Mellen-Thomas
Benedict
has some wonderful insights about dreams and the
near-death experience he had. He states, "When I
recovered, I was very surprised and yet very
awed about what had happened to me. At first all
the memory of the trip that I have now was not
there. I kept slipping out of this world and
kept asking, "Am I alive?" This world seemed
more like a dream than that one. Within three
days, I was feeling normal again, clearer, yet
different than I had ever felt in my life. My
memory of the journey came back later ... What
happens when we dream? We are multi-dimensional
beings. We can access that through lucid
dreaming. In fact, this universe is God's dream.
One of the things that I saw is that we humans
are a speck on a planet that is a speck in a
galaxy that is a speck. Those are giant systems
out there, and we are in sort of an average
system. But human beings are already legendary
throughout the cosmos of consciousness. The
little bitty human being of Earth/Gaia is
legendary. One of the things that we are
legendary for is dreaming. We are legendary
dreamers. In fact, the whole cosmos has been
looking for the meaning of life, the meaning of
it all. And it was the little dreamer who came
up with the best answer ever. We dreamed it up.
So dreams are important."
1. The Dreaming and Dreamtime |
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"The
Dreaming"
is a common term within the creation narrative
of
indigenous
Australians
for a personal, or group, creation and for what
may be understood as the "timeless time" of
formative creation and perpetual creating. They
believe every person essentially exists
eternally in the Dreaming. This eternal part
existed before the life of the individual
begins, and continues to exist when the life of
the individual ends. Both before and after life,
it is believed that this spirit-child exists in
the Dreaming and is only initiated into life by
being born through a mother. It was believed
that, before humans, animals, and plants came
into being, their "souls" existed; they knew
they would become physical, but not when. And
when that time came, all but one of the "souls"
became plants or animals, with the last one
becoming human and acting as a custodian or
guardian to the natural world around them. These
indigenous Australian societies share the notion
that human beings and society were created in a
distant time period referred to as the
Dreamtime
which the Aborigines considered sacred time.
Simultaneously, the Dreamtime refers to the
realm of the spiritual, which is coextensive
with the time of creation. As the name
indicates, the Dreamtime realm can be reached
during dreams. Many of the rituals of Aboriginal
religion also link the everyday world of human
existence with the Dreamtime. As one might
anticipate, at death the true soul returns to
the eternal Dreamtime realm, where it had
resided prior to birth.
In
the Bible and other sacred scriptures, the term
"death" and "sleep"
are used interchangeably. Sleep has
traditionally been called "death's sister." The
Bible is filled with instances of people who are
visited in their dreams by heavenly figures to
convey an important message. In the Old
Testament, Jacob had a dream of a heavenly
"stairway" on the Earth which extended into
heaven with angels ascending and descending on
it. Jacob's description of this "stairway" could
be a crude description of the NDE tunnel. "And
he dreamed, and behold a stairway set up on the
Earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and
behold the angels of God ascending and
descending on it." (Genesis
28:12)
Scholars believe that the
Book of Revelation
is an account of a dream or a series of dream by
John the Revelator. The reason it is believed to
be a dream is because the symbolism found in the
Book of Revelation is remarkably similar to the
prophetic dream symbology of the prophet Daniel
in the Book of Daniel.
There
is much evidence that our dreams are actually
out-of-body experiences and journeys to other
realms. In one study by consciousness researcher
Dr. Charles Tart,
a test subject was documented to have left their
body during sleep in order to read a 5-digit
number from a remote location. The test subject
was successful in returning the correct number.
The odds of correctly guessing a random 5-digit
number is 1 in 100,000. Yale University
Pediatric Cancer specialist
Dr. Diane Komp
reported that many dying children have
near-death experiences which often occurred
during dreams. One boy told Dr. Komp that Jesus
had visited him in a big yellow school bus and
told him he would die soon. The boy died as he
predicted. Clear evidence from sleep
laboratories shows that we all dream nightly.
Our dream periods come in cycles, typically
about ninety minutes apart. Most dreams happen
during these times of unusual body and brain
behavior called REM - rapid eye movement. Of
course, the mind is active all night long, not
just during REM periods. Dreams usually happen
about five or six times each night and they
range in length from just a few minutes up to
thirty minutes or more, with longer dreams more
likely near morning.
Dream
symbolism is the universal archetypal language
of the soul according to
Carl Jung, MD,
the founder of analytical psychology and dream
researcher, was inspired tremendously by his own
near-death experience. During the early part of
this century, while psychologists such as
Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung were demonstrating
the clinical importance of dreams,
Edgar Cayce
was providing people with guidelines for what
has become one of the most practical approaches
to dreams. Much of the metaphysical information
that Cayce would discover during his out-of-body
journeys dealt with the subject of dreams and
dream interpretation. Perhaps one of the most
important insights gained from Cayce's
revelations is the fact that each of us is aware
of much more about ourselves, our physical
bodies, our surroundings, even our lifestyles,
at subconscious levels than we realize when
we're awake.
During the dream
state, our minds become open to many different
levels of our own unconscious where all of our
previous conscious experiences are stored. Also
stored there is information which rarely come to
conscious awareness. The subconscious mind has a
remarkable talent for finding solutions to
problems. It can also assist us with
self-evaluation and providing practical guidance
for any question we may have. It even makes it
possible for us to have psychic experiences.
The Cayce material
reveals that dreams can diagnose the causes of
our physical illnesses, point out thoughts and
emotions that we haven't dealt with on a
conscious level, and suggest ways to improve our
relationships with others. While we dream, we
can become aware of our entire being --
physically, mentally, and spiritually. The Cayce
material shows that dreams are the easiest and
most natural way for us to contact our inner,
higher selves. According to Cayce, dreams are
experiences with our very soul - our
subconscious mind. Because dream symbolism is
the language of the soul, it pays for everyone
to learn how to interpret their dreams.
The
following was dreamt by a dying woman in her
hospital room:
"A lit candle
suddenly appears on her window sill. The candle
goes out. A terrifying, suffocating blackness
envelopes everything. Then, the candle relights
but on the other side of the closed window."
The woman died
shortly after relating this dream to a nurse.
Tom Harpur,
the author of the book and documentary,
Life After Death,
discovered this true report while researching
his book on near-death experiences. He asks:
What did the
dream mean? It must have been
significant because, after all, this was
the last dream the dying woman ever had
- the final manifestation of her
unconscious mind in this world.
According to
the celebrated psychiatrist and dream
analyst,
Marie Louise
Von Franz,
and based on her analysis of over 10,000
dreams of the dying, the meaning being
communicated is that the light of the
individual, one of the common metaphors
for life that we've heard so often, goes
out at death but is miraculously renewed
on the other side. In other words, the
spirit seems to live on. This dream then
illustrates perfectly a profound insight
of the great psychoanalyst and mentor of
Dr. Von Franz, Carl Jung, who has said:
"The
unconscious psyche believes in a
life after death." (Carl
Jung) |
According to
Jung, dream symbols which exist in the
very depths of the soul behave as if the
psychic life of the individual will
continue. In Dr. Von Franz' words:
"These
symbols depict the end of bodily
life and the explicit
continuation of psychic life
after death. In other words, our
last dreams prepare us for
death." (Marie Louise
Von Franz)
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The following dreams
provide strong circumstantial evidence that
dreams are actual experiences and journeys in
the afterlife.
Return to Top
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5. Evidence of the Afterlife/Dream
Connection |
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One
of the strangest cases in the history of dream
research is described in the documentary,
The Secret World of
Dreams. It
describes the amazing story of a woman named
Claire Sylvia. She was a professional dancer
with several modern dance companies. As the
years passed, Claire's health began to
deteriorate. Claire Sylvia had to undergo a
heart and lung transplant. Soon after the
transplant, she began having strange and
incredibly vivid dreams about a young man she
didn't recognize. Eventually, Claire realized
that the young man in her dreams was the
eighteen-year-old organ donor whose heart and
lungs resided in her chest. Through her
continuing dream contacts with her donor, she
learned a lot about him including his name. She
then decided to do the research to find out if
this "heavenly" information was correct. Her
research proved that it was indeed correct.
Claire then met the young man's grieving family
and shared with them the amazing story of her
contact with him from the Other Side through her
dreams. The following is the detailed account of
her story in her own words:
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"It was getting more difficult for
me to walk upstairs. I was getting
out of breath on the dance floor
which was unusual for me. Every day
I was able to do less and less. I
was going downhill very quickly."
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Claire was suffering
from primary pulmonary hypertension, a deadly
disease. Her only hope for survival was a heart
and lung transplant.
"My mother was basically dying,"
says Amara, "She prepared herself
for death and she was preparing me
for her death. She labored to get up
in the morning to go to the
bathroom. Her breathing was labored
and I was afraid every morning
whether she would be alive or not.
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Then Claire's
bizarre dreams began to unfold.
"I started to have a series of
dreams. One dream was that I had the
transplant and I had to drink four
glasses of milk a day. At the time I
questioned this, I said, 'I wonder
what this means? Where does this
four glasses of milk come in at? I
don't understand what this means.'
"And there was no explanation so I
just let it go. I lived each day
with a thought and a prayer that I
would live till the next day and
that I would live to see my daughter
graduate from high school which was
about a year away."
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Finally, Claire's
prayers were answered.
"The phone rang and it was the
transplant coordinator. She very
calmly said, 'We officially got
permission to do heart and lung
transplants and we have a donor for
you today.'
"I was speechless. All I could say
was, 'Oh my God. Oh my God!'"
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Within hours, Claire was
rushed into surgery. After a delicate three-hour
operation, Claire awoke.
"I knew that I would have to take an
anti-rejection drug, cyclosporine.
They injected a certain amount of
this liquid into two little cups of
milk. Then at night, I repeated this
same process. I realized that these
were the four cups of milk a day in
my dream.
"At first I didn't accept it, I kept
saying, "I must have gotten this
information from someplace."
"I kept checking around and nobody
told me. Then I thought, 'This is
bizarre. I don't know why and I
still don't.'"
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When Claire returned
home, another sequence of unexplained
occurrences began. Her taste in food changed
dramatically.
"I had a thought one day, 'Why am I
cutting up green peppers and putting
them into my food?'
"I used to hate them and I picked
them out. Several weeks after the
transplant, they told me I could
drive by myself. I got in my car and
was driving around and I had this
yen to find a Kentucky Fried Chicken
place to have chicken nuggets. This
was something I just normally don't
ordinarily do."
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Just when Claire thought
her life couldn't get any stranger - it did - in
another mysterious dream.
"I'm in an open field and it's very
light. It's daytime and I'm in a
playful relationship with a young
man whom I see clearly. He is tall,
has sandy colored hair and his name
is "Tim L". I come back and say
goodbye to him and as we approach
each other, we kiss, and as we kiss,
I feel as if I inhale him into me.
It's like taking this enormous
breath. And I know that he will be
with me together forever. But it
also seemed that this man in my
dreams, whom I knew as Tim, must be
my donor.
"I was very curious to find out who
my donor was because of all the
things that were happening to me and
because of the dreams I was having –
and the feeling of living with his
presence."
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Claire became convinced
that her donor was trying to communicate with
her. She contacted the hospital but they
informed her that donor records were
confidential. When all hope seemed lost, her
friend, Fred Stern, called to tell her of a
message he received in his own dream.
"I had a clear image of a dream,"
says Fred Stern, "that we had gone
to the basement of the public
library and had seen in the Portland
newspaper a story on either the
third or fourth page several days
before her operation. A story about
the boy who was killed and whom she
had gotten her heart from."
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Claire and Stern made
arrangements to meet at the local library.
"I met Fred at the public library
and we looked at the papers the week
preceding my transplant. Sure
enough, the day before my
transplant, as was in his dream, the
obituary of a young man who was
killed in a motorcycle accident. He
was 18 years old. His name was Tim
L. as it was in my dream. It felt
like my heart stopped beating for a
moment. I was standing up and I
remember getting kind of weak all
over. My knees went a little weak.
It was a shock."
"It was almost like magic," says
Fred Stern, "like some sense of
knowing. It is just wonderful to be
a part of it – this unfolding."
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It turned out that Tim
L. had died in a motorcycle accident shortly
before Claire's life saving surgery.
"I was shocked because now it became
more real. Now I had all the
information. I had the family's
name. I had details. This person
really existed."
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Wanting to know more
about her donor, Claire wrote to Tim's family
and made arrangements to meet them.
"I was very excited," says Tim's
sister, Lee Ann, "and the whole
family was very excited to meet
Claire. It was like meeting my
brother all over again for the very
first time – seeing him alive again.
Claire was very warm towards us. She
was loving. She was loving like Tim
was."
"There was so much feeling that it
was absolutely exhausting."
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It was then that Claire
told Tim's family about her dream.
Tim's sister replied, "My first
reaction to Claire's dream was one
of disbelief. I really didn't
believe it until she just started
describing things about my brother –
like how he was tall and wiry. She
described him almost to a T. She was
getting the information from her
dream. She described how Tim was
loving and that he came to her and
wanted to be a friend. I just kind
of felt that, 'Yeah, that's what Tim
would do.'"
Claire told them, "When I met the
family, I was trying to corroborate
some of the things that had been
happening to me. I asked them if he
happened to like green peppers and
they said, Oh, yes, he used to love
green peppers. He'd fry them up with
cabasa."
"They told me his favorite food was
chicken nuggets and that he had
apparently just bought them before
he died because they had to pull
them out of his motorcycle jacket
when they found him. When they told
me that I said, "Oh my God!""
Tim's sister Jackie stated, "Why
would she have a dream about her
donor unless God was trying to tell
her in a way who we were and trying
to make it easier for her to get to
us so she could see that there was
good out of everything she went
through."
All the images that have come to me
since the transplant are, in and of
themselves, having to do with this
new part of me.
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Many people reported they had been
contacted by a deceased loved one while
they were sound asleep. Because they
didn't have any other name for their
experience, they usually called it a
dream. However, most quickly added, "But
it just wasn't like an ordinary dream."
We call these
experiences sleep-state
after-death communication (ADCs) and
they are a very common type of ADC. The
following dream ADCs are reprinted here
by permission from
Bill and Judy
Guggenheim's
book,
Hello From Heaven.
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There are many
significant differences between an ordinary
dream and a sleep-state ADC. A dream is
generally fragmented, jumbled, filled with
symbolism, and incomplete in various ways.
Though some are very intense emotionally, they
typically have a quality of unreality about them
and are often soon forgotten.
In contrast,
sleep-state ADCs feel like actual face-to-face
visits with deceased loved ones. They are much
more orderly, colorful, vivid, and memorable
than most dreams. In fact, some may be
after-death visions that occur during sleep.
The following reports
are examples of sleep-state ADCs in which a
deceased loved one broke into an ordinary dream.
Robin is the director of
a child care center in
Florida. She had this
timely visit from her
grandfather several
years after he died of a
heart attack in his
70's.
"I was in my first year
at college, sleeping in
my dorm room. I was
dreaming about something
when Grandpa broke into
my dream! He was right
there, and I could smell
his cologne and tobacco
and feel his warmth.
"He seemed concerned and
protective.
"He said, 'Lock the
windows! Lock the
windows! You're supposed
to remember to take care
of yourself! Lock the
windows!'
"It was a definite
warning.
"I woke up startled and
sat up and looked
around. My room had one
set of windows that
looked out onto a
courtyard and another
set over by the fire
escape. So I got up and
locked all the windows.
"About half an hour
later, there was a
scream from the girl in
the room down the hall.
A man had come up the
fire escape and
apparently had tried my
windows, and then he had
gone on to hers. Later
he was caught!
"Grandpa appeared when
support was obviously
needed. He proved that
he would be with me
forever."
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Ann is an art framer in
Maryland. She was 21
years old when she was
contacted by her 18 year
old brother, Barry, who
had died in a motorcycle
accident:
"After Barry was killed,
I was feeling so angry
and bitter at the world.
About a month later, I
had what I call a dream,
but it wasn't a dream.
It was like I was
talking to him
face-to-face.
"I was in the backyard
at my parents' cottage,
and Barry came walking
towards me. He was
wearing jeans and a
flannel shirt - his
usual costume. His
blond, curly hair was
full of light. He looked
beautiful.
"He seemed very happy,
content, and full of
love. He seemed worldly,
like he knew everything
- no doubts, no
questions, just full of
confidence. A beautiful
light was behind him and
around him - a gorgeous,
warm light.
"I said, 'Barry, what
are you doing here?'
"He looked at me and
said, 'I came to tell
you that everything is
all right.'
"I asked, 'What do you
mean? Didn't it hurt
when you died?'
"Barry said, 'It did for
a minute. It felt like a
squeezing sensation.
Then I was riding down a
dark tunnel. And all of
a sudden, I came into
this beautiful,
brilliant white light.'
"He kept smiling at me,
and I was feeling full
of love and light
myself. It was so
intense!
"He said, 'I just want
to tell you that I love
you, Ann.'
"Then he turned around
and walked away.
"I immediately woke up,
and all the anger and
frustration I felt were
gone. I really believe
Barry came to tell me he
was fine so that I would
be okay. I call it a
dream, for not being
able to give it another
name. But it really
happened!"
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Greg is a 20 year old
college student in West
Virginia. He had this
rendezvous with his
friend, Evan, who was
electrocuted in an
industrial accident at a
construction site at age
20:
"Evan and I were best
friends for nine years.
We did everything
together, except when we
were at school or
working or started going
out with girls.
"Two nights after Evan
died, I had a dream. I
was where the road
splits and facing each
other, and everything
was lifelike.
"We were really excited
about seeing one
another. Evan was so
happy and cheerful. He
appeared the same as
always and in good
health. He had a great
big smile on his face.
"I asked him, 'What
happened?'
"He said, 'I was up
putting a light fixture
on a twenty-foot pole
when I hit some
electrical wires.
Something happened and I
started to fall.'
"He put one hand
vertically and one hand
horizontally to show me
how he fell.
"Evan said he felt
scared at that moment,
and then he felt nothing
else.
"He said, 'I promise, I
didn't mean for that to
happen.'
"He
also wanted to assure me
that he suffered none
whatsoever through that
experience.
"He told me he didn't
want any of us worrying
about him or being
extremely sad that he
was gone because he was
in a great place. He was
well taken care of and
very happy, waiting for
us to join him someday.
Then I woke up.
"I never had a dream
like that before. It was
very special to me that
I was able to
communicate with Evan
after he died. It was
like we parted with the
realization that we will
be back together
someday."
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Janet is a nurse in
North Dakota. She became
a bereaved mother when
her 4 year old son,
Toby, died of a brain
hemorrhage:
"This occurred
approximately one year
after my son died. I
recall the dream as if I
had just had it last
night. I was standing on
a river bank and looking
over at Toby on the
other side.
"His side was a lush
green with beautiful
trees. The water was a
beautiful blue, and
there were birds I could
hear. It was a paradise,
like the Garden of Eden.
Everything was so quiet
and peaceful.
"Toby was standing in
grass and flowers up to
his waist, close to the
edge of the river. He
was a little boy, the
same little guy that I
lost. He was wearing a
striped T-shirt and blue
jeans and was so very
real and happy.
"I kept trying to get
over to Toby, but I
couldn't. He looked up
at me and spoke with
such a calmness.
"He said, 'No, Mom, you
can't come over here.
I'm okay. I'm fine. But
you can't come over
here.'
"He had to tell me that
several times because I
wanted to cross the
river to be with him.
"Toby was calming me
like an adult would. I
almost felt like a child
in comparison, as if an
older, wiser person was
talking to me. He was
telling me to settle
down and realize that
his life is good now. He
gave me the sense that
he is at peace and that
he's where he belongs.
"The dreams seemed so
real, as real as life
itself. When I woke up,
I felt crushed that the
dream was over. And yet
I felt so comforted by
it."
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Rosemarie is an
administrative assistant
in North Carolina. She
had this enlightened
dream about 4 months
after her grandmother
died of cancer at age
66:
"One night when I was
sleeping, I saw my
grandmother - it was
like a beautiful dream.
She was right there with
me. It felt like we were
on another realm or in a
different dimension.
"I only saw her face and
shoulders - she was very
young and beautiful.
Grandma looked like she
was a girl in her early
twenties. I was
surprised she was so
youthful, but I
recognized her instantly
as my grandmother. It
was like she could
choose to be whatever
age suited her.
"As she came closer, she
was glowing and
radiating love. I felt
an energy and warmth
envelop me. It felt like
a very nice, tingling
massage. I was overcome
with this feeling of
unconditional love, like
nothing I had ever done
was wrong.
"I was telling her over
and over, 'I love you. I
love you. I love you.'
"She was saying, 'I know
you do. I'm happy and
I'm fine. You don't have
to worry about me
anymore. I'm in heaven.'
"Grandma affirmed there
is a heaven, and that no
matter what you've done,
in God's eyes you are
forgiven. You are pure,
and you are loved in the
way only he could love
you. It touched me so
deeply that I knew it
was true.
"All of a sudden, I
realized I was sitting
up in bed and Grandma
was gone. But I didn't
grieve for her after
that at all."
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Gayle is an artist in
North Carolina. The
ordinary dream she was
having was interrupted
by her 21 year old son,
Alex, who had drowned in
a boating accident:
"I had been under a lot
of distress, as any
mother is with the loss
of her child. Two days
after his burial, I woke
up around 5:00 in the
morning. I couldn't
sleep and went into the
living room and sat
down. I keep praying,
'God, please! I have to
know where my son is. I
have to know if he's
okay.'
"I felt impressed to go
back to bed, so I lay
down and fell asleep. I
started dreaming that I
was in the kitchen
fixing breakfast for my
two younger sons - and
Alex walked in!
"I realized he wasn't
supposed to be there. So
I spoke aloud and said,
'Alex is here!'
"His brothers looked at
me like, 'What are you
talking about?'
"Then I realized they
couldn't see him - I was
the only one who could.
"Alex had the most
glorious smile on his
face. He had a glow, a
celestial radiance. His
expression was one of
complete peace,
happiness, and
contentment.
"I walked up to him and
said, 'Alex, you are
with Jesus, aren't you?'
"He put his hands on my
shoulders, and I put my
hands around his waist,
and he said, 'Yes,
Mama.'
"Then I woke up with the
most peaceful feeling
because I knew Alex was
okay. I know his spirit
is with God and that he
is waiting for the time
the rest of us will be
with him."
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