Let Your Dreams Guide You

One of the best things I've learned from following my dreams for over 30 years is that I'm my own authority when it comes to me. 

There is no need to give my soul into another's care; she's my responsibility. Contemporary patriarchal religions claim they will save my soul. She doesn't need saving, save from them.

I'm a spiritual being having a physical existence; dreaming is the bridge between the realm of my spiritual being and the physical realms "I" dwell in now.

Why would I give anyone authority over my soul?  So much of what these religions espouse denigrates woman, that's what's damaging to my soul, my psyche. It's damaging to the male psyche, as well. Myths we've imbibed since childhood, especially when we're parked in "church" and religious studies early on, endure at an unconscious level. 

One example is the psychically imbedded patriarchal myth that woman is the patsy of all evil, "woman born of the rib of man" (go figure), Eve; she who crossed an arbitrary line and wham, all Hell literally breaks lose.  There's also the patriarchal Greek version of this  dumb, trespassing woman, Pandora.  Those myths are a heavy burden on womankind.  

Religions like Catholicism, Orthodox Judaism and most Islamic sects from what I can tell, see women as threats to man's ultimate spiritual sanctity.  His Holiness the Man can be sullied by her unholiness, the woman, therefore justifying her pitiful place in the pecking order of His patriarchal society.

The Good News is I don't need religion because dreams teach me the most profound and the most practical lessons, in a custom tailored narrative. 

I follow my dreams in the most literal sense. In this way, I live twice as long, in both the spiritual and physical worlds at once. This allows me to replace belief with experience.  I don't believe in life after death, I know life after death is the next stage of my own and all physical adventures. I trust my own spiritual experiences in dreams to assure me and sustain me in waking life.

Dreams guide me through my experiences in waking life, too.  As I say in my bio on this blog, they've helped me, comforted me, disabused me of illusions, scared the pajamas off me and lent me strength.  They teach in amusing, often kind ways, though sometimes, they're heart thunderingly scary.

Along with dreams, there's synchronicity, dubbed that by Jung to describe the psychic phenomenon of "acausal connections." Castaneda's Shaman teacher, Don Juan, calls it "Agreement. It's that wonderful thrill of recognition we experience when life's physical events echo our inner worlds, especially the dream worlds. I see it as another bridge between waking and spiritual life. It's that deja vu feeling; or as Robert Moss has pointed out, it's probably really Deja Reve. 

When something from the dream worlds manifests in waking, it's also an affirmation that there is guidance and support available from other dimensions. I live in more than just this physical reality; I walk a path in waking life and I walk a path in dream realities.  I pay attention to both.  From my dream path, I know I'm not alone.   I know I am loved, connected and assisted; dreams allow me to explore the mystery of existence for myself, which is how I take responsibility for my own soul. My soul is an eternal reality, so it's my soul  that seeks connection to me.  It's my Soul who is saving me.  My Soul or as some teachers refer to it, my Higher Self.  I connect to my soul most strongly through my dream experiences.

Dreams bring healing with them when we pay attention and respect them. Listening to our own dreams, seeking our inner guides first hand is a great adventure.  If it seems like scary terrain, it might be worth getting a dream coach; otherwise, it should be as easy as riding a bike when we were kids.  We all dream; pay attention, why not? It's an organic avenue to self awareness and self-love

Here's a story that illustrates the dream/synchrocity connection.  I often have post dream teaching life synchros; they're like a huge hug from another world.  

I recently taught a workshop at a local university; a young woman shared a dream about seeing a dear sweet Huskie pup in desperate need of rescue and yearning to do something to save it. At the end of our Lighting Dreamwork process, she announced that she was definitely going to volunteer at her local animal shelter, as she had been wanting to do.  The next day I'm at Petco for cat supplies and see that they're running a special adoption clinic event for dogs from some awful puppy mill, mostly pit bulls or similar breeds.  The sight of those dogs in cages and numerous people there to adopt put me in mind of yesterday's dreamwork.  The synchronicity really hit, though, when, standing in the check out line, I turn to see that the man behind me has a young, beautiful blue-eyed Huskie on a leash. Immediately the dog jumps, places his paws on my shoulders and stares into my eyes.  Whoa!  Deja Reve!  I felt animal love so profound that, if that man hadn't already adopted him, that little boy would have come home with me.  I did leave the store with those physical shivers of recognition that synchronicity induces; a kind of spiritual high-five.

When I taught high school theology, I tried to apply the learning model that derives from Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, (physical, security, belonging, self-esteem, self-actualization): we learn best by experience, second best by example and least best by being told.  I still find that's true.  

Dreams are experiences, just like waking events are, experiences in my life.  I don't need to be told what to believe. As Jung once cryptically said, I know.  I know what I know, what I don't know, I've yet to find out.  What you know is part of your story.  We can share our stories, we can use our imaginations to place ourselves in another's dream scenario, but we cannot live a dream or a life for another. We each have our own path to follow; our own actions to live out in lessons and consequences.  The best way to teach another how to understand dreaming is to point to the door available in their souls and show them how it opens. The worst way is to presume to tell someone else what their dream means.

By way of convincing us to pay attention, pre-cognitive dreams are one of the most compelling dream experiences we can have. When a dream weaves itself into the fabric of my lived experiences, the next day, the next month or the next decade, I realize there's more to me than meets the I.  I'm not alone; guidance is available to me through dreams.  Something beyond this physical world makes sense, help is available, if I pay attention.

So, I invite you to let your dreams guide you. All it takes is paying attention to your dreaming experiences.  Even when dreams don't manifest in waking life literally, their symbols and scenarios are often vibrant  metaphors for our waking experiences.  Giving dreams space to exist in my life, as real as any other real I can experience, broadens my perspective on existence considerably.  Most dreamers find this to be true; why not you?

Precognitive and Prophetic Dreaming

What good is dreaming the future if you can't do anything about it?  What purpose do precognitive and prophetic dreams serve?

I use precognitive and prophetic to describe dreams that subsequently take place in the dreamer's waking reality.  Precognitive are dreams that cover the a-z of dreaming the future, from an object seen in a dream and then viewed in waking reality shortly after, to a person we end up meeting, a job we end up taking, a person we end up parting from in sorrow or joy.

Prophetic dreams are life map dreams, often including collective unconscious material, like what the political climate will be like, etc.  In Jungian terms, they are archetypal, they are talking about a much bigger picture than our little hobbit lives encompass.  I've written about a few of mine, Howling Mary, being especially significant to me, but also, Crocodile Friday and my 1995 visit from dad, which though I didn't get the happy ending I was hoping for then, it continues to guide my present.

One of the great gifts Active Dreaming has given me is the triple door approach to dreaming.  1. I can go through the analytical door of my Jungian fondness and dwell on symbolic meaning as it relates to my ego led waking life. 2. I can accept that we dream the future all the time, so I journal regularly and take a reality check on every dream for possible scenarios in waking life. 3.  I can enter consciously into the other dimensions, the foreign inner-space countries, where my fortunes, luck and personal satisfactions are also made. I can walk through any of these doors to a dream, or sometimes, all three at the same time, as that's the way of dreams.

For this, and other vibrant approaches to dreaming, I recommend and frequently write about, Active Dreaming, created by Robert Moss.  His work opens new vistas into how we approach dreaming; it teaches us to live our best dreams and confront our worst with courage and creativity.

But back to the psychic gifts of dreaming; what good is it knowing the shit was going to hit the fan if you can't get out of the way?

For me the best answers come from my dreams and what they've taught me.

#1.  Physical reality isn't all there is; physical laws and statistical probabilities sometimes give way to the pure intention and whole-hearted effort of heart-centered people.  So be a heart-centered person.

#2  Pay attention to what you're doing in those precognitive or prophetic dreams and reality check yourself for what you can do in waking life now.  It doesn't have to be grandiose; it does have to be kind, self-less and contributing to the good of others, as well as of yourself.  Think outside the Box!

#3  Heal you're own inner wounding because it can blind you to what your ego is really up to if you don't face your unfaceable stuff, your shadow, your fears, your pain.  Patriarchy produces emotional stuntedness; all those thou shalt nots, cruel and illogical taboos, especially if you're a woman, add up to psychic wounding for many.  It's your own job, as a spirit leading a physical life, to find your way home, to the light.  It's the job of every one who finds their way to help someone groping in the dark. So, physician heal thyself is an ongoing mandate; dreams are important guides to healing, personally and collectively.

#4. Dreams keep me focused on the alternate realities that my spirit can access for sustenance and guidance (not to be confused with alternate facts, which have no reality).   When I'm overwhelmed by fear of the future, I remember that I dreamed this already and that dreams have and will always guide me on my best path forward.  I can take strength from remembering that I volunteered for physicality in this time and this place and so I can just continue doing what I'm called by my heart to do and carry on, best I can, until I cross out of here or turn things around.  Even when I do shuffle off this mortal coil, I'll volunteer for dream duty on the other side in gratitude for all the guidance I've received myself.

#5 I've heard baby-boomers joke about the surreal nature of our present reality, why not drop some acid again and get a level playing field?  May I suggest that dreams open the same portals that LSD opens, not every dream, but once we tune ourselves to living our dream life as fully as our waking, things make a lot more sense.  Not to mention, if you're really into experimenting, try conscious lucidity and self induced OBEs.

#6 Sometimes when there are no answers, there's purpose. Our Native American ancestors knew that dreams tell us the secret wishes of our soul.

One of my fondest dad dream visits was one in which he helped me escape some evil men, saying to me before he intervened for me to run, "You have no idea how important this mission is."

Okay dad, if you say so, I'll do my best.

The Big Dream Picture

I’ve had enough of the Hillary hating.  I expect it from Trump-trumpeters, but from Bernie Sander’s supporters?

Why?  Why this exorbitant degree of visceral hating for a person who has done more than most to serve her country in a variety of exceedingly demanding offices, taking on civic responsibilities that far exceed what the average Joe or Jill ever gives in service for their country. 

I once had a very special dream, a birthday present to me, as it was my birthday.  It was a few years after my dad had crossed over. He’d visited me before in dreams, but he hadn’t in a while.  Papi and I stood in front of a giant screen TV watching rebellions around the world ignite into bloody battles, the dis-empowered fighting the might of the privileged in power. 

In the dream, we both know it’s a huge uprising of clashing male ideologies; yet also that the Feminine is rising.  He says; “It’ll be a blood bath” as he looks on what this huge TV is broadcasting.  I turn my eyes from the screen to him and say; “Patriarchy has been one blood bath after another.”

I love this dream.  First of all, it was a genuine visitation, me - him, on the same side, watching and observing.  This dream came over twenty years ago, but I think of it over and over as I watch the world explode in rage and raging, on small and large scales. Patriarchy has been one blood bath after another.

Secondly, it’s palpably precognitive. The first clue for me is in the imagery  of transmission via TV, screens or other communication devices.  It’s a clever dream ploy for; “Hey, here’s some possible news of interest for you.  Now, what, while awake, will you do about it? Like it or not, here it comes.”

My waking response is to dream the future I want to see happen with all my might, while there’s still a chance we can make a difference at this important juncture in our collective human existence on the planet.  In our situation, right now, it’s up to each individual to contribute something while here in the physical. 

Hillary Rodham Clinton is the best person for the critically sensitive job of POTUS, the spokesperson for our country, at this important moment in time. Here's an excellent explanation of why written by Michael Arnovitz.  Our present POTUS, who according to most recent polls, has earned our collective respect, also thinks so.  As another dream I’ve already told you about implies, it’s up to each of us to preside over the good we do on this planet. We need a spokesperson who can navigate the current patriarchal minefield of explosive situations, here and around the world, so each of us is free do our own wee bit.

The Dalai Lama has credited western women with the potential to save the world. I believe we have the monumentally important opportunity to set an example for the world and tell everybody it’s time to start listening to their mamma.  It’s time we take women’s position in the world ultra-seriously, and what better way for us Americans to send that message than to elect this very qualified and extremely well vetted candidate? 

Ironically, the reactions I often hear from Hillary haters seem a bit hysterical and without solid underpinning in fact. I ask myself, what is this visceral reaction some people have to Hillary Clinton?  Honestly, what has she done so wrong as to merit such hostile disdain?  People say she’s a liar, but as Arnovitz points out, she is considered the most truthful of all the 2016 candidates by the fact checking organization, Politifact. She's had to endure an insane number of lies and disrespect, aimed at her by both self-described “conservatives” and “liberals" yet, she continues to win supporters and forge ahead.

Is she a person who’s changed, evolved and grown; most definitely. You can’t take on the jobs representing this country to the vast and diverse world as successfully as she has and not actually change and grow.  Been around the world lately, sitting in pow-wow with some of the most dangerous and, sometimes, misogynist men on the planet, have you?   Why do people trivialize the things this person has accomplished? 

Well, honestly, I did see it happen over and over again to President Obama.  The disrespect and dismissal from the pea-brain populace, the obstructionism of the Republican party, blatant, ignorant knee jerk racism, has been embarrassing to witness.  Interestingly, almost all of it is confined to the US.  President Obama has been highly respected around the world since his first inauguration; he is now, highly respected at home, as well. Is there, as Arnovitz points out in his excellent analysis, a strong sexist current beneath the vitriol towards HRC, as well?

Probably. It may seem hard to believe, but patriarchal sexism is a deeply entrenched psychic paradigm, perhaps more deeply entrenched than racism.  It bears examining; is it about a woman flying the plane?    Like President Obama, I think HRC, once in office, will work well with diverse groups, and, hopefully, given her strong and capable network of supporters, accomplish a great many of the social reforms listed in the democratic platform.

The voting decision of each person in this presidential election is of great consequence.  It’s an opportunity for us to carry forward a rational and heart full agenda for our planet, not just for us, for generations to come around the world.  We just have to survive our huge mistakes until we can fix them.  HRC is the best person for the presidential job at this time.  Her most vital qualifications to me are that I trust her to make good judgments in difficult circumstances that will affect me directly as a citizen of this country and to protect my civil liberties and respect my contributions, which are my civic duty to make. 

The body politic is us.  We aren’t voting for a personality, or a high school class president, we’re voting for POTUS. It’s not just about HRC, it’s about us.  We need a chance, each of us, to make things right, to work on the platform issue we feel near and dear to our hearts.  So, please, don’t make this a personality contest; check your facts.  Her service is public record; she has been the target of scandal after scandal propagated by her political enemies, but she is always exonerated and continues in public service.  

If you don’t like her, at least revue the platform she’s running on.  Why do you think Sen. Sanders endorsed her?  Does it come as a surprise; didn’t you watch the respect he showed her from the first debate?  The man likes her and will be a good ally to her.  All of a sudden you don’t respect him?  He’s a sell out?  Read the platform she will be promoting and compare it to Drumpf’s, or the Republican party's; good luck with that.  Above all, don’t abandon this country in a snit of righteous indignation. I’ve even heard some disgruntled Berners say it would serve this country right if we get Trump.  Really?  How is that going to help anything? If you can't trust Hillary Clinton, please ask yourself how we progressives will fare in a Trump presidency.  And, trust Bernie; he's the same guy he was when you supported him and he asks you to vote for her. 

This election isn't about HRC.  It’s about what a wise idea it is to keep someone level-headed and responsible in the highest office of the land and one of the most prestigious in the world.  It’s an important job.  Who is best qualified?  Wasn't she the first to courageously champion universal health care in America; that's one of the platform items Bernie and she share.    What does Trump stand for; what's his platform?  

I just hope that when push comes to shove, people vote with a deep consideration of what the outcome of that vote is likely to be.  I dream an America where a capable woman is finally awarded the most important job in the world. I dream of a world in which each of us feels free to make a positive contribution.  I envision us evolving out of bloody patriarchal mindsets, into an expanded awareness of our collective capacity to solve problems without bloodbaths.  I want the happy ending; don’t you?

The Unconscious and Dreaming

http://www.psycheproductions.net/index.html

I’m working with a wonderful student in a Master’s program who wants to do her final project 

on understanding the unconscious. Good luck, right?  I love working with motivated students  because their curiosity sparks and deepens mine.

I first met the unconscious when it hit me upside the head in dreams. As a  college senior, I experienced a whopper of a dream I titled Howling Mary; it was a powerful, precognitive, archetypal, life-mapping dream. I watched it unfold in waking life one unanticipated event after another. After this jaw dropping demonstration of the power of dreams, I embraced dreaming as a spiritual path and never looked back.  

I believe that cultivating a dream life amounts to living two lives (at least) at once, sort of double bang for your buck.  Dreams hold up mirrors to us reflecting what we need to know, nudging us towards what we need to do, prompting us to follow our own understanding and connect with our own vast souls. A dream practice can turn you from a passive persona in your waking life to a full-hearted, courageous creator of your own life in any realm. 

There are many bridges like dreaming into the unconscious, which is good because it’s better to experience the unconscious than to theorize about it. As Robert is fond of quoting from Mark Twain, "I don't want to learn about the moon from someone who hasn't been there."  Twain was a very strong dreamer and often referred to dreams in his writings.

In this new millennia, “psychology” (study of the soul) is transcending rigid objective and mechanistic paradigms. An example is the growing field of NDE, OBE, Lucid and other Dream studies.  For me, Active Dreaming offers expansive tools for inner exploration in a framework that's easy to learn and to teach, but all roads that lead Home are valid.  Each person knows their true north.

  

Develop your own dream practice and your ear is always to the ground of your Being, listening for what comes through. Dreaming is a bridge between waking and spiritual realities.  It's extremely personalized, only the dreamer can say what his or her dreams mean, but it's also universal. Around the world and across time, we all participate in a multiverse through dreaming. One dream can teach us that there is nothing to fear, not in life or in death. We're in a time of huge paradigm shifts and perhaps through our dream gates, help is on the way.  

Consider that dreaming isn't a left brain, simplistic, this or that, analytical brain kind of experience.  Dreams take place on another level of reality; they adhere to different rules, and come in many different varieties.  All dreams aren’t the same; life impacting dreams don't always come in neon. Often it’s those throw away or icky dreams that turn out to be valuable. 

When we say knowledge is power, we may be referring to consensus definitions of knowledge and of power.  But knowledge and power can also mean inner knowledge, Wisdom, and spiritual power, Love.  Mystical knowledge (spirituality) as the ancients taught,  is found in other dimensions, in dreams, visions, nature, meditation, prayer and near death moments.

Religion and spirituality aren’t the same thing; religion demands I follow rules and believe things that can prove detrimental to my soul. Religion often demands I give up my curiosity, my private search, and adhere to somebody else’s good idea about God. Spirituality, however, knows me for a spark of Divinity and asks me to act accordingly.  

One of the most wonderful things about Jesus is that he always challenged the establishment (but still listened to his mama).  What’s not to love about the guy? The kingdom of god is within; he wasn’t kidding.  But the god preserved on clay tablets is not the same as the living god/goddess of each soul. Your god may not be for me.   If you threaten to hang, quarter or behead me for following my own intuition and spiritual connection, I think you have anger issues. Vive y deja vivir.

Dreams are the royal road to my own unconscious and beyond.  Experiences in my waking life and in my dream life count equally and are the sum of my/this life experiences.  Following my dream life on a regular basis, and honoring the dream lives of others, has taught me many things that make hope possible. Isn't that why we have faith in "God?" 

I always make a small disclaimer about developing a dream practice alone because there are times for some when dreams are snarled in private nightmares rooted in traumatic waking experience. Thankfully, there are more and more healers in traditional and non-traditional roles, who can help a traumatized person rebuild that inner bridge. With time and support, may we each find our way back to center. 

The contemporary conversation on the nature of “Consciousness” is exhilirating. Does "that which we know to be ourselves" die with the physical brain or is our true nature non-physical, non-local, a spiritual reality.   And what about the Unconscious then, if Consciousness is non-local is it the same as the Unconscious? Is Consciousness a part of the whole that is the Unconscious?   Is it a matrix where each spark of consciousness glows forever?  These questions are from new frontiers.  It's an exciting time to be an explorer.

 “You are not just the drop in the ocean. You are the mighty ocean in the drop.”  

                                                                                                                                                                                      Rumi

Leave Mama a Note

Leave Mama a Note is the title of my dream; in it, me and three companions have been bunking out at a house I lived in from time to time with my parents, during my college years. To avoid my mother, we’re up and ready to leave before dawn with our backpacks and provisions. I'm not comfortable with that; I feel I owe her communication and I should leave a note.

A small dream, perhaps, but it wouldn’t let go of my imagination; it kept popping up in consciousness, and each time, I felt the certainty that I should leave Mama a note.  My dream wasn't finished.

In my dream, when we left pre-dawn in a rush because we heard her footsteps padding upstairs, we turned left and headed up the street.  In waking life, I never went up that way, since in the suburban no- sidewalk neighborhood I lived in, friends, work and stores all involved turning right. In my dream, we headed up the hill that was our street to the left and found that it ended in a wooded dead end.

I recently had the great pleasure of spending time with my dear brother and sister-in-law in those youthful parts of the country; each traveling to get there there for a family reunion picnic.  My bro and I were driving around town doing errands to help out, so I asked him  to drive to the street we lived on when we had that house.  After we checked out the house, I asked him to go up the hill.  I felt a little disappointed as the street ends in a T with houses facing the street, but as he approached the road ahead, I saw it on the right, my dream locale, a wooded dead end.

Active Dreaming teaches that dreams require action; "What are you going to do to honor this dream?” is how Robert Moss has phrased it.

The first step, after writing it down, was the opportunity to visit my dream locale. It's synchronistic that  I was able to do so soon after the dream, since it's a distance away.  Another wonderful dream synchronicity is finding the wooded area I never knew was there.  Far seeing or clairvoyance is common in dreams, though things often have some distortion; like in my dream, the dead end is front and center, not to the right, which may well bear some pondering.  What is it my dream wants me to see that's right in front of me?  I think I'll go back in a dream re-entry to this locale and take a look in the woods.

There was one more thing I knew I had to do to honor this dream; write Mama that note.  Of course, I wrote in Spanish as that’s the language we always spoke before she crossed over. 

The trick to imaginal work is to do it fast, without letting your left brain get a hold of it.  I wrote rapidly, without pre-thought.  When I finished, I felt the words as a balm for my soul and a deeper connection with my Mom.  What I said really needed saying, to her, to me; I feel very grateful for the gift this dream gave me. I'll keep the note with the dream in my journal for when I need to read it again.

Following the thread of a dream through waking life is one of the great entertainments of a dream practice.  Re-entering dreams, dialoguing with dream characters, playing synchronicity games with the universe, there are so many ways of imagining what more a dream can offer me. It's even a great practice for those moments I find myself inadvertently waiting; I can turn waiting into daydreaming. 

Probably the #1 question I get from beginners, after they tell me a dream, is “What does it mean?”  Only the dreamer can answer that; the deeper you go in your dreaming, the easier that becomes.   

What if Lincoln Had Lived in a Dreaming Society?

Coming up, just after Valentine's, is President Lincoln's Bday. One of my favorite dream stories from history is that Lincoln had a precognitive dream about his assassination ten days before he was assasinated. Here's the account told by his friend and bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon. (taken from Lehrman Institute website)

"In the last month of his life, Mr. Lincoln had several strange dreams, one of which he related to his wife and Ward Hill Lamon shortly before he was assassinated: "About ten days ago I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along. It was light in all the rooms; every object was familiar to me; but where were all the people who were grieving as if their hearts would break? I was puzzled 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. Before 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. I slept no more that night; and although it was only a dream, I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since." " Mrs. Lincoln was shocked by the story: "That is horrid! I wish you had not told it."

I ask myself, "What if Lincoln had lived in a dreaming society? What if I am president and this is my dream?"

I wake up in a sweat and say, "Holy Shit. This is serious." I calm down, take slow, deep in the belly breaths, I tell myself to calm, focus. I thank the dream source for this warning. When I feel ready, I re-enter the dream in a conscious, twilight state so I can ask some questions. I see myself before the catafalque facing the soldier who just gave me the news. I say, I am your president, tell me everything that has happened here. I engage that character until I've gotten all I can, then I turn to myself in the coffin and say, "Abe, what happened, tell me everything." After that, I raise the alarm; get all the guards organized and put everyone on the alert that an attack on the president's life is imminent"

Now, I'm ready to take action in waking life. I rouse Mary and summon Ward. Sitting at the table with tea, I share my dream with my dear, clairvoyant wife and my trusted friend. I see fear in Mary's eyes turn to resolve. She'll dream on this, too, she tells me, and consult her dream group now. Ward has summoned all the Captains of the Guard for an emergency briefing.

Indeed, the alert works. Instead of low security at the theater, the security is covert and intense. JWB is recognized as an intruder, arrested for drunken vagrancy, and kept a few days in the tank. After his hangover wears off, that moment in time is over, he gives up his lunatic ways and goes home.

This is my dream of President Lincoln's dream.

If only he hadn't said, it's only a dream. If only Mary had recognized the jolt of power in that dream instead of cringing before a possible nasty patch. If only Ward had said, so reality check, Abe. What feels most real to you about this dream? What did you find out when you went in? You've got my word I'll put together the guard, see that they all hear the dream and are on the alert. This dream's a gift, Abe.

If only Abe had lived in a dream sophisticated society. I can't help but wonder.