A couple of weeks ago I had a fairly vivid dream, and as soon as I woke up, I wrote it down. In the dream, I was one of many students, or perhaps interns, at what seemed to be a kind of hospital with bright white corridors. We were all dressed in white outfits, and part of our daily schedule was a meeting in a large bright auditorium, where an instructor or supervisor would deliver a lecture or review the day's schedule.
On this particular day, there was a pop quiz. The tests were handed out, and I experienced the kind of anxiety that sometimes comes over us in dreams–the realization that I was totally unprepared for this test and could not answer a single question. While I sat staring helplessly at the test paper, the instructor interrupted to say that he'd been informed that one of us had told a patient, “I forgive you.” He wanted to know who'd said this. It turned out I had. At that point, the instructor declared that I no longer had to take the test because I had already learned what I needed to know.
What was most intriguing to me about this strange dream was the issue of forgiveness. It appeared that at some earlier point I'd said I forgive you to a patient at this hospital. And this was evidently a major breakthrough for me. But what did it mean? Why would anyone express forgiveness to a hospital patient anyway? After all, people who come to the hospital are either seriously ill or seriously injured. They don't have anything to be forgiven for. It seemed to make no sense.
As I thought about it (now wide awake), here's the interpretation I came up with. Normally, when we think of forgiveness, it involves people who have done something morally or socially wrong–people who have behaved in a way that is cruel, insensitive, or thoughtless. These are the people who need to be forgiven, if we are going to forgive anybody. But what makes a person behave that way? Isn't it a kind of spiritual sickness or spiritual injury? Aren't acts of cruelty, insensitivity, and thoughtlessness merely expressions of the person's own pain, incompleteness, fear, or sense of inferiority?
If wrongful acts are the result of spiritual disease or damage, then it might make sense to offer forgiveness to someone who comes to the hospital–if it's a hospital focused not on healing the body but the soul. Patients in that hospital would be suffering from spiritual maladies–maladies that no doubt made them seem like bad people, or at least highly disagreeable people, while physically incarnated–maladies that caused them to do things that now stand as a guilty memory and a hindrance to progress. The ultimate cure for such people might indeed rest, not in memorized answers to a standardized test, but in compassion, empathy, and heartfelt forgiveness. In that sense, saying I forgive you might be the highest form of healing, and the ability to say it would be proof of having learned the most important lesson the institution could teach.
Of course, it's possible the dream had no meaning at all. But I doubt it.
Nice dream, Michael. And I think you've interpreted it right.
Here's another way to say it.
Maybe we all run hospitals of one kind or another. Which is to say that we each have gifts we can use to help others move towards health and wholeness.
You, Michael, have your blog (for one thing). I have my little music school. Some people may focus their efforts on a family or circle of friends.
And what's more important for a healer or helper than staying in touch with our essential innocence, and reminding each other of it when necessary? And that's what forgiveness is, right?
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | January 18, 2012 at 03:58 PM
Just some speculation on my part. I would say that the dream is of your Higher Self telling you -- Michael in this incarnation -- to forgive yourself.
I really think the lesson is that we must love others as we love ourselves and in order to forgive others, we must first forgive ourselves.
(I wish that I could write as well and clearly as you, but I hope this makes sense. Thanks for sharing this dream.)
Posted by: Steve | January 18, 2012 at 04:27 PM
I have had two dreams in the last week of going back to grad school and being in the same position: uncompleted assignments, lack of knowledge for tests, etc. So you're not alone in that. I believe this to be a classic type of dream, right?
Of course the rest of your dream is different. I think your interpretation is on target.
One extra thought, however. I am fairly certain from my readings and my own personal experience that dreams can be an overlay for our OBEs/spiritual experiences in which we interact with other real people. It can people who are having a hard time transitioning to the Afterlife or people who have passed who need some type of healing, and so on.
You may have been interacting with someone who needs general forgiveness, or maybe it was someone in your life (whom you don't remember, for example, or who never knew directly) who is looking to make amends of some type.
Anything is possible.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | January 18, 2012 at 06:20 PM
Interesting dream, it immediately reminded me of a book in which a widow communicates with her deceased husband through automatic writing ("Across the Line" by Anice Terhune). In the book, the deceased husband alludes to a hospital-like place in the afterlife, where he and others tend to all kinds of lost souls. This kind of service seems to be part of the afterlife. Perhaps you were getting a glimpse of this.
Posted by: Kathleen | January 18, 2012 at 07:02 PM
What a wonderful dream. You say
Of course, it's possible the dream had no meaning at all. But I doubt it.
Really? Do you doubt it, or do you "know" the dream was meaningful, a message to you? Your "of course, it's possible..." line made me smile because it's so typical of the tone of this blog. All the while, you are someone who has such a dream and writes about it.
Thank you for sharing the dream and your thoughts about it.
Posted by: abcdefg | January 18, 2012 at 10:18 PM
"Do you doubt it, or do you 'know'...?"
It depends on which hat I'm wearing. If I wear my "personal thoughts" hat, I think the dream was a meaningful message. If I wear my "more or less objective investigator" hat, I can't rule out the possibility that it was just brain static.
Also, a meaningful message could come from my subconscious, rather than from a higher power.
Like Matt, I often have dreams of returning to school. These are almost always bad dreams. The dream described above was basically a good dream except for the test anxiety. Also, the back-to-school dreams almost invariably involve an actual school that I attended (either high school or college), or at least a school that I considered attending, while this dream took place in a much more abstract environment sort of similar to the way the afterlife is envisioned in the Albert Brooks movie Defending your Life -- lots of white space, no clutter, everything sort of stylized. Overall it had a different feel from the "oh my God I'm back in high school" dreams, which I hate.
(One of my favorite movie moments is a scene in Top Secret when the hero passes out and dreams he's back in high school. Then he comes to and discovers he is actually being held prisoner by Nazis in a torture chamber. "It was only a dream," he says. "Thank God!")
The imagery of spiritual healing centers has frequently recurred in my meditative exercises and occasionally in dreams. I can't say to what extent it reflects my knowledge of channeled texts describing such places, e.g. Testimony of Light, and to what extent (if any) it may reflect an awareness of a real environment.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | January 19, 2012 at 12:12 AM
I have a lot of vivid dreams. Most involve Johnny Depp, however, (and more recently, Justin Beiber, which was really out of line on my part) lol
On the serious side, though, I often feel such a connection to some of these people I dream about so vividly that it lasts for at least the day...some sort of feeling of intimacy, and I can't help but wonder if they've dreamed the same thing about some stranger at the same time. I doubt it, but it's a nice thought.
Posted by: j9 | January 19, 2012 at 11:16 AM
j9,
I think those Johnny Depp dreams were Tim Burton movies. ;) Not sure about the Bieb, tho. :)
Matt
Posted by: Matt Rouge | January 20, 2012 at 12:21 AM
Have you heard of Ho'Oponopono...Dr. Hew Len?
Sounds significant to me. To this, we should all pay a moment of attention.
Posted by: Roger S | January 20, 2012 at 01:50 AM
Dreams always have meaning,they're just tailored to the individual.
Posted by: Bryan.A | January 20, 2012 at 08:07 AM
Matt, sadly they are going back to 21 Jump Street, but now I'm dating myself! :)
Posted by: j9 | January 20, 2012 at 09:32 AM
When you date yourself, at least you never get stood up.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | January 20, 2012 at 11:15 AM
Michael, that depends on how much I drink before I meet me! Thanks for the laughs, all.
I have had dreams that have come true though (were occurring as I was dreaming them) but I think I posted them on another post last year or so.
Posted by: j9 | January 20, 2012 at 11:44 AM
Dreams are astral projections from the sleeping state. It's one of the ways we learn. That's why we are here on the physical plane, to learn. For more information go to: www.obe-1.com.
Posted by: Yvette Le Blanc | January 21, 2012 at 09:51 AM
Aren't acts of cruelty, insensitivity, and thoughtlessness merely expressions of the person's own pain, incompleteness, fear, or sense of inferiority? . . . The ultimate cure for such people might indeed rest, not in memorized answers to a standardized test, but in compassion, empathy, and heartfelt forgiveness. - Michael Prescott
. . . we each have gifts we can use to help others move towards health and wholeness. - Bruce Siegel
I think both of these observations are entirely accurate.
It's been quite a while since I've chosen to contribute any thoughts here, although I must have contributed enough previously (over a period of several years) to write a fairly lengthy book. All to impress upon the readers of these threads the fact that everyone is already in a spiritual reality, right here and right now, with the only difference that exists between the “best” and “worst” among us being the level of awareness one has of that one simple fact.
As Bruce says, we all have gifts we can use to elevate others, and as MP says, finding compassion, empathy and forgiveness is an important step in that direction. For me, anyway, and among other things, part of my role apparently once had something to do with writing a book within Michael Prescott's blog threads. Now it has something to do with introducing people to the serenity of floating along the Rio Grande. Ten years from now it may be something entirely different.
It's odd. As MP suggests in the “Slices of Life” post, at one level it appears that there's no end to the spiritual journey, while at the highest levels, there was never any journey involved. And of course, at the very lowest levels, the journey is a living hell, filled with “ acts of cruelty, insensitivity, and thoughtlessness”, which are in turn driven by painful and frightening thoughts of fear and insecurity.
Anyway, I still check in on you folks fairly regularly, and do see that several who endured my prior meanderings are still chiming in, although I do occasionally wonder what william, ZC and several others are up to these days.
Take care of yourselves. And each other.
Posted by: Michael H | January 22, 2012 at 01:18 PM
Michael H, I remember you well! So good to see you here today.
Not at all surprised that my comment resonates with you, because I was always amazed at how well you managed to say stuff that hit home for me, too. And to say it so beautifully.
Are you writing about the Rio Grande now, or serving as a guide for rafters, or both?
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | January 22, 2012 at 03:52 PM
Hi, Michael H! Good to hear from you again.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | January 22, 2012 at 08:42 PM
Steve's quote "I really think the lesson is that we must love others as we love ourselves and in order to forgive others, we must first forgive ourselves."
Michael...scanned your dream quickly this AM. I will be leaving for my office and see 8 patients/fellow pilgrims in psychotherapy today.
The manifest content of your dream popped out immediately. Steve captured it. If You brought the dream to my office I would not have interpreted it...you would have. Then, I would slowly, semi-hypnotically help you move back into the dream and utilize your "active imagination" and "flesh out" some of the details.
My questions for details would lead to you "fleshing out", in my office, details either from the dream from the previous night or "recreating it in my office" and help guide you into a deeper level of meaning in the dream....in other words you would be moving into the dream in my office,I would ask you to fill in information about the classroom, teacher, hospital etc and you would recreate the dream or "re- imagine" it through my questioning. Deeper levels of content would arise through the process. The manifest top layer of the dream is easy. My hunch is that we could have uncovered deeper and even archetypal levels in that dream.
Posted by: Rick49 | January 23, 2012 at 08:09 AM
Rick, what about dreams that don't quite stop when you wake up? How do you interpret those?
I had one a few days ago about a ghost I know. When I woke up, he was still there and the conversation just continued as if nothing major had changed.
Two weeks ago, I dreamt about someone around the time that he died. It was a lucid dream and I knew I was asleep and he wasn't. I woke up crying. Then I checked on something he told me I'd see to confirm his death. It was just as he told me it would be in the dream. I still didn't want to believe he had died, but shortly after that I got an email telling me he had died. That whole day seemed less real than the lucid dream the night before.
Posted by: Sandy | January 23, 2012 at 09:06 AM
Hi MP – Thanks for the greeting!
And Hi Bruce – the “resonance” thing is interesting. Seems to me that anyone who attempts to address spiritual matters in writing will find that their words may resonate with some readers, while others will experience reactions or responses that range from indifference to annoyance to offense. I appreciate hearing that your response to my attempts to "express the inexpressible" trended toward the higher end of the scale.
As far as the Rio, I'm operating a canoe and kayak tour business along the river just north of Albuquerque these days. I'm the “Chief Executive Guide”, and my recent writing has been limited to generating copy relating to that. (A perusal of the website will confirm that I'm still clueless in respect to concise communications!) I've really enjoyed the adventure in getting this thing off the ground, and I'm having an absolutely amazing time sharing a passion of mine with what's now thousands of people. Look us up if you find yourself in New Mexico sometime!
Finally - Hi Sandy! I wonder about you at times, too. Do you still catch glimpses of the salamanders on occasion?
Posted by: Michael H | January 23, 2012 at 12:10 PM
Hi Michael H. Yes, I do! :)
Posted by: Sandy | January 23, 2012 at 02:12 PM
"I'm operating a canoe and kayak tour business along the river just north of Albuquerque these days."
What a cool way to earn a living!
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | January 23, 2012 at 02:59 PM