Second Sight (33 page)

Cathy's life has also changed. She has learned that prescience is a precious instinct that can be relied upon. It forewarned her of the birth of her son and outlined the direction of his healing. In her dream, she took responsibility for a child; in her life she has helped him to flourish. Cathy hopes to set up a program similar to the DRC that benefits other learning disabled children.

As with Cathy, precognitive dreams can set you on a particular path, serve as a beacon of light on a darkened highway. But glimpsing the future doesn't mean that you don't play an active part in it. Or that you can just sit back and think, Oh well, it's going to happen anyway, I don't have to do a thing. Your dreams are not excuses to become lazy or negligent. Rather, they provide general guidelines for you to follow.

Although some precognitive dreams will become reality regardless of what you do, many merely present possibilities. The ultimate responsibility for your future is yours. At twenty, when I was directed in a dream to become a psychiatrist, I had to go through medical school and a residency program to realize it. If I hadn't done my part, there would have been no impetus for the vision to materialize. As always, you play the largest part in determining what happens in your life; each choice can effect a different outcome. Dreams involving your future don't do the work for you. In the final analysis, you're in partnership with your dreams, and must take the necessary action to bring them to fruition.

Although there are certain messages that we read as metaphors, some dreams can caution us about danger, and it would behoove us to take them literally. They appear out of the blue, tend to be quite specific, and are often unrelated to our feelings or expectations. When we follow their instructions, we are given an edge, an added protection. By sensing danger we often have the power to avoid it.

This was the case with my friend Dennis, who was leaving one morning for a business meeting in New York. Dennis wasn't afraid of flying, so when he dreamed his plane was going to crash he was alarmed. At the airport, while buying his ticket, his anxiety kept building. By the time he was in line to board, his fear was so great that he couldn't get on the plane. It took off without him and later experienced mechanical difficulties. Although there was no crash, the pilot had to make an emergency landing in the Midwest and several passengers were injured.

Sometimes, however, a dream can warn you of danger but you are unable to avert it. On a number of occasions, right before an earthquake hit Los Angeles, I've dreamed about it. I can distinctly feel the earth trembling, hear my sliding glass doors rattling violently in their frames, get physically thrown off balance. I realize at the time that an earthquake is taking place, yet I still remain cool, unaffected, as if I'm a witness to the event, not an active participant—an indication that the dream is psychic rather than a sign that I'm feeling unsteady about some aspect of my life. The difficulty is that my dream can occur from one to ten days before the actual event. Not can I always tell the severity of the quake. So although I know it's coming, short of leaving the city for the entire period, there is nothing much I can do other than making sure that my food and water supplies are well stocked.

Similarly, a psychiatrist friend of mine had a dream in which Ronald Reagan, then president, got shot. In it she witnessed the entire scene: the face of the gunman, the location where the shooting took place, and that Reagan survived. “The dream was so real,” my friend later told me, “as if I were really there.” Shortly afterward, the assassination attempt on Reagan's life actually occurred. Ultimately, my friend was powerless to affect the outcome of the shooting she foresaw.

You don't necessarily play an active role in every precognitive dream, nor are they always directed to you personally. As you become more psychically astute, certain information just automatically comes through. You are simply a receiver, able to pick up what is about to happen on a collective level as well as in your own life. Such precognitive dreams provide a quick news flash, forewarning you of a future event. There is no need to feel guilty or responsible if you can't prevent what is about to take place. It may not be within your power to act on this knowledge, although in certain circumstances it may help you to become better prepared. Nonetheless, I consider all precognitive dreams a blessing, evidence of the depth of connection we can have with ourselves and the world around us.

In my practice, I have often been guided by them. Shortly after I began working as a psychic at Mobius in 1984, I had my first precognitive dream involving a future patient. It was about a man named Al whom I'd met at a Christmas party a few days before. In it, a voice announced, in the same genderless calm voice present in many of my psychic dreams, “Al is going to contact you for an appointment.” This surprised me because we had only chatted briefly that night; I had no idea that he was even looking for a therapist. I was both amazed and delighted when within a week Al called.

Over the years, I have had identical dreams about other patients, many of whom I have never met or even heard of before. The format and message of the dream is consistent, only the name changing, and I am always excited when I have one. Without exception, these relationships have a meant-to-be quality and turn out particularly well. There is a special chemistry between us from the start, a compatibility and trust that allows therapy to take off. Dreams such as these are signs to me that I am supposed to work with somebody, for just a few months or for many years. Whatever the length of time, the result is consistently positive, healing for us both. No matter how booked up my schedule is, I always make room to see patients whom I intuitively learn of in this way.

I tend to have precognitive dreams about the patients I feel closest to or have known for a long time. Familiar with their rhythms, I can sense when something is off, dream about them when they're in need. Once, while on a meditation retreat in the Smoky Mountains with my teacher, I went back to my room to take an afternoon nap. Dead tired from our demanding schedule, I fell into a deep sleep and dreamed that I saw a patient, a recovering alcoholic I had been working with for over two years, huddled in a chair, weeping. A detached observer, I watched her sinking farther into despair as the image held strong, even after I woke up. Although I had another psychiatrist coveting for me, I felt compelled to give this woman a call. Something important was up that couldn't wait—I had to act. I was glad that I did. It turned out that her boyfriend had just stormed out of the house after they'd had a heated fight. Distraught, she was about to sacrifice five years of hard-earned sobriety and take a drink. But thankfully, she talked her feelings out with me. As a result of my dream, I was able to intervene at a critical moment and point her in a healthier direction.

Precognitive dreams can reflect and enhance the intimacy of all relationships, including those in psychotherapy. My work with a patient isn't limited to the hour or two that I spend with them in my office each week. A viable inner connection is established, a channel opened between us, an overall psychic tie.

Not long ago I had a dream in which an exceptionally healthy patient of mine took me aside and nonchalantly announced, “I want you to know that I have cancer.” As if this wasn't unusual, I politely replied, “Thank you for telling me.” My emotional neutrality, however, so typical of psychic dreams, vanished the moment I awoke. I was shocked by this news and I didn't want to believe it. After all, this man was a nonsmoker, jogged ten miles a day, ate a low-fat diet and had energy to burn. Hoping I was wrong, I filed the dream and waited. To my dismay, at our next appointment he told me that during a routine physical exam a suspicious spot on his X ray had been discovered and it had turned out to be malignant.

The strength of our bond allowed me to learn beforehand about his cancer. It's interesting that, at the time, this man didn't realize he had lung cancer, yet in the dream he was the one who notified me. I believe that some part of him actually did know and wanted to communicate it. And so he did, because of our psychic rapport. This dream wasn't about reversing his cancer. It was more a tribute to the trust we had established.

When you care about someone, it's natural to have precognitive dreams about them. Implicit in psychic relationships is that you become intuitively privy to very personal things, some of them quite painful. This is both an honor and a responsibility. As a therapist, I want to know the whole story. It helps me to stay alert to what my patients are going through so that I can be there for them in a complete way.

You don't have to be a swami with a turban on your head to dream of the future. Everyone can do it. But first you may have to redefine some of your ideas about the world. One is that from a psychic standpoint, time is relative. In precognitive dreams, as well as other intuitive states, past, present, and future blur together in a continuum. Time is not arranged in distinct, orderly segments as it appears to be from the perspective of our waking minds. A comment that Albert Einstein once made about time leaves a strong impression on me: “For us believing physicists the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, even if a stubborn one.” When I focus psychically or have a precognitive dream, it feels as though I'm tuning in to a collective bank in which all information, regardless of its time frame, is stored. Once I got used to this, accessing the future no longer seemed so unusual.

The greater reward that precognitive dreams offer is to allow us to stay in greater harmony with our own lives. It's as if the volume is turned up on an exquisite symphony playing just below our conscious level of awareness. For a moment we can begin to appreciate what Walt Whitman speaks about in “Song of Myself”: “I and this mystery here we stand.…Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am.” Precognitive dreams reveal elements of our future, and sing our own songs back to us. By listening, we can again begin to dance in rhythm as we were meant to, moving in step with the sacred.

HEALING DREAMS

I hate being sick, though I'm one of those lucky people who only occasionally have to see a doctor. But for over six months I had been having recurring severe sinus infections. Each trip to the ear, nose, and throat specialist would end up with me having my sinuses drained, a ten-day course of antibiotics, a few weeks of feeling better, and then my symptoms would return. Since I wasn't responding to the therapy, my doctor suggested a series of complicated nasal X rays and an MRI scan to see if there was a blockage requiring surgery. Not wanting the expense or trauma of the tests, I kept putting them off, but I got tired of being sick so much and finally gave in.

The night before the scheduled X rays, I had a dream:

I'm lying in a medical office on a flat wooden table, my body covered by only a white cotton sheet. I feel totally at peace, almost euphoric. I don't think of questioning where I am or what is happening. There are a number of thin silver needles inserted about an eighth of an inch into my skin, over various parts of my head and sinuses. In the next room I can see my mother smiling, looking youthful and healthy, giving me a go-ahead signal with her hands. Relieved by her presence, I know I'm in the right place. An acupuncturist stands beside me, assuring me that these treatments will make me feel better.

This dream specifically told me what to do. Although I had considered acupuncture before and sensed that it would help, my life was already so busy it seemed like too large a time commitment to take on. Hoping that antibiotics would be a quick fix, I waited. In fact, I knew of a wonderful acupuncturist whom a friend of mine had been raving about for years. Now, on the advice of the dream, and especially because I had gotten my mother's okay, I canceled the medical tests and set up an appointment. Over the next three months I went in for acupuncture twice a week, and my recurrent sinus infections stopped. This simple solution enabled me to avoid possible surgery, ultimately saved time and expense, and eliminated a great deal of unnecessary annoyance.

This was a dream that facilitated my healing. Prompted by my extreme dislike of the tests, it showed me a way out. I was grateful for how succinct it was, leaving little room in my mind for interpretation. I was also convinced by my feeling of total relaxation, verging on bliss, as if I were wrapped in a warm cocoon. It was identical to those heavenly experiences I've had when someone gifted works on me energetically with their hands. These feelings of well-being are easily recognizable signs of healing that we can look for in our dreams. I believe that my recovery began in this dream; the acupuncturist I later sought out simply took over.

There is a healing instinct within us that can manifest itself in our dreams. Though this can occur on an emotional level, my focus here is on the physical, which I haven't emphasized before. When you are asleep you open yourself up to healing forces. I am not saying that you have two sets of powers—one when you're asleep and another when you're awake. But in dreams, your resistances and inhibitions fall away; things can happen that you don't ordinarily give yourself permission to experience.

Whether you believe that healing dreams come directly from the divine, or view them as an expression of your higher self (I no longer make a distinction), just know that if you become ill, your dreams can be with you every step of the process—from the initial diagnostic phase and all through treatment. They may even enable you to find a cure. In the same way that you can actively solicit guidance in other dreams, you can also request direction about healing. Or, as in my case, it may simply be offered to you.

Dreams give you instructions about how to heal and may at times also be greatly reassuring. This is particularly true if you have a life-threatening illness, when many questions and uncertainties arise. Periods between checkups are often the most difficult. Fears crop up that can devastate you if you let them. Healing dreams monitor the pulse of your recovery by relaying to you psychic information that feels so genuinely authentic it has the power to quell such fears.