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 Mellen-Thomas
Benedict has some wonderful insights about dreams and the near-death
experience he had. He states, "When I recovered, I was very surprised
and yet very awed about what had happened to me. At first all the memory
of the trip that I have now was not there. I kept slipping out of this
world and kept asking, "Am I alive?" This world seemed more like a dream
than that one. Within three days, I was feeling normal again, clearer,
yet different than I had ever felt in my life. My memory of the journey
came back later ... What happens when we dream? We are multi-dimensional
beings. We can access that through lucid dreaming. In fact, this
universe is God's dream. One of the things that I saw is that we humans
are a speck on a planet that is a speck in a galaxy that is a speck.
Those are giant systems out there, and we are in sort of an average
system. But human beings are already legendary throughout the cosmos of
consciousness. The little bitty human being of Earth/Gaia is legendary.
One of the things that we are legendary for is dreaming. We are
legendary dreamers. In fact, the whole cosmos has been looking for the
meaning of life, the meaning of it all. And it was the little dreamer
who came up with the best answer ever. We dreamed it up. So dreams are
important."
Dreamtime
Traditional Australian societies share the
notion that human beings and society were created in a distant time
period referred to as the
Dreamtime which the Aborigines considered sacred time.
Simultaneously, the Dreamtime refers to the realm of the spiritual,
which is coextensive with the time of creation. As the name indicates,
the Dreamtime realm can be reached during dreams. Many of the rituals of
Aboriginal religion also link the everyday world of human existence with
the Dreamtime. As one might anticipate, at death the true soul returns
to the eternal Dreamtime realm, where it had resided prior to birth.
Sleep: Death's Sister
 In
the Bible and other sacred scriptures, the term
"death" and "sleep" are used interchangeably. Sleep has
traditionally been called "death's sister." The Bible is filled with
instances of people who are visited in their dreams by heavenly figures
to convey an important message. In the Old Testament, Jacob had a dream
of a heavenly "stairway" on the earth which extended into heaven with
angels ascending and descending on it. Jacob's description of this
"stairway" could be a crude description of the NDE tunnel. "And he
dreamed, and behold a stairway set up on the earth, and the top of it
reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending
on it." (Gen.
28:12) Scholars believe that the
Book of Revelation is an account
of a dream or a series of dream by John the Revelator. The reason it is
believed to be a dream is because the symbolism found in the Book of
Revelation is remarkably similar to the prophetic dream symbology of the
prophet Daniel in the Book of Daniel.
Dream Research
There is much evidence that our dreams are
actually out-of-body experiences and journeys to other realms. In one
study by consciousness researcher Dr. Charles Tart,
a test subject was documented to have left their body during sleep in
order to read a 5-digit number from a remote location. The test subject
was successful in returning the correct number. The odds of correctly
guessing a random 5-digit number is 1 in 100,000. Yale University
Pediatric Cancer specialist
Dr.
Diane Komp reported that many dying children have near-death
experiences which often occurred during dreams. One boy told Dr. Komp
that Jesus had visited him in a big yellow school bus and told him he
would die soon. The boy died as he predicted. Clear evidence from sleep
laboratories shows that we all dream nightly. Our dream periods come in
cycles, typically about ninety minutes apart. Most dreams happen during
these times of unusual body and brain behavior called REM - rapid eye
movement. Of course, the mind is active all night long, not just during
REM periods. Dreams usually happen about five or six times each night
and they range in length from just a few minutes up to thirty minutes or
more, with longer dreams more likely near morning.
 Dream
symbolism is the universal archetypal language of the soul according to
Carl Jung, MD, the founder of analytical
psychology and dream researcher, was inspired tremendously by his own
near-death experience. During the early part of this century, while
psychologists such as Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung were demonstrating the
clinical importance of dreams, Edgar
Cayce was providing people with guidelines for what has become one
of the most practical approaches to dreams. Much of the metaphysical
information that Cayce would discover during his out-of-body journeys
dealt with the subject of dreams and dream interpretation. Perhaps one
of the most important insights gained from Cayce's revelations is the
fact that each of us is aware of much more about ourselves, our physical
bodies, our surroundings, even our lifestyles, at subconscious levels
than we realize when we're awake.
During the dream state, our minds become open to many different levels
of our own unconscious where all of our previous conscious experiences
are stored. Also stored there is information which rarely come to
conscious awareness. The subconscious mind has a remarkable talent for
finding solutions to problems. It can also assist us with
self-evaluation and providing practical guidance for any question we may
have. It even makes it possible for us to have psychic experiences.
The Cayce material reveals that dreams can diagnose the causes of our
physical illnesses, point out thoughts and emotions that we haven't
dealt with on a conscious level, and suggest ways to improve our
relationships with others. While we dream, we can become aware of our
entire being -- physically, mentally, and spiritually. The Cayce
material shows that dreams are the easiest and most natural way for us
to contact our inner, higher selves. According to Cayce, dreams are
experiences with our very soul - our subconscious mind. Because dream
symbolism is the language of the soul, it pays for everyone to learn how
to interpret their dreams.
Dream Interpretation
 The
following was dreamt by a dying woman in her hospital room:
"A lit candle suddenly appears on her window sill. The candle goes
out. A terrifying, suffocating blackness envelopes everything. Then, the
candle relights but on the other side of the closed window."
The woman died shortly after relating this dream to a nurse.
Tom Harpur, the author of the book and documentary,
Life After Death, discovered this true report while researching his
book on near-death experiences. He asks:
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What did the dream mean? It must have been significant because,
after all, this was the last dream the dying woman ever had -
the final manifestation of her unconscious mind in this world. |
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According to the celebrated psychiatrist and dream analyst,
Marie Louise Von Franz, and based on
her analysis of over 10,000 dreams of the dying, the meaning
being communicated is that the light of the individual, one of
the common metaphors for life that we've heard so often, goes
out at death but is miraculously renewed on the other side. In
other words, the spirit seems to live on. This dream then
illustrates perfectly a profound insight of the great
psychoanalyst and mentor of Dr. Von Franz,
Carl Jung, who has said:
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"The
unconscious psyche believes in a life after death." |
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According to Jung, dream symbols which exist in the very depths
of the soul behave as if the psychic life of the individual will
continue. In Dr. Von Franz' words:
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"These
symbols depict the end of bodily life and the explicit
continuation of psychic life after death. In other
words, our last dreams prepare us for death." |
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The
following dreams provide strong circumstantial evidence that dreams
are actual experiences and journeys in the afterlife.
Afterlife Connection Proof
 One
of the strangest cases in the history of dream research is described in
the documentary,
The Secret World of Dreams. It describes the amazing story of a
woman named Claire
Sylvia. She was a professional dancer with several modern dance
companies. As the years passed, Claire's health began to deteriorate.
Claire Sylvia had to undergo a heart and lung transplant. Soon after the
transplant, she began having strange and incredibly vivid dreams about a
young man she didn't recognize. Eventually, Claire realized that the
young man in her dreams was the eighteen-year-old organ donor whose
heart and lungs resided in her chest. Through her continuing dream
contacts with her donor, she learned a lot about him including his name.
She then decided to do the research to find out if this "heavenly"
information was correct. Her research proved that it was indeed correct.
Claire then met the young man's grieving family and shared with them the
amazing story of her contact with him from the Other Side through her
dreams. The following is the detailed account of her story in her own
words:
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It was getting more difficult for me to walk upstairs. I was
getting out of breath on the dance floor which was unusual for
me. Every day I was able to do less and less. I was going
downhill very quickly. |
Claire was suffering from primary pulmonary hypertension, a deadly
disease. Her only hope for survival was a heart and lung transplant.
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"My mother was basically dying," says Amara, "She prepared
herself for death and she was preparing me for her death. She
labored to get up in the morning to go to the bathroom. Her
breathing was labored and I was afraid every morning whether she
would be alive or not." |
Then Claire's bizarre dreams began to unfold.
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I
started to have a series of dreams. One dream was that I had the
transplant and I had to drink four glasses of milk a day. At the
time I questioned this, I said: |
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"I wonder
what this means? Where does this four glasses of milk
come in at? I don't understand what this means." |
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And there was no explanation so I just let it go. I lived each
day with a thought and a prayer that I would live till the next
day and that I would live to see my daughter graduate from high
school which was about a year away. |
Finally, Claire's prayers were answered.
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The phone rang and it was the transplant coordinator. She very
calmly said, "We officially got permission to do heart and lung
transplants and we have a donor for you today." |
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was speechless. All I could say was, "Oh my God. Oh my God!" |
Within hours, Claire was rushed into surgery. After a delicate
three-hour operation, Claire awoke.
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I
knew that I would have to take an anti-rejection drug,
cyclosporine. They injected a certain amount of this liquid into
two little cups of milk. Then at night, I repeated this same
process. I realized that these were the four cups of milk a day
in my dream. |
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At first I didn't accept it, I kept saying, "I must have gotten
this information from someplace." |
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I kept checking around and nobody told me. Then I thought, "This
is bizarre. I don't know why and I still don't." |
When Claire returned home, another sequence of unexplained occurrences
began. Her taste in food changed dramatically.
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I
had a thought one day, "Why am I cutting up green peppers and
putting them into my food?" |
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I used to hate them and I picked them out. Several weeks after
the transplant, they told me I could drive by myself. I got in
my car and was driving around and I had this yen to find a
Kentucky Fried Chicken place to have chicken nuggets. This was
something I just normally don't ordinarily do. |
Just when Claire thought her life couldn't get any stranger - it did -
in another mysterious dream.
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I'm in an open field and it's very light. It's daytime and I'm
in a playful relationship with a young man whom I see clearly.
He is tall, has sandy colored hair and his name is "Tim L". I
come back and say goodbye to him and as we approach each other,
we kiss, and as we kiss, I feel as if I inhale him into me. It's
like taking this enormous breath. And I know that he will be
with me together forever. But it also seemed that this man in my
dreams, whom I knew as Tim, must be my donor. |
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I was very curious to find out who my donor was because of all
the things that were happening to me and because of the dreams I
was having – and the feeling of living with his presence. |
Claire became convinced that her donor was trying to communicate with
her. She contacted the hospital but they informed her that donor
records were confidential. When all hope seemed lost, her friend,
Fred Stern, called to tell her of a message he received in his own
dream.
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"I had a clear image of a dream," says Fred Stern, "that we had
gone to the basement of the public library and had seen in the
Portland newspaper a story on either the third or fourth page
several days before her operation. A story about the boy who was
killed and whom she had gotten her heart from." |
Claire and Stern made arrangements to meet at the local library.
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I
met Fred at the public library and we looked at the papers the
week preceding my transplant. Sure enough, the day before my
transplant, as was in his dream, the obituary of a young man who
was killed in a motorcycle accident. He was 18 years old. His
name was Tim L. as it was in my dream. It felt like my heart
stopped beating for a moment. I was standing up and I remember
getting kind of weak all over. My knees went a little weak. It
was a shock. |
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"It was almost like magic," says Fred Stern, "like some sense of
knowing. It is just wonderful to be a part of it – this
unfolding." |
It turned out that Tim L. had died in a motorcycle accident shortly
before Claire's life saving surgery.
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I
was shocked because now it became more real. Now I had all the
information. I had the family's name. I had details. This person
really existed. |
Wanting to know more about her donor, Claire wrote to Tim's family and
made arrangements to meet them.
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"I was very excited," says Tim's sister, Lee Ann, "and the whole
family was very excited to meet Claire. It was like meeting my
brother all over again for the very first time – seeing him
alive again. Claire was very warm towards us. She was loving.
She was loving like Tim was." |
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There was so much feeling that it was absolutely exhausting. |
It was then that Claire told Tim's family about her dream.
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Tim's sister replied, "My first reaction to Claire's dream was
one of disbelief. I really didn't believe it until she just
started describing things about my brother – like how he was
tall and wiry. She described him almost to a T. She was getting
the information from her dream. She described how Tim was loving
and that he came to her and wanted to be a friend. I just kind
of felt that, "Yeah, that's what Tim would do."" |
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Claire stated, "When I met the family, I was trying to
corroborate some of the things that had been happening to me. I
asked them if he happened to like green peppers and they said: |
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"Oh, yes,
he used to love green peppers. He'd fry them up with
cabasa." |
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"They told me his favorite food was chicken nuggets and that he
had apparently just bought them before he died because they had
to pull them out of his motorcycle jacket when they found him.
When they told me that I said, "Oh my God!"" |
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Tim's sister Jackie stated, "Why would she have a dream about
her donor unless God was trying to tell her in a way who we were
and trying to make it easier for her to get to us so she could
see that there was good out of everything she went through." |
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All the images that have come to me since the transplant are,
in and of themselves, having to do with this new part of me. |
Contacting
Deceased Loved Ones
  Many
people reported they had been contacted by a deceased loved one
while they were sound asleep. Because they didn't have any other
name for their experience, they usually called it a
dream.
However, most quickly added, "But it just wasn't like an ordinary
dream." We call
these experiences sleep-state ADCs, and they are a very common type of
after-death communication. The
following ADCs are reprinted here by permission from
Bill and Judy Guggenheim's book,
Hello From Heaven.
There are many significant differences between an ordinary dream and a
sleep-state ADC. A dream is generally fragmented, jumbled, filled with
symbolism, and incomplete in various ways. Though some are very intense
emotionally, they typically have a quality of unreality about them and
are often soon forgotten.
In contrast, sleep-state ADCs feel like actual face-to-face visits
with deceased loved ones. They are much more orderly, colorful, vivid,
and memorable than most dreams. In fact, some may be after-death visions
that occur during sleep.
The following reports are examples of sleep-state ADCs in which a
deceased loved one
broke into an ordinary dream.
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Robin is the director of a child care center in Florida. She had
this timely visit from her grandfather several years after he died
of a heart attack in his 70's.
I was in my first year at college, sleeping in my dorm room. I was
dreaming about something when Grandpa broke into my dream! He was
right there, and I could smell his cologne and tobacco and feel his
warmth.
He seemed concerned and protective.
He said, "Lock the windows! Lock the windows! You're supposed to
remember to take care of yourself! Lock the windows!"
It was a definite warning.
I woke up startled and sat up and looked around. My room had one set
of windows that looked out onto a courtyard and another set over by
the fire escape. So I got up and locked all the windows.
About half an hour later, there was a scream from the girl in the room
down the hall. A man had come up the fire escape and apparently had
tried my windows, and then he had gone on to hers. Later he was
caught!
Grandpa appeared when support was obviously needed. He proved that he
would be with me forever. |
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Ann is an art
framer in Maryland. She was 21 years old when she was contacted by
her 18 year old brother, Barry, who had died in a motorcycle
accident:
After Barry was killed, I was feeling so angry and bitter at the
world. About a month later, I had what I call a dream, but it wasn't
a dream. It was like I was talking to him face-to-face.
I was in the backyard at my parents' cottage, and Barry came walking
towards me. He was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt - his usual
costume. His blond, curly hair was full of light. He looked
beautiful.
He seemed very happy, content, and full of love. He seemed worldly,
like he knew everything - no doubts, no questions, just full of
confidence. A beautiful light was behind him and around him - a
gorgeous, warm light.
I said, "Barry, what are you doing here?"
He looked at me and said, "I came to tell you that everything is all
right." I
asked, "What do you mean? Didn't it hurt when you died?"
Barry said, "It did for a minute. It felt like a squeezing sensation.
Then I was riding down a dark tunnel. And all of a sudden, I came
into this beautiful, brilliant white light."
He kept smiling at me, and I was feeling full of love and light
myself. It was so intense!
He said, "I just want to tell you that I love you, Ann."
Then he turned around and walked away.
I immediately woke up, and all the anger and frustration I felt were
gone. I really believe Barry came to tell me he was fine so that I
would be okay. I call it a dream, for not being able to give it
another name. But it really happened! |
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Greg is a 20 year
old college student in West Virginia. He had this rendezvous with
his friend, Evan, who was electrocuted in an industrial accident at
a construction site at age 20:
Evan and I were best friends for nine years. We did everything
together, except when we were at school or working or started going
out with girls.
Two nights after Evan died, I had a dream. I was where the road splits
and facing each other, and everything was lifelike.
We were really excited about seeing one another. Evan was so happy and
cheerful. He appeared the same as always and in good health. He had
a great big smile on his face.
I asked him, "What happened?""
He said, "I was up putting a light fixture on a twenty-foot pole when
I hit some electrical wires. Something happened and I started to
fall." He put
one hand vertically and one hand horizontally to show me how he
fell.
Evan said he felt scared at that moment, and then he felt nothing
else. He said,
"I promise, I didn't mean for that to happen."
He also wanted to assure me that he suffered none whatsoever through
that experience.
He told me he didn't want any of us worrying about him or being
extremely sad that he was gone because he was in a great place. He
was well taken care of and very happy, waiting for us to join him
someday. Then I woke up.
I never had a dream like that before. It was very special to me that I
was able to communicate with Evan after he died. It was like we
parted with the realization that we will be back together someday. |
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Janet is a nurse
in North Dakota. She became a bereaved mother when her 4 year old
son, Toby, died of a brain hemorrhage:
This occurred approximately one year after my son died. I recall the
dream as if I had just had it last night. I was standing on a river
bank and looking over at Toby on the other side.
His side was a lush green with beautiful trees. The water was a
beautiful blue, and there were birds I could hear. It was a
paradise, like the Garden of Eden. Everything was so quiet and
peaceful.
Toby was standing in grass and flowers up to his waist, close to the
edge of the river. He was a little boy, the same little guy that I
lost. He was wearing a striped T-shirt and blue jeans and was so
very real and happy.
I kept trying to get over to Toby, but I couldn't. He looked up at me
and spoke with such a calmness.
He said, "No, Mom, you can't come over here. I'm okay. I'm fine. But
you can't come over here."
He had to tell me that several times because I wanted to cross the
river to be with him.
Toby was calming me like an adult would. I almost felt like a child in
comparison, as if an older, wiser person was talking to me. He was
telling me to settle down and realize that his life is good now. He
gave me the sense that he is at peace and that he's where he
belongs.
The dreams seemed so real, as real as life itself. When I woke up, I
felt crushed that the dream was over. And yet I felt so comforted by
it. |
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Rosemarie is an
administrative assistant in North Carolina. She had this enlightened
dream about 4 months after her grandmother died of cancer at age 66:
One night when I was sleeping, I saw my grandmother - it was like a
beautiful dream. She was right there with me. It felt like we were
on another realm or in a different dimension.
I only saw her face and shoulders - she was very young and beautiful.
Grandma looked like she was a girl in her early twenties. I was
surprised she was so youthful, but I recognized her instantly as my
grandmother. It was like she could choose to be whatever age suited
her.
As she came closer, she was glowing and radiating love. I felt an
energy and warmth envelop me. It felt like a very nice, tingling
massage. I was overcome with this feeling of unconditional love,
like nothing I had ever done was wrong.
I was telling her over and over, "I love you. I love you. I love you."
She was saying, "I know you do. I'm happy and I'm fine. You don't
have to worry about me anymore. I'm in heaven."
Grandma affirmed there is a heaven, and that no matter what you've
done, in God's eyes you are forgiven. You are pure, and you are
loved in the way only he could love you. It touched me so deeply
that I knew it was true.
All of a sudden, I realized I was sitting up in bed and Grandma was
gone. But I didn't grieve for her after that at all. |
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Gayle is an artist in North Carolina. The ordinary dream she was
having was interrupted by her 21 year old son, Alex, who had drowned
in a boating accident:
I had been under a lot of distress, as any mother is with the loss of
her child. Two days after his burial, I woke up around 5:00 in the
morning. I couldn't sleep and went into the living room and sat
down. I keep praying, "God, please! I have to know where my son is.
I have to know if he's okay."
I felt impressed to go back to bed, so I lay down and fell asleep. I
started dreaming that I was in the kitchen fixing breakfast for my
two younger sons - and Alex walked in!
I realized he wasn't supposed to be there. So I spoke aloud and said,
"Alex is here!"
His brothers looked at me like "What are you talking about?"
Then I realized they couldn't see him - I was the only one who
could.
Alex had the most glorious smile on his face. He had a glow, a
celestial radiance. His expression was one of complete peace,
happiness, and contentment.
I walked up to him and said, "Alex, you are with Jesus, aren't you?"
He put his hands on my shoulders, and I put my hands around his
waist, and he said, "Yes, Mama."
Then I woke up with the most peaceful feeling because I knew Alex was
okay. I know his spirit is with God and that he is waiting for the
time the rest of us will be with him. |
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