QUESTION.--What is a dream?
ANSWER--A dream is an event transpiring in that world belonging to the mind
when the objective senses have withdrawn into rest or oblivion.
Then the spiritual man is living alone in the future or ahead
of objective life and consequently lives man's future first,
developing conditions in a way that enables waking man to shape
his actions by warnings, so as to make life a perfect existence.
Q.--What relationship is sustained between the average man and his dreams?
A.--A dream to the average or sensual person, bears the same relation to his
objective life that it maintained in the case of the ideal dreamer, but it
means pleasures, sufferings and advancements on a lower or material plane.
Q.--Then why is man not always able to correctly interpret his dreams?
A.--Just as words fail sometimes to express ideas, so dreams fail
sometimes in their mind pictures to portray coming events.
Q.--If they relate to the future, why is it we so often dream
of the past?
A.--When a person dreams of past events, those events are warnings of evil
or good; sometimes they are stamped so indelibly upon the subjective mind
that the least tendency of the waking mind to the past throws these pictures
in relief on the dream consciousness.
Q.--Why is it that present environments often influence our dreams?
A.--Because the future of man is usually affected by the present,
so if he mars the present by wilful wrongs, or makes it bright
by right living it will necessarily have influence on his dreams,
as they are forecastings of the future.
Q.--What is an apparition?
A.--It is the subjective mind stored with the wisdom gained from futurity,
and in its strenuous efforts to warn its present habitation--
the corporal body--of dangers just ahead, takes on the shape of a dear
one as the most effective method of imparting this knowledge.
Q.--How does subjectivity deal with time?
A.--There is no past and future to subjectivity.
It is all one living present.
Q.--If that is so, why can't you tell us accurately of our future
as you do of our past?
A.--Because events are like a procession; they pass a few at a time
and cast a shadow on subjective minds, and those which have passed
before the waking mind are felt by other minds also and necessarily
make a more lasting impression on the subjective mind.
* * * *
Q.--To illustrate: A person on retiring or closing his eyes had a face
appear to him, the forehead well formed but the lower parts distorted.
Explain this phenomenon?
A.--A changed state from perfect sleep or waking possessed him.
Now, the man's face was only the expression of his real
thoughts and the state of his business combined.
His thoughts were strong and healthy, but his business fagging,
hence his own spirit is not a perfect likeness of his own soul,
as it takes every atom of earthly composition perfectly normal
to reproduce a perfect spirit picture of the soul or mortal man.
He would have seen a true likeness of himself had conditions
been favorable; thus a man knows when a complete whole is
his portion. Study to make surroundings always harmonious.
Life is only being perfectly carried on when these conditions
are in unison.