First there was something vague about a woman growing sections of turf indoors on raised platforms, then the scene changed and...

I was sitting on a steel chair in the vestibule of the typical kind of old-Glasgow hall in which Spiritualist meetings are usually held. I glanced about through a nearby double-door, in mild confusion, because though the auditorium itself was empty of people (rows of chairs faced the vacant podium), in the vestibule there was a very upright scrawny old man in a tweed jacket and bunnet [cap]--right out of a history book on Clyde shipbuilding--sitting singing his heart out opposite me. It seemed to be a hymn but I wasn't catching the lyrics. His voice soared with joy and conviction. His demeanour was absolutely strong, clear and grounded--I would say selfless--not hesitant or self-conscious in the least. I sat down hoping to quiz him when he finished; perhaps we had both arrived too early for the service.

Instead, when the hymn ended he immediately met my gaze and motioned to time me into the next: "one, two, three, four.."--and ZAP, as he clicked the fingers of his raised hand I was engulfed in something too far outside everyday experience to be easily or adequately described. It was not exactly Emptiness (Buddhist terminology); rather it was as though some cloudy limitless being that knew Emptiness descended into the space of my being and forcibly displaced 'my' contents for a very brief time.

I've heard about epileptics having hallucinatory religious seizures (I'm not epileptic or historically prone to hallucination)--I guess that's the only psychological state I've heard of to which it might possibly compare, because it was rather like a million volts across the temples. I was obliterated, as was the scene before me--instantly, and after the initial blast there resolved a sea of voices in an ocean of luminous darkness; each voice was (I think--it's been a while) powerful and clear, but they were too many and too mobile to get a fix on any one, and I was powerless to try.

Then my mind/ego began to reassert itself, and I was apologising abjectly to this God-Presence because I couldn't be still; I felt wretchedly unworthy. It then felt as though some rapid painless operation was taking place on my body--a lot of it was like localised controlled electrical shocks to my head, and in a little while I awoke feeling exceptionally good physically and psychologically.

AFTERNOTES

• Sometimes, before and after the incident (not recently at time of writing), I've heard the many voices softly at night while relaxed and prepared for sleep, and I've tried to place the content from some waking stimulus, but they seem to be original. If I try to fish out particular voices of topics, I find the harder I try the more the voices seem to be self-contrived and not of the surprising and fluid nature of the original phenomenon.
• Obviously, this is the mystical dream of someone who spends a lot of time thinking and reading about religion/spirituality. There are Spiritualists in my family and I have dabbled in Spiritualist / mediumistic practices though I have remained semi-agnostic about the whole thing. I cannot stress enough how absolutely lucid and striking this dream was, and the latter part was not at all like a dream--I felt fully awake; it was a very physical experience.
• I am not in the habit of interpreting the symbolism of my dreams through a literary/Freudian filter - you are welcome to try if you like. :-)

EDITOR'S COMMENT

I had two strong reactions to this dream:

• The mere idea of interpreting away a dream like this as mere psychological symbolism, or, worse, as pathological, a sort of seizure, makes me bristle with a rage that astonishes me. Yet I know people do this. "Toss that Picasso in the trash!"
• And it convinced me I must start the long slow process of building a list of transcendent dreams, hard though they are to define.

A PSYCHIC EXPERIMENT

I have always remained open about the possibility that the dream and voices were both merely 'neurological' in the mundane sense of the word, but I cannot quite buy it - I think 'neurology' as conventionally understood depends on and interacts with something else that becomes obvious in certain experiences though it presumably operates constantly.

One time at a Spiritualist church development-circle, when I hadn't been training long, everyone was asked to put personal items into a covered bowl and these were then passed out randomly. Though, I think, folk mostly had the sense to conceal the items, I looked at the ground while they did this, just to be sure I didn't pick up something unconsciously, non-psychically, upon seeing owner-and-object. I got a featureless set of housekeys and concentrated. I described details of a house, what it looked like, the prevailing emotions of this household, the genders and dispositions of the inhabitants, some of the distinctive items within and the car driven by the keyholder. These all turned out to be true and pertained to a person who had never been to this church before and was a complete stranger to me. I knew that I was not playing any game; I had no great expectation that the stuff was going to be true as I said it - I just emptied my mind and described the impressions that seemed to pop in there unbidden. The details seemed conspicuous in their unrelatedness to recent thought, memories or sensory stimulus. They did seem like transplanted thoughts.

This can't be explained by conventional psychology or Derren-Brown style body-language reading (which in itself is not a studied and scientifically validated phenomenon as he suggests in his shows). It was not one positive result among many negatives. That experience (along with others) also leads me to take the 'voices' more seriously, though it's not something I've subsequently pursued, partly due to the difficulty in finding good teachers to guide me.

--Gordon

EDITOR'S COMMENT

If you've explored the list for psychic dreams you know this sixth sense (however it works) is neither rare nor pathological. Pathologized, yes!--see living with ESP. But you can work with this sense on your own, without a teacher--books, the Web, and above all, simple trial and error are enough to stumble onward. A wise old shaman would be nice, but good luck finding one among all the theorists and cultists and folks who know what ESP is, and will gladly fit you in a lovely conceptual straitjacket.

My advice: just try the impossible. Do your own spotty miracles. Flap your clumsy wings.

--Chris Wayan

World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sk - Sl-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites