also many reasons for going to other places on Earth or to other realms while in dream state, both wise and unwise reasons which are discussed and illustrated throughout this book.

Dream or Dream?

ORDINARY DREAMS VERSUS DREAM

MEETINGS IN OTHER REALMS

As I have already written, in my opinion there are two main sorts of experience we can have while asleep. The first activity is psychological, i.e. we are working out our own psychology. Here, the soul uses the symbology of dreams to bring us to a higher understanding of ourselves and life. For these dreams the soul uses only information that we have received during our lives on Earth, in waking state, and from any point in our lives.

The second sort are actual visits to other realms while in dream or sleep state. In these special dreams, the soul does not limit our sleep experiences to our own personal thoughts and images, garnered from our perceptions and life experiences on this Earth. Dreams are a form of clairvoyance, or in some cases, astral travel. When I write that these special dreams are not a product of our own psychology, I mean that in these experiences we are actually going to another realm with its own shared reality among its inhabitants, i.e. a waking state consciousness that is shared by all the beings in that realm. Every being in that realm is an independent being, independent of our thoughts, and not a product of our own mind and thoughts.

What I would call ordinary or psychological dreams are a more personal, individual experience. We are normally not in a shared consciousness for our dreams. On the other hand, waking state consciousness here on Earth is a shared experience. This shared, material reality that we live in is given to us by the Divine-that is why we all perceive the same world around us. And this shared reality follows certain laws-for instance the sun rises and sets. Trees do not stand on one corner today and then move a few blocks north overnight. In our psychological dreams-our reality is personal, our own.

When in waking state consciousness, we humans do not imagine all the other beings that populate this Earth. When we walk down the street, that street exists independent of our own personal thoughts, as do the other humans and creatures that walk with us. It is the same when we visit another realm while in sleep state. Every realm has its own shared reality, just as we have a shared reality here on Earth. All the beings in a certain realm have a certain shared reality, as well as a personal reality-just as in waking state reality on Earth. Some beings in that realm would like the realm they are in, its beings and objects, others would not. But the events and beings and objects in that realm would all be experienced by all its inhabitants, just as it is here on Earth. The beings would all agree that the same events were happening in that realm, the tree was there by that blue house, and had always been there. It didn’t just appear there today, to be somewhere else tomorrow. In other words, in every realm exist independent beings that consciously share a conventional reality-just as here on Earth, in waking state consciousness.

In these actual visits with friends and loved ones who are now in other realms-for instance, MG’s interview in Realms of Light⁴-her dear friend Rick, from his new realm, would know that he had spoken to MG during their dream discussion, that they had met. Afterwards, he would remember what he had said to her, just as she still remembers his message to her. In this instance Rick is an independent person, and not merely the product of MG’s personal conscious or unconscious thoughts and memories of Rick while he was still on Earth. It was an actual meeting, not just an ordinary dream. Rick has, and will always have, an independent existence, in whatever realm he is in. And our love for each other is eternal, from realm to realm.

These true meetings have a mystical feeling to them that is not present in ordinary dreams. It is as though we are taken to another consciousness for these true meetings. And, as many have said throughout Realms of Light,⁵these dreams can feel more real than our experiences here on Earth. These true experiences do not fade over time. They remain as vivid and as clear as when we had them, even though our usual waking state experiences and conversations from that time period have long disappeared from our memory. We should honor these experiences, savor them, learn from them-and be comforted by them.

Whose Message Was It?

Most humans are asleep six to nine hours each night. Where do we go, what do we do ? Certainly we enter and explore regions of our selves and psyches and soul that might not be available to us in waking state consciousness. When we wake up in the morning, if we had a dream during the night our first thought is to label it a dream. Whether it was a pleasant or happy dream, or a terrible nightmare, we first wish to establish that it was a dream and not a part of our waking state reality. It is the same when we speak of the dream to others. We first say that it was a dream, so that those we speak to know that it was our own personal reality in dream state, and not the shared reality of waking state consciousness.

As children it was not always an easy task to tell dreams from waking reality. Children often confuse the two realities, and need to learn to distinguish between them. In this section of the book, I am presenting another possibility: that while in dream state we can actually visit other places on this Earth, or other dimensions, other realities, or other realms. And we must learn to distinguish true meetings from meetings that are the result of the psychological workings of the mind while in dream state.

Why bother to go to all this effort to try to distinguish between psychological dreams and these special dreams? In my mind, there are many reasons for distinguishing between psychological dreams and these special dreams. I could not cover them all here, in this short chapter. However, I can perhaps point the way. The most obvious answer might be: to help you correctly interpret your dreams.

A friend recently told me of an interesting and important dream she had the night before. It was about someone she knew and

deeply cared about, someone who had terrible trouble expressing her inner feelings. In the dream, my friend met with her and spoke with her at length about many hidden and difficult issues. After my friend had finished her account of the dream, I said: Do you think it was an actual meeting, or just your own thoughts, your own unconscious speaking through her in the dream? My friend looked puzzled, so I added, Well, wouldn’t it make a difference to you?

In other words, whose message was it? Were they all my own thoughts, or was it actually a message from someone I care about ? If we are using the interpretations of dreams to help us understand ourselves and the world around us, then it would also seem important to know if it were a true meeting with a friend on Earth or in another realm-and if in another realm, what sort of realm. What world and whose thoughts are we analyzing when we wake up in the morning?

Nightmare or Dream Visits?

Many of our nightmares are either intentional or unintentional visits to lower realms. Recently a friend told me about a horrible nightmare from the week before. After some thought, I explained why I thought the nightmare she described was a visit to a lower astral realm, not an ordinary dream. She said that she felt very relieved, and I asked her why. After some thought she answered: "It was a relief to know that the dream was not just my own psychology, my own inner confusion. It is very reassuring and comforting. When I thought it was a nightmare, I was trying to understand it, and I couldn’t make any sense of it. I kept asking, What am I trying to tell myself? and I couldn’t find the answers. It’s a big relief to know that it wasn’t my subconscious. That it wasn’t a personal, unresolved issue, or the result of the confusion of my own mind. Basically, to know that I’m not going crazy. I will speak more about these visits to the lower realms, and how to analyze these dreams," in the following chapters.