God's Golden Sword as seen in My Dreams For Others: Non-fiction. The Purpose of Dreams

By Carol Oschmann

Non-fiction, Do you dream? Our dreams are like golden swords that God has given us to fight life's battles and help us make the right decisions. It's amazing to think that He is always so close to us, guiding us through the challenges we face.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carol Oschmann
• Release date: May 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088130698

Carol Oschmann

The author has been involved with dream study for over forty-five years. It began with a spiritual experience. She went on to help others through classes, lectures, and volunteering in a feral prison in Florida.

Book preview

1

God’s

Golden

Sword

As seen in

My Dreams for Others

Carol Oschmann

After involvement in Carol’s classes for a couple of years, I found out she had a unique talent to dream for others. This talent seemed unbelievable, but after hearing the results of two people she had dreamed for, and knowing their personal situations, I was convinced she had a God-given talent that seemed extremely unique. She dreamed for me. It was very helpful to me in viewing my troubling situation in a new way.

Janalea Hoffman is a pioneer in the field of Music Therapy. She is the founder of Sounds of Comfort which is a non—profit 501C company that brings music therapy to people who are very ill or dying. She also won the Madonna Spirit Award for her Rehabilitation Hospital work.

Carol has been a trusted friend for twenty-one years. With her amazing ability to dream for others and guide them when interpreting their own dreams, she has been instrumental in clarifying messages that lead to numerous life-changing decisions on my part. Carol Giuliano

Thank you for the night of dreams. You mentioned music. True, but I don’t know how well I sound as my audiences have been in elder care homes and are probably hard of hearing. So many things. You have just enabled me to focus on my positive attributes when I was feeling like the worst of losers. Kelly S.

Carol’s book offers solace and comfort to those facing loss, struggle, hardship, and even those seeking messages from deceased loved ones. This book is a fascinating spiritual approach Carol believes more of us can achieve when we form a relationship with God through our dreams. So, if you are interested in developing a deeper relationship with God, exploring, trusting in, and listening to your dreams will be your path to find Holy Wisdom.

Rev. Katy Zatsick ARCWP, ordained in 2010, ministerial care for two inclusive Roman Catholic communities in Central Florida.

Please Help, I live in St. George, Utah and I go to bed around 9:45-10:00 P.M. after meditating for about thirty minutes. Thank You. Carolyn R.

My Uncle Jake passed away. So many things in your dreams were in our life together and since. He really connected with us. Betty S.

...take this holy, golden sword, a gift from

God, with which you will strike down your adversaries."

2 Maccabees Chapter 15: Verse 16

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My Childhood

Chapter One

They say that our childhood shapes who we are as an adult. Who would ever think of dreaming about other people’s problems and getting solutions as something they wanted to grow up to do? I never had a clue as to what I’d do or be as an adult. I was just hoping to reach adulthood. But, speaking of dreaming for others, I believe anyone can do it, they just need to follow their own dreams and learn how to converse with God. I’ve found God made our world a lot more complex than we think. It took me a long time to even acknowledge my dreams.

Come to think of it, I never had a clue that I could be anything as an adult other than someone’s wife. I was too busy running away from my childhood problems or fighting my adult problems until my dreams (God) taught me to solve my problems at about age forty-five. I call this the time of my Spiritual Awakening. I lived on (84 right now) to teach others how to understand their dreams and what God was telling them. I took other people’s problems to bed more than four-hundred times with amazing results. Many of them I will tell later in this book.

To start at the beginning. I never thought my childhood was unusual. Many people have tough times, at least I had food and a place to live. Part of the time, from about ages four to eight, Mom and Dad ran a grocery store out in the country by Lake Ontario. Only Dad was not there much, as he had an office in the big city where he was a practicing public accountant. Mom ran the grocery store. Delivery men would come and chase Mom around the storage room. I knew it was not right even though there was much laughter. I was not needed in the way I wanted. I remember screaming at them, trying to catch Mom and make them stop but I couldn’t, I was a little tyke. I do not remember what I experienced in those days but as I got older, I remember Mom trying to get me to play sex games, and go to bed, with her and some man.

I spent a lot of time hiding in the bushes at the banks of the pond behind us. Mom did not care, I was always on my own, not worthy of her attention. Did I develop a maturity born of necessity or was I born with that maturity? Whatever happened, I knew it was wrong. Talking it over with a trusted friend much later in life, maybe even in my seventies, that perhaps I wanted to kill them, I was so angry with the adults in my life.

I tried teaching the little neighbor boys about sex for which I got banned from their homes, so while I like to think I was born with a maturity, it was the other. It was not right. I spent most of my time playing by myself along the banks of the pond that backed up to our house. No one could find me there. Mom was having too much fun to care. I had no friends to play with. I would guess Mom found me at age five and six very self-sufficient, as I do remember worrying about my newborn baby brother.

At age eight, my parents approached me wanting to know who I wanted to live with after their divorce. Dad was marrying his secretary and I did not like her at all. Then I remembered that my grandmother on my dad’s side had taken my older brother in so he could attend a better school. I said I wanted to go to Grandma Fern’s. Grandma Fern said yes. My younger brother, being a baby, stayed with Mom.

That was not the end of the sexual abuse. I ran back to Mom’s about four years later to escape my grandfather. Two years into that, I could not abide Mom’s new husband (?) and the men they brought home that I was expected to go to bed with. A lot of my time was spent in the cow pasture, under a clump of bushes with my Hit Parade song books where no one could find me.

I was trying desperately, to find a place to run away to, asking my school friends if they would take me in. No takers. One day Dad drove up saying to get in the car. Gramps had died and Gramma Fern needed me. My first gift from Heaven. Gramma Fern was wonderful. She made sure I got to church at least twice a week, sometimes more, as she attended a Dutch Reformed, and a Baptist Church. I had girlfriends on the same street, and they went to other churches, so I grew up knowing there were other beliefs. In fact, Gram told me of a spiritual experience she and grandfather had.

One night, they both woke up to a knocking on the head of their bed. The next morning, the town phone operator (there was only one per settlement back then and she only put calls through during the day) called to say that Gramp’s brother had passed away at about that same time they heard the knocking. They felt his spirit had stopped by on his way to heaven to say goodbye.

As I think back, I now remember reading book after book about the American Indian ways. I was enchanted with how they handled dreams; how a young man would go off into the wilderness to dream of his future.

How did the abuse affect my later life? I often dreamed of flirting with a man and making him rape me. I wanted to be raped but feared it as well. This continued even after I was married. If only I had known about interpreting dreams, I could have used the help. Raping me could be someone or something in life that is taking advantage of me. Since I wanted the rape, I think I was crying out for my male tendencies--those that could make a living for me-to step up. It could have had nothing at all to do with sex. Okay, back to Gram.

Gram made sure I got to church. My favorite service was the Friday night hymn sings. I can see the ' minister's face now as I constantly put my hand up for my favorite songs (you again?).

In my later teen years, the sex abuse had ended, but finding a boy who wanted to date me seemed impossible until our church brought Jim and his family over from Holland. He was seventeen then, as was I. Our companionship was instantaneous.

At nineteen we got married. Jim was educated in Holland and the English language was a problem for him. His first job before we married was in a gas station where the boss showed him the rudiments of car repair using a sign language they made up. He held several small jobs before getting married, giving his mother all but seven dollars of his pay. When we married, she let him keep his pay. So, through our dating years (two years) I paid for everything. No wonder he liked me. I worked at a big department store downtown and he would be waiting outside the back door to walk me home every evening.

Another of his jobs, thanks to his father, was mopping the floors and cleaning the dairy of a huge milk-packaging place. He and his father would go at night to clean after everything was shut down. His first big job after we married was recapping tires in a smelly, hot basement, which I am sure shortened his life. He did that for seven years. I tried staying home with our three small children, all born within two years. The financial struggle did not end, but now there were two of us to share the fight.

We constantly had a lack of money, but we seemed to learn from our mistakes and even from lack.

On the good side, we took care of several rental properties owned by my uncle on Dad’s side. Uncle was a semi-invalid and taught Jim all about plumbing, electrical, and whatever it took to keep the properties going. I became an unpaid community organizer. This put us in our dress-up clothes to attend meetings and campaign things with the mayor. I wondered how I fit in with these people, but they were very accepting of me, another small miracle. It told me that I did have some worth.

A sense of settling in came when Jim finally got a job at Kodak, (thanks to my uncle) and I got a job as a bookkeeper at a tool and die factory (thanks to my dad teaching me to do taxes and bookkeeping, one of my earlier jobs). We had one car, and I would drive him to work and pick him up after. We moved many times, always for the betterment of our children. After a few years. Jim’s boss helped us buy his daughter’s house in a better school district in Kendall, NY, about twenty-five miles west of either of our jobs. It was on the south shore of Lake Ontario, and I still drove Jim to work. The kids loved living so close to the water. They learned to sail and water ski. We were able to get a small boat. They became members of the school marching band, and we followed them at many a small-town parade. Our oldest son graduated first in his class and put himself through college (the first of several) because of his good grades. Life was finally good, for now.

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4

The Marina

Chapter Two

Then finally, we had the opportunity of our dreams. The marina owner at the end of our street offered the property to us if we kept the deal a secret. We sold our house and became marina owners.

If we thought we had fought for a better life so far, the battles were just beginning. The property had a small house and a handful of floating docks. It was more of a park and had been offered to the town, for free, and the town fathers said no. That is why the secrecy. Not everyone in town agreed. We had a couple of politicians in town who set out to make our lives miserable. The park on the lake had a picnic pavilion that we decided, after the first winter, to put sides on to give the fishermen a place where they could get out of the cold.

Our neighbor across the street, on the lakeside, was our best friend. He, along with some friends from Kodak, set out to build us a little shelter. Halfway through, we were told we needed a permit. We had a lot to learn about permits but we were fast learners. We didn’t make a move after that without getting a permit first. Permits to fight the weeds in the water permits to dredge the channel going out to the lake, permits to expand the waterways, and put in more docks. That first permit, for the shelter, required a town meeting. Guess who showed up as our opposition? There in the front row was our neighbor. No longer our friend. That hurt.

Many of the changes, or things we thought we wanted to do, had to have public hearings in front of the town board. The hard part was that our best friend turned into our biggest enemy. He even threatened to beat up an architect in the parking lot. More about him later.

I seemed to have a head for business. We offered a payment plan to the dockers. This helped them and kept our money flowing all winter. In the summer we had gas sales and were selling coffee and hot dogs in the shelter. We salvaged beer and pop cans for their deposit. It all added up.

We encouraged the boaters to form a yacht club so they could travel and stay overnight at other yacht clubs. We offered free docking to other yacht clubs. Our oldest son had left the nest by then. He left for a job with Lockheed in California. Our second son was a natural mechanic, like his dad. So, both my husband and second son went to four different motor schools, and then we had a repair business added to our marina.

As I told one of the politicians when she later asked if I was not glad to be rid of the marina, I answered that there was not a day that I did not look out my window and thank God for making us caretakers of His land.

Back to our used-to-be best friend. He could be seen making videos of anything going on at the marina, sending them to Channel 13, saying we were breaking some law, or to the Army Corps of Engineers to get them to come out and see why we had moved our dragline. He organized the neighbors and had weekly meetings. They would all park in the same driveway. This intimidated me.

The politicians arranged to build two free launch ramps within seven miles of us in each direction. They also built a county marina with free docks, taking away more of our revenue.

The bank had given us a loan for the expansion we did, based on five years with a promise to rewrite it for a longer time. Then they refused to extend it. We were in trouble. At a meeting with our attorney, she found the bank had redrawn the property lines and she made them change them back. The banker pulled out a photo he’d taken of some weeds on our property and said we were not taking care of it. He said he had three different parties in his pocket wanting to take the marina off his hands when we defaulted. Maybe we weren’t worthy.

I felt that I was fighting the world. The banks, the politicians, the neighbors, and the different government agencies. Also, there were a couple of relatives I couldn’t get along with. On top of all that, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and I was suffering from terrible nightmares.

I knew I couldn’t control any of those things. I understood them all except the dreams. I decided it was time I learned what other people knew about dreams or nightmares.

It was a funny scene, now that I look back. Jim and I went to the only bookstore in town bent on buying a book about dreams – a forbidden subject in our estimation. Jim stood watch for anyone coming in that we knew while I searched for a book. They had one book, Edgar Cayce on

Dreams. I quickly bought it, and we fled the store. I had it open on our way home. The first sentence said that God speaks to us in dreams. I took that as gospel.

It directed me to keep a pad and pen next to my bed. I was to write my dream as soon as I became aware of it and not try to figure them out until morning, at least. The nightmares stopped as soon as I made a commitment to try and understand the dreams.

The first dream I remembered had me driving across the bridge that separates the US from Canada. The Canadian border patrol stopped me and made me exit the car as they wanted to do a search, which has happened to me many times in real life. When opening the trunk of my car, they found illegal hams! I woke up laughing. It needed no interpretation. I was carrying too much ham or weight in the trunk of my body. At the time I knew I was grossly overweight.

That night, I put a note to God under my pillow asking how I was to lose weight. I’d tried every program I could find. My dreams brought back a time from living on the farm. My brother and I had been given calves to raise. They were so lovable. We filled baby bottles with their feed and fed them holding the bottle. We named them and loved them. Everything was great until one of them showed up on our dinner table. I wanted to throw up. My stepdad made us eat our babies. The dog got a lot under the table that night. In the dream, I felt that nausea all over again. I woke knowing I could never eat beef again. I’d cook it for my family, but I’d eat only the veggies or something else. That went on for a while with no noticeable weight loss. Back to God.

I put another note under my pillow asking if there was something else, I could do. He showed me a church’s progressive dinner, where you go to a couple of houses for different courses of a meal. In the dream, there were two lines. One skinny lady was handing out rice, next door a fat lady was handing out mashed potatoes. I gave up potatoes.

My lesson was if you see a food in your dream to either add it to your diet or take it out. My weight was staying even, but I wanted to lose.

I asked again in a note a few weeks later. That night’s dreams had me marching, or dancing, to country-western music (my favorite). That was interesting because I could hardly walk the length of our car. The next morning, I moved the table and chairs out so that I could dance around them. I put on some music and began the exercise portion of my healing. It was fun. I was soon walking the length of our driveway, about two cars. The weight started to fall, and soon I’d lost fifty pounds.

Meanwhile, my friend (the only one that I could share my dream work with other than my husband) suggested I try meditation. So, each day I sat in silence, concentrating on the moon or some other object in the sky, or the flicker of an imaginary candle. When phone calls or shopping lists entered my mind, I’d quickly jump back to the object. Soon a story would appear in my mind’s eye that I couldn’t stop. It was an answer to whatever I wanted to meditate on.

What started me on this meditation trip was an argument I had with my mother-in-law that made me physically sick. I asked God why it had affected me that way. Was she right, or was I? In the meditation state, I was made to relive that argument again, then, my mind moved to a time before that when I had an argument with my daughter that made me nauseous. It took a couple of days, but the amazing thing was that I was being taken in time chronologically in order through all the arguments

I’d had that gave me that sick feeling.

It ended with the divorce of my parents. I thought that I’d become a winner in that situation. But, after more thought, I came to see that both my mother and father were products of their upbringing. Mom didn’t know any better. I wished they were still alive so I could help them more. Maybe I couldn't do that, but I forgave them.

Then, as I kept meditating, I was brought back up in time, reliving those arguments again but seeing, this time, how I’d over-reacted in each situation. I didn’t have to ask forgiveness from anyone, my attitude changed, and I was able to get along better with everyone in my family circle. Another big problem solved. My nightmares had ended. I’d begun losing serious weight and now had a better relationship with the relatives.

As for our finances. I had hoped to learn to make or repair canvas covers for boats. What could be so hard? I’d use a cover as a pattern. I’d made all my children’s clothing for a long time. I should be able to conquer this. Jim built me racks to hold the rolls of material in our walk-out basement, and long tables to spread out the canvases. We found a used industrial- strength sewing machine. I was off to the races, as they say.

A friend let me experiment on his boat. I couldn’t do it. My back was still weak from the arthritis. I had to put an ad in the paper for my equipment. At least it sold fast, and I recovered my expense. The people came to pick it up in a large truck, and I remember standing by the road watching sadly, as they drove away with my bright idea.

At the same time, the mailman was delivering the mail and handed ours to me. I looked through it and there was an ad for a new sports magazine geared to the lake. They wanted writers. I rushed inside and wrote up an article I’d been toying with in my head. It was about a string of boat names that I often heard on the marine radio, like Lucky Joe calling Naughty Lady. I had a whole story and sent it out in the next mail to him.

A few days later, the editor of the magazine called me and praised my writing many times over. He gave me a big head.

I went back to the computer and wrote a piece on the proper use of the marine radio. I sent it out to all the glossy boating magazines I knew of that pertained to the Great Lakes. The editor of Lakeland Boating Magazine called me and wanted to buy my article and asked if I would be willing to write for them on a regular basis. I was to do travel pieces about ports along the lake, both in Canada and the US. In addition, he wanted photographs. I’d just taken a course in photography, so we were good to go. When my boaters traveled, I asked them to pay special attention to what they saw when they approached a port, and some shared photos with me. A few times, I got in the car and took my own pictures. I got a good wage and was off to a career I’d never even considered. The local papers also used my stories about local fishing tournaments, sailboat races, and other water-based events. The magazine editor gave my name to a man producing the TV program, Great Lakes Boater, and I became a writer and researcher for him. My writing life had begun. I was making money and could hold my head up because finally, I felt truly worthy.

I’d repaired my relationship with family, forgiven my mother, lost fifty pounds, and now had a career in writing. I signed up for a Writer’s Digest course in writing children’s books and my first story for children, Overboard in Lake Ontario, was birthed.

Then came Christmas time. Our two children, still at home or nearby, were going to their in-laws for Christmas dinner. Jim and I decided it was time we began a new way of celebrating. I found a condo for rent advertised in the local Penny Saver. It was in Myrtle Beach, a place we’d never been, the price was right, and we’d get out of the snow and cold for a couple of weeks.

As we drove into the village of Myrtle Beach, I began seeing things that had been in my dreams. I pulled out my journal and excitedly pointed each of them out to Jim, the giraffes, and elephants in the miniature golf, the entrance to the condo complex had also been in my dreams, LeRoy Springs. Next to the condo, exactly like my dream, people were unloading horses from a carrier, planning to ride them on the beach. I remarked to Jim that we’d have to watch for horse plops when we walked the beach – also in my dreams. Once inside the condo, we were startled by low-flying planes. They were in formation, and I found there was an air force base behind us, which had also been in my dreams.

We picked up a newspaper to see what was nearby, places to eat, and things to do. The headline struck me, and I showed Jim my dream journal once again. In the dream, Don Riley, the politician who was our boss at a municipal marina we also ran, was retiring. I had laughed at the dream, telling people that I had inside information that Don Riley would be retiring soon. The headline said, Gov Riley to Retire. I read the article, and just like my dream, he was buying a house on the lake.

We both felt something special would be happening on this trip.

That night I had horrible nightmares. I sat up most of the night to get away from them. When Jim woke up, we talked it over and decided that God wanted me to make one more change in my life …but what? The only thing we could think of was to throw away my medicine. So, we did, down the toilet it went. I used ice packs to control the swelling, but it wasn’t too bad. When we got back home, and I finally got to the doctor, the arthritis was gone from my blood stream! Thank you, Jesus! There was still one thing more, and it’s big!

5

The Biggest

Chapter Three

I had one female friend, Hope, who shared things that happened to me. At this point (of my healing), she asked me to dream for her. She wanted to know if Kodak would be offering her a nice retirement package so she could retire. I laughed; it didn’t work that way. She said it did. I forgot all about her request as I went about my busy day. But Spirit did not.

I lay my head on my pillow, hardly had time to fall asleep when I heard the roar of roller skates on a wooden floor. In my mind’s eye, Hope came whipping around a corner on skates, carrying a large sign that said Retired, and a big grin on her face.

I told her the next morning, and later that week, she had her retirement package. Then her husband wanted me to dream for him. He wanted to know if he should sell his house and retire on a yacht. In my dreams that night, I was riding on this yacht watching a dolphin jump alongside the boat. We were going around an island.

Two years later, Jim and I rode aboard his yacht circling an island off the coast of Florida. The dolphins jumping out of the water just like in the dream. Hope made us a huge dinner on the boat complete with a whole turkey, potatoes and veggies, and dessert on Christmas day. Talk about a dream come true.

Somehow word spread, and more requests for dream help came to me. Once, I swear God brought a man to me. This man had tried to commit suicide on the lake and then chickened out. Friendly boaters towed him into our marina. He poured out his sad story to my husband, Jim, while waiting for his gas tank to be filled. Jim told him to go up to the house. His wife would help solve his problem.

It seems this man and his partner had a successful restaurant in Rochester. Tony went to work one day to find everything gone. There was not a napkin, table, or stove left in the place. Tony checked his bank account and that was cleaned out also. His partner had disappeared. What do I do now? He asked. I’m fifty-six, for crying out loud. My working days are almost done. I can’t live off my mother. He was staying at his mother’s cottage down the lake from us and had taken the rowboat out with no gas for the little motor, intending to end his life. He chickened out and some boaters hauled him into our marina.

I told him that I sometimes could take a person’s problem to God in my dreams and get an answer. He spent the night sleeping in his rowboat on our property. All night, in my dreams, I was going up and down stairs, fixing some plumbing job for someone on the second floor.

The next morning over shared coffee, I told him my dream. We both seemed puzzled until I mentioned that there were a lot of big old homes in Rochester that people were turning into apartments. Was that something he could do? His eyes lit up. You’ve got it! I started my working life doing just that. Buy a house, do the repairs, and collect the rents. He was so grateful, he insisted on paying me. He mentioned a deck off my kitchen with a sliding glass door. I said that would be wonderful. All we had to pay for was the wood, which he could get wholesale. He had connections. We enjoyed that deck and the stairs that became a shortcut down to the marina. About ten years later, I checked in with him. He was now working as the county’s building inspector. Sounds right with the dream.

Another time the dream came first. We had one grocery store in our small town. I dreamed that I was attending a congratulations party for the owner of the store. His father (who I had never met) came up to me and said his son could do anything he wanted. He could even be President if he wanted. That seemed like a weird dream. What was I to do with it? I didn’t know the store owner that well. I finally decided on sending him a note, telling him of my dream. If he thought me weird, nothing was lost. He called as soon as he got the note. He had been playing with the idea of opening a string of grocery stores with gas pumps and wished he could talk to his father about it. He believed this dream was a message from his father to go ahead with his plan. He thanked me and became our biggest supporter, whenever we had a town meeting about changes to the marina, he was there saying what a good idea it was for the whole town. He went on to own nine stores, that I know of.

My daughter led me to another person needing help. A young man, Sam, early twenties, had lost his father the past Christmas. There was something he wanted to talk to his father about and had never gotten the chance to. Could I help him connect now? Sure thing. We agreed on a mutual bedtime that night, and without knowing anything else, I promised to dream for him.

I never thought I’d get to sleep that night. Eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock, I finally gave up and took a sleeping pill. At two o’clock a huge gust of wind woke me up. There were no windows open. I figured his spirit must have just gone to bed. It seemed the strength of two people. He told me the next day that he’d been invited to a party and completely forgot our deal until almost two o’clock in the morning. When I mentioned the wind that seemed like two people, he told me he had a twin brother. The first dream took place in the living room. The family sat around while neighbors brought in a Christmas tree and trimmings. He said that was what his life was like then because of his father’s death.

The second dream took place at a fire station. I wanted to sleep there. The chief said it was okay with him, but against the rules. So, the guys got together and built a trojan cow around a fire truck that sat in the yard. I had no clue as to the meaning of that dream. It often seems that way when I dream for someone else. They know the meaning because it’s their life I’m peeking into.

The young man told me that was what his question for his father was. Since the dream told me, his father did know that he was gay. The fire station and truck signified his burning passion for sex. The trojan was how he had to protect himself.

There was yet a third dream. In this dream, I’m standing in line at the check-out counter of a large grocery store. All of us in line were angry at the clerk and we sang the store’s song that was in their TV advertisement, making fun of it.

Sam explained that they owned property that backed up to that store’s warehouse. They had offers to buy them out, but on his deathbed, the father made them all promise not to sell to this store. It was as if Dad was saying there are things more important in life than whether his son was gay or not.

The pastor of my long-time church in Kendall, a Methodist, asked me not to