You're out of your element. That's what we believe happens in a dream. Part of your soul, spirit, aura, etc. leaves your body (element) while you sleep and interacts with the collective spirit of your environment.

The part that leaves is your weakest part. Therefore, when you see it you've got a good idea of what you should avoid becoming when you wake up. If you can avoid becoming like your weakness, you will be strong. Also, your dream travels ahead in time toward the direction of your momentum. Because of this you have at least 24 hours notice of your own future. The next day you will be in for a close encounter with that future. Remain the way you were in your dream and that encounter will be déja vu.

Now that you know why we recommend you avoid becoming like your dream but instead remain the way you were in your dream, you're ready to read the method used at The Dream Hot-Line. (773-589-2471 PO Box 34934 Chicago, IL 60634). When you've discovered your dream's momentum and you'd prefer to travel your own path instead, I've personally taken to trying the path out to the right or left of my dream's geographical location (from where I dreamt the dream.) For example, if my dream was of a place North of where I slept, I find myself feeling stronger to the East or West. Good déja vu to you and pleasant dreams.

Mr. Dubetz talks about the déja vu experience as a a means of transforming one's personality. He doesn't mention precognitive dreaming as such, but I think this is what is implied here. Precognition is the ability to sense something that will happen in the future. It has been determined in spontaneous case studies that ESP material is more frequently obtained through dreams than in the waking state. We can seek out our potential and abilities through such material. In fact, precognitive dreaming is the most commonly reported ESP experience in our society. In other words, at present, we are most comfortable with an unconscious ability displaced into the future. If we practice the techniques described in this booklet, we may be able to verify this experience and bring our precognitive ability to consciousness.
 
 
                                                 Dr. J.L. Mitchell
                                  Author, Out of Body Experience
 
 
  

1    Introduction

How many times have you fallen from a cliff and survived to tell about it? How many times have you flown without wings? How many times have you been killed and lived to speak of it as if nothing really happened? Never, I'll bet, in this reality. But all of us have experienced these things in the other reality called dreams.
Imagine this is your dream.
 

 You're in a trench in World
 War I.  An explosion oc-
 curs nearby and the earth
 upheaved by that explosion
 comes down on you and
 buries you alive.  You are
 about to suffocate to
 death when you awake
 from the dream.

Anyone can see the power and influence of this dream and the calamity that can come from misread- ing the messages of dreams. Read correctly with me along the way of dreams and your dreams will strengthen your life instead of causing doubt, anxiety, or possibly destruction. Dreams properly read will lead you to your destiny. They will show you where not to tread and which path to avoid on the road to life's fulfillment. You need to know two things about the dream in order to be advised by it. You need to know the middle and the impression of the middle. Read chapters one and two carefully and try the examples along the way with me so you may be adept at find- ing the middle and the dreamer's impression of that middle while he dreamt it. Good luck and lots of money I can't guarantee but comfort in your own well-being I can begin to show you. Look at it this way, the message in your dream is like a flash of light from a lighthouse on a foggy night. A cap- tain knows this light is telling him that rocky shores are ahead; stay clear - you're heading in the wrong direction. An adventurous child who got caught in the fog on a boat he stole for a joy ride might think he was real smart and head straight for the beacon of light. Right straight into the rocks, right straight into the hereafter. Hitler took the course of the child and instead of sailing away from the light of his dream, he headed straight for that light, wrecked his soul and a ship with millions aboard. His childish fears and delusions of grandeur coupled with the power he held was a recipe for disaster. Read this book and learn how to sail away from the lighthouses in your dreams and live to sail on and on and on.
 
 
 3
  

  You're dreaming now and creeping up on
  your husband while he sleeps in the bedroom.
 You're bashing him over the head
  with a softball bat.  You're bashing him
  to death.

4

between the two states of before and before and after there is always a middle state. In this dream the state between sleep for the husband and his deadly state that followed was the state of assault with the softball bat. The softball bat was the middle of this dream be- cause it was between the husband's sleep and death and because it created the strongest impression, an example so strong it can kill. Here's another example:
 
 

 You're dreaming you're in a parking
 lot and you are swinging a long piece
 of chain over your head, making the
 people near you jump.  You like this
 and don't stop because it feels so good.

 I dreamed I saw a narrow gulley with
 running water.  A small dam was in
 the gulley and it was in shaky condition.
I was worried it was coming
 apart.  I awakened.

Using the method we used in the first two dreams, see if you can find the middle symbol. What will you choose? Did you choose the dam? The dam was the middle symbol because it created a strong impression of worry and it was the middle ground between the two sides of the gulley. Now we now the middle ground of your dream is between different sides and creates a strong impression. The soft- ball bat created the ground between life and death; the chain created the difference between jumping and standing still, and the dam created the difference between one side of the gulley and the other. Going back a little farther, the dirt that filled the trench in Hitler's dream was the differ- ence between the explosion and the trench he was in and it certainly, along with the other middle symbols we have looked for, created a strong impression.
      Here is a dream that might be a little more difficult.

You dream you heard a prowler outside
your unlocked door.  You go to the door,
lock it, but it still seems loose and you
feel that the prowler is getting close and
the door won't hold.  Now you awaken.

Here's an example of the middle's ability

6

to hold differences in common. You're dreaming again and...
 

You see a large black and white
bird flying overhead.  The bird
makes you smile broadly.

 A man dreamt he say his por-
 trait turning more and more
 ugly before his very eyes.

 Two men are chasing you for revenge.

7

and it also is the ground between where the men were and where they want to be. You should be getting pretty good at finding the middle of dreams, or at least have a pretty good grasp of how to look for the middle. I'm going to give you three dreams in . a row now without telling you what I think the middle is until all three dreams are read. So, you're on your own now for a little while. Don't peek ahead to see if you chose correctly. Wait until you have decided what the middle is in each of the following three dreams
 

        I.
   I dreamt I was in a cafeteria and I
   was offered a choice of dessert be
   tween cherry or banana cream pie.
   I immediately chose the banana
   cream pie, but on second thought
   remembered I had been disciplining
   myself not to eat pies at all.
   What is the middle?
 
   II.
    You are sitting in a majestic throne
   in a large cathedral.  A man and a
   woman of nobility kneel before you
   and on your head set the crown of
    the realm.
   What is the middle?

   III.
   There was a train station I was sur
        prised to be in and a train with a
   large light approaching.  I was sur
   prised when it passed me by without
   even stopping.
   What is the middle?

8

for the middle symbol. In dream number one, a decision between one pie and another had to be made. The decision was the middle between the two pies. In dream number two, the dreamer is sitting in a cathedral. Two people are kneeling in allegiance to the throne of the land. Between the throne and the two people kneeling is the crown which the dreamer wears. The crown is the middle. In dream number three, there was a train station which was ap proached by a train and passed by the train. Between the approach of the train and its passing was the station. It was the middle symbol. The three middle symbols were a decision, a crown and a station. How do your choices compare with mine? Two out of three isn't bad. Do three in a row again; in fact, let's try four. Write down in the margins of the book your choice for middle symbol this time so you can't hedge on what you chose when we compare.
 

 I.
 A man held a paper I had writ
 ten and pointed to it. He said he
 thought there was too much
 expounding in it.  I agreed.
 
 II.
 You are in Switzerland and
 about to leave for home when
 you remember you haven't seen
 the Alps.  Some people told you
 if you go to the end of a certain
 pier you could see them, the Alps.
 You have two hours to spare,
 so you decide to take their
 suggestion and go out on the pier.
 From the pier across the lake
 you see the Alps. They are very
 pretty and you begin now to
 head for the airport and home.
 
 III.
 I'm being chased by a crowd of
 people but I am confident I know
 exactly where I'm running to. I
           see a mansion I have never seen

   or been to before but I feel I
   lose my pursuers.  I enter and
   run with great confidence
   through the corridors and al
   ways know exactly which turn
   to take.  I'm out the back door
   and the people chasing me are
   nowhere in sight.

 
   IV.
   You see a large diamond with
   a round top and a point on the
   bottom.  It has a gray sheen over
   it but you think this is some
    thing unclear in your vision
   and not something wrong with
   the diamond.

How's your batting average so far? You should give yourself plenty of time and not try to rush your

10

decisions on the middle choice. Remember you are only be ginning and some of these dreams are pretty tricky. Try a few more; take your time, and though I have picked dreams which I'm quite certain about, don't be hesitant to disagree with my choices. Maybe we'll be in more agree ment as the book progresses. Listen to these dreams.
 
 

 I was walking at night when fly-
 ing saucers appeared in the sky.
 One of them came down right in
 front of me, but I stood my
 ground and stared it right in
 the eye.  The next thing I knew
 I was in a hospital room and
 two of my friends were asking
 my sister how I was doing.  She
 facial burns from the saucer and
 told them I had received severe
 I then realized my face was ban-
 daged though I could not see it.

I'm not going to give you my choice for the middle symbol because I'd like you to begin becoming inde pendent in your decisions.

 Try this one with only a few hints from me as

11

to where you should not look.
 

   I'm looking out onto an hori-
    zon at sea.  The sky and the
   water are almost exact in
   color and hard to distinguish
   one from the other.  A whale
   in technicolor moves now
   from left to right across the
   horizon grinning and mumb-
   ling threats at me.  I'm
        frightened and run for help.

   You see your pet parakeet is
   gone from his cage and find
   him in the snow outside.  He
   is not his normal color but is
   instead all white in a mudlike
   snow that is all black. Despite
   the cold temperature the bird
   stretches his wings as though
   he were in a Florida garden.
   I think about his strange color,
   all white with black eyes.

   My grandfather and I are sur-
   rounded by young women dressed
   in matching jogging suits, some
   yellow and some red. They were
   very threatening. I grabbed my
   grandfather's arm and said,

 "Look, my grandfather and I
 have not seen each other
 twelve years.  We are trying to
 get to know each other again.
 We don't need people bothering
 us."  The girls apologized and
 went away crying.

 I dreamed that Bruce had spent
 the night at my house and had
 gotten up and left before I woke
 up.  I saw that the house was
 a wreck.  He had destroyed
 everything, broken it all  and
 strewn it around.  Then Bruce
 came in and began shouting
 and shrieking in that scary,
 cynical way Bruce had.  He
 suspected me of having an af-
 fair and was very hurt and it
 came out like this.  I kept
 thinking all he was saying
 and doing was not in his
 temperament, or was it?

   I am visiting some rich people's
   house.  I go in the bathroom to
   take and shower and wash my
   hair.  A commuter train goes
   through the house for the con
   venience of the rich people.
     Once I get to the bathroom,
   every time I start to step into
   the shower I'm interrupted by
   people coming into the bath
    room to talk to me and deliver
   my breakfast.  I'm naked but
        don't really care.

The similarity is not visual, and in fact, two middle sym bols can look completely different and still be similar. For example, in the dream we have just done together, I picked the people interrupting the dreamer's shower to be one mid dle symbol, and you picked the train that ran through the house to be the other. People and trains don't look alike, so how could they be similar? Here's how. The commuter train was giving the dreamer the impression it ran through the house. The impression it gave was convenience for one side but not necessarily for the rest of the train line. The other middle symbol, the people interrupting the dreamer's shower, gave the dreamer the impression that these people were doing their thing, that is getting their conversations in

14

the dreamer and keeping their breakfast schedule on time, but at the inconvenience of the dreamer. She said she didn't care about the inconvenience. The two middle symbols we chose are similar because they both give the impression that they are convenient. Thus, from two middle symbols we receive one similar im pression, which is convenient. The impression is the step that leads us from the middle symbol to the actual message of the dream. So let us get on to that step called the im pression.

  15 II.  The Impression  
Now that you've got a pretty good idea of what the middle of your dream looks like and you have found that mid dle in a number of examples with my help and on your own, here is step II, the dreamer's impression of the middle. Supposing a symbol of the middle in your dream were a door. A door by definition is a passageway between two areas. But now suppose the door is locked; you can't find your key; there's no one home to let you in and you can hear your phone ringing! You know it's an important call you've been expecting. Look through the window. See your keys there on the floor near the door? Great! You found your keys but they're on the wrong side of the door. You pound the door with your fist as the last telephone ring becomes a memory.

Now that door is a middle symbol because it separates what you want from where you are. It also creates the strongest impression. The door is more than just a passage between two areas. It's an obstacle to an important tele phone communication. The door has become a subjective impression, OBSTACLE. Only by remembering how you felt about it when you dreamt about it can you properly evaluate the impression you will need for step two. What was that impression of the door while you were dreaming it? Do you remember? What a damnable obstacle. That impression is what step two is all about. Once you've a wakened you can be influenced by your surroundings and not the dream. The middle symbol then is like a fish out of water. What you thought about the middle in its own real ity, dream reality, is what's important. That's the impres sion you look for. Example:
 
 
 

   I dreamt I felt blood on my hand
    and realized I had been shot in
   the head.  I can't see the gunman
    and I feel no pain.

16

gunman, or the shot? What do you choose? The middle symbol is the blood. It holds the gunman and the wound in common and also creates the strongest impression. What now was the dreamer's impression of the blood? The impression, if you choose correctly, is "it's no real pain." It's no real pain; that's what the dreamer thought of the blood when he realized he was bleeding. Try an other example.
 

 I'm watching my father milk a
 cow when the farmer whom he
 works for and who owns the
 cow starts shouting at my
 father, telling him his work is
 not good enough to keep him
 around.  You think the work
 is fine and can't see any justi-
 fication for the farmer's inter-
 ference.
 Awake.

 I am standing in the deserted
 ruins of a city all alone.  The
 ruins are all around me end-
 lessly in every direction.  I
 must walk them alone.

17

impression was, "I must walk them alone." The ruins im pressed him, the dreamer, with loneliness. Loneliness is the impression in this dream.

What impression is given about the middle of this dream?
 
 

  The dreamer is in a field watch-
  deer grazing and they look peace-
  ful, and this makes the dreamer
  feel happy.  So he decides to
  leave well enough alone, turns
  around and walks away. The
  deer then show their teeth and
  turn on him.  They surround and
   attack him and tear at his flesh.
   The dreamer is confused and
     hurt.

This dream seems to be filled with impressions. Which one is the one we are looking for? It's the impression of the middle of the dream of course. We have in this dream a great change of moods from peaceful grazing deer to at- tacking man-eating deer. What happened in the middle of these of these two different moods? Try to remember. The dreamer decided to leave the deer alone, thinking their mood was so good he would certainly not want to stay any long er for he might scare them or distract them. He said leave well enough alone. He turned around, and so did the mood of the dream and the deer in it. This turning around was the middle of the dream. The dreamer turned around thinking well enough should be left alone. That's the impression we want. The impression of well enough was that it should be "left alone." "Left alone" is as crystallized as we can make the impression. Are you beginning to see how we must choose the proper impression of the middle? Keep prac ticing with two in a row now. I'll save my comments till aft- er the second dream has been read. Try it alone for now.
 

  I.
  I dreamed I saw a cat who had

 a clutching grip on my arm and
 wouldn't let go.
 
 II.
 I dreamed I saw a brown atta-
 ché case open with two com
 partments inside.  I thought the
 case was very nice but nothing special."

What were the two impressions these dreams gave? First choose the middle and then decide what the dream er's impression of the middle was. Did you try to use the dreamer's exact words in describing the middles? That is always the easiest way to describe the middle's im . pression. Use the dreamer's own words. Using the dreamer's own words gets the dreamer more deeply in volved with the interpretation, and after all, it is his or her dream, isn't it?

In dream number one we had a cat with a clutching grip that wouldn't let go. The difference between the cat's arm and the dreamer's arm was the grip. The grip is the middle symbol here and the impression of that grip was that it was clutching and wouldn't let go. "Clutching" is the impression. Is that what you chose?

In dream number two we had an attachÄ case with two compartments inside. The whole case was the middle symbol because it held two different compart ments inside together in common. The dreamer thought that this case was very nice but "nothing special." "No thing special" is the impression. How did you do?
  -

 I dreamed I was in an adult
 education class at a night
 school. I had my admittance
 card to class.  The class was
 very crowded and after the
 teacher called the names I want-
 ed him to know he forgot my
 name.  I tried to show him my
 admittance card but he didn't
 seem to pay it any mind.  I
thought to myself, "This card

19
             should have been good enough."
 
I won't tell you my choice for impression of the middle in the dream I just related, but I will tell you the middle was the admittance card. You decide what the impres- sion of that card was. Remember, let the dreamer give you the answer.
Here are three dreams in a row. This time, as you did in chapter one, commit your decision as to what the im pressions of these dreams are by actually writing them down either in the book or on a separate paper. Make your choices carefully.
 
 

 I.
  I dreamt I went back to my old
  neighborhood to say goodbye
  to everyone.  I went from place
  to place wanting to see the old
  gang whom I had good times with.
  It was snowing all the while and
  it was slowing me down and hin-
  dering my going from place to
  place.
 
 
  II.
  I dreamt I was turning off the
  kitchen light and closing the
 door with a key.  All of a
 sudden I felt something open
 the door and I fell to the
 kitchen floor.  There was no
 one in the room.  My family
 came in and wouldn't believe
 what happened.  Later on my
 sister saw the kitchen door
  close and believed me.  She
  asked me how I was going to
  sleep and I told her I didn't
  know.  "Put on your gear," she
  said, and I woke up scared.

 III.
 I dreamt there was a corridor
 leading from a street to a
 cave.  People who entered the
 corridor vanished and I knew
 they were destroyed.

In dream number one, the dreamer was saying goodbye to his old neighborhood going from house to house. From house to house tells me there is a place between these houses. That is where we should look for the middle sym bol. The dreamer said there was something between his trips. Remember the snow? The snow is the middle sym bol. The impression it gave our dreamer was that it slowed him down; it hindered him. The impression of dream num ber one is therefore hindrance. Is that the choice you made?

In dream number two, the dreamer was about to close a door when something opened the door causing the dream er to fall in a faint to the floor. Her family didn't believe the story but when the door closed her sister believed her and told her to get away. The symbol between people be lieving her and not believing her was what opened and closed the door. That symbol is the middle. The impres sion that middle symbol gave was one of fear. The im pression of the middle symbol scared the dreamer into a faint and scared her into awakening. The impression therefore in dream two is, scary. What was your choice?

In the last dream of this series, dream number three, a corridor between a street and a cave should immediately strike you as the middle symbol. Any description of be tweenness is your signal that this is the middle symbol. Now, what did the dreamer get from this corridor? He got the impression that the corridor was destroying people. The impression in dream number three is "de stroying."

The three impressions of these dreams were: I. hindrance, II. scary, and III. destroying. Did your choices for impressions compare with mine in any way?

21

Two out of three isn't bad. If you didn't do as well as you thought you should have, don't be discouraged. There are many more examples we can do together and still some examples you can try on your own. In every dream you dream yourself you should be trying to find the middle and your impression of it. Remember, if you are going to or already have tried this method on a friend's dream, your friend's impression of the middle is what you want, not yours. Every dream is a personal message and only the dreamer's impression of the middle symbol is important. Here's an easy one.

 I saw my brother's twin babies
 change to grown children before
 my very eyes.  I was worried
 about this.

 She was about twenty-two and
 plump, not fleshy, not fat, but
 merely rounded and not bad look-
 ing.  She had on only one piece of
 clothing.  A very long shirt like a
 night shirt.  It was coarse.

 I  saw a snowy desert with a
 yellow strip of hardly distinguish-
 able road stretched across it and
 on this road marched an empty
     :  pair of boots.

22

crush on an older woman who unfortunately died in a drowning accident.
 
 

 I saw her in the earth where
 she had been now for years.
 Her dress had rotted away.
 Shreds of cloth merged with
 dry bones while the strand
 of hair that used to slip down
 over her cheek was stuck fast
 to her skull.

 I'm in a prison break and me
 and my fellow prisoners take
 a guard hostage.  We got the
 son of a bitch but he won't
 talk to the police outside to
 negotiate a deal.  He just
 grits his teeth and smiles
 smugly.

What if you saw perfection? Could you improve and learn from this perfection? What if the per fection was your impression of the middle of your dream? What if that impression of the middle were perfection be cause it was always wrong wrong for you now until your next dream. Wouldn't it be advisable to avoid something perfectly wrong? OUR IMPRESSION OF THE MIDDLE IS SOMETHING WE SHOULD LEARN TO AVOID. That's the lesson in every dream. AVOID BECOMING YOUR IM PRESSION OF THE MIDDLE. That impression of the mid dle is perfectly wrong. Knowing your impression is perfect ly wrong about anything all the time, no exception, is a blow to any person's pride; but you can think of this impres sion of yours as a constant, as a beacon of light shining from a lighthouse on the rocky shores of life. It's always warning you not to endanger your ship. It sends you away but leaves you plenty of other ports to call on. It sends you sailing on and gives you a day's life that is a little less im perfect. Every perfectly wrong thing you can eliminate from your life tends to lead your life closer to the perfectly

24

right. It really works! Trying this method wil be the only way you will know if I am right or wrong. Do you think you are ready? This is the method that will answer "What does it mean?"
 
 

 I dreamed I saw the Macedon-
 ian army all on fire and their
 leader, Alexander the Great,
 waiting for me clad in the same
 clothes as I had worn when I
 was a courier to the late king
 of Persia.  Alexander vanished
 out of sight into the temple of
 Belus.  I awoke.

25

ander's disciplined army, which he personally led, gained the advantage, won the battle and eventually vanquished all of Persia. Darius was caught by some of his army try ing to vanish from the country after this disaster and was executed by his own guard. For want of a dream? We don't know what would have happened if Darius had listened to his dream's message and avoided vanishing, but it sure makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Try giving the answer to this dream question using an other historical dream. Don't worry, you won't change history for the worse if you get it wrong. Answer the question this Greek general might have asked you when he was trapped between a deep river behind him and an army of Persians before him. He knows this time he won't be able to withstand the Persian offensive and yet re treat across a deep strong river will be too slow. His forces will be cut down by Persian arrows. The general falls asleep pondering the situation and awakens after this dream, asking you the interpreter, "What does it mean?" This is the dream.
 

   I was tied up with thick ropes
   so tightly I could not move.  Sud-
   denly the ropes fell away of their
   own accord allowing me to walk
    freely unencumbered in any di-
   rection.

26

decision is that the general should avoid freeing himself in any direction as the ropes did. A large bag of gold for you, because a messenger brought news during the night some soldiers called to some girls across the river that was thought too deep to cross and after conversation, the girls invited the soldiers to cross at a secret location up the river, not just anywhere, but at a ford where the water was shallow. Only thighhigh was the water all the way across. Congratulate yourself. You told the general to avoid freeing himself in any direction. Now he knows he must walk in a very special direction.

After you've rested and enjoyed that bag of gold, try another dream.
 

 I crossed a bridge.  The water
 was surging on both sides of
 the bridge.  The high water
 made it very dangerous.  The
 bridge was very close to the
 water but it was a sturdy
 bridge and I crossed it safe-
 ly.  Now I am in a place with
 many people.  Someone is
 telling me about a dream and
 suggests that I paint it.  I can-
 not paint someone else's dream.
 I can only paint what is real-
 ly mine. Now I see the suggest-
 ed dream picture.  It is not real
 because the image is lying flat.
 Now, as I contemplate the scene,
 I see the whole thing.  The im-
 age is lying flat on a circular
 island, in the center of a most
 beautiful blue lake, surround-
 ed by a verdant landscape
 of trees and an ethereal sky
 It has a mystical duality of
 atmosphere in a spherical
 depth.But I am distressed
 becausethe image is lying flat.
 Now as I look and contem-
 plate this scene, the image

  of its own motion is lifted into
  a vertical position.  I see it clear-
  now.  It  is an oval stone, life-
  size, smooth and polished.  It
  is about one foot in thickness,
  and 6, 8, or 10 feet tall, with a
  white figure carved in the lapis
  lazuli of a ring, only life-sized.
  The figure incised in the stone
  looked archaic Greek or like an
  ancient prophet.  What disap-
  pointed me was the fact that
  the reverse side of the stone
  was unknown.  It had no figure
  on it.  Now it is all clear to me.
  I see the picture of what I am
  supposed to paint.

My editor wanted me to cut this dream in half but don't let its length be misleading. There is a repetitive theme. See if you can find it with me. Look for the middle in each segment. There is the first part of the dream, when the dreamer crosses a bridge; the part when the dreamer sees someone else's dream, and the vision of a large blue stone. Lapis lazuli means blue stone. Read the dream again and try to find the strongest impressions the dreamer received from ththe three segments. (The fourth segment was an- other impression of segment two.)

The first middle symbol was the bridge. It held two shores in common, separated the water into two sides, and gave the dreamer an impression of being close but safe. The second middle symbol is the segment about the many people and the one person who together proposed the dreamer paint a dream. This dream-in-a-dream is set in the middle of a blue lake. It has to be a middle symbol doesn't it? The third middle symbol is the lapis lazuli segment. This stone held two different sides in common: the

28

side with a figure and the side without. We have three mid dle symbols now: the bridge, the dream in a dream, and the stone. Next we must find the impressions these middle symbols gave. The bridge was close and safe. The dream was distressingly flat. The stone's most impressive side was disappointingly figureless. The fourth and final im pression is: Flat is what I'm supposed to paint. Now give the answer to the question, "What does it mean?" The message is avoid becoming close, flat and figureless. This is the dream of a celebrated painter, Irene Pereira. She took the dream to mean she needed more depth in her painting and therefore she changed her whole approach. The technique she used after this dream, making her paintings fuller and more whole, changed her life.

We know from the dream she should have avoided a disappointingly flat image. We used a logical quasi-sci- entific approach to arrive at our conclusion. The artist used an intuitive approach. Unlike Hitler's intuitive in terpretation, Irene Pereira's intuitive interpretation was rightand the world gained beautiful art. Intuition is fine when you're right, but when you're wrong it can be hell for you and everyone around you. That is why a human decision based on both the intuitive dream and the logical brain makes the system you are using in this book both reliable and fail-safe.

Try a short dream now by yourself. You must be getting a little tired.
 

 I keep having dreams about
 losing my teeth.

 A large alley cat got hold of
 my arm and I couldn't get free.
 I called for help but nobody
 could hear me.  The cat had strong,
tight gripping jaws. I was helpless."

 
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We have here jaws, a strong middle symbol, for there is an upper and lower jaw with a gripping, a tight gripping between them. Tight gripping jaws gave this dreamer the impression of helplessness. The message is avoid becom ing like the cat in this dream. Avoid making yourself and others feel helpless. I haven't forgotten to ask you to ana lyze the dream previous to this cat dream. I just wanted to hold off long enough to let you hear the cat dream. Here's why. The last dream was dreamt by the mother of the dreamer who kept losing her teeth. Did you make the teeth dream out to be telling its dreamer to avoid becoming lost? Good. Now try to look at the two dreams together. A mother is being warned to avoid becoming like a cat with a tight grip and her daughter is being warned to avoid be coming lost. Sometimes mothers can be so loving that they lead their children's lives in an attempt to keep the children from pitfalls. This can make the child feel helpless without the guiding hand of the parent. This dependency can make the child a failure when it comes to making her onw life.

Those two last dreams were quite revealing put together, weren't they? You might like to try that when you become more comfortable reading dreams. Remember the message of your last night's dream when you read a dream of some one else's that day. The results may be very startling and useful.

The following dream is the dream of someone who has never known any real success in life.
 
 

    I dreamed I saw a pile of dead
    bones lying in the road.  I had a
    gun and fired into the heap of
    bones.  Instantly the bones were
    galvanized and assembled them-
    selves into the body of a man.

                 Can you identify the middle symbol of this 30 nightmare? Did you say the gun? The gun that magically transformed bones into a brand new human beig is the middle symbol and also the message, which is: avoid magic transformations. Avoid trying to transform a life--yours or another's-- radically. This dream was told to me by a sick man who had, in his own words, sacrificed everything he possessed to become a poet. He had even sacrificed his own material body and become stricken with a chronic lung condition (an organ that astrologists and psychiatrists say represents ex pression in words.)

The man now informs me that he wants to get bet ter, to stop neglecting his material body. He wants his physicians to give him medications and vitamin that will transform him back again into a man of ordinary good health all at once. Presto-Change-O! He is wil- ling even to sacrifice his calling as a poet if that will mean he can be healthy again. My advice to him was, avoid extreme transformations. Take your time; make gradual changes. Becoming what you want to be is an evolutionary process which may include a working out of a personal karma through a certain amount of suf fering, but that suffering itself is not the goal.
 
 

Suppose you do not remember your dream. Because you do not consciously recall your dream, the middle sym bol would have to be quite near the point of being on the threshhold of your memory to be experienced as déja vu. In fact, the stronger the impression it makes on you in your dream, the more likely the dream symbol will be re-exper- ienced as déja vu. In fact, I believe that déja vu is only a very strong impression of the middle broken out into the awakened state of a dreamer who does not try to remem- ber dreams but may pooh-pooh them or consciously try to forget them. If you can remember every dream, you can ex perience the déja vu that other dreamers only sense rarely. . I will further say, dreamers who do not remember their dreams re-experience their encounters with the middle, but because they have sublimated that memory are not aware of this experience when it recurs except in the cases when the middle impression is too strong to be ignored and for ces itself through the dreamer's self-imposed barriers. Déja vu can be either frightening or pleasurable but it is always a mysterious experience. I believe that if you do not heed the warning of your dream's message,

32

the experience of déja vu will be an unpleasant one. I believe this experience will exercise control over you rather than be perceived as a spectator views an exciting movie. If a horror movie is too terrifying, you can walk out on it. Or you may enjoy the excitement because you know when it is over you can go home the same way you came in. But, if you suddenly became a character in the movie and every attempt you made to extricate yourself from that movie only became the next frame in that film, you certainly would not go home feeling the same way you did when you came in. How do you keep your perspective in the audience and enjoy the movie rather than lose your perspective and be come a puppet in a scenario written and directed by others?

The secret is in whether you heed the dream's warning or not. Heed the dream's warning and the middle symbol's impression will come to you in a way you can control, a way you can handle as you handle the terror of a horror show. Only it will be a lot more exciting than a movie be cause the movie will be your own life. You will direct the most lavish movie ever made: your destiny. If, however, you do not heed the dream's warning, you will be caught up in a no-escape contract to perform what you must and not what you choose. You will become the central figure in a tragedy that you cannot leave with the spilled pop corn and sticky floors of a movie house. Here is an exam ple of what you don't want to do.
 
 

 There seems to be a deathlike
 stillness about me.  Then I hear
 sobs, as if a number of people
 were weeping.  I thought I left
 my bed and wandered down-
 stairs.  There the silence was
 broken by the same pitiful sob-
 bing, but the mourners were in-
 visible. I went from room to room.
 No living person was in sight but
 the same mournful sounds of
 distress as I passed along.  It

 33
 

  was light in all the rooms and
  every object was familiar to me.
  But where were all the people
  who were grieving as if their
  hearts would break? I was puz-
  zled and alarmed.  What could
  be the meaning of all this?
  Determined to find the cause of
  a state of things so mysterious
   and so shocking, I kept on until
  I arrived at the East Room,
  which I entered. There I met
  with a sickening surprise.  Be-
  fore me was a catafalque on
  which rested a corpse wrapped
  in funeral vestments.  Around it
  were stationed soldiers who were
  acting as guards, and there was
   a throng of people, some gazing
   mournfully upon the corpse whose
  face was covered, others weeping
  pitifully.  "Who is dead in the
  White House?" I demanded of one
  of the soldiers.  "The President"
  was his answer.  "He was killed
  by an assassin."  Then came a
  loud burst of grief from the crowd
  which awoke me from my dreams.

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aide, who had always been concerned with his lack of se curity and whom we can thank for the recording of this dream, Lincoln noted that the dream did disturb him but even if it were a true omen, he thought there was no way it could be stopped. He thought that it was the will of God and the good Lord knew best about these things. Lincoln's incredible fatalism was a contributing cause of his death. I believe the event of his death could have been avoided had he heeded his dream warning. Instead, he made no extra arrangements for his security, much to the anguish of the aide who recorded this dream.

Will you, having properly read your dream's warning, be able to predict what form your "confirmation" or déja vu will take? Absolutely not. Heed your dream's warning and know only that what you were warned about will come to you in a harmless form. The middle will appear to you as a confirmation, to confirm that your dream reading was correct and worthwhile. Foreknow ledge of the comfirmation scenario will always remain a mystery. Be grateful for little things, like avoiding as sassination or bad paintings, but never be greedy enough to ask why or for what purpose. That is as bad as ig noring the message altogether. When asked when and now your confirmation might come, a great man once said that it would suffice to be prepared. When it shall come or what it shall look like will be of no con sequence, for you will be ready. Let's look at another example of this experience of déja vu following a dream from the chronicles of the famous American frontiersman, Frederic Remington, in his book Frederic Remington's Own West.
     An Indian scout, caught in a blizzard on the American plains, retells a dream he had while he took shelter.
 
 
 

 A girl what I was use know she
 come drop, drop out of de sky,
  She had kettle of boil meat,

35

  but she was not come right up,
  was keep off jus' front of my
  pony.  I was run after de girl,
  but she was float 'long front
  of me--I could not catch her.

36

safety of their camp. This reasoning rang loudly in the scout's mind. He had just had a dream where the middle symbol was an enticing kettle of hot food that was un- catchable. Wasn't the camp of his fellow scouts enticing with its warm fire, safely hidden near danger? The impact of this strange coincidence caused a stunning reply that almost spoke itself from the lips of the cold and hungry scout. Here was a man who had just struggled through a blizzard and had a long journey, probably dangerous, ahead of him and he, well let him tell you what he said: "I say, by gar, I am woman; I have got sense. You wan' stay here, you be dead. Den I take my pony un I go 'way een de dark..."

The scout avoided the warm and illusory safety of camp to continue to his destination despite warnings of danger and delivered his dispatch alive and well. His fellow scouts who stayed behind in their warm, safe, uncatchable position were attacked by the Indians they warned the scout about. One was killed; he other bare ly escaped. Lincoln did not take his dream's message and apply it to his life. That was God's job, he said. Lincoln became the dream's middle, a dead man. The Indian scout took his dream's message to heart and left nothing to God or fate that he could not handle himself. He avoided becoming safe. He refused to be complacent. The confirmation of his decision came to him in the form of news that what he avoided was not the illusion of comfort and safety it seemed to be. In fact, its safety was an illusion cloaking death and injury. President Lincoln received his confirmation of the dream's validity in a terrible fashion. He became the news of what should have been avoided.

The confirmation will come. How you want to receive it is your choice. You can take it the easy way in news of others or you can take it the hard way and become the news. Either way, its coming is inevitable. It is written but you can edit it. Here's another example. A man in prison often dreams a dream like this. It is taken from the book The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer.
 
 

           37
 

  I see demons, they pull in harness
  like oxen, a wood creaking tumbrel,
   a grey wood tumbrel through the
  cobbled streets of my ancient mind.

38
    V. Your Bootstraps  
Now you know the four steps in my method of reading dreams. You have learned to (1) find the middle, (2) dis cern the dreamer's impression of that middle, and (3) know that the impression is the message detailing what the dream er should avoid in himself. You also know, (4) that if you remember to implement this message of warning or avoid ance, that as confirmation, dÄja vu will come to you. Read ing along with me through the examples in this book may have been quite easy because they were dreams of others or imaginary dreams of your own, but if you have tried this method on a few of your own dreams you know, presuming you found the message in your dream, that remembering to implement this message in your daily routine is far from easy. It takes a tremendous amount of will power just to remember the message, let alone to implement it. I call this implementation your bootstraps.

A pair of good high boots are great protection against the weather but they're a pain in the neck to get on and off, aren't they? You can only have beauty at a cost. The cost of the beautiful experience of dÄja vu will be the tremendous effort you must put forth in remember ing dreams, pleasant and unpleasant, sorting through the distracting and sometimes frightening accompany ing symbols which direct you to the middle, and imple menting the messages to replace your customary routine behavior. You are trying to eradicate a part of your behavior that is imperfect. That behavior is very com fortable not because it is good for you but because it is easy. You have been doing it for a long time. It makes no demands on your creativity.

We have a chance every day to create a better self, but if we do not exercise that freedom the self that is left will stand for a while, but its deterioration in time will make us feel tired, blasÄ, bored, depressed, and even sick. Manyof us have nothing to identify with but the body we live in. It dies a little every day. That is why we must counter death with the creative life of be havioral change. Creation brings new life into the world.

39

a new personality? Your new personality doesn't have to be a whole lot different from the one from yesterday, but if it is a little improved because you avoided an imperfec tion to which you were once susceptible, it is a new person ality. Just as you don't ordinarily die a whole lot every day physically, so too your new personality; it may hardly be perceptible as changed, is a little newer; it has a little more life.

People who experience great physical changes due to ac cident, misfortune, or disease make great changes in their personalities to cope with their different physical selves. It is obvious to them that a change is in order for their per sonality. Whether they consciously make a change for the better and create a new life in the part of themselves they still have whole, or are overwhelmed by the change they have been reluctant to make because of the shock they may have suffered from their sudden physical alteration, change inevitably occurs. These people experience the change or the need for it more deeply than those whose phy sical changes creep over them almost imperceptively day by day. Again, whether you make the inner changes suddenly because of sudden outward changes or put the changes off because the outward changes are not perceptible, the chan ges must be made with your consent or over your objection. The postponing of the creation of a new personality to cope with your different physical body can put unbearable stress on you. This is how people end up seeking help from emotional distress. They seek it from many sources: friends, clergy, physicians, psychiatrists, druggists, travel agents, and prayer. Seldom do they seek help from dreams, yet dreams are the most effective help because they are always receptive to your needs. Because they are a part of your totality, they have a personal stake in your well-being and happiness. Then too, your dreams are always available to you. You must, however, have the will-power

40

to remember the dreams and faith in their message to implement that message. If you can just analyze one dream correctly and implement its message, and exper ience the dÄja vu that confirms your will-power as real ly a true power, you are on your way. You will have picked yourself up by your bootstraps and you will have become a little more alive in the face of the little death we daily die.

When you go to sleep your body falls asleep early while your mind may be still winding down. The time difference between these two events allows your mind to act as a king of time machine. It continues to calcu late and plan your next moves in the great game of life, creating a best case and worst case scenario for your immediate future. How far into the future your mind calculates depends on the gap of time there might be between your body falling asleep and your mind falling asleep. The greater the gap, the greater the future pro jection. The best case scenario created is you yourself, how you acted in your dream. All that is you in the is ahead of you in time. It is ahead of you because it was seen by parts of you that were too overworked to relax with the rest of you. You are seeing the future of your weakest faculties.

If you were to stare at a lightbulb too long, when you closed your eyes you would see a lightbulb. You overworked those receptors in your eye and brain that can receive such information. There are receptors in your brain for every conceivable event. When they are overworked they too will project into the darkness of your closed eyes all they were not able to hold in the vessel of your being. They are evoking an impression of what limped into the future. If you can remember your dream you can remember that future. Your im- pression was excited by those windows to the world to come. How you reacted to what you saw was your best case scenario. It was the strength of your rested self acting on your life's weakness.

When you experience déja vu, you see it all a second time but unlike the person who forgot his

41

dream, you will have a good chance to make sure you're on the right side of destiny. It's a nice trick if you can get it. If you do, you will be a step ahead of everyone else.

Understanding dreams as sore spots that need rest is the first step in using dreams instead of being used by them. Like the chain reaction in mob violence, the plethora of senses we feel in dreams can possess us. Don't let that happen to you. Share the cosmos with them instead.

It's  easier than you've ever dreamed.

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Dubetz, Anthony (1998 May). Easy Dreams: Making Nightmares Pay (Part IV). Electric Dreams 5(5). Retrieved July 8, 2000 from Electric Dreams on the World Wide Web: http://www.dreamgate.com/electric-dreams

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