I feel very strongly about the power of our dreams. Dreams and dream work can greatly help you become more attuned psychically and more sensitive psychologically. With or without the DPs, your dreams give you clues for you. The more you use your dreams to work for you, the more they will enhance your ability to understand and deal with life experiences as well as open up doors to the DPs.

HOW DO WE KNOW IT'S REAL?

The ways we are communicated with and given information in our dreams are as numerous and varied as the dreams themselves. Dreams can be precognitive, symbolic, and quite literal, or all of these. The DPs' messages may as well be quite literal or symbolic.

The type of dream is one clue to its reality as DP contact. For example, people will often dream I that those who have passed over are in trouble or mad at them for some reason. These dreams, I've discovered, are most likely expressions of fears or unresolved issues that the living may have regarding the loved one in spirit. You wake up feeling your loved one in spirit is angry at you; the actuality is probably your own deep-seated guilt that you had left things unfinished, words unsaid.

Direct contact is difficult enough to determine; dream symbolism, literally, adds layers of difficulty. If you are searching to find out if your dream is symbolic or contains a DP message, you may appreciate the following technique.

WHY DO THIS EXERCISE?

All of this is a lot of work. So why are you bothering? I believe this exercise will help clarify whether you are truly being contacted by someone in spirit or whether the dream is delivering a message from your subconscious. On another level, this dream technique is a great tool to help you develop, psychically. In utilizing your dreams to work for you, you will naturally be developing your subconscious mind and begin opening that door to your higher self and the other world.

Going through this exercise will at least "clear the channels," easing many fears or helping you understand some of the unresolved issues you may have. Then maybe the next time you dream about your DPs, they may very well be able to get through to you with greater clarity.

Edgar Cayce, probably the most famous psychic-medium in this century, recounted some 1,700 dreams from people who had specific, validated information from loved ones in me spirit world. In his work, as in mine, the most frequent message they wanted the living to understand was that they were at peace, in good health, and the living need not grieve for them any longer. I have developed the dream exercise, but I haven't done any of Cayce's work on serious dream interpretation.

People do keep telling me about their dreams, though. Seance clients have mentioned dreams in the easing-off period of casual conversation after the seance. At a party, when someone finds out I'm a medium, it's almost funny. First they chuckle, I then they look uncomfortable, then they confide to me, "I had this absolutely weird dream. You wouldn't believe it." I believe it.

THE DREAM EXERCISE

STEP ONE
Quiet yourself, find your center, put aside distraction.

STEP TWO
Once you become calm, let your thoughts flow freely. Direct them only so far as to "relive" a dream. See yourself going through the dream again, observing and remembering as many details and specific images as possible. Was there a DP present? Did someone in the dream remind you of a DP? If so, keep this in mind, but don't judge or over-analyze. Don't force anything, just go through the dream, letting your thoughts flow. With this relaxed attentiveness, go through to the end of the dream.

STEP THREE
Go through the dream a second time, but this time experience becoming one of the significant personalities in the dream, as if you I were that person. Experience what he or she may be feeling as if the experience was yours. Once you have done this with one person or personality in

The dream, then go on to another. It is important to identify each other person and personality as I/me. If the other person is a DP or reminds you of a DP, what you experience by "becoming" the personality may be part of the message.

STEP FOUR
Now, see yourself going through the dream again as yourself, but this time change any detail, sequence or surrounding-anything at all you want to change about the dream. Once you have done this, change the significant personalities in the dream.

As you are making and visualizing the changes, be aware of what emotion or emotions you are going through. Be aware whether the direct changes you are making affect anyone else in the dream. How are they affected? If the dream contains a DP contact, then during the changes, you, as one of the characters in the dream, may get a primary message or experience a great wave of love, a sense of urgency, or a sense of peace- something you weren't expecting. Or you may "see" those same sensations affecting one of the other dream personalities. You will not feel guilt or anger directed at you.

Sometimes this process can be emotional but it's always better to experience as much as possible in order to understand all the aspects of the dream personalities, some of which may be reflections of yourself, or reflections of your relationship with the DP.

STEP FIVE
There are two kinds of dreams we are looking at: one dealing with your life issues and the other with DP contact. You need to determine which kind of dream you have had.

For a DP contact there are both subtle intimations and sudden clarities, there are no set rules. There are, however, some markers you may measure against.

If your relationship with a DP has been positive, you will wake up from a contact with the prevalent feeling of warmth and love. If your relationship has been negative, you may wake up in a cold sweat. What happened in the dream may not have been frightening, but the simple dream appearance or some aspect of a dream person that reminds you of the DP may trigger denial, fear, or anger. That may happen even if the DP's message was love.

Negative or positive, you will have felt yourself to be in the presence of the DP. You may not have "seen" them, but one of the personalities or one aspect of a particular personality will be evocative of them. Even if you have not pictured the DP, the experience will be vivid. You may get a message of warning or love. You may simply be told (or experience while "becoming" a personality) that they are fine. You will have to develop your own personal sense of differentiating dreams. Each experience is unique to the individual: some of you will get extremely clear messages, others will have to work to understand less specific meanings.

You can give yourself some help in advance. I suggest to clients and students that before going to sleep, you tell your higher self and the loved one in spirit that you are opening the door for communication to happen. In the end, the big leap of faith may be the determining factor in whether you believe a contact did or did not happen.

If the dream has been symbolic, with messages about your life, this is valuable, too. Review the emotions you connect to the personalities in the dream. Try to determine which personality generates which emotion in you. Is it the entire personality or some particular aspect of the personality? Consider how each of these aspects impacts on you or a life situation that is now affecting you emotionally.

ADVISORY DREAMS

It is amazing how advice we refused to accept from people when they were still alive becomes something we ask for when they pass over. Sometimes the advice from the DPs is highly charged and pertinent, other times it's pretty innocuous. Often we ask for what they cannot give. A workshop student asked about her mother: "Doesn't she know how much I need to hear from her? I need her to tell me what to do!" Well, the DPs can't always do that for you. It is your life and your responsibility to make the choices.

Another client had asked her much-loved brother, now deceased, if he could help her with her job. No, he answered in a dream three days later. "Please don't ask my help in this matter since I can't help you. This is something you have to do on your own." I don't mean to make fun of this, but one of the DPs' messages is: this is your life, live it.

* * *

Mrs. B had a strong, healthy skeptical side to her but she had had too many psychic experiences after her husband's death to keep the skepticism going. Things started happening in their house, clocks started ticking that had been broken, her wedding band broke, she got it fixed, it broke once more, so she gave it to her daughter and it never broke again. All this activity started to frighten her daughter Beth. Finally, one day Beth yelled out, "Dad I know you want to let us know you're around, but you are frightening me. Would you please stop!" Everything immediately stopped.

Once she started believing in this "stuff," Mrs. B became a little miffed. Her husband came to visit everyone but her. He had visited her sister in a dream, her father in a dream and her son and daughter in their dreams, but not her. In her frustration she said out loud, "I want you to come tonight, give me a sign so I'll know it's you." Presumably, Mr. B got the message because in the middle of the night the entire family was awakened to the sound of shattering glass. Mrs. B's very expensive, very secure chandelier had crashed from the ceiling onto the dining room table. Mrs. B looked at her children, looked toward the ceiling and calmly said to her husband Henry, "That's not exactly what I had in mind!"

Three years went by before she had a dream where he came to her and she wasn't too happy with him then either.

Below is a transcript of her description.

Peggy's maternal grandmother came through, insisting there was a problem with Peggy's Aunt Claire. I said, "I feel your grandmother is extremely worried about your aunt. Something has happened and part of the difficulty lies in the relationship between your mother and her sister. Your grandma says they have been like oil and vinegar from day one. I'm certain there is something else she wants you to know about your aunt. She won't leave it alone."

Peggy was a little annoyed. "I'm sorry, 1 can't help you. I'm just not aware of any problems with my aunt, other than the usual problems with my mother and that's been going on for years."

"Your grandmother insists she's been trying to contact you. Are you aware of this?"

That caught Peggy off guard. She looked a bit shocked, that funny look people get when they

think I've read their minds. I don't read minds, I'm not supposed to. I'm only allowed to enter a person's vibration if I have his or her permission.

Peggy finally replied, "Actually, I have been feeling my grandmother's presence exceptionally strong for the last two weeks. I have to admit this was one of the reasons I came to see you. I have also been having vivid dreams about her. I really wasn't sure if there was any connection. I thought maybe she was around because I was going through major changes and transitions in my life."

Her grandmother was in fact not worried about Peggy, her concern was Peggy's aunt and trying to communicate a message. Neither one of us knew what, but Peggy soon found out. Her aunt had suffered a stroke and her mother didn't know about it.

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