John: So, yesterday I was interested in the larger process at play, pointed out by our recent dreams (see An Elevated View). Today I want to get more into the specific images of the dream itself, so we can see how it works in detail (see Blast from the Past).
The basic idea we have been looking into is how we are able, from examining our dreams, to get personal guidance in our spiritual journey. Actually, we could say “life journey,” yet our dreams are always trying to steer our earthbound world-view toward a more spiritual connection with the universe.
We can get guidance from our dreams and it comes from the level of the soul, or the higher self – however you want to say it. In my case, my dream showed me that in my actions in my outer life – the ways I have been thinking or behaving – I have been falling back into old patterns. Those old patterns represent a lower-self aspect of myself that I have tried to move on from.
In the dream, I am shown to be coming dangerously close to these lower-self habits, shown by the scenario of a class reunion, which is a perfect representation of one’s past. The reason I’m coming dangerously close is that some part of me believes I have grown enough on my spiritual path to handle it.
I think that I can go back to those past patterns and be okay. But the dream is saying: Don’t do it! The poisons I hold within me, as old memories or wounds, are still too present and have not yet been properly absorbed.
Even though in my outer life I have found deep inner connections, they would still be jeopardized if I went back to my old ways. The figure in the dream was an actual classmate that I saw at a recent reunion and made a heartfelt connection with. He saw and acknowledged the great changes in me.
And the relative who kept saying I would come back to my home town is a person who worked as a chief of police – he spent his life enforcing the laws of right and wrong. He saw himself as a comrade-in-arms with me, as battler of good and evil, even though his way of doing that was strictly in the physical world, not the spiritual world.
So I couldn’t ask for a better contrast to illustrate the two states of Creation, and the two states of life – the higher self and the lower self. With my classmate I’m seen as having reached a wonderful place, and I’m free in this place to follow my heart (don’t come back). With my relative, I’m seen as a person who has reached an inner depth and who can then return to the outer life and bring those realizations into life (into Creation).
My classmate knows I will get lost again if I respond to my need to fit in to a world I left behind. My relative knows I can make a difference in outer life – against good and evil – just like he has.
So a clear distinction has been shown to me in this dream, and it has a message that is intended to have a direct effect on my spiritual journey. It’s showing me that whenever I’m at a crossroads, I can make one of two choices. The dream’s advice is very specific: choose to stay in the heart, and stop choosing things that will only put me back into the lower-self, where I no longer belong, and where I will just get beat up again.
This is the kind of guidance that is available to us through our dreams. Usually, however, it isn’t so succinct. Most of the time the guidance will nudge us back and forth, slowly trying to turn us to the higher-self heart that, if we listen, will then continue to keep opening up little by little.
When I fell asleep last night I was wondering how to answer a question posed to me by a friend. The question was “How can our dreams help us on our spiritual journey?” What a wonderful dream example I was provided.
This is the third day in a row that I’ve taken a question into the dream world and gotten help. First it was “Why do dream work?” Then it was “What is the relevance of dream work in these current times?”
The question for tomorrow is, “Is every person meant to awaken to a spiritual life?” I can’t wait to see how that one is answered! I guess all in good time might be an answer.
Jeane: Well, everything already is spiritual. It’s just a matter of how much one wakes up to it.
