Rules #45:
"Living Another Life": Unique Qualities of
Past Life Dreams
"These dreams that sleep when I close
my eyes… every second of the night I live another life…"
(lyrics from a popular song)
"To Sleep, Perchance to Dream"
One of the tragedies of modern life is that
sleep is often regarded as unproductive down time… an annoying habit
that cannot be broken. Since sleep cannot be avoided, it is often
minimized, to "get it over with" and to get on with life. And yet,
from a spiritual standpoint,
sleep
is incredibly productive.
For while
our body sleeps and our mind rests, they and "we" are put in touch
with the healing and regulating currents of the universe. It is the
longest part of the day that we - all of us - spend in touch with
the inner worlds of God.
If you think nothing happens while
we are sleeping, why is it that we can go to sleep upset about a
problem and wake up feeling better about it? Nothing in our situation
has changed… so if nothing had gone on while sleeping, how could this
happen? Yet, it is dreams that are the real evidence "something is
going on" while we sleep. And part of what dreams are used for is
to work through
past life karma.
Dreams and the Burn Off of Past Life Karma
How it works
is that - relative to the working through of
karma - there is no difference between what is "real" (happening in
waking life on the physical plane) and what is "imagined" (happening
in sleeping life in the inner worlds of God). As long as you can
feel it, whether in a dream or in "real" life, you can heal it.
Why it happens
depends on your level of spiritual evolution.
If you are
"just getting into"
greater awareness of spirituality, then "karmic
dreams" are a safe way of introducing you to the greater totality of
yourself… to your past lives. In other words, you can relive a
traumatic past life event even if your "waking" belief system does
not support belief in the "reality" of past lives.
If you are "already on the path",
then "karmic dreams" are a more harmonious way
to work off karma. In other words, if you have past life "robbery"
karma to work off, then experiencing getting your house vandalized in
the dream state… is much less disruptive to your life in the future
than if it had "actually" happened to you in "real life" (ie. healing
a broken house, etc).
Remember that karma is more about teaching
than punishing… and, if you can learn lessons less painfully in the
dream state, that is the surest sign of the working of a loving and
compassionate universe.
So here is how to tell if your dream has
"past life origins"...
#1: PAST LIFE DREAMS HAVE HISTORICAL DETAIL
Regardless of your level of spiritual
advancement, the primary purpose of your dreams is to give you
"coaching" about your life now. Therefore, most dreams will be filled
with people, places, and things that are familiar to you in your life
today.
When you find yourself dreaming about "historical"
people, places, and things that is the surest sign you are in the
process of tapping into your past lives. In other words, if you
find yourself dressed in "period clothing" or in "historical settings",
or if you see yourself living through "significant events" from times
that could only have been experienced in past lives… you are having
a "karmic dream".
Most often, the strongest indicator of
"karmic dreams" are when we see ourselves as "other than" we are today.
Meaning that in dreams we see someone who "we know to be ourselves"
that is clearly of the opposite gender or from a different race,
religion, ethnic group, nation, etc than we are today.
#2: PAST LIFE DREAMS HAVE UNCHANGING EVENTS
In our dreaming life, just as in waking life,
we are "in charge" of what goes on there. If we do not like what
happens, all we need to do is simply decide that we want to change
it and it will transform in response to our wishes.
Yet, in
"karmic dreams", especially those that are recurring nightmares, we
are not able to change the sequences of events no matter how hard we
try. Just as the events in the past life cannot be changed, neither
can the replay of those events in the dream state be changed. Those
events will just replay again in dreaming life until they get our
attention and cause us to take action on them in waking life.
Often recurring nightmares start out as recurring dreams… and if we
had taken care of the recurring dream by exploring and healing it,
then it would not have turned into a nightmare. Nightmares are
usually a last ditch effort to get the person to heal their life
before the problems manifest into "physical, waking reality" where
they can be no longer denied (see
"Discovering Past Lives Through Dreams").
#3: PAST LIFE DREAMS HAVE A SEQUENCE OF EVENTS
"Regular" dreams are meant to give the
individual a variety of experiences in the inner worlds. Often this
means that "dream events" happen rapidly and in a seemingly random,
chaotic order. This is designed to bypass our linear, logical minds
which are barriers to our pure experience from the source. Meaning
that because our minds cannot keep up or make sense of what happens
in the dream state, they stop filtering the "dream garbage" and let
it flow through uninterrupted.
Yet, in "karmic dreams", our
minds do register the logical sequence of events in our dreams but
are unable to alter them because they are replays of past events… and
not current creations of our egos. The struggle that our minds undergo
in the effort to "clean up karmic dreams" is often what brings them to
our attention. They tend to "stand out" relative to the normal stream
of dreams that are quickly forgotten.
Since "karmic dreams" are
designed to bring unhealed past life issues to the forefront of our
awareness, this is a good thing... especially if we have requested a
change in the circumstances of our present life that to happen require
healing of "past life blocks" (see
"How I Discovered My Work Through Dreams").
#4: PAST LIFE DREAMS ARE OUTSIDE OF OUR LEARNING
"Karmic dreams" especially attract our
attention, if inside them, our "past life personality" displays
learning, talents, skills, and abilities that we have not acquired in
our life now. In other words, in a "karmic dream" we might have the
ability to speak and understand a foreign language we do not know
now.
Or, in dreams, we may understand complex medical procedures
but, in waking life, we are not trained as doctors. Or, in dreams, we
may have detailed knowledge of the law but, in waking life, we are not
trained as attorneys. Or, in dreams, we have artistic talents that we
lack in "real life".
One of the surest signs of a "karmic dream"
is, once we have had one, we begin to spontaneously use those dreamed
talents in our waking lives. In fact, when we "just know how" to do
things we have never been formally taught, we are "remembering" what
we have already learned in one or more past lives. If we have already
studied and mastered a talent it is ours. If you wish to reconnect
with previously learned skills from past lives, try the
"Unleashing Past Life Talents" exercise.
#5: PAST LIFE DREAMS ARE OUTSIDE OF OUR EXPERIENCE
Throughout our journey through the universe,
we will be all things - saint and sinner, hero and villain, good and
evil - so that we can gain a complete understanding or life. Often,
"karmic dreams" will try to show us the past life "shadow side" of our
present life selves. In other words, past lives where we racked up
"bad karma".
For example, if our house was robbed, we might
have a "karmic dream" showing us a past life where we "made our living"
by thievery. Or if we are "powerless" now, we might dream of past
lives of abusing power which created our life now.
In another
example, a very talented, energetic African American woman had found
herself repeatedly drawn into situations where others "put her down"
and were constantly using "racial slurs" against her. She wanted to
know why this seemed to follow her no matter where she went. So one
night in a "karmic dream", she was shown a past life in the South
where she had been a slave owner. Although she had not been physically
cruel to those slaves she "owned", she had been very verbally abusive…
and now she was experiencing the other side of the coin in this
lifetime.
#6: PAST LIFE DREAMS CORRESPOND TO STRANGE BELIEFS
Strange beliefs and thoughts are very often
carryovers of disempowering behavior patterns from previous lives.
"Karmic dreams" often work to reveal how past life tragedies have
carried over and have created our present day beliefs… beliefs which
may seem strange now but made "perfect sense" to us in the past. There
are many such belief systems which are quite recognizable in modern
day life.
For example, the "I gotta live hard because I'm gonna
die young" syndrome is a belief system carried over from past lives cut
short by unexpected illness or tragedy as a present day defense
mechanism. The "push it to the edge extreme risk taking" syndrome is
also a belief system often carried over from past lives as mercenaries
who lived for the action packed thrills of a dangerous "short but
sweet" life. The "I am just an abuse magnet" is a thoughtform carried
over from many past lives as a battered spouse that only serves to
attract abusive partners into the present lifetime.
#7: PAST LIFE DREAMS EXPLAIN UNUSUAL BEHAVIORS
It is a maxim of psychology that "all behavior
makes sense on the inside". So when the origins of unusual behaviors
or attitudes are sought, an explanation is usually traceable back to
some childhood experience. Yet if the answer is not to be found there,
then the "psychological archeaology" needs to be extended to look for
the answer in one of more past lives. Often, the explanations for
unusual behaviors or attitudes in the present life are revealed by
"karmic dreams" about past lives.
For example, I always have to
sit along the aisle in a movie theatre (I cannot sit anywhere else
without experiencing extreme discomfort). This phobia resulted from
one past life where I was burned to death in a theatre. I died because
I had been sitting in the center seat and could not get out in time.
My body "remembered" that trauma (burning to death is THE WORST way
to go) and was protecting me by making sure it would not happen again.
Since this death was so painful, I was shown the origin of this
otherwise "inexplicable habit" inside a "karmic dream". This was a
relief because I could at least explain myself to my long suffering
family!
#8: PAST LIFE DREAMS CORRESPOND TO STRANGE HABITS
"Strange" habits and manners are those which
are "out of place" or "out of character" considering how a particular
individual usually acts. Often the individual is able to recognize the
inconsistency without being able to explain to themselves or others why
they always act as strangely as they do. And yet the answer may be
revealed to them inside a "karmic dream" from their past lives.
For
example, a woman who otherwise liked to wear the most revealing clothes
was always careful to wear a scarf around her neck. She felt very
nervous in taking it off no matter how uncomfortable and hot it got.
Then this woman had a "karmic dream" where she has been branded with
a convict's mark that had been burned into her flesh. With help from
friends, she had escaped being hung but always had to wear a scarf
around her neck to hide her guilty secret.
Later in that life,
the convict's mark was discovered on her and she was executed in a
very painful manner. Once she had a "karmic dream" and understood the
origin of her need to wear scarves, she no longer had to wear them…
unless she decided to do so and was choosing to wear scarves out
of fashion and not fear.
#9: PAST LIFE DREAMS SHOW ORIGINS OF PHYSICAL ISSUES
Birthmarks would be marks appearing on
infants - that were not caused during delivery - are often indicative
of past life wounds.
Ian Stevenson,
reincarnation researcher, notes that where
"a deceased person (past life) was identified and the details of whose
(past) life unmistakably matched the child's (present life) statements,
a close correspondence was nearly always found between the birthmarks
on the (present) child and the wounds on the (past) deceased person."
How those birthmarks were created are often revealed inside
"karmic dreams". For example, a woman with a birthmark in the shape
of a stylized letter dreamed about being branded as a slave. In the
dream, she saw the same stylized letter on the end of a branding iron
before it was seared into her flesh in that past life… in the exact
same spot where the present life birthmark was located.
#10: PAST LIFE DREAMS SHOW ORIGINS OF EMOTIONAL ISSUES
The origins of highly charged sexual
functioning (like sexual functioning) and the root causes of sexual
dysfunctions (like male impotence or female frigidity) are often
deeply rooted in past lives. Take this example of "karmic daydreaming"
as recounted by a woman in Nancy Friday's book "Forbidden Flowers".
"I
had slipped into my fantasy and actually became that slave girl I had
fantasized about… It was as though I had been transported back across
the ages to ancient Rome… "The woman goes onto recount how her past
life fantasy became her present day reality when she was briefly
sexually "enslaved" for a period of time by strangers in the same
manner she had always dreamed about. Yet her abductors were not true
strangers in the karmic sense: they were old "friends" from a Roman
past life returned to relive a highly pleasurable past life sexual
encounter.
#11: PAST LIFE DREAMS SHOW ORIGINS OF MENTAL ISSUES
Poverty or prosperity consciousness is usually
deeply rooted in past lives. Money habits are often the most persistent
- and hardest to change - in any lifetime. That is because if you have a
relationship with nothing else in the physical world, you will have a
relationship with money. Since money is everywhere you want to be, past
lives usually have strongly dominated your attitudes toward it. Worse,
because you might have died traumatically because of money or the lack
of it, disempowering attitudes toward it will most likely require
patient and persistent healing to "correct".
For example, a
client who died in the Black Plague was a compulsive spender in this
life because they were continuing to live as if there were "no tomorrow".
Before that past life block was cleared with the help of a "karmic
dream", their "eat, drink, and be merry" attitude ruined their credit
in this life.
#12: PAST LIFE DREAMS SHOW ORIGINS OF SPIRITUAL ISSUES
The weight of tragedies from many past lives
can manifest in the present as the "everything is just fine in my life
so why is it that I just can't be happy?" syndrome. If nothing from
your life now can account for your present depression/anxiety, it may
well be coming from the past. Often "karmic dreams" will hold the
clues to why, try as one might, a person just cannot be happy.
For
example, for as long as one client could remember, they found themselves
being periodically overcome by bouts of uncontrollable weeping. There
was no pattern to the weeping except one… they only cried when they
were alone or when others would have no chance of discovering it.
As
the cycle of crying got worse, the client prayed constantly to be shown
the true source of their grief. Then one night, the client had a
"karmic dream" where they say themselves dying and leaving a much
loved spouse behind… and they knew it was past life tears that they
had been crying all along. And it was this "karmic dream" that set
them on a long path of healing this very traumatic lifetime.
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