| 2. Dreams of Remembrance. These are dreams which are a
recovery of the sights and sounds encountered in the hours of sleep upon the astral plane.
It is on this plane that the [501] man is usually found when the thread of consciousness
is separated from the body. In this case, the man is either participating in certain
activities, or he is in the position of the onlooker who sees actual sights, performances,
people, etc., etc., just as any person can see them as he walks down a street in any large
city or as he looks out of a window in any environment. These sights and sounds will often
be dependent upon the wish-life and the predilections of the subject, upon his likes and
dislikes and his desires and recognized attractions. He will seek for and often find those
he loves; he will sometimes search for and find those he seeks to damage, and find
occasion to hurt those he hates; he will favor himself by participating in the
fulfilment of what he desires, which is always imaginatively possible upon the astral
plane. Such desires may range all the way from desire for sexual gratification to the
longing of the spiritually-minded aspirant to see the Master, the Christ or the Buddha.
Thought forms, created by the similar wishes of the multitude, will be found to meet his
desire and - on returning to his body in the morning - he brings with him the recollection
of that satisfaction in the form of a dream. These dreams, related to astral
satisfactions, are all of them in the nature of glamor or illusion; they are self-evoked
and self-related; they indicate however real experience, even if only astral in
accomplishment and can be of value to the interested psychologist in so far as they
indicate the character trends of the patient. One difficulty can, however, be found. These
thought forms (to which the man has responded and in which he has found an imaginative
satisfaction) embody the expression of the wish-life of the race and exist, therefore,
upon the astral plane for all to see. Many people do see and contact them and can identify
themselves with them upon returning to waking consciousness. In fact, however, they [502]
have really done no more than register these thought forms in the same manner as one can
register the contents of a shop window when passing by. A shocked horror can, for
instance, induce a person to relate, quite innocently, a dream which is, in reality, no
more than the registering of a sight or experience which was witnessed in the hours of
sleep but with which the man has no real connection whatever. This experience he relates
with dismay and disgust; most feelingly he tells the experience to the psychologist, and
frequently receives an interpretation which reveals to him the depths of evil to which his
unrealized desires apparently bear witness. His unexpressed longings are "brought to
the surface" by the psychologist. He is told that these longings, when faced, will
then leave him, and that the ghost of his mental and psychological disorder will then be
laid. Unless the psychologist is of real enlightenment, the subject of his care is then
saddled with an experience which was never his but which he simply witnessed. I
give this as an example of great frequency and of much damaging value. Until psychologists
recognize the actuality of the life of humanity when separated at night from the physical
body, such errors will be of increasing occurrence. The implications are obvious. |
