Dream Explorations

By Rae Franceschini

Have you ever been so nervous or anxious about a new job that you almost quit before Day One? I had been at the same job for nearly nine years when I decided on a complete career change. Twelve-hour days pared down to six; five days a week down to three. The biggest change was going from sitting all day to standing.

The interview went well, and my new employer and I agreed on the day I was to start. But now, a whole new fear gripped me. How well would I do my new tasks?

The job was in a cookie store. I had baked a lot at home and knew how to cook, yet this was different: two large ovens, three tall racks for cooling trays of cookies, huge tubs for dough, and on and on. It dawned on me that each day we would be making nine different kinds of cookies. How would I master all this?

Immediately, I became very nervous. It wasn’t long before I considered calling the owner to back out. Finally, as my fear peaked, I let my inner awareness surface long enough to say, “Hey, wait a minute! Give yourself a break. Put a little trust in your inner guidance; you might be fine.” I did stop fretting but wondered: Had that been my voice? Did I really believe I could do this job well?

By now it was late Friday night, time for bed. I set my fear aside and took a few deep breaths. I asked the Mᴀʜᴀɴᴛᴀ, the Inner Master, to help me cope with the days ahead and give me the inner strength to give the new job my best shot.

In the dream state that evening, the Mᴀʜᴀɴᴛᴀ took me to the cookie store. I knew it was late, but the lights were on and no one was there. In the dream, I started to explore the shop. I looked under the counters, opened drawers, and checked cupboards. I saw where all the paper goods were kept and the ingredients for making dough. I noted which supplies were kept in the walk-in freezer and how things were done. Getting familiar with the shop really set me at ease. I finished my night’s sleep peacefully.

What an incredible opportunity I had been given. I awoke early Saturday with a clear and total recall, and immediately thanked the Mᴀʜᴀɴᴛᴀ. For the rest of the weekend, I didn’t give the new job another thought. All I could do was my best, and after that, I could learn.

The following Tuesday was my first day. The person training me was really more interested in the fact that it was her last day. In her excitement, she reviewed my tasks too quickly. I watched and listened. When it was time for my trainer to leave, my other new coworker became nervous. Was she going to have to do all the work alone for the day, with me in the way?

I saw the dread in her eyes as I set to work, pulling tools out of drawers and running out back for ingredients. I asked her to make dough, remarking that as soon as she had it done, I’d start dropping the cookies. I continued to arrange things in the store as if I had already been working there for many months, instead of hours.

She looked at me and said, “How do you know where everything is?” I said, “Sometimes you just have to trust your inner feelings. Now I’m really going to need your help, if we’re to get all this work done today.”

We started making cookies, and a few hours later we finished ahead of schedule. She was surprised but happy to have me working with her.

I left work with the most wonderful feeling. Thanks to the Mᴀʜᴀɴᴛᴀ, I got through Day One and took a giant step in self-confidence and awareness.

By Jocelyne Durand and William Meekins

William:

I lost my wife of twenty-five years in December 1996. The following months brought a lonely time of coming to terms with my loss. In June 1997, with my grief finally beginning to lighten, I started wondering what a new love would be like. I just knew I would not live the rest of my life alone. I began telling my friends that I would know the new love of my life just by looking in her eyes.

In October 1997, I attended the ECK Worldwide Seminar in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with a great sense of love and anticipation. During the Friday afternoon session of the seminar, I went to a workshop titled “How to Master Change in Your Life.” Participants in the workshop were asked to create a collage of pictures and words as part of a goal-setting exercise.

I put on my goal sheet that I wanted to find someone who would bring some joy back into my life. My collage incuded a couple dancing, a smiling woman with a big red heart over her head, and the words Get connected today and Spontaneous.

How could I know that within five and a half hours my goal would be realized?

Jocelyne:

In 1995, a series of puzzling events began for me. First, in May of that year, I received a strong inner message that I should begin straightening out my life to make way for a new relationship. In December 1996 I had a dream. In the dream, I received a phone call from a man who told me that, although I did not yet know him, I was to become his wife. I was both uneasy and curious.

Six months after that dream, in June 1997, I had another. I was in a roomful of people seated at tables who were choosing partners. I immediately recognized an old friend I had not seen in lifetimes. “What are you doing here?” I asked in surprise as I seated myself at his table. We chatted about the issues that might come up between us as a couple, the greatest being that he was English-speaking, whereas my native language is French. “That won’t be a problem,” he reassured me. I awoke remembering his facial features and his thick salt-and pepper gray hair.

Finally, in October 1997, accepting a friend’s invitation, I decided at the last minute to attend the ECK Worldwide Seminar in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

William:

On Friday evening of the seminar, following the evening program, I returned to my room, changed clothes, and headed to the dance. At age fifty, after twenty-five years of marriage, I felt just like a recycled teenager, shy and awkward. After unsuccessfully trying to find a dance partner, I gave up, asked the Mᴀʜᴀɴᴛᴀ to choose for me the next one to dance with, and joined my roommate and friend, Bryan, who was seated at a table.

Jocelyne:

A gentleman I had met on the flight from Toronto to Minneapolis had invited me to join him at the Friday night dance. I entered the room about 10:30 p.m. but found him deeply engaged in conversation with another woman. Looking around for someone else to talk with, I started chatting with a new man at the table, who introduced himself as Bryan.

About 11:00 p.m., the disc jockey changed gears from fast dance music to a slow romantic mood. I returned to Bryan’s table to find him chatting with a gray-haired man.

“Jocelyne, may I introduce you to a good friend of mine, William?”

“Pleased to meet you, William.” There was something familiar about this man.

“Jocelyne, how come you’re not dancing?” asked William.

“No men around,” I joked.

I’ll take care of that,” he said, grabbing my hand and leading me to the dance floor. My hand felt very good in his.

William:

It felt so good to hold her hand. As we danced, I looked into Jocelyne’s eyes, and I knew she was the one.

Jocelyne:

As we danced, I realized this was the man from my dreams. I spoke French. He spoke English. There were tables all around us. And I recognized him! His face and the gray hair I had seen in my dream!

William:

The next day I returned to the How to master Change workshop to declare to all who would listen that my goal-setting exercise had produced results in less than six hours!

Jocelyne:

The very next day, William and I sat at a hotel dining room table. “You and I both know where this is leading,” he said. I could hardly believe my ears. Of course I knew. I had seen him in my dream. But how could he know too?

William and Jocelyne:

A year later, we were married at the Temple of ECK in Chanhassen, Minnesota, just days before the 1998 ECK Worldwide Seminar. Our friend Bryan, a member of the ECK clergy, who had introduced us the year before, performed the ceremony. We now know that love endures through the ages. We are so grateful to the Mᴀʜᴀɴᴛᴀ, our inner teacher, for leading us so gently and surely to our reunion in this life.

By Bennet C. Nwokedi

One day at work, I sat across from my office supervisor, writing checks to some of our creditors. The supervisor was busy working on some office records. While we were working, a friend of mine dropped by to say hello, so I left my task for a few minutes to see him off. When I returned, I finished up the check signing and handed the checks to the office supervisor to deliver to the recipients.

That night, about two in the morning, the Mᴀʜᴀɴᴛᴀ, my inner teacher, appeared to me in a blazing ray of light and told me to examine my checkbook because it had been tampered with. Startled, I awoke and switched on the light. As I was going through the checkbook, I discovered that two checks had been removed.

Monday morning I went right to the bank to report the missing checks and to find out whether my account had been accessed. As I was leaving the bank to await the results of the bank’s investigation into the matter, the Mᴀʜᴀɴᴛᴀ appeared in my car, in his Light body.

“Your office supervisor stole the checks when you went to see your friend off.”

This was hard to swallow. I didn’t want to doubt the Inner Master, but I had always trusted my office supervisor. Two hours later, the bank telephoned to say that two unknown persons had been caught attempting to cash one of the stolen checks for nearly $35,000. I hurried back to the bank. When I got there I discovered the thief was indeed my employee. He and his accomplice were arrested by the police and jailed.

Divine Spirit had given me total protection from my trusted office supervisor’s fraud. That day, I learned to trust the Mᴀʜᴀɴᴛᴀ, above all others, to guide me through the challenges of daily life.

By Sri Harold Klemp

In Germany, a woman on the path of ECK who hadn’t been in the job market for eleven years decided to go back to work. Her husband was working but lately it was becoming more difficult to make ends meet.

The woman had been on her job search for a year. Every time she went on an interview, she faced rejection.

Interviewers told her, “No, you don’t have quite the qualifications we’re looking for.” And every few days her husband would give her an ad that he had found in the newspaper in the employment section; he’d circle it for her and she’d call for an interview. But finally she didn’t even call these places anymore because she was afraid of one more rejection.

Then she had a dream. In the dream, she and her husband were out for a drive when suddenly he pulled the car over to the curb. “My brother’s over there,” he said. “I want to talk to him for a minute.” So he got out of the car, and while he was off talking to his brother, along came two acquaintances of this couple, a mother and a daughter.

The wife leaned her head out the car window and asked, “Where are you going?” The mother and daughter said they were on their way home. “You can ride with us as soon as my husband comes back,” the dreamer said.

As soon as the two women got in the car, they began to complain. The daughter complained about a broken necklace she had. She had tried to piece it together, but she just couldn’t get it pieced together. So she just complained on and on about it. The mother complained that she had been looking for a frame for a certain picture for a long time. But she just couldn’t find it.

After the couple drove the mother and daughter home, they took the daughter’s necklace to a friend who was a jeweler and quietly had it fixed. It cost quite a lot. The husband brought it back to this young woman, but the young woman wasn’t at all grateful. She just stuffed the necklace in her pocket without even a word of thanks.

Meanwhile, the dreamer’s mother phoned around and finally found a frame for the older woman’s picture. But the woman didn’t really care for the frame, and like her daughter, she never bothered to say thank you.

The dreamer woke up and wondered, Why did I ever become friends with those two people? They are so ungrateful.

The Inner Master said, “Look again.” And then it struck her. She realized that the dream was about herself.

The necklace meant the need for something valuable—a job to bring money in—but it was broken. She tried in her own way to get the necklace fixed (find a job), but she couldn’t. The second part of the dream was the picture frame that couldn’t be found. This meant that the circumstances surrounding the job were never right.

She realized that when her husband cut out these ads for her—he’d been doing it for over a year—she was never even grateful.

After this dream, the ECKist realized that the Dream Master had spoken to her to let her understand something about herself. The dream helped her understand just where she wasn’t facing up to her own responsibilities. She wanted to help with family finances, yet she wasn’t willing to persist enough. But this dream gave her the motivation.

That Tuesday the women called one of the ads her husband had just circled. It was an employment agency. The woman at the agency was not very encouraging. “It’s a recession; it’s hard to find jobs. I don’t think I’ll find you anything,” she said. “But you can leave your name if you want.”

On Thursday the employment agency called her and said, “You know, it’s very interesting, but I think I have the ideal job for you. All you have to do is go to the company and take the interview.” The woman who had the dream went to the interview. She got there early and sat out in the parking lot, very nervous.

“Don’t worry, said the Inner Master. “Don’t hang on too tightly. You’ve got to let go of your fears.”

This is the meaning of detachment, she realized.

Detachment is something we know about in the spiritual life. It doesn’t mean not to get involved; it means to not let outer circumstances throw off your inner balance. The ECKist heard this from the Inner Master through her inner feelings. She calmed down, and she developed the feeling of a child who expects only good from life.

So when the time came, she walked into this company, had her interview, and was hired. This was quite surprising because she had been out of the job market for eleven years.

The dream helped her recognize that she had been holding herself back from a better life.

By Judy Vashti Persad

In my dream I am driving on a reddish-brown dirt road in Trinidad. At a crossroad, I turn left and drive over a single-lane bridge to arrive at my aunt’s home, where Ma, my beloved grandmother, lives. I enter a large room filled with other women—relatives and friends. My aunt, also an ECKist, hugs me. “You made it in the fifth hour,” she breathes. She points to Ma, lying on the far side of the room.

As I approach my grandmother, she sits up to greet me. But her physical body remains lying on the bed. We stand face-to-face in our Soul bodies, only inches apart. Silently her voice speaks to me: “Jude, I am going. It’s time. I love you very much.”

I awoke with a start, feeling as though I was returning from somewhere more real than the sheets around me and deeper than my skin. My heartbeat was all I could hear. I sat up in bed hugging my knees, waiting for the phone call from Trinidad to tell me my grandmother had left, but it never came. I realized the dream was my call to go to Trinidad.

In the morning, I called my Mum. “I’m coming home to see Ma,” I told her.

“She’s very close to death,” Mum replied. “You may just make it for her funeral.”

“I’ll be there!” I said.

Miraculously, I caught a plane at 11:00 that very night. On the flight, I kept talking to my grandmother. “I’m on my way. I so want to see you, but if you need to leave, I don’t want to hold you back.”

As the plane touched Trinidad soil, I looked at my watch. It was 6:43 a.m. My cousin picked me up, reassuring me that Ma was still hanging on.

To avoid the morning traffic, he took an unfamiliar back road through fields of sugar cane. Unfamiliar until I recognized the reddish-brown dirt road from my dream. At a crossroad, we turned left and drove over the same single-lane bridge I had crossed in my dream.

I knew then I would be there in time to say good-bye to Ma.

Arriving at my aunt’s home, I raced upstairs and told her of my dream. “Let’s say a prayer with Ma,” she replied. She lifted my grandmother to a sitting position and held her there while I sang HU, the beautiful prayer song to God. Then I spoke gently to her of my love and of the love of family back in Canada who could not be there.

Although Ma was unable to move, I felt her arms raise up and encircle me. I felt the powerful force of love flowing through me and all around the three of us—my grandmother gave me her final loving hug. Then we laid her back to rest and sat at a respectful distance to allow her an undisturbed and peaceful translation (death).

Suddenly, the sunny and tranquil day was transformed. A wind began to rage around us, whipping the curtains and wind chimes to a frenzy. My mum and aunt ran to close the window louvers against the sudden, driving rain.

Without knowing why, I went to Ma’s bedside, leaned in close to her face, and with my left hand began rubbing her chest as I had done so many times to ease her heart pains. With my right hand, I caressed the soft warm skin of her forehead and inhaled her beloved scent of coconut oil. I kissed her forehead and cheek, whispering, “Ma, if it’s time to go now, it’s easy. Just let go. God is here.”

She took a breath, and then another. And then no more. As she crossed the border between the worlds, I felt I was touching eternity.

“Mum, it’s happening.” I called out. Everyone gathered around Ma’s bed. The wind and rain stopped as suddenly as it had started. The passageway between the worlds was closed again. My precious grandmother had entered another room.

Two days after Ma’s funeral, I realized the significance of my aunt’s words in my dream: “You made it in the fifth hour.” My plane had touched down in Trinidad at exactly 6:43 a.m., and Ma left this world at 11:43 a.m.—precisely five hours later.

The guidance in my dream had led me to a precious gift—an experience of the power of love to connect us, Soul to Soul, even across the barriers between worlds.

By Russell Torlage

One day at work, my manager approached me. Because I had strong computer skills, I was asked to consider heading up a special project. Although my expertise did not cover all the project requirements, I accepted. The job turned out to be very demanding.

After a year and a half, I took a mental inventory of the assignment. The stress of the position was having a heavy impact on my personal life. I wasn’t practicing my spiritual exercises regularly. Even though that twenty minutes a day of quiet contemplation was vital to my spiritual health, my attitude now was just to get them over with. I was eating poorly and sleeping poorly. Many of my fun projects had been put on hold indefinitely.

I wanted out of the assignment, but I felt guilty about abandoning the project. I also worried about jeopardizing my chances for any future job promotions. But what’s more important, my job or my life? I asked myself. After three days of mental acrobatics, I still could not decide what to do. I needed help from the ECK, the Holy Spirit.

One night before nodding off for the evening, I asked the Mᴀʜᴀɴᴛᴀ, my spiritual guide, to show me the answer in a dream. I promised to act on the dream no matter what the message.

That night I dreamed I was driving down a road in a car I had recently sold. Although snow covered the ground, the car’s windows were down. It was almost dark. Up ahead a deer was grazing on the road. Seeing this gentle creature brought joy to my heart. Then I caught a glimpse of two pairs of shining eyes in the dark beyond the deer—two wolves. One made a large circle around the deer. It joined the other wolf, and I could see them planning their attack. Then to my horror both wolves charged the deer and ripped it to pieces.

Shocked at what was unfolding in front of me, I feared for my own safety. I managed to roll the windows up. I wanted desperately to accelerate past the wolves while they were attacking the deer, but my tires spun in the snow. I eased my foot off the accelerator, and finally the wheels gained traction. The wolves didn’t notice me. They carried the deer carcass in front of the car and off to the left.

As I motored away, I saw one of the foremen from work walking toward me on the left. He looked confused as I drove past him because of the car I was in and the direction I was going.

When I woke up, I analyzed my dream. My old car represented the job position I held before taking on my new assignment. The deer represented my previous peaceful state of consciousness. The first wolf that scouted out its prey was my immediate boss. The second wolf was my boss’s boss. Both of them were involved in the decision to approach me about the new assignment.

The killing of the deer showed me the destruction of my personal life. To my managers, the corporation’s appetite was all that mattered. My career was unimportant. Later I would find out that there was no future in my new position after all.

Driving past the wolves indicated that my fate would change. The fact that the two wolves were more interested in the carcass than in me showed me that my best interests were not being served. The responsibility to live my life as I deemed fit would be mine and mine alone. Passing my coworker showed me that my peers would be very surprised at my decision to return to my old position.

This dream showed me that if I quit the project, my life would continue in a better direction where I could again find balance in all areas, especially my spiritual life.

First thing the next morning I made an appointment to meet with my boss. I was nervous, but I knew what I had to do. The ECK had showed me in no uncertain terms. It was up to me to trust in the Mᴀʜᴀɴᴛᴀ to stand up and take charge of my life and my future. Two and a half hours later I had resigned.

Since then my life has certainly changed for the better. I have more time to devote to volunteer work. I enrolled in an engineering course that time restrictions and pressure had prevented me from taking. I was able to complete all of the little projects that had been on hold, and start many other new projects.

This dream was a gift of awareness. It brought a deeper insight into my life and showed me that the creative power of Divine Spirit is in each and every one of us. Most important, it convinced me that the Mᴀʜᴀɴᴛᴀ always has my best interests at heart.