The Dictionary of Dreams (4 page)

with many business cares, I have honestly endeavored to do.

Through the long hours of many nights I have waited patiently

and passively the automatic movement of my hand to write

the subjective definitions without receiving a word or a single

manifestation of intelligence, and again the mysterious forces

would write as fast as my hand could move over the paper.

I will leave it for my readers to draw their own conclusions

as to whether automatic writing is the work of extraneous spirits,

through the brain and intelligence of the medium, or the result

of auto-suggestive influence upon the subjective personality.

It is argued by the Materialist, with some degree of strength,

that the healthy man does not dream, This is, perhaps, true, in a way, but the whole man comprises the past, present, and future. The past and future always embrace more of the conditions that surround him than the present. The present is only the acute stage, while the chronic stage, considered from a personal view, is the past and future combined.

Man cannot eliminate entirely these states from himself, for, while they are past and future to the personal mind, they are ever present to the higher subjective senses; he is, therefore, never in perfect

health unless these states are in harmony with the present.

The personal self, in a normal state, cannot free itself from the past or from the anxieties of the future.

The reader should ever keep before his mind the fact that no man

ever had the same dream twice. He may have had very similar dreams, but some detail will be missing. Nature seems to abhor duplicates.

You could no more find two dreams alike than you could find facsimiles in two blades of grass. A man cannot live two days exactly alike.

Different influences and passions will possess him. Consequently, no two dreams can be had under exactly the same influences. Stereotypes are peculiarly the invention of man and not of God or nature.

Since it is impossible to find a man twice in exactly the same

mental state, it is equally impossible for him to dream the same

dream twice; therefore, it is only possible to approximate

dream interpretation by classing them into families.

This I have attempted to do in a more comprehensive way than

other writers who have preceded me.

All men are acquainted with health and sickness, love and hate,

success and failure. Sickness, hate and failure belong to kindred families, and often ally their forces in such a way that it is hard to say whether the dreamer will fail in love, health or some business undertaking.

But at all times a bad symbol is a warning of evil, though that evil may be minimized or exaggerated, or
vice versa
, according as signs are good.

Thus, if the dream symbol indicates wealth or fortune to the peasant, his waking life may be gladdened by receiving or seeing a fifty-cent piece, or finding assuring work, while the same symbol to a wealthy man would mean many dollars, or a favorable turn in affairs.

It is the same in physical life. A man may hear the sound of a wagon.

He cannot determine by the rattle of the wheels whether it is laden

with laundry, groceries or dry goods. He may judge as to its size

and whether it is bearing a heavy or a light burden. When it

objectifies he will be able to know its full import and not before.

So with dream symbols. We may know they are fraught with evil or good, as in the case of Pilate's wife, but we cannot tell their full meaning until their reflections materialize before the objective sense.

Death is more frequently foretold by dream messages or visions,

as explained in another part of this chapter.

During sleep the will is suspended, leaving the mind often a prey

to its own fancy. The slightest attack of an enemy may be foretold

by the unbridled imagination exaggerating the mental picture into

a monstrous shark or snake, when, indeed, a much less portentous

sign was cast from the dream mold.

A woman may see a serpent in waking life and through fright lose reason or self-control. She imagines it pursues her when in reality it is going an opposite direction; in a like way dreams may be many times unreal.

The mind loses its reason or will in sleep, but a supersensitive

perception is awakened, and, as it regains consciousness from sleep, the sound of a knock on the wall may be magnified into a pistol shot.

The sleeping mind is not only supersensitive as to existing external sounds and light, but it frequently sees hours and days ahead of the waking mind.

Nor is this contradictory to the laws of nature. The ant housed

in the depth of the earth, away from atmospheric changes,

knows of the approach of the harvest, and comes forth to lay

by his store.

In a like manner, the pet squirrel is a better barometer of the local weather than the Weather Bureau. With unerring foresight, when a wintry frown nowhere mars the horizon, he is able to apprehend a cold wave twenty-four hours ahead, and build his house accordingly.

So in sleep, man dreams the future by intuitive perception of invisible signs or influences, while awake he reasons it out by cause and effect.

The former seems to be the law of the spiritual world, while the latter would appear to be the law of the material world. Man should not depend alone upon either. Together they proclaim the male and female principle of existence and should find harmonious consummation.

In this manner only can man hope to achieve that perfect normal

state to which the best thought of the human race is aspiring,

where he can create and control influences instead of being

created and controlled by them, as the majority of us are at

the present day.

God, the highest subjective source of intelligence, may in a

dream leave impressions or presentiments on the mind of man,

the highest objective source of intelligence.

The physical sun sends its light into the dark corners of the earth, and God, the Spiritual Sun, imparts spiritual light into the passive and receptive soul.

Man, by hiding in a cave, or closing the windows and doors of his house, may shut out all physical light; so he may steep his soul in sensual debauchery until all spiritual light is shut out.

Just as the vital essence of the soil, the mother of nature,

may be extracted by abuse, either from omission or commission,

until neither the light of the sun, nor the moisture of the heavens

will wake the flush of life, so may the spiritual essence

be deadened when the soil of the soul is filled with the aged

and multiplying weeds of ravishing materiality.

The dream mind is often influenced by the waking mind.

When the waking mind dwells upon any subject, the dream mind

is more or less influenced by it, and it often assists the waking

mind in solving difficult problems. The personal future,

embodied in the active states of the universal mind,

may affect the dream mind, producing premonitions of death,

accidents and misfortune.

The objective mind rejoices or laments over the aspects of the past

and present, while the spiritual mind, striving with the personal future, either laments or rejoices over the prospective conditions.

One is the barometer of the past, while the other is the barometer

of the future.

If we study carefully the spiritual impressions left upon the dream mind, through the interpretations of this book, we will be able to shape our future in accordance with spiritual law.

Thus our temporal events will contribute to our spiritual development, and in turn our spiritual knowledge will contribute to our temporal welfare.

Without this harmonious interaction of the two great forces in man,

the Divine plan of destiny cannot be reached.

This can only be accomplished through the material mind

or reason dominating the animal emotions of the heart.

In this way we would not covet our neighbor's goods, or grow

angry with our brother over trifles.

The house vacated by the sefish{sic} appetites of the world would

be filled with the whispers of spiritual love and wisdom necessary

to the mutual welfare and development of body and soul.

The theory used in this book to interpret dreams is both simple and rational.

By the using of it you will be surprised to find so many of the predictions fulfilled in your waking life. We deal with both the thought and the dream.

The thought or sign implied in the object dreamed of and the influence surrounding it are always considered in the interpretation.

Thoughts proceed from the visible mind and dreams from the invisible mind.

The average waking mind receives and retains only a few of the lessons of life. It is largely filled with idle and incoherent thoughts that are soon forgotten. The same may be truly said of the dream mind.

Many of our day thoughts are day dreams, just as many of our night dreams are night thoughts. Our day deeds of evil or good pierce or soothe the conscience, just as our night symbols of sorrow and joy sadden or please the objective senses. Our day's thoughts are filled with the warnings and presence of the inner mind and our night's thoughts are tinctured and often controlled by our external mind.

Some writer has said: `Èverything that exists upon earth has its

ethereal counterpart.'' Christ said: `Às a man thinketh so is he.''

A Hindu proverb says: ``Man is a creature of reflection; he becomes that upon which he reflects.'' A modern metaphysicist says: `Òur thoughts are real substance and leave their images upon

our personality, they fill our aura with beauty or ugliness according to our intents and purposes in life.'' Each evil thought or action has its pursuing phantom, each smile or kindly deed its guiding angel, we leave wherever we ignobly stand, a tomb and an epitaph to haunt us through the furnace of conscience and memory.

Closely fol owing in the wake of our multiplying evil thoughts are armies of these ghastly spectres pursuing each other with the exact intents and purposes of the mind that gave them being. If we consider well these facts we will be forced into thinking our best thoughts at all times.

Thoughts are the subjective and creative force that produces action.

Action is the objective effect of thought; hence the character of our daily thoughts is making our failure or success of to-morrow.

The impersonal mind deals with all time and things as ever present.

The objective mind is constantly striving to penetrate

the spiritual realm, while the spiritual mind is striving to

enter matter, hence our actions have their subjective counterparts

and their subethereal counterparts. The universal mind,

in harmony with the evolutionary plans and laws of the macrocosms,

materializes through functions of the microcosm, imparting to each,

with its routine of failure and success, its daily objectivity.

The inner or passive dream mind may perceive the subjective types

or antitypes many days before they objectify through the microcosm.

Their meaning is often wrapt in symbols, but sometimes

the actual as it occurs in objective life is conveyed.

Our own thought images which have passed before the objective mind

may be perceived by the clever mind reader, but those antitypes

which are affecting our future, but which have none other

but subjective existence, are rarely ever perceived by any one

except by the power of the higher self or the spirit within.

For this reason we are enjoined by the sages to study self.

With the physical mind we only see physical objects,

with the subjective mind we see only subjective objects.

This was Paul's doctrine and it is the belief of the best

psychic thought of this century. By means of our reason--

an objective process for divining the future--aided by mathematical

and geographical data, we may outline the storm centers and the path of the rain days before they appear in certain localities.

After eliminating all contingencies arising from clerical

error and counteracting influence, the prognostication is sure

of fulfilment. For centuries ahead the astronomer foretells

the eclipse of the moon and the sun and the arrival of comets.

He does not do this by crossing the borderland dividing the spiritual from the physical world. In a like manner the subjective forces operate upon their own planes and know very little

even of their own corporal realm, just as our physical senses

know little, if anything, of the soul or spiritual habitation.

They know that by gross living the sense of conscience may

be dulled, or that by right living it may be strengthened.

In like manner the subjective mind perceives by its own senses

certain invisible types of evil seeking external manifestations

in the microcosm. It knows that these forms of error will work

harm to the objective mind, and that if persisted in they

will pervert all intercourse or interchange of counsel between

the two factions of the man. In this there is no spiritual

perception of physical objects, any more than there is in mundane

life a sense perception of spiritual images and antitypes.

The former only sees the forms that manifest on its plane,

while the latter can note only those common to its sphere.

Each may recognize and feel the violence or good that these

manifestations will do to their respective counterparts,

but we have no reason to believe that normal objective or

subjective states have visional powers beyond their own plane.

The mind of man acting upon the mind of the macrocosm will produce,