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Chapter 19
Time Travel
The Reality of Time Travel
For decades now we have relegated time travel to
the realms of science fiction and fantasy, and we love it! We have no real difficulty in
comprehending the various sci-fi technologies and have built a pseudo-scientific knowledge
about time travel from following our space-age superheroes. Yet many people shudder at the
thought of real time travel and scorn personal experiences with utmost sarcasm. I guess it
is human nature to remain disbelieving until you have experienced something for yourself,
just as much as it is human nature for others to believe anything they are told, no matter
how fantastic, if it offers them hope. The truly open-minded attitude can be hard to find.
I have received far too many accounts of dreams
which have later eventuated, from survey participants, private clients, radio
contributors, friends and relatives, to have any doubt that we can and do often see parts
of the future in our dreams. I am lucky enough to have also experienced this on several
occasions.
A concept that seems ridiculous quickly reduces
to the state of normality after personal experience. To precognitive dreamers, the gap
between personal acceptance of a perfectly normal (for them) experience and the potential
derision from others is wide, and few are brave enough to risk losing their credibility in
this scientifically conscious, rational world. We look over our shoulders and see, not too
long ago, the persecution and humiliation that has befallen the outspoken. Yet we look
ahead and realise that there is a crying need for people to open their minds to see what
really is there. Clear vision and understanding of the universe should be our goal. We
should be open to follow every lead, turn every corner and pass through every door in our
quest to understand why we are here. Neither should we be held back by the technological
boundaries of what can be scientifically investigated. What science may disprove through
lack of tools or knowledge today, it may prove tomorrow. It often has.
My precognitive dreams have shown me that
Einstein and his physicists may be correct and that time may be open-ended and circular
with all events, past and future, happening simultaneously somewhere in space with my mind
simply tuning into the right frequency.
(Susan, sales representative)
Be assured, many people can and do dream of the
future. Whether you choose to close your mind and wait for personal proof, or to allow
yourself to look ahead to the ‘what ifs’ is your prerogative. This section of
the book is concerned with dream interpretation, and it is important to realise that we
can ‘time travel’, so we need to know how to tell which dreams are glimpses of
the future, or of the past, and which need interpretation. Or is interpretation always
valid, no matter whether the event has already occurred or is about to occur?
This chapter stays with the practical: how to
sort the time travel dreams from the rest. You’ll need to wait for Chapter 20 to
learn more about the other dimensions of dreaming!
Precognitive Dreaming: Dreaming for Real
The following dreams were shown to be predictions
of future events that occurred within 24 hours. In these cases there is almost no time to
question whether the dream was one needing interpretation or whether it was a preview of
the day ahead.
I dreamed I was lying in bed reading the Sunday
paper, as was my normal Sunday habit. My brother, who was dead, came into my room and
said, 'Kate, my daughter, is getting married.’ I had not seen her for some years,
since she was a little girl. When I woke up and was reading the paper, there was a photo
of Kate and her bridesmaids taken at their pre-wedding party!
(Carmela, tutor)
I remember as a small child dreaming of the gift
my father brought home from work one night. Mum was amazed when I woke and asked her to
pass me the gift as I couldn’t reach it off the shelf, let alone see it. I don’t
think she believed I had actually dreamed it would be there and that it was for me!
(Jayne S., home maker)
Part of this dream also occurred within 24 hours,
although the final results needed more patience:
At a get together about two years ago, I met up
with an acquaintance I hadn’t seen for some time. By coincidence, the night before
I’d had a dream about this woman’s grown up daughter. I’ve never actually
met Kris but have known her mother casually for quite a while. I knew Kris had been
married for about a year. Seeing her mother the dream popped back into my head, and
without intending to I blurted out, ‘Is Kris having a baby?’
My friend gave me a strange look and said no, her
daughter already had a little girl who was six months old, and what had made me ask the
question? I just laughed and told her I’d had a dream about Kris having a baby girl
with blonde hair and the most delicate pale skin. That’s what had struck me in the
dream, how fair the baby was.
There were a few other people listening to the
conversation and someone said that just proved you can’t take dreams seriously
because Kris’s little girl had a mass of black hair and olive skin like her father.
Anyway, when I arrived home later in the day the phone was ringing. It was my friend
calling to say that her daughter was pregnant, had only just found out, and was keeping
the news a secret until she and her husband had a chance to get over the shock. When the
baby was born, she phoned again, ‘Well, she’s arrived and guess what she looks
like. All this blonde fuzz and the fairest skin you ever saw.’
(Mell, writer)
Precognitive dreamers often make their own
observations over a period of time, so that they are able to distinguish between a
precognitive dream and an ‘ordinary’ dream.
As with all my precognitive dreams and
out-of-the-body dreams, these most often occur when I’m napping in the afternoon or
the very early hours of the morning, or if I have been awake in the morning and dozed back
off.
(Chiron, astrologer)
I have dreams and then I have what I call
‘my dreams’ which I know by the way I feel when I wake up, as if something has
happened, or will happen. I feel really uneasy after a ‘my dream’ until I hear.
The first one I ever really took any notice of
was about 40 years ago when a chap I was going out with at the time was with the Air Force
in Korea. I was not overly concerned for his welfare because he was an aircraft mechanic
and was based quite some distance from the war zone. In the dream there was fighting and
two men were shot, a shed was burning, and drums and things were strewn everywhere. Five
men scattered in front of the shooting.
In my next letter from him, he related that he
and two of his mates had had a lucky escape and the other two had been killed when a stray
North Korean plane had strafed the base. Since he gave the date in the letter I was able
to see that I had the dream when it was actually happening.
(Margaret, home maker)
Margaret’s ‘just knowing’ feeling
is common to many people who dream precognitively although perhaps we should look at the
word ‘precognitive’ a little closer. All the examples so far have been instances
where people have dreamed of something that has already been set in motion. Kate’s
photo was already in the paper, the shooting in Korea occurred around the time of
Margaret’s dream, and Kris was already pregnant (although the baby had not been
born). The dreamers may have been picking up psychically (telepathically) the news of
these future events from others.
In the next dream, Margaret describes the
post-dream feelings that made her identify this ‘my dream’ as a precognitive
dream. We don’t know whether the actual events occurred just prior, at the same
moment as, or after the dream, only that the dream took place during the night of the
event. Note the more symbolic aspects of some parts of the dream (the coffin lid, for
example).
About 20 years ago I had a very disturbing dream
and when I woke up I felt quite strange. The dream kept coming back during the morning and
I was so uneasy. When my husband came home for lunch he was rather quiet. A friend of his
had been killed in Ipswich the previous night in a hit and run accident. His brother had
been a regular customer of ours, so I knew him but had no idea what the other looked like.
I described the man in my dream (quite different in looks from his brother) and my husband
said this was him. I asked my husband who had told him and he said one of the Brad Prosser
family when he was getting petrol. I asked if he had his little girl with him and the
reply was yes. Then I related ‘my dream’ of the night before:
I dreamed I was walking around the Ipswich
cemetery looking at headstones when Brad pulled up in his utility and got out with his
little girl. We had a few words then walked among the graves and came to a newly dug open
grave. As we were standing there a body sat up and said, ‘Hello,’ said a few
words to Brad, raised his hand, waved and said, ‘Goodbye, I won’t be seeing you
again.’ He slid down into a coffin and pulled the lid down on top of him. It started
to drizzle with rain so we made our way back to our cars and left.
It turned out that it had been dark and misty
when the fellow was killed.
(Margaret, home maker)
Amleh also reports waking with a strong sense of
knowing when she has had a precognitive dream. Consider this:
I dreamed I was driving along in my own car with
a truck in front of me. The truck braked and its brake lights lit up. I put my foot on the
brake, but nothing happened. My foot and peddle went all the way down, but there was no
more resistance. Then we drove on again and I was very wary now. Suddenly the truck
stopped again and the dream repeated.
I believed the dream to be telling me that my
brakes were failing, or were about to fail, and that I’d better check them out. I
went to the garage, told the mechanic of my dream and told him to check my brakes. I did
receive a wonderful derisive laugh and a pitying look from the others.
In the afternoon, when I picked up the car, the
reception was rather different. I nearly felt a form of reverence hanging around! A rubber
hose, normally stiff and hardened, had been soft and dangerous. It could have collapsed in
the next braking pattern when the vacuum was drawn through the tube. They replaced it for
me and I was safe again.
(Amleh, receptionist)
Did Amleh foresee problems with her brakes that
her waking action prevented? Was she already subliminally aware of her car problem,
perhaps through unconsciously noticing a softness in her brakes? Or did the mechanics call
her bluff and charge her for something that didn’t need to be done? (The latter point
was added to satisfy the cynics!)
When I was 32 weeks pregnant with my first child,
I dreamed over and over again in the same night that my baby was born without much pain
and passed to me clean and dressed in white and blue. I thought about it a lot when I woke
and discussed it with my husband. I was still working at that time but felt compelled to
pack my bag.
That night I went into labour and my baby boy was
born. My first nurse of him was when he was ‘clean and dressed’. The night he
was born my father tells me he also had a dream of nursing a baby boy. They were not
living close by and had no idea I was in labour.
(Jayne S., home maker)
Again, did Jayne tune into the future, or did she
pick up, unconsciously, on the earliest stirring of labour? If so, how did she know the
baby would be a boy, or know that he would be dressed before she had her first nurse of
him? Notice here, as in Amleh’s report, the compelling feeling that the dream was
precognitive, since Jayne did pack her bag even though the baby was not expected for
another eight weeks.
If many of the above dreams concerned events that
had been physically set in motion, or which may have been unconsciously picked up, perhaps
they do not strictly come under the tem ‘time travel’. It was important to
include these particular dreams in this chapter because these dreamers all described what
it was that made them distinguish between a ‘normal’ dream and one that they
knew would later occur (a psychic dream).
The following dream was experienced before the
actual event was set in motion, with details that could not have been picked up
telepathically within the same time dimension.
In 1940, on the last school day before the start
of the Easter holidays, my teacher colleague asked me why I looked very absent and not
happy at all. I told her I cold not forget the dream I had the night before. I had dreamed
I was at a cemetery standing next to the grave digger. Right before us were three open
graves next to each other, and opposite these one grave only. There was a huge crowd of
sad people. We could see more than one hearse approaching. My colleague thought I was
silly to be upset by ‘just a dream’.
On Good Friday, one of my inmates of my boarding
house went with three friends to one of the most famous beaches on Java. In the afternoon
we were informed that all four had drowned. Three bodies were recovered but the fourth was
never found.
(Evelyn, home maker)
Other examples of longer term precognitive dreams
are described in Chapter 6, Unusual Dream Experiences, and Chapter 20.
It is always wise to be cautious about assuming a
dream is precognitive in the long term. Quite a few people have frightened themselves
because they have dreamed vividly of the death of their children, or other circumstances,
when the dream was in fact symbolic of (for example) the loss, or death of their inner
child through neglect. Until you have experienced the full impact of a ‘real’
precognitive dream, and then gained the personal experience to judge your precognitive
dreams more precisely, assume a dream is symbolic. Take any action that would be sensible
in case the dream is precognitive and then let it go. If you think your dream of your
toddler getting run over by a truck is precognitive, for example, fence your garden then
get on with life. If you think you have dreamed the lotto numbers, try them out. The idea
is to be cautious and to expect the dream to be symbolic unless it is proved otherwise:
Note Scotty’s caution. He is a strong
precognitive dreamer, and observes:
I’ve noticed a series of dreams over the
last month or so with extremely powerful symbols. These dreams seem more powerful than the
ones used to describe my own personal traumatic circumstances. They concern war, guerilla
activity, murder, POW camps, devastated countryside, poor townships, armies, soldiers,
refugees, escape scenes, caves and general despair. I gained an impression that these
events would happen in two to five years and I don’t know if they refer to my
personal life, to future conflict in Australia or to economic depression.
(Scotty, petrol tank driver)
As Scotty’s experience shows, not only might
we confuse the literal (world chaos) with the symbolic (present-day inner conflict and
emotional upheaval), but we might also think we are dreaming of the world’s future
when we are dreaming of our personal future. Scotty will guard against any possible future
despair for himself by being forewarned and taking any necessary action in his life now.
I often dream about things that later happen,
though not in the way that I’d expect. After the event I say, ‘So that’s
what the dream meant.’
(Kate, unemployed)
If you believe your dreams contain long-term
predictions, write them down and give them to someone. Take any reasonable but very
cautious action if you feel you must. Take care to interpret the dream symbolically in
terms of what may occur in your own life unless you make positive changes. If your
precognitive dream seems to show a great long-term future for you, note the clues and
cautiously hasten it on.
If I dreamed something has happened, I feel sure
I’m able to make it happen in real life.
(Kate, unemployed).
The Precognitive Dreamers’ Discussion
Twenty dreamers from the dream survey who had
strong experiences in precognitive, lucid or other unusual aspects of dreaming met in my
house in mid-1993 to record a discussion. This was a great opportunity for these people
who rarely had the chance to talk to other strong dreamers and it was also a heart-warming
experience for me after several months of communicating through the mail and over the
phone! Some of the quotes contained in this book were taken from that afternoon, but here
(and in future chapters and Appendix A) is a small part of the discussion on precognitive
dreaming.
Jane Anderson:
‘How often do your precognitive dreams occur?’
Six people said they experienced precognitive
dreams about once a fortnight while two people said once a week. Seven said their dreams
were random.
My precognitive dreams about work usually happen
within one or two days, but with other areas of my life it can take up to two weeks. I
have a precognitive dream around once a fortnight.
(Scotty, petrol tank driver)
Jane Anderson:
‘How long does it take before your precognitive dreams come true?’
The common response was 24-48 hours.
I have two kinds. One, on the trivial level,
happens within days, but the other on births and deaths can happen within months or years.
(Mell, writer)
Jane Anderson:
‘How do you know which dreams are precognitive when you wake up?’
Experience.
(John, town planner)
Many shook their heads, still unable to pinpoint
the difference at the moment of waking. Others were at a loss to describe the
‘knowing’ as they put it.
You’ve got to try to know by trying to take
control the next night. This way you can go on for longer and ask more questions in the
dream.
(Andrew, construction manager)
This opened up an inspiring discussion on lucid
dreaming and other dimensions which is recounted in Appendix B and is best consulted after
reading Chapter 20.
For an in-depth exploration of
precognitive dreaming, see my 1998 book, The Shape of
Things to Come.
Travelling into the Past
If we can travel forward in time in our dreams,
then we can surely travel backwards.
Hypnotists have been able to regress thousands of
people back to a time before their birth and then further back again to re-experience
aspects of past lives. Many alternative practitioners achieve similar phenomena through
applying different techniques. I do not have personal experience of this, but my husband
has been privately regressed and consciously experienced (relived, in his opinion) several
lives and times which proved to him, beyond doubt, that he has lived before. Do we
experience past lives of our own, or do we experience past times, not necessarily lives we
have lived, but see them through different eyes? Or do we enter a dream state, and put
ourselves in an historical perspective through autosuggestion, a state that allows us to
experience a dream which is symbolically relevant and immensely helpful towards
understanding our present-day relationships and challenges?
Various researchers have checked out details
given through regression under hypnosis, and have traced historical details that the
hypnotised person could not have known. Again the question is: were they tuned into their
own past life, or into a past event, to into the surviving memory, spirit or consciousness
of a deceased person?
It may well be that thinking of life in terms of
time at all is erroneous. Past, present, future may be the way we, with our limited
perception, make sense of the world. Personally I lean towards an understanding of
timelessness outside our day-to-day waking lives, but that will be discussed in Part Three
of this book. In everyday language, if we can see the future in some of our dreams, we
must surely be able to see the past too. That we can dream of the future is proved as time
passes and the dreamed events occur. That we can dream of the past is more difficult to
prove on an individual level, but consider the outlook of these dreamers who believe they
are dreaming of past lives. What do they perceive as the difference between a ‘past
life’ dream and a ‘normal’ dream?
In Chiron’s case, she dreamed of a shaman
before she knew what a shaman was. For her, bringing back knowledge of something she did
not carry in her conscious mind was proof enough.
When I was pregnant with my son, now five years
old, I dreamed I was a shaman with the North American Indians. At the time of the dream I
did not know anything about shamans. In the dream my elder daughter (in real life) had
brought her baby boy to me. She had trouble feeding him and he wasn’t well at all. My
tepee was set up on a knoll away from the rest of the tribe. A few years after the dream I
had a past life recall session where I ‘discovered’ I was a shaman in a past
life.
(Chiron, astrologer)
It could be argued that we forget information, or
that we store knowledge that we have seen on television, heard about or read, but which
has bypassed conscious awareness and shot straight into the unconscious. Nevertheless, one
approach towards distinguishing a past life dream is to do some research:
This felt like a past life dream. I was a
crossbowman who had a hand chopped off for poaching in medieval times. I was wearing
green-black leotards (like Robin Hood) and a black leather jerkin stitched in a diamond
pattern and split at the sides. As I watched the official lopping of my hand, I was also
studying myself. I was in my late 20s or early 30s with straight shoulder-length black
hair. When I woke up I tried to draw the executioner’s axe, but after three or four
attempts I couldn’t get it right, so I placed the biro in my left hand. I’m not
left-handed. I closed my eyes and drew a perfect replica of the axe. I have since been to
the local library and have placed the crossbows, costumes and that particular type of axe
to around the 1350s to 1450s, in England, I think.
(Scotty, petrol tank driver)
If we do travel back in time to relive the
distant past, whether this is a physical journey of the soul, a tapping into everlasting
consciousness of all that has ever happened in time (and all that ever will happen), or a
replaying of some sort of cellular or spiritual memory, the important question for this
chapter is: Should we apply dream interpretation principles to a dream which seems to be
from our past?
If we have indeed lived many lives, why do we not
dream of them more frequently? If we can tune into any aspect of the past, or tap into any
‘past’ consciousness, why do we rarely do this? My experience as a dream
counsellor and researcher has been that any dream of the past has direct relevance to the
dreamer’s present life. If you have some problem to address it makes sense to go back
to see the root cause or origin of that problem. You may travel in your dreams back to
your present-day early childhood to see where your block first occurred, or you may travel
back further in time to encounter some unresolved issue which is clearly still affecting
your behaviour.
Since this chapter is concerned with dream
interpretation, I therefore suggest that all dreams of the past are treated as symbolic
and are interpreted using the tools you have acquired from this book. Ask yourself what
you can learn from these experiences and how you can use this knowledge to improve your
present life.
Further examples of ‘past life’
dreaming are detailed in Chapter 20.
Summary
The best that precognitive dreamers can offer as
a diagnostic tool for distinguishing time travel dreams from ‘normal’ dreams is
a ‘sense of knowing’. Over a period of time, individuals notice specific
pointers, such as the best time of day to time travel, but these conclusions vary from
person to person. The best advice appears to be to make your own observations.
If you travel in time, seeing the future or the
past, keep a journal. As well as recording the date, time and details of your dream the
next morning, write down whether you think it was a case of time travel or a
‘normal’ dream. Jot down notes to support your assumptions. Over a period of
time, look back for hints of a pattern in your dreaming or in your waking thoughts and
feelings about the nature of your dreams.
Be cautious about jumping to conclusions about
possible precognitive dreams, but take reasonable care to protect your future or
reasonable steps to enter the proverbial lotto coupon or to initiate possible changes for
the better in your life. Above all, always, always, always consider the possible
symbolic significance of your dreams, even if you are sure they refer to the past, or even
if they do later come true. Whatever happens in your outer life, whether past, present or
future, always has personal meaning on an inner level, if you care to see it.
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