Dreams of Home and Tonglen

When people remember a previous lifetime while under deep hypnosis, and are asked at the "end" of that lifetime, where they want to go - they often say "I want to go home."

For me "home" is my nearest cafe.

As noted in my books, I found this unusual phenomenon would happen when filming people under deep hypnosis.  At the end of a week of filming in Chicago at the Michael Newton Institute's training session, I was offered the opportunity to film myself during a session.  Paul Aurand, Pete Smith and Michael Newton all agreed that it would be a novel way for me to test out what I was filming.

At first I thought "Well I can't do that, I wouldn't be objective."  And my next thought was "On the other hand, George Plimpton made a career out of "being thrust into the mix" of what he was writing about ("Paper Tiger," "Paper Lion") and this would be a perfect opportunity for me to "disprove" (or confirm) what I was seeing on camera.

The light at the end of the tunnel

In other words, I hadn't gone to the conference to be filmed under hypnosis. I didn't think I could be "put under hypnosis" and wasn't convinced by any means that what I was seeing was an accurate depiction of the afterlife.  I had an open mind, let's say, but when people said things under hypnosis that were contrary to my experience on the planet ("I see from my perspective that it was easier to choose to play the role of a victim than a perpetrator in this life" "I saw that we had a contract where my friend who allow me to drown in that life, and then save me in this one.") I thought it would make for an opportunity to disprove what I was seeing on camera.

Boy was I wrong.

But I recount that experience in "Flipside' and my other books.  Today I'm focusing on the idea of "going home."  When I got to a point in a past life memory (again, was conscious of what was happening while I was "remembering" a previous lifetime, and I was consciously arguing with myself about it) at the point where the hypnotherapist said "What happens at the end of this lifetime that you're remembering?"  I said "I go down to the river with a bottle of whiskey to commit suicide."  Therapist Jimmy Quast said "Oh, I'm sorry you wanted to do that."  I said "Don't be. They took everything from me. My family, my home, my religion, my people.  I'm a shell of a human being. I just want to go home."

Home?  As I said it - I thought "What the hell am I saying? Where's home?"  I realized I wasn't talking about "home" in this lifetime as a Lakota Sioux, or my lifetime as Rich Martini - I was talking about some other version of home.  Again, I said it aloud, and I had no idea what I was talking about. (One can argue that's an ongoing proposition, but I digress.)  Where the hell is home?

Well, I've filmed 35 sessions now, and that's one of the most common sentiments I hear.  "I'm going home."  When people describe their "home" each description is different.  Some travel a great distance through deep space, some just "appear" in a room on the Flipside where they reconnect with their loved ones.  Their soul group. Their mom and dad, siblings, friends... just depends on what their journey is.

Now that I've been "home" I get a sense of what it is.  Like diving into a pool of water, it's not something I can easily describe to someone who hasn't done any swimming or been in a pool.  But that doesn't mean that a person hasn't had experiences "dreaming" of home - sometimes they experience dreams "that aren't dreams" - or sometimes they experience a "vision" of somewhere else.  And it feels "more real than here."

Through a glass darkly. Or through a fog lightly.

Lately I've referred to "home" as "backstage."  It's useful in terms of talking about our life being "on stage."  It's disconcerting to people who consider life a struggle - a "life and death" proposition if you will - or to people who've never been on stage.  But if you've ever been on stage, or in a theater, the metaphor is apt.  When we come here to life our lifetimes, we choose a part to play.  

We may be joined by actors we've known before. We may not.  It's up to us and to them.  We may insist that we want to be "alone" for this journey so we can learn more from the experience. But ultimately, it's a trip on stage.  Some of our pals are better actors than others - some of our pals don't do a great job at it.  Sometimes we all have to stop to help other actors with their roles. 

But eventually, we all get backstage. We all get home.  There's an old saying "We're all just escorting each other home."  Well, that's accurate.  We are all going home. Some of us leave stage earlier than we want them to.  Some jump off the stage and go running home.  Others of us might be upset about that - because they were supposed to be here for the second act, or they were definitely key to have during the third act.

But what can you do?  Chase the actor down the street and say "Hey! We're in the middle of this play! Where are you going?" 

Ultimately we'll catch up with our loved one after the play is done.  We can discuss with them why they had to leave the stage early. Or they'll explain to us why they left the stage early. After all, they know.

When in doubt, sit under a tree and ask.  Just ask.

The other night I had a dream about healing.

It wasn't a normal dream - it was other worldly.  I'm reporting it here, because someone somewhere may find it useful.

I was shown two strands.  They were multi-colored and full of pulsing light (red, green, gold...).  One was frayed, and the other was whole, or looked new.  I was being shown how to "heal" an illness.  "Visualize the healthy cord on the left.  Picture it as a healed, healthy electrical energetic field.  Then visualize the one on the right - the strand that is not healthy.  And in your mind, fix it, align it, make it whole again so that it matched the one on the left."

Don't know how effective this process might be, but it reminds me a bit of the Tibetan meditation called "tonglen."  This is a meditation that Tibetan doctors use, where they picture their patient in front of them, then imagine their illness as a "color" or "smoke."

They imagine pulling the color or smoke out of the patient during a meditation.  They "breath in" and pull the illness out of the patient and into them. Then they ask for the "healing light of the universe" to heal or change the illness to a healed energy, and then with their out breath, they breath the healed light or smoke back into the patient.

Monks were tested by Richard Davidson

The reason this meditation is so effective, according to Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin, is because it changes the amygdala in the person doing the meditation.  And the amygdala is the source of depression (or repository, or regulator) and Davidson has proven in his studies that this simple meditation can alleviate symptoms of or cure depression.

Professor Davidson

Worth looking into isn't it?

I've tried this as a meditation - and it's pretty cool, because if you let your mind choose the color of smoke, you'll find that when you "breathe" it back into the patient in your mind's eye, the color changes.
Don't want to use SSRI drugs to alleviate pain or depression?  Here's a scientifically proven safe way to do so.   Not my opinion or belief, but a fact, if you care to read the science. 

My two cents.