These Dreams

The old saying, "a dream come true" seems rather trite or hackneyed; but, in the weird world of the annals of the psychic, such occurrences DO in fact happen; dreams DO come true. And with startling regularity.

Everyone has experienced a precognitive vision. Maybe some have just had that "funny feeling," or sixth sense tingle about something before it occurs. You may know the phone is going to ring before it does. You are just CERTAIN that you're going to run into an old friend at the shopping center; you, perhaps, dreamed about them the night before. And, of course, you just happen to run into that old friend you've found yourself, unaccountably, thinking of, even though you haven't seen them in years, maybe decades.

In more spectacular instances, people have reported skipping flights just because they had that "funny feeling," that sense of apprehension or danger. Statistically, it has been suggested that planes that crash, unaccountably, have the highest number of cancellations of their ticket-holders. Same goes, I assume, for trains. (Do people still ride them?)

The pioneering psychic investigator W.T. Stead was told by a spiritualist medium, early in 1912, to avoid taking passage aboard a ship. He was, unfortunately, NOT given the name of said ship, although he must have gleaned that what the ghost was trying to tell him was that the damn ship would sink. Out of curiousity, he did just the OPPOSITE of what he was instructed to do. Big mistake.

He died on the night of April 14th, 1912, after booking passage aboard the Titanic.

Dreams sometimes provide that rare vision of the future, or what the future might bring. Of course, dreams speak in symbols.

(There are various conjectures for why this might be, one of which being that Universal Intelligence, call it "God," or what-have-you, is simply too vast and alien to convey the full truth of any communication to the finite human intelligence. Thus, he communicates in symbolic, mostly inscrutable ways. Otherwise, His or Her or It's full majesty might blow our minds, render us insane, like a character encountering the Great Old Ones in an H.P. Lovecraft tale.)

David Booth, a man with no previous interest in psychic phenomena or the occult, dreamed of a TWA flight crashing, for seven nights in a row, nght after night. He even dreamed the flight number. Of course, he alerted the FAA, but they did nothing. The plane crashed; people died. What, one may ask, is the value of such a precognitive dream, if one cannot alter the impending tragedy it foretells?

There are no easy answers, I think, to be found in this life. Not anywhere.

Forbidden Knowledge

The Johnson Smith Catalog, of jokes tricks and novelties, appealed to the late Satanist Anton Szandor LaVey quite a lot, and he claimed in an interview in 1997 that he actually slept with one next to him, on his nightstand. Alas, the good Doktor has long since departed this world, seems almost as much a relic of a bygone age now as the weird catalog of jokes, tricks and novelties that he cited as a formative influence.

The catalog was a black-and-white affair, comprising such mysterious toys and tricks as the "Echo-Radio," and "X-Ray Glasses" (that didn't really give you X-ray vision, but did put dark circles around the unsuspecting wearer's eyes. Also, there were the predictable "joy buzzers," "stink bombs," and squirting flowers. Exploding cigarettes. "Whoopee" cushions. You know the roll).

And therein was sold a book purporting to teach you "forbidden knowledge," of an occult and supernatural nature. As a matter of fact, it was titled The Book of Forbidden Knowledge, and its anonymous author was hard-pressed to exhibit even the most rudimentary skills at punctuation, grammar, spelling, editing or anything else. (But, really, one shouldn't judge a person or his intellect based solely on this criteria.)

Some of the book seems to have been cobbled together from older sources. Some sections are purported to be from a secret book of black magic Napoleon was said to frequently dip into. The editor of this particular edition claims it is largely culled from a book by S.L. MacGregor Mathers, The Lesser Key of Solomon. That's hard to believe.

Other sections are drawn from the folk-remedy relic Pow-Wows, published in 1820 by John George Hoffman. Pow-Wows is a rather bizarre collection of spoken charms and little spells, as well as quack and even dangerous "remedies" for everything from bleeding, to headache, to whooping cough. Needless to say, you try some of these at your own risk. (Actually, some of them could make you very, very ill. So, don't risk it.)

To give an example of the sort of useless and dangerous folk remedies is in The Book of Forbidden Knowledge, picking your teeth with a "new needle" (For bleeding gums) is just one of them.

(Lard and white hen's manure, also, will cure a rash or itch. A boiled ant's hill, mixed, again, with lard, bottled, and left out in the sun, will cure absentmindedness, if used as a shampoo. Also, if any of you out there have a gun that is "bewitched," a mixture of amber, river water, and "assafoetida"--whatever the hell that is--can be used to clean it, and end the bewitching. Oh, but the rag must be hung in a steady stream of smoke. Or put into a fresh grave. So, get cracking!)

I should state that The Book of Forbidden Knowledge does have some interesting and useful content: interpretations of signs and omens, a "hidden code" you can write in, straight out of an old boys' adventure story, the predictive power of names, colors, special birthdays and days of the week...that sort of compilation. One interesting section has three sigils or talismans reproduced (one of a suspiciously voodoo-like appearance), one against enemies, the others to aid in 'war and battle" and the fight against insects and reptiles. Why they stopped there is anyone's guess.

In Dreams

Beyond what we've just described, there are two or three pages of precognitive dream accounts, sandwiched between the secrets of becoming a medium, and a curious end section about how the contemporary mediums often faked it.

We found these dream narratives uniquely interesting. Dreams, you see, often do prefigure real-life events. Even cryptically (actually, often cryptically, in metaphor and the strange, surreal, symbolic language they utilize); it's as if the vast, living Universal Cosmic Intelligence is winking at you, slyly, giving you just enough of a hint of the Is To Be, as It hopes, if you are worthy, you will be able to decipher.

You see a face in a dream, perhaps a random celebrity. Waking up, it's the first face you see when you turn on the news. Sometimes, it's not so trivial. A dream of symbolically cutting beef (an ill-omen of trouble) and dreams of the Death Trump of the tarot prefigured an entire year of personal reversals, health problems and other tragedies for your auhor. Dreams DO come true, at times, even the ones we'd rather not have come to pass.

Here are the dreams related in The Book of Forbidden Knowledge.

The Peasant of Rheims

It is related that a poor man, a peasant from Rheims, France, one night fell to slumber and had a strange dream.

In the dream, a young man appeared suddenly, and lead him toward an old, familiar wall. Indicating a stone at the base of the wall, the young man suggested that he unearth it and dig beneath as soon as he could. Then, just as suddenly as he had appeared, in the way of dreams, the young man vanished.

The next day, the peasant did exactly as he was instructed. Lifting the stone, and digging from where it had been previously buried, to his astonishment, he found a wooden box. Opening it, he was further amazed and overjoyed to find it was a treasure chest of solid gold coins! Thus, the peasant profited from his prophetic dream. But, what mysterious force guided him, in his dream, to the momentous discovery? Was it the hand of God? Or was it his own psychic ability, working through his subconscious mind on his behalf?

"I Am Your Evil Genius!"

Cassius of Parma, who "espoused the Cause of Marc Antony," was disturbed one night during his sleep by the specter of a tall, seemingly heavy, dark- complected man, with dishevelled hair.

"I am your evil genius!" intoned the man, cryptically. Then, he vanished! Alarmed Cassius awoke his servants, asking if they had seen such a man enter his apartment. The servants said, no, and upon examining the door, claimed it to have been firmly sealed, making entrance impossible. Cassius, thinking himself to have simply been dreaming, went back to sleep, wherein, in a dream, he was accosted by the same strange vision.

The next day, he was assassinated upon orders of Emperor Augustus.

Murder at the Inn

Two Arcadian friends, traveling together and coming to Megira, came to an inn. One man, telling his traveling companion that he was proceeding onward to stay with friends, did just that. The other, though, decided he would bunk down for the night at the inn, as he would not feel welcome with the other's friends.

That night, the friend who had gone on lay down to sleep, but found himself, unaccountably disturbed by a strange dream. In it, his traveling companion stood before him in a dark place, beseeching him to "Come! Help me out of a trap! For, the inn keeper is a vicious murderer who has designs on my life!"

The dreamer woke with a start and, mightily disturbed, threw on his cloak and went out into the night. He was determined, at first, to go to the inn, for he thought the dream to be an ill-omen, and he wanted to rescue his fellow traveler.

But, halfway there, he began to be less convinced, and feeling tired still, reluctantly decided to turn his horse back, and go back to where he had been spending the night.

"It is but a silly dream," he said to himself. "It probably means nothing, and I would be wasting my time in going there."

So home he went. He lay down again to try and sleep, but found it almost impossible. He, at last, fell asleep.

"Help me!" cried his friend from the dark and limitless halls of the dead. "For I have been murdered for my money by the inn keeper, and he has buried my body beneath the dung heap!"

His friend held out his hands, dripping blood. His hair was matted with dung and blood, and his hideous face streaked with gore.

The dreamer came awake, sitting bolt upright in bed. He grabbed his cloak and his sword, and once again, headed out, into the night. This time, he was determined to go to the inn and find the truth.

In truth, he found the body of his murdered friend exactly where the apparition in the dream had said it would be--beneath a dung pit. It was by this that he was able to bring the guilty innkeeper to justice.

Lucky Lotteries

A tradesman of Paris, sleeping one night, had a dream in which a mysterious voice intoned, "I have now finished forty years, seven months, and twenty-nine days of labor, and I am happy." Awakening, the man wondered if he should keep the numbers from the dream in mind, but quickly forgot them.

When the numbers were announced for the Royal Lottery, they proved to be the exact numbers that the man himself had dreamed! He was sorely vexed to find out that he had not taken the opportunity to use the numbers. However, his regret was turned to joy when he realized that his wife had also had the same dream, and had purchased a lottery ticket bearing those exact numbers! Thus it was that the poor tradesman and his wife profited greatly from their dream.

Another such occurrence, a story of a miserly aunt and the niece she promised, continually, she would reward with a treasure, goes something like this:

When the miserly aunt finally died, her ghost appeared to the niece in a dream, and instructed her to look behind a wall for the hidden treasure she had so often promised. Looking behind the wall, in a secret, hidden panel, the niece was angered to find only a pile of ashes. She went to sleep cursing the memory of her aunt.

The phantom appeared to her again. This time, it instructed her to look for three numbers hidden in the secret panel behind the wall. She did so, finding the numbers, and taking them down.

She was persuaded by a merchant to purchase a lottery ticket, and was surprised to find the same three numbers she had previously taken down on the ticket. Of course, we don't have to tell you that those were, indeed, the winning numbers.

Her aunt had been proven right, even from beyond the grave.

Dionysius of Syracuse

The historian Leloyer records that Dionysius of Syracuse, reclining one night upon his couch, had a strange dream of a giantess of terrible and hideous aspect, sweeping out his house with a giant broom. Terrified, upon awakening, he summoned his friends and servants to come sleep with him. The vision returned no more.

Two days later, however, Dionysius' little son was killed, falling from a window. The rest of his family soon followed him to the grave (though for reasons not given). Leloyer relates that, indeed, it was as if Dionysius' entire race was "swept out" by the vision of the Fury of Syracuse, his dream ogress.

Lincoln, Mark Twain, and the Tomb of the Fates

Did Kennedy have a dream or premonition before his fatal motorcade ride in Dallas in 1963? No one knows, although seeress Jeanne Dixon reportedly foresaw the assassination, and tried to warn him. (So apparently did Nostradamus. Or so some claim. He, however was, by that time, long out of comission.)

However, it is recorded that Lincoln did. One night, just before the fateful events of April 14th, 1865, Ford's Theater, Lincoln awoke from a troubled sleep. He had been dreaming that he had gone downstairs at the White House. Hearing weeping in one of the downstairs rooms, the one overlooking the Rose Garden, Lincoln approached the sentry standing guard outside the door. He asked the young man, pointedly, if there was a funeral going on in there.

The sentry answered in the affirmative.

"But who has died?" asked Lincoln.

"The President, sir." answered the young soldier. "He was killed by an assassin."

(Note: Your author has, himself, had the same puzzling dream. In it, he was cast in the role of Lincoln himself!)

Similarly, Mark Twain was said to have had a dream about his brother, a worker on a Mississippi riverboat, who was killed unexpectedly when a steam engine exploded. Twain had dreamt his brother laid out, unaccountably, in an expensive metal coffin. On his chest lay a single bouquet of roses. A woman came forth in Twain's dream, and placed a single red rose, right in the center. Twain was puzzled.

He couldn't see, for the life of him, how someone of such straightened circumstances as his brother could afford such a lavish funeral. When his brother was indeed killed, Twain, going to the funeral, was astonished to learn that a coningent of grieving women had come together to pay for the ceremony and burial. Sure enough, Twain's brother was laid out in a new, expensive metal coffin, in a new suit, with a bouquet of white roses on his chest. A grieving old woman came forward then, and, weeping, placed a single red rose in the center of the white bouquet. It was Twan's dream exactly; he had been shown the circumstances before they had even yet occurred.

My own brush with this, in a serious manner, occurred to me in 2007.

I fell asleep one night, and dreamed that I was in a vast mausoleum, or tomb; but a very surrealistic one, in the way of dreams, in that it seemed to descend into a huge underground facility of occult proportions, arcane architecture; staircases flanking weird, curving walls, jutting out at non-Euclidian angles, looking out over marble nooks and crannies; weirdly-shaped windows, alcoves with strange, marble vases. There were a strange, warbling, high-pitched music in the air, as if children's choir moaning and warbling and wailing. But, I was assured by my guide, that this was recorded (and, apparently, it played incessantly).

I do not remember my tour of this vast, surrealistic tomb; very likely, it was a trip to infernal, Stygian depths below, a stand-in for the subconscious mind. What lurked down there, hidden, coiled, like a hungry basilisk in the dark? I may only know someday, after the last shudder of life leaves me.

I remember the end of the tour. The hulking, frizzy-haired monstrosity of a man (actually, I suppose it could have, really, been of either sex) lead me from the mouth of the tomb to the glass doors. At the side, a wooden casket he opened, retrieving a length of what looked like yarn. And a pair of scissors.

Snip, snip.

He cut the strands of yarn he had stretched between his two hands. Like Atropos, the Third Fate (Moirai in Greek myth), who is said to carry a huge pair of shears to cut the thread spun by Clotho and Lachesis, her sisters; the thread of YOUR life. They were referenced as "goddesses." Female, then.

It was my friend and co-author Jon Titchenal who, upon hearing of my dream many years ago, first suggested I may have had a nightmare vision of the Three Fates. (Jon, if I am correct, has since died.)

Escorting me out, I looked up to the arch of the doorway as I exited the crypt. I saw suspended from it a noose. I put my head in it; or rather, my head was thrust through by Atropos, the hulking behemoth behind me.

The next scene in my dream, I was sitting at a round table in the cemetery, having dinner with my family.

The only one I remember now was my grandmother. She made a point of getting up from the table, telling everyone she "Had to go smoke some cigarettes." Years later, choking out the last moments of her life in hospice, on oxygen, she would make a point of relating how strange it was she had pulmonary edema, as "I never even smoked cigarettes," and my mind flashed back to this dream, from years earlier.

She died this year, seventy-two hours shy of my grandfather, who died the Saturday morning before (she died the following Monday morning). I don't remember him sitting at our dinner table in the boneyard though; perhaps this meant he would die before her.

The rest of my family, the ones I didn't see at the graveyard dinner, but I know were there, are all but gone now; estranged. I'm not close to any of them. Yesterday, one of them suffered a heart attack--she survived, but, for how long?

I remember looking back, while seated at my family's death dinner, at the dark glass doors of the crypt. I could see the hulking, black-haired, sexless freak, the frizz-haired Fate, standing there in his/her immensity, reflected in the glass. I looked away for a moment, and looked back.

But now Atropos was gone.

Sweet dreams.