10,000 Dreams Interpreted Part 1

10,000 Dreams Interpreted.

by Gustavus Hindman Miller.

PREFACE.

"Dreams are rudiments of the great state to come. We dream what is about to happen."--BAILEY.

The Bible, as well as other great books of historical and revealed religion, shows traces of a general and substantial belief in dreams. Plato, Goethe, Shakespeare and Napoleon a.s.signed to certain dreams prophetic value. Joseph saw eleven stars of the Zodiac bow to himself, the twelfth star. The famine of Egypt was revealed by a vision of fat and lean cattle. The parents of Christ were warned of the cruel edict of Herod, and fled with the Divine Child into Egypt.

Pilate's wife, through the influence of a dream, advised her husband to have nothing to do with the conviction of Christ. But the gross materialism of the day laughed at dreams, as it echoed the voice and verdict of the mult.i.tude, "Crucify the Spirit, but let the flesh live." Barabbas, the robber, was set at liberty.

The ultimatum of all human decrees and wisdom is to gratify the pa.s.sions of the flesh at the expense of the spirit. The prophets and those who have stood nearest the fountain of universal knowledge used dreams with more frequency than any other mode of divination.

Profane, as well as sacred, history is threaded with incidents of dream prophecy. Ancient history relates that Gennadius was convinced of the immortality of his soul by conversing with an apparition in his dream.

Through the dream of Cecilia Metella, the wife of a Consul, the Roman Senate was induced to order the temple of Juno Sospita rebuilt.

The Emperor Marcian dreamed he saw the bow of the Hunnish conqueror break on the same night that Attila died.

Plutarch relates how Augustus, while ill, through the dream of a friend, was persuaded to leave his tent, which a few hours after was captured by the enemy, and the bed whereon he had lain was pierced with the enemies' swords.

If Julius Caesar had been less incredulous about dreams he would have listened to the warning which Calpurnia, his wife, received in a dream.

Croesus saw his son killed in a dream.

Petrarch saw his beloved Laura, in a dream, on the day she died, after which he wrote his beautiful poem, "The Triumph of Death."

Cicero relates the story of two traveling Arcadians who went to different lodgings--one to an inn, and the other to a private house. During the night the latter dreamed that his friend was begging for help. The dreamer awoke; but, thinking the matter unworthy of notice, went to sleep again. The second time he dreamed his friend appeared, saying it would be too late, for he had already been murdered and his body hid in a cart, under manure. The cart was afterward sought for and the body found. Cicero also wrote, "If the G.o.ds love men they will certainly disclose their purposes to them in sleep."

Chrysippus wrote a volume on dreams as divine portent. He refers to the skilled interpretations of dreams as a true divination; but adds that, like all other arts in which men have to proceed on conjecture and on artificial rules, it is not infallible.

Plato concurred in the general idea prevailing in his day, that there were divine manifestations to the soul in sleep. Condorcet thought and wrote with greater fluency in his dreams than in waking life.

Tartini, a distinguished violinist, composed his "Devil's Sonata" under the inspiration of a dream. Coleridge, through dream influence, composed his "Kubla Khan."

The writers of Greek and Latin cla.s.sics relate many instances of dream experiences. Homer accorded to some dreams divine origin. During the third and fourth centuries, the supernatural origin of dreams was so generally accepted that the fathers, relying upon the cla.s.sics and the Bible as authority, made this belief a doctrine of the Christian Church.

Synesius placed dreaming above all methods of divining the future; he thought it the surest, and open to the poor and rich alike.

Aristotle wrote: "There is a divination concerning some things in dreams not incredible." Camille Flammarion, in his great book on "Premonitory Dreams and Divination of the Future," says: "I do not hesitate to affirm at the outset that occurrence of dreams foretelling future events with accuracy must be accepted as certain."

Joan of Arc predicted her death.

Cazotte, the French philosopher and transcendentalist, warned Condorcet against the manner of his death.

People dream now, the same as they did in medieval and ancient times.

The following excerpt from "The Unknown,"[1] a recent book by Flammarion, the French astronomer, supplemented with a few of my own thoughts and collections, will answer the purposes intended for this book.

[1] "From `The Unknown.' Published by Harper & Brothers Copyright, 1900, by Camille Flammarion."

"We may see without eyes and hear without ears, not by unnatural excitement of our sense of vision or of hearing, for these accounts prove the contrary, but by some interior sense, psychic and mental.

"The soul, by its interior vision, may see not only what is pa.s.sing at a great distance, but it may also know in advance what is to happen in the future. The future exists potentially, determined by causes which bring to pa.s.s successive events.

"POSITIVE OBSERVATION PROVES THE EXISTENCE OF A PSYCHIC WORLD, as real as the world known to our physical senses.

"And now, because the soul acts at a distance by some power that belongs to it, are we authorized to conclude that it exists as something real, and that it is not the result of functions of the brain?

"Does light really exist?

"Does heat exist?

"Does sound exist?

"No.

"They are only manifestations produced by movement.

"What we call light is a sensation produced upon our optic nerve by the vibrations of ether, comprising between 400 and 756 trillions per second, undulations that are themselves very obscure.

"What we call heat is a sensation produced by vibrations between 350 and and{sic} 600 trillions.

"The sun lights up s.p.a.ce, as much at midnight as at midday. Its temperature is nearly 270 degrees below zero.

"What we call sound is a sensation produced upon our auditory nerve by silent vibrations of the air, themselves comprising between 32,000 and 36,000 a second.

"Very many scientific terms represent only results, not causes. "The soul may be in the same case.

"The observations given in this work, the sensations, the impressions, the visions, things heard, etc., may indicate physical effects produced without the brain.

"Yes, no doubt, but it does not seem so.

"Let us examine one instance.

"Turn back to page [email protected]@@ "A young woman, adored by her husband, dies at Moscow. Her father-in-law, at Pulkowo, near St. Petersburg, saw her that same hour by his side. She walked with him along the street; then she disappeared. Surprised, startled, and terrified, he telegraphed to his son, and learned both the sickness and the death of his daughter-in-law.

"We are absolutely obliged to admit that SOMETHING emanated from the dying woman and touched her father-in-law. This thing unknown may have been an ethereal movement, as in the case of light, and may have been only an effect, a product, a result; but this effect must have had a cause, and this cause evidently proceeded from the woman who was dying. Can the const.i.tution of the brain explain this projection? I do not think that any anatomist or physiologist will give this question an affirmative answer. One feels that there is a force unknown, proceeding, not from our physical organization, but from that in us which can think.

"Take another example (see page 57)[email protected]@@ "A lady in her own house hears a voice singing. It is the voice of a friend now in a convent, and she faints, because she is sure it is the voice of the dead. At the same moment that friend does really die, twenty miles away from her.

"Does not this give us the impression that one soul holds communication with another?

"Here is another example (page 163):@@@ "The wife of a captain who has gone out to the Indian mutiny sees one night her husband standing before her with his hands pressed to his breast, and a look of suffering on his face. The agitation that she feels convinces her that he is either killed or badly wounded. It was November 14th. The War Office subsequently publishes his death as having taken place on November 15th. She endeavors to have the true date ascertained. The War Office was wrong. He died on the 14th.

"A child six years old stops in the middle of his play and cries out, frightened: "Mamma, I have seen Mamma." At that moment his mother was dying far away from him (page 124)@@ "A young girl at a ball stops short in the middle of a dance and cries, bursting into tears. `My father is dead; I have just seen him.' At that moment her father died. She did not even know he was ill.

"All these things present themselves to us as indicating not physiological operations of one brain acting on another, but psychic actions of spirit upon spirit. We feel that they indicate to us some power unknown.

"No doubt it is difficult to apportion what belongs to the spirit, the soul, and what belongs to the brain. We can only let ourselves be guided in our judgment and our appreciations by the same feeling that is created in us by the discussion of phenomena. This is how all science has been started. Well, and does not every one feel that we have here to do with manifestations from beings capable of thought, and not with material physiological facts only?

"This impression is superabundantly confirmed by investigation concerning the unknown faculties of the soul, when active in dreams and somnambulism.

"A brother learns the death of his young sister by a terrible nightmare.

"A young girl sees beforehand, in a dream, the man whom she will marry.

"A mother sees her child lying in a road, covered with blood.

"A lady goes, in a dream, to visit her husband on a distant steamer, and her husband really receives this visit, which is seen by a third person.

"A magnetized lady sees and describes the interior of the body of her dying mother; what she said is confirmed by the autopsy.

"A gentleman sees, in a dream, a lady whom he knows arriving at night in a railroad station, her journey having been undertaken suddenly.

"A magistrate sees three years in advance the commission of a crime, down to its smallest details.

"Several persons report that they have seen towns and landscapes before they ever visited them, and have seen themselves in situations in which they found themselves long after.

"A mother hears her daughter announce her intended marriage six months before it has been thought of.

"Frequent cases of death are foretold with precision.

"A theft is seen by a somnambulist, and the execution of the criminal is foretold.

"A young girl sees her fiance', or an intimate friend dying (these are frequent cases), etc.

"All these show unknown faculties in the soul. Such at least is my own impression. It seems to me that we cannot reasonably attribute the prevision of the future and mental sight to a nervous action of the brain.

"I think we must either deny these facts or admit that they must have had an intellectual and spiritual cause of the psychic order, and I recommend sceptics who do not desire to be convinced, to deny them outright; to treat them as illusions and cases of a fortuitous coincidence of circ.u.mstances. They will find this easier. Uncompromising deniers of facts, rebels against evidence, may be all the more positive, and may declare that the writers of these extraordinary narratives are persons fond of a joke, who have written them to hoax me, and that there have been persons in all ages who have done the same thing to mystify thinkers who have taken up such questions.

"These phenomena prove, I think, that the soul exists, and that it is endowed with faculties at present unknown. That is the logical way of commencing our study, which in the end may lead us to the problem of the after-life and immortality. A thought can be transmitted to the mind of another. There are mental transmissions, communications of thoughts, and psychic currents between human souls. s.p.a.ce appears to be no obstacle in these cases, and time sometimes seems to be annihilated."

A few years ago a person whom I will designate as "A" related a dream to me as follows: "I take no interest in pugilism or pugilists, but I saw, in a dream, every detail of the Corbett and Fitzsimmons mill, four days before it took place out West. Two nights before the fight I had a second dream in which a favorite horse was running, but suddenly, just before the judge's stand was pa.s.sed, a hitherto un.o.bserved little black horse ran ahead and the crowd shouted in my ears, `Fitzsimmons wins!' "

"B" relates the following as a dream: "I saw the American soldiers, in clay-colored uniform, bearing the flag of victory two weeks before the Spanish-American war was declared, and of course before any living being could have known the uniform to be adopted. Later I saw, several days before the actual occurrence happened, the destruction of Cervera's fleet by the American navy." Signed "B."

"Just after the South African hostilities began, I saw in a dream a fierce struggle between the British and Boers, in which the former suffered severe losses. A few nights after I had a second dream in which I saw the contending forces in a long-drawn contest, very disastrous to both, and in which neither could claim a victory. They seemed to be fighting to a frazzle." Signed "C."

"D" related to me at the time of the occurrence of the dream the following: "It had been suggested to me that the two cereals, corn and wheat, were too far apart, and that I ought to buy corn. At noon I lay down on a lounge to await luncheon; I had barely closed my eyes before a voice whispered: `Don't buy, but sell that corn.' `What do you mean?' I asked. `Sell at the present price, and buy at 23 7/8.' " The foregoing dream was related to me by a practical, successful business man who never speculates. I watched the corn market and know it took the turns indicated in the dream.

In this dream we find the dreamer conversing with some strange intelligence possessed of knowledge unknown to objective reason. It could not, therefore, have been the waking thoughts of the dreamer, for he possessed no such information. Was the message superinduced through the energies and activities of the waking mind on the subjective mind? This could not have been, because he had no such thoughts; besides, the intelligence given was free from the errors of the calculating and anxious waking mind.

We must therefore look to other sources for an explanation. Was it the higher self that manifested to Abraham in the dim ages of the world? Was it the Divine Voice that gave solace to Krishna in his abstraction? Was it the unerring light that preceded Gautama into the strange solitudes of Asia? Was it the small voice that Elijah heard in the desert of Shurr? Was it the Comforter of Jesus in the wilderness and the garden of distress? Or, was it Paul's indwelling spirit of this earthly tabernacle? One thing we may truthfully affirm--that it did not proceed from the rational, objective mind of the rank materialist, who would close all doors to that inner life and consciousness where all true religion finds its birthmark, its hope, its promises and its faith; which, rightly understood, will leave to the horrors of the Roman crucifixion the twin thieves, superst.i.tion and scepticism, while the angel of "Goodwill" will go free to solace the world with the fruit and fragrance of enduring power and promise{.} The steel chains that fasten these hydra-headed crocodiles of sensuous poison around love and destiny can only be severed by the diamond of wisdom and knowledge.

A citizen worthy of confidence relates the following dream: "In December, 1878, I saw in a dream my brother-in-law, Henry Yarnell, suffering from a b.l.o.o.d.y knife wound; after this I awoke, but soon fell asleep again. The second time I dreamed of a similar scene, except that the wound was the result of a shotgun. After this I did not go to sleep again. I was much troubled about my dream, and soon started in the direction of my brother-in-law's house. I had not gone far, when I met an acquaintance who promptly informed me that my brother-in-law had been shot." Signed "E."

A well-known resident of Chattanooga, Tenn., formerly of New York City, will vouch for the accuracy of the following incident in his life: "On February 19, 1878, I was boarding with a family on Christopher street, New York, while my wife and baby were visiting my parents in the country, a short distance from the city. Our baby was taken sick. The malady developed into brain fever, followed by water on the brain, causing the little one's death.

"At our boarding-place there was at the time a quartette of us gra.s.s widowers, as we called ourselves, and in order to pa.s.s away the time pleasantly we had organized a `gra.s.s widowers' euchre club.' We used to meet almost every evening after dinner in the dining-room, and play until about eleven o'clock, when we would retire. On the above date I dreamed that after playing our usual evening games we took our departure for our rooms, and on the way up the second flight of stairs I heard a slight movement behind me; on looking around I found I was being followed by a tall figure robed in a long, loose white gown, which came down to the floor. The figure seemed to be that of a man--I would say, about seven feet tall--who followed me up the second flight and along the hallway, entering my room. After coming in the door he made a circle of the room and seemed to be looking for something, and when he approached the door to make his exit he stopped still, and with a gesture of his hand remarked, `I have taken all you have.' On the following morning, about 9:30 o'clock, I received a telegram from my wife announcing the death of our only baby." Signed "F."

A well-known citizen of Chattanooga, Tenn., relates and vouches for the truth of the following occurrence: "Several years ago, when a boy, I had a schoolmate and friend, Willie T., between whom and myself there sprung up a mutual feeling of high regard. We were chums in the sense that we were almost constantly together, both at school and at home, and among the partners.h.i.+ps we formed was one of having amateur shadowgraph and panoramic shows in the bas.e.m.e.nt of Willie's home. This much to show the mental and social relations.h.i.+p that existed between us. Some time during this a.s.sociation (I cannot recall the exact night now) I had a strange dream, in which my chum appeared to me with outstretched hand, asking me to shake, saying, `I shall not see you any more.' With that, the dream lapsed and was over. I thought nothing of the occurrence, and had almost forgotten it, when one day, about a week later, during which time I had not had a glimpse of my chum, while he was out hunting with another friend, W. McC., in following him over a rail fence, the latter's gun was accidentally discharged in Willie's face and neck, resulting in instant death. With this shocking news the memory of the dream I had had came back to me vividly and puzzled me very greatly, and indeed has puzzled me to this day." Signed "G."

The recipients of the above dreams are living to-day and their names and address may be obtained, none of them are credulous fanatics or predisposed to a belief in psychic or spirit phenomena.

The above dreams, except two, cannot be explained by telepathy, because the mental picture cast on the dream mind had not in either instance taken place in waking life. This would account for the dream perception of "D," which did not, in all probability, take place until after the murder had been committed.

The vision of "F" might be disposed of in the same way. In this instance "F" saw the white-robed specter open the door, walk around the room and finally, taking his position as if to depart, say: "I have taken all you have." No doubt this vision took place at the exact moment of the child's death.

There are thousands of similar experiences occurring daily in the lives of honest, healthy and sane human beings, that rival the psychic manifestations of Indian Yogism or Hebrew records.

Still men go on doubting this true and loving subjective intelligence that is constantly wooing for entrance into the soul and is ever vigilant in warning the material life of approaching evils. They prefer the Witch of Endor, and the Black Magicians of ancient Egypt to the higher, or Christ self, that has been seen and heard by the sages and saints of all ages, a.s.suming appropriate symbols, as in the case of the vision of "F," where the angel of death was a.s.sumed.

To Paul it appeared as a great personal truth whom he was relentlessly persecuting. To many a wayward son or daughter of the present time, it appears as a dead relative or friend, in order to approach the material mind and make its warning more effective.

To those who were interested in the teachings of Christ, but who after his death were inclined to doubt him, this higher self materialized in the form of the Great Master in order to impress on their material minds the spiritual import of his teachings. So, to this day, when doubt and temptation mar the moral instinct, G.o.d, through the spiritual self, as Job says, approaches man while in deep sleep upon the bed to impress his instructions that he may change man from his purpose.

The spiritual world always fixes its...o...b..t upon a straight line, while the material world is fonder of curves. We find man struggling through dreadful marshes and deserts of charlatanism in order to get a glimpse into his future, instead of solicitously following the straight line of inner consciousness that connects with the infinite mind, from which, aided by his Church and the healthy action of his own judgment, he may receive those helpful spiritual impressions and messages necessary to solace the longings of the searching soul.

The philosophy of the True Master is the straight line. Pythagoras, Plato and Christ created angles by running vertical lines through the ecclesiastical and hypocritical conventionalities of their day. The new angles and curves thus produced by the bold philosophy of the humble Nazarene have confronted with impregnable firmness during the intervening ages the sophistry of the Pharisees.

"In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; then he openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction. That he may withdraw man from his purpose and hide pride from man."--JOB 33:15.

"Man cannot contradict the laws of Nature. But, are all the laws of Nature yet understood?"

"Real philosophy seeks rather to solve than to deny."--LYTTON.

Those who live active lives exclude spiritual thought and fill their minds with the fascinations of worldly affairs, pleasure and business, dream with less frequency than those who regard objective matters with lighter concern. The former depend alone upon the voluptuous warmth of the world for contentment; they look to money, the presence of some one, or to other external sources for happiness, and are often disappointed; while the latter, with a just appreciation of temporal wants, depend alone upon the inner consciousness for that peace which pa.s.seth all carnal understanding.

They are strengthened, as were Buddha and Christ, by suppressing the sensual fires for forty days and nights in the wilderness of trial and temptation. They number a few, and are never disappointed, while the former number millions.

Nature is three-fold, so is man; male and female, son or soul. The union of one and two produce the triad or the trinity which underlies the philosophy of the ancients.

Man has a physical or visible body, an atom of the physical or visible earth. He has a soul the exact counterpart of his body, but invisible and subjective; incomplete and imperfect as the external man, or vice versa.

The soul is not only the son or creation of man, but it is the real man. It is the inner imperishable double or imprint of what has outwardly and inwardly transpired. All thoughts, desires and actions enter the soul through the objective mind.

The automaton of the body responds as quickly to the bat of the eye as it does to the movement of the whole body. By it the foot-steps of man and the very hairs of his head are numbered. Thus it becomes his invisible counterpart. It is therefore the book of life or death, and by it he judges himself or is already judged. When it is complete nothing can be added or taken from its personnel. It is sometimes partly opened to him in his dreams, but in death is clearly revealed.

Man has also a spiritual body, subjective to, and more ethereal than the soul. It is an infinitesimal atom, and is related in substance to the spiritual or infinite mind of the universe. Just as the great physical sun, the center of visible light, life and heat, is striving to purify the foul miasma of the marsh and send its luminous messages of love into the dark crevices of the earth, so the Great Spiritual Sun, of which the former is a visible prototype or reflection, is striving to illuminate with Divine Wisdom the personal soul and mind of man, thus enabling him to become cognizant of the spiritual or Christ presence within.