Dreams

As spiritual leader of Eckankar, Sri Harold Klemp receives thousands of letters from truth seekers around the world—many ask him questions. Here is a question he was asked about the spiritual meaning of dreams.

Q: Sometimes I have trouble finding the lesson or message in my dreams… Does each dream have a spiritual meaning or lesson involved? Or are some just purely creations of my imagination?

A: Every experience, waking or dream, has a lesson or message to impart to us. But let the meanings of your inner and outer experiences come naturally. In other words, if the lesson or spiritual meaning of a dream isn’t clear, don’t force it.

Soul, the spiritual self that you are, will send another dream again in some other way until your human self can easily grasp the meaning.

In Eckankar, dream study works on all levels. As with all things of a divine nature, accept each dream as a spiritual gift. Wonder about it. Roll it gently around in your mind to see whether loving patience on your part will reveal its significance.

This approach is the reason the Eckankar spiritual studies are called the Easy Way.

Dream Censor

One other point.

Dream experiences are real experiences from another time, place, or dimension. Some of them are from past lives, which you’d expect to be straightforward. Yet here’s where the mind—or what you called “just purely creations of my imagination?”—comes in.

The dream censor is a function, or part, of the mind. For purely karmic reasons, it may decide that a certain past life would be too much of a shock to you. You might break off a relationship. Yet that relationship in the present time may be necessary to bring an important insight to you.

So the dream censor tones down dreams. It lets a dreamer go ahead with life and so profit from past-life experiences.

—From Youth Ask a Modern Prophet about Life, Love, and God

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“We are moving into a golden age of spirituality. As we enter the twenty-first century, a creative fountain is being opened, and many more people will be able to manifest that which is of the higher worlds.

“Often the preparation or training for this creative flow takes place in the Temples of Golden Wisdom.”

—Sri Harold Klemp, ECK Wisdom Temples, Spiritual Cities, & Guides: A Brief History

A Dream Sketchbook

By Raoof Haghighi

I had always wanted to visit the Temple of ECK in Chanhassen, Minnesota. A few years before being able to see it, I had a colorful, vivid dream that felt so real I remember every second of it.

In my dream I was walking around the Temple. It was very peaceful. The surroundings were green, with golden gates and beautiful golden footpaths winding all around the Temple.

As I walked, I suddenly noticed a massive golden temple in the sky next to the ECK Temple. Words could never describe the beauty of it. It was so bright I was amazed. When I awoke, I said to myself, “I have to paint this beautiful experience!”

A few years later, when I was blessed with being able to physically visit the Temple of ECK, it truly felt I had already been there—many times! 

I keep a sketchbook where I capture my dreams. Basically, it’s a dream diary with images. When I can’t describe an experience with words, that’s when I start to draw or paint it. I am so grateful to be able to capture some of my inner experience through art.

ECK has given me so much, every day, every moment. I think art is a great tool to help share the ECK experience with others.

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By Sri Harold Klemp

One of the reasons I recommend keeping a dream journal is that if these inner experiences are not recorded when they happen, most of them will be forgotten. Even if an experience doesn’t seem to mean much now, at some point in the future you might look back at it and recognize its spiritual significance.

Another benefit to recording your dreams is that as you study and check your dream journal, you’re going to find that you remember your dreams better and better.

One of the ways to begin working out the inner tangles and knots, where the communication lines between the higher worlds and the physical have been twisted, is to work with the dream journal. And as you write, you will find that the tension in your stomach goes away. If the dream journal can help to do this, it’s done something.

Dream Symbology

The real importance of dream symbology is in how it relates spiritually to your daily life.  A student of Eᴄᴋᴀɴᴋᴀʀ I’ll call “Tim,” for his privacy, discovered this through a dream about his wife, who is not in Eᴄᴋᴀɴᴋᴀʀ.

In their outer life, his wife appeared somewhat interested in ECK, but she wasn’t quite sure that she wanted to become a student.  At various times she had also considered either staying in her present religion or looking into some other spiritual teaching.  She often discussed her dilemma with her husband.

One night Tim dreamed that his wife called him at home.  She said, “I’m at a phone booth, but I don’t know where I am.  I’m lost.  Can you help me get home?”

“If you know the name of the road you’re on, or even a nearby crossroad, I can help you find your way home,” Tim said.

“There aren’t any crossroads around here,” she said.  “I don’t know where I am.”

“OK, get in the car and drive down the street very slowly until you come to an intersection.  Then call me back and tell me the names of the two crossroads.  We’ll be able to figure out where you are.”

Tim woke up wondering what the dream was all about.  The experience on the inner planes had been so lifelike that he knew it was trying to tell him something.

Suddenly he realized it was an answer to his fear that he may have been pushing Eᴄᴋᴀɴᴋᴀʀ on his wife.  At times he thought she seemed truly interested in the teachings of the Holy Spirit.  But he had often wondered, Does she really care, or am I only imagining her interest?

The dream had given him a spiritual understanding of his wife’s position.  She was in the car, and she was lost.  This represents Soul’s journey through the lower worlds as It tries to find Its way home.  But until she had at least some idea of where she was, her husband couldn’t help her.

All he could do in the dream was encourage her to go very slowly down the road until she came to a crossroad.  This gave him the insight to tell her out here, “First you have to find out where you are spiritually.  You have to know where you are before you can figure out where to go.”

He recommended that she examine her own religion, other spiritual paths, Eᴄᴋᴀɴᴋᴀʀ, and whatever else she wanted to, but to go very slowly.  Eventually she would come to a point in her life that seemed significant.  Then she could stop, take a look around, and see where she was.  Tim could then try to help her figure out her direction home.

Create Your Own Dream Dictionary

During important times in my life, one of the dream symbols I used to see was a field with a regular-sized baseball diamond.  When everything on the field was aligned and in proper order—four bases evenly spaced, a pitcher, a batter, and two opposing teams—it meant that my life was in good order.

But sometimes the bases were at odd distances apart or the base path wasn’t in a perfect square.  Or the ball I’d hit might pop and blow feathers all over the place.  Or I’d have to run into the woods to find first base.  Second base might be closer in than usual; third base might be off in another direction entirely.  In other words, everything about the game was wrong.

When I’d wake up after a dream like that, I’d often notice that something in my outer life wasn’t going right.  The sport had gone out of it.  There wasn’t any fun in it.

This was an indication for me to sit down and work out a plan to reorganize.  In other words, I had to figure out how to get myself a real baseball field again—proper space between bases, correct number of players on each team, and so on.

Tip: The Dream Dictionary

Creating a dream dictionary can help you become familiar with your own dream symbols.

Whether a baseball diamond, a bear, an eagle, or anything else, you’ll know immediately what a particular symbol means to you.

In a section at the back of your dream journal, keep a list of the symbols that occur in your dreams.

As you create your own dream dictionary of symbols, record the date next to the meaning of each symbol.  This way you can keep track as the meaning changes.  As you unfold, your dream symbols are going to take on different meanings, a fact not generally known by people who study dreams.

Tip: Study the Details

What can you do to remember your dreams and other inner experiences?  You could write them down, but that’s a hard thing to do.  Sometimes you don’t feel like writing.  Another way to remember is to study the details of the experience while it’s happening.

For instance, if you’re at a baseball game in your dream, you could study the uniform of one of the players on the other team.  See what kind of shoes he’s got—cleats or whatever—and what color shirt he has on.  Even notice the stitching on parts of the shirt.

Become aware of the little details.  Notice a tree, a cat, and the cat’s ears, how he twitches them.  This will help you remember your dreams.

Tip: How to Interpret Your Dreams

Remember that dreams have a meaning at the human, emotional, causal, mental, subconscious, and spiritual levels.  They correspond to the six planes of existence—the Physical, Astral, Causal, Mental, Etheric, and Soul Planes.  Each deals with a part of you, and each of your dreams comes mainly from one of these areas.

Keep the interpretation simple.  Look at each dream in one of three levels.  Is the dream about your daily life, your emotions and thoughts, or about the pure spiritual side, your relationship with God?

Here, then, are a few tips:

1. Dream—get plenty of rest for a few days. Then go to sleep with the intention of remembering some of the places you visit while your human self lies sleeping. (It helps to write dreams down as soon as you awaken.)

2. Interpret your dreams—ask the Dream Master (my inner self) to let you see each dream on three levels: the daily, the emotional/mental, and the spiritual.

3. Realize your dreams—take the dream lessons and apply them to your everyday life.