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Chapter 25
Philosophy:
The Soul and the
Spiritual Causes of Dreaming
Gus
After ten years of close working relationships,
there came a rift in our family and my father-in-law chose to isolate himself from us. He
had a lot of anger and frustration in the last years of his life, brought on mainly by his
own actions and reactions to previous events. The consequence of all this, and developing
cancer of the larynx, caused him to end his life in the December of 1979.
My dream was extremely vivid this night. Gus (as
we called him) came and took back every single item he’d ever given us during our
lives together. I sensed bad feelings, bordering on evil or hatred, emanating from him and
directed towards us. Almost like a greedy, grasping kid, he was grabbing back what
he’d given freely before. (We had been aware of the manipulative power of Gus’s
gifts, so had purposely accepted so little anyway, which made this dream all the more
curious.)
At five o’clock the next morning, after my
dream, the phone rang with one of Gus’s daughters informing us that Gus had died. My
dream left me with a heaviness and sadness for many months. At that time we had no problem
dealing with Gus’s death. My anguish was for him and why he had left so much
unresolved when he so carefully was able to plan his own time to leave this earth.
A few months later I awoke one morning feeling
completely at peace with his death. In a dream I was on the lower part of a hill. Walking
in the distance I saw a figure. As I drew nearer, the back of this person gave me a sense
of recognition. Slowly he turned half around and said, ‘Don’t worry any more.
I’m okay now. It’s all right.’ This person was Gus. It was like a dark
cloud had been lifted from my being.
(Nette, potter)
Did Nette tune into Gus’s mental state at
the moment of his suicide and, as time passed, come to terms with her anguish for him? Did
she then see this reflected in a ‘psychologically caused’ dream that allowed her
to have faith in peace after death? Did she meet his surviving mind which had progressed
in understanding since his death? Did she communicate with his spirit or soul in the dream
dimension? Or did his spirit communicate with Nette’s sleeping mind, reassuring her
through a dream?
This book has been dotted with examples of dreams
that appear to be beyond physiological or psychological cause (see Chapters 6, 19 and 20),
but what do we mean by ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’? According to the Concise
Oxford Dictionary, ‘spirit’ is another word for ‘soul’, and
generally means ‘ the intelligent, non-physical part of a person’ or ‘a
rational or intelligent being without a material body’. The soul is defined as
‘the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being, often regarded as immortal’,
although, in an everyday sense, it is also ‘the moral or emotional or intellectual
nature of a person or animal’.
As these definitions show, there is much blurring
between our concepts of body, mind and soul. Is the soul a non-physical part of the body
that dies with us? Is it another word for the mind, dying also with the physical body? If
the mind can survive physical death, does this mean it is not ‘mind’ but
‘soul’? Or does the mind, that ‘seat of consciousness, thought and
volition’ or ‘intellectual powers’ or ‘memory’ (all from the Concise
Oxford Dictionary), have a physical component that dies with the body, liberating its
immortal component as a soul? Or is terminology irrelevant, an aberration of a rational
language which should bow down to our much wider grasp of ‘reality’ through our
deeply intuitive, and primal, language of dreams?
Talking to Dad
My father died unexpectedly in 1980, aged 70 years. I loved
him particularly deeply and we had always been mates. I was living in Adelaide
when he died and it had been 12 months since I’d been over to visit my
parents, although I kept in constant contact. He was also the devoted father
figure to my daughter after I divorced when she was 18 months old. For ten years
I had been quietly bitter and angry that he died, because he had worked extremely
hard as a farmer since he was eight years old and had few fruits from his labour,
and also because he was the only person in the world who unconditionally loved
me. He was the only person in the world I unconditionally loved too.
Nearly two yeas ago he spoke to me in a dream. The dream situation
was as I had often seen him, sitting on a log in the bush, physically accurate
and familiar down to the detail of his clothes. He told me I had to stop being
sad and angry about his death, that he was fine and that I too was fine. He
told me that we were always together still and some day I’d join him. (I
don’t believe in God, the other side, etc., so I have no idea what he meant.)
He spoke to me but I only kept saying ‘Dad’.
When I became aware that he was going to go, I tried to reach
him to put my arms around him and kiss him, but there was an invisible force
in the air around him that I knew I couldn’t reach through. He said simply
that he was sorry I couldn’t touch him. When I awoke crying (as he faded)
I said to my partner, who was woken by my crying, ‘I’ve been talking
to Dad.’
After the dream I was left with a sense of peace and acceptance,
and knowledge that somehow dad still has awareness of me and how I am.
(Dorothy, retired teacher)
Perspectives of History and Philosophy
Let’s glance through just a few of the
multitude of windows which history, philosophy, religion and quantum physics have opened
on realities beyond the one we perceive in waking life.
The Ancient Egyptians
According to the earliest dream records still in
existence, the Egyptian hieroglyphs of almost 4,000 years ago, the Egyptians believed the
gods revealed themselves through people’s dreams, but did not think the soul could
leave the sleeping body. Theirs was more a belief that people could perceive more through
their dreams than they could with their waking senses. Perhaps they were right. It is
possible that waking life, with all its anxieties and concerns for safety and survival,
drowns out the more subtly sensitive areas of the mind which are free to receive input
during sleep, when input from the external waking world is toned down.
India: 1,000 BC
In India, around 1,000 BC,
the Brihadarmyaka-Upanishad records the belief that we live in two states (realities),
‘one in this world, the other in the other world, and, as a third, an intermediate
state, the state of sleep. When in that interim state he sees both these states together,
the one here in this world, and the other in the other world.’ ‘Dreamless
sleep’ was seen as the highest state where man seeks unity with space-time infinity,
whereas waking life was perceived as a lesser state. The intermediate dream state allowed
man closer knowledge of his inner self, a position from which he was better able to view
both worlds. In modern terms, this belief sees the dream state as a mediator between the
conscious and the unconscious.
The Roaming Soul
Hindu and Chinese Buddhists see the soul as
roaming at will during sleep, able to communicate with spirits, the dream being the memory
form (albeit perhaps inaccurate) of this experience.
Illusory Worlds: the Path to Nirvana
Tibetan Buddhism, throughout the ages, has taught
the value of lucid dreaming. While lucid, Buddhism argues, you can manipulate the illusory
dream world and use this learning, while awake, to manipulate the equally illusory waking
life. The illusion that we are individuals in a real world is overcome, according to
Buddhism, through reaching a state of Nirvana. This can be done through practicing
meditation while in a lucid dream. This procedure, in modern form, means realising you are
lucid and then gradually removing all dream sensations until you are left with only …
Nirvana. Tibetan Buddhism, it seems, sees the physical body and the mind as illusory, and
the soul as ‘existing’ only in unity with infinity.
Awakening from the Great Dream
The Chinese sage Chuang-tzu (around 350 BC)
described our inability to know illusion from ‘reality’ thus: ‘While men
are dreaming, they do not perceive that it is a dream. Some will even have a dream within
a dream, and only when they awake they know it was all a dream. And so, when the great
awakening comes upon us, we shall know this life to be a great dream. Fools believe
themselves to be awake now.’
The Rationality of Extrasensory Perception
The Greek philosopher Democritus (c.460-c.370 BC)
thought that people and objects were able to emanate some essence that could penetrate the
dreamer’s body (like telepathy) and enter her consciousness. In this way, he saw
dreams as, in part, impressions formed from increasing sensory awareness during sleep, a
function of the brain or mind, but not of the soul.
Rationalising the Precognitive Dream
Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) philosophised that
the great variety and number of dreams we experience are bound to result in some which
later occur in the waking world, so that we look back and call them precognitive dreams.
He also saw that we often take inspiration or an idea from a dream and put it into action
in waking life, making the dream come ‘true’.
Heaven and Hell
Saint Thomas Aquinas (13th century AD)
wrote that there were two types of dream: the first type emanated from within (the body
and mind) while the second category was received from without, be that from heavenly or
demonic sources. Common to many religious beliefs, and certainly evident in the Bible, is
the notion of ‘good’ or ‘true’ dreams and ‘evil’ or
‘false’ dreams, with little guidance as to how to distinguish between the two!
Soul and Dream as a Universal Key
Descartes (1596-1650) perceived of a separate
soul which resided in the pineal body: the third eye. He believed that dreams contained
the key to universal wisdom.
Quantum Physics and the Search for Spiritual Reality
The purpose of this chapter is to look for
possible spiritual causes for some of our dreams. Perhaps this is the wrong approach. The
possibility exists that our waking life is but a dream, an illusion, and that the
‘true’ reality lies outside our waking perception, perhaps in the dream, or
perhaps beyond. Instead of questioning the reality of our dream spiritual experiences,
perhaps we should turn the question around and ask whether we can be sure about our waking
world reality. Could the spiritual experiences we recall from our dreams be the residual
memories of our true reality, not in the waking world, but in a wider dimension?
Quantum physics has begun to push us out of our
comfortable security about our waking world. This branch of science, born in the late
1920s, challenges our every notion of reality. At a subatomic level, according to
Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, we can never really be sure about the behaviour
of subatomic particles. In very simplistic terms, sometimes they are there, and sometimes
they are not, and these appearances and disappearances are unpredictable. On the whole,
enough subatomic particles tend to be ‘in place’ enough of the time, to make
‘matter’ appear to be present and subject to the laws of physics which we have
observed over the centuries. No-one really expects all the subatomic particles to
‘disappear’ at the same moment, but if they did, ‘matter’ could
reasonably be expected to appear and disappear before our eyes. The branch of science
known as ‘Quantum Cosmology’, which theorises on the spontaneous generation of
universes, is based on such observations.
Not only can science now argue the case for
appearing and disappearing universes, but, through Einstein’s Theory of Relativity,
it also questions our everyday concept of time. Paul Davies, in his book The Mind of
God, points out that absolute universal time, as scientifically described by Newton,
works out well for us on a day-to-day level. However, he argues, if we were to start
moving about faster than the speed of light, our concept of time would change; it would no
longer work for us.
In the same way, I suggest, when we move from
waking reality into dreaming reality, we come under the influence of a different set of
conditions: different laws, different realities. I believe it is possible that many of our
‘time travel’ dream experiences occur because we are released from our waking
reality’s limited perception of time. Freed from the boundaries of waking time and
matter while asleep, our reality expands.
While on the subject of time travel, past lives,
future lives, parallel lives, immortality and other areas snubbed by the ‘rational
scientist in the street’, quantum science has argued that, at least in principle, a
multitude of parallel universes containing a multitude of parallel selves, could,
theoretically, exist. The basic thinking is this: every subatomic particle faces
uncertainty; it can be here, there, appear, disappear, act this way, act that way and so
on. It is arguable scientifically that all possibilities for each particle can occur.
These multiple possibilities build an ever increasing existence of independent parallel
realities. You, as a person, would also be replicated, split into every possible action or
inaction, living in a multitude of parallel ‘lives’. According to this theory,
well supported by a number of quantum physicists and philosophers, each parallel copy of
yourself would feel complete and would live in ignorance of the others.
The theory’s critics suggest we would
be aware of our other parallel selves, and therefore discount the concept.
Wait a minute though. Don’t we meet an
awareness of other aspects of ourselves through our dreams? Don’t we see ourselves in
sometimes slightly different surroundings during astral travel? When, in our impoverished
‘time orientated’ waking state, we talk of glimpsing past lives or having
precognitive dreams, are we instead bringing back a conscious memory of a link with one or
other of our parallel selves?
Where would all this leave God, souls and
spirits? Parallel universes could survive as a purely physical, self-generated phenomenon
or as a God-inspired set of parallel experiences designed for our ultimate learning. If we
ever arrive at a point where science can reach out and identify the certain existence of
alternative realities, then we may be faced with a startling possibility: rather than
science being at the opposite extreme from mystical or religious experience, it may find
itself ‘back at the beginning’, completing the circle of ultimate knowledge.
Science, through quantum physics and metaphysics, may fuse with mystical experience to
complete our understanding of the world, of dreams, of psychic phenomena, of alternative
realities and maybe, even, of God.
Dream Channel
I believe that many areas covered in my dream state are merely
extensions of my inner self, but I know without doubt that there are people
there talking to me, wanting something from me which, at present, I am unable
to give. Recently I had the strange sensation of someone calling to me while
I slept. I knew I was asleep and remember thinking how relaxed and receptive
I was. There was a woman calling me by name, asking me to help her. Then she
said something like, ‘We’ve got through … Rowyn, can you hear
me? … hurry, the channel is open … Rowyn, you may have to help us
get through .. try hard .. Rowyn?’
I felt a little fear and hesitated to respond. I remember taking
time to consider what I should do. Of course, I had no idea what I was supposed
to be doing and eventually stretched out and decided fate would decide. Then,
as quickly as the voice had come, it was gone, and I knew most certainly that
I was on my own. I was 100% relaxed and felt warm and content, although nothing
had transpired. I felt both relieved and a little disappointed that it had ended
so abruptly.
(Rowyn, student)
Dreaming the Holy Grail:
The Dreamer Holds the Key
In the end, it is perhaps only the dreamer who
knows whether his or her dream was out of the ordinary, came from a spiritual source, gave
reassurance, hope, peace or a glimpse into another world. Whether these spiritual dreams
are communications with the deceased, with our parallel selves, with heavenly hosts, with
God, or with all of these and more, it is their hauntingly inspirational ability to
radically change our outlook on life and to give meaning where emptiness rattled before
that stands above everything else.
Changed Perception of Life
The dream I had in 1991 helped me change my perception and
attitude towards life. However, the dream that warned of my impending darkness
occurred just prior to this, in April 1991:
I was a passenger in a car travelling across a bridge. The
driver, a young male, leaned over the side of the car to try to touch the water
below the bridge (an impossibility in real life). In doing so the car overbalanced
and we fell into the river, inside the car. I remembered that my husband had
said if something like this were ever to happen I should hold my breath until
the car reached the bottom, wait for the water to fill the car and then swim
out. However, the river was exceptionally deep, and even before the car hit
the bottom I knew I couldn’t hold my breath long enough. Then everything
went completely black.
This dream really worried me as I had learned from dream interpretation
workshops how significant deep, dark water was. It was shortly after this that
I fell into a very deep depression.
The story of my illness is long and involved so I shall cut
it short. I hit rock bottom and felt life was emotionally and mentally too painful
to continue. I was at the bottom of a dark and dangerous pit with no way out.
I couldn’t work or think rationally, or be on my own without panicking.
I couldn’t eat, I cried continually and I thought I was losing my sanity.
I couldn’t sleep so I had no relief from my own personal hell. I firmly
believed I would never recover and suicide (as death was not readily forthcoming)
was the only answer.
I did get professional help and was taking medication when
I began having some broken sleep. I began dreaming of my father-in-law (to whom
I had been very close) who had died in 1984. I believe somehow he helped me
through this period. Then I had my dream in May 1991.
In the dream I lay flat on my back with an impenetrable conglomerate
of cobweb-like substance immediately above my face and body like a cloud mass
imprisoning me between it and the solid base on which I lay. I knew I could
not move in any direction except through this mass. I tried to puncture it until
I was exhausted, but to no avail. When I regained strength, I tried again and
again. This went on for what seemed like forever!
I tried to cut myself out with a knife, slashing and slashing
but the conglomerate simply rushed back into place like a knife cutting through
water. At some stage I found myself more as an observer and I realised that
a hole appeared in the mass and I knew that I must have pierced the cobwebs.
To my amazement I noticed the beautiful blue of the sky as
the hole enlarged. It was the most wonderful sight and I felt marvellous!
Up until this dream (even though I was on medication and I
was having therapy) I was still depressed and suicidal. It was not until my
dream and the realisation I would pull through that I became more positive.
I still had my ups and downs, and in the down moments I forced myself to remember
my dream, and this would help pick me up again. The dream gave me the courage
and strength to work on myself. I often find myself feeling an overwhelming
gratitude, for I believe I have almost come to terms (I am still working on
this) with a very deep-seated fear which was programmed into my subconscious
at a very young age. This fear had surfaced in 1974, haunting me at different
periods in those 17 years, culminating in the experience above.
(Pearl, secretary)
If our search for the spiritual meaning of life
is a search for that which transcends the physical and the mortal, perhaps dreams give us
our best chance of finding an answer. Through dreams we may reach our personal conclusions
about our spiritual nature based on dream experiences which the human brain will perhaps
never be able to translate. As Alex, one of the dream survey lucid dreamers put it:
It is possible that the key [to the meaning
of life] exists, but is only discovered, comprehended and understood in the dimension
of dreaming, and that it’s not possible to bring ‘it’ into the physical
universe, even conceptually.
(Alex, clerk)
If he is right, and I suspect he is, then we
should acknowledge the spiritual influences that may shape our dream memories from time to
time.
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