Death and Dreams
I recently reviewed my blog posts to see which ones garnered the most interest. I was a bit surprised to see that my post titled Dreams and the Fear of Death on March 16, 2018, received more than three times as many views as the next most popular post, which was Some Common Dream Themes.
Because of this interest in dreams related to death, I decided to expand on the earlier post in this one. I hope I can help alleviate the fear that many people feel when thinking about their death. Death to most people represents the unknown—and we often fear what is unknown. Despite religious teachings, nothing concrete is known about what happens after our physical death. Does awareness continue in some way? Do we reincarnate and experience another life on this earth? If we do not come back to this earth, but our existence continues, what form does it take? What do we spend our time doing? Or is there a sense of time at all? Even in The New Testament, Jesus does not elaborate about the exact nature of the life with him in eternity.
Many scientist have looked for some evidence of our continued existence, but have found none. But perhaps they have been looking the wrong place. They expect to see physical evidence, but there is no reason to believe that evidence of our continued existence after death will be physical—at least in a way that can currently be measured.
My own belief of our continued existence after death came about because of my studies of Edgar Cayce and my own dreams. The Edgar Cayce readings enlarged my view of the universe and the nature of humankind. I knew that much of what he said was true because I experienced it in my own life. Despite my scientific background, I didn’t care what scientists thought because I knew what was true. While the scientific community argued over the existence of psychic phenomena, I could see my future ever day in my dreams from the prior night. And the paranormal became normal.
Edgar Cayce described death as a simple process that can happen as quickly and easily as “the snip of a ribbon.” I believe that many people who pass over are confused for some time because they don’t realize they have died. In my dreams after my mother died, I visited her in a hospital room. She didn’t realize that she had died. When she was told, her initial reaction was fear. I tried to comfort her, but she had to adjust to her new circumstances and reality. People who are considered “sensitives” often will see the dead, especially family members who have recently passed.
Some scientists say visions of the dead are all a creation of the mind in an attempt to alleviate our fear of death or sense of loss of a loved one. But they are also the same scientists who will say psychic phenomena don’t exist, despite a wealth of evidence that it does.
Clearly, when we die the brain will cease to function as its blood supply ends. Its physical cells will begin to die. But I do not believe the mind and the brain are the same thing. I believe we need a physical brain to function properly within the framework of a physical world. We need the brain to process all of the sense information to allow us to function and warn us of dangers. A mind independent of the brain will not be able to make sense of a physical body in relation to its environment. But I believe that only part of the mind is involved with the functioning of the brain. I believe the remaining part of the mind is attuned to other realities.
Edgar Cayce described the mind as consisting of three parts: the conscious mind, the subconscious mind, and the superconscious mind. The conscious mind is our normal aware mind, the subconscious mind similar to that described by psychologists, and the superconscious mind the part that has never left its Creator. Some may consider it related to the collective unconscious of Carl Jung. These are not clear partitions or divisions, but more like aspects of the one mind.
When we dream, the dreams can come from the subconscious and different levels within it, or as divine guidance or visions from the superconscious. Sometimes our dreams are about our daily struggles and concerns and are close to surface consciousness. At other times, we may tune into concerns of others such as family and friends, or we may see future events such as a job change or health issue. And on some occasions, we may have a divine vision to inspire or console us.
Edgar Cayce said that when we die the subconscious becomes the conscious in our new existence, and the superconscious becomes the subconscious. So based on this view, we don’t just join our Creator, or pass to eternal damnation, but instead we face an existence based on what we have built into our deeper levels of consciousness while on the earth. We face ourselves. A well-known Edgar Cayce quote is “All you may know of heaven or hell is within your own self.”
If you want to discover the contents of your subconscious, I believe that dreams provide the way. Our dreams show us the contents of our subconscious; they reveal whether or not we are in accord with our superconscious. If you are afraid to look now, you may not have any choice later. And you may have lost opportunities to bring light into your consciousness while on this earth.
I do not believe that someone suddenly becomes aware and enlightened after death. I think we become what we are when all the contents of our subconscious become visible. We dwell on the level we have built for ourselves. We have an opportunity in this life to pass over as a happy and forgiving soul, or we can pass over as one filled with conflict and hate. The choice is ours. I don’t think the occurrence of death changes who we are.
Some who believe in reincarnation may think that they’ll postpone any hard choices or changes in behavior until the next life; they’ll revel in this life and all its pleasures without any regard for consequences. Any thoughts about making better life choices are postponed for another life. My comment to those is the following: if they believe in reincarnation, what makes them think the next life will afford them the same opportunities as this one. It could be much worse with any progress painful in the extreme.
I also think that dreams provide us with a sense of what existence is like outside of the physical body. Things are much more plastic with change initiated by our thoughts. We can travel effortlessly and are free of all of the restrictions of a physical body. But are we happy? As stated above, I think the answer is determined by what we have built into our consciousness. Jesus said, “… the kingdom of God is within you.” Why are we always looking outside of ourselves?
Over the course of my lifetime, my dreams number in the tens of thousands. I cannot begin to document all of my dreams and explain their meaning. In my books, I have provided a small selection of dreams that I believe are representative of the various types of dreams I encountered. My dreams have been a marvelous adventure. Some of my days now are quiet and uneventful, spent working on a book or blog post. However, my dreams of the previous night may have had me engaged in multiple adventures and paranormal contacts with others. Sometimes when I awake, I am glad to have the day to rest from my dream activities. Your nightly dreams can be the most creative part of a twenty-four-hour period.
I believe I have sometimes visited those who have passed over. The visits are usually brief encounters, but do provide a sense of the continuation of life after physical death. However, I caution here that most encounters in dreams with those who have died are not encounters with the actual person. The person in the dream is symbolic of someone we have encountered or will encounter who reminds us of the actual person in some way. I think we can only know the difference based on the nature of the dream and interaction with the person in the dream. What I consider my actual encounters with the dead have been with people who recently passed.
As humans, we have the ability to reflect on our lives and review the past. We assess the deluge of sense information and from it build a picture of the world. However, despite our best attempts to see clearly, we also filter out unwanted, but important, information and distort what we see by our beliefs, which may not have much relationship to reality.
The senses are only part of the complete picture. Our subconscious is also sending us information through intuition and dreams. If we ignore them, we are not seeing the complete picture. We are cut off from the tremendous source of creativity that is our inner being. Enlightenment or becoming whole is the process of uniting and bringing into harmony the internal and external so we become consciously aware of both and complete as a human being.
If you want to have an experience that will convince you of the reality of life after death, look to your dreams. Pray about it and ask to have an experience that will leave you with the knowledge and understanding that life continues after your physical death. Have faith and it will happen.