I've been kicking around the idea lately that dreams can be prophetic.

[Tobin S.]

My step-dad related a dream to me not long ago that he had. That was odd in that he and I have never really been close, and he seemed to be looking for an interpretation from me as if he was asking for my help. He knows that I place a high value on dreams. The dream was very powerful, and I got the idea that it was recurring. In it he is being chased by wild horses and he is very afraid. The horses are not like regular horses. Their bodies are like terrestrial horses, but the heads and necks of the horses are like sea horses. After he has this dream it keeps him up the rest of the night. It's important to note that my step-dad is 68 and has had health problems with his heart recently. He has drank to excess his entire adult life, and has also smoked cigarettes during that time. He's slowed down on the drinking, and he doesn't smoke nearly as much as he used to, but those things have taken a toll on him. He is also very overweight. So a lifetime of sensual indulgence is starting to catch up with him.

Not long after having this dream, he and my mom were in a oil change shop, and on a table there was a figurine that looked exactly like the odd horses in his dream. Carl Jung called an event like that synchronicity, and entire books have been devoted to the topic. It reinforced in me the idea that this is a very important dream for my step-dad.

I work nights and I am up all hours of the night even on my days off. I was reading a book tonight and was struck by a passage in it to the point that I immediately had to sit down and write an e-mail to my mom and step-dad. I will call them in the morning to make sure that they see it. I'll relate it to you here:



I ran across an interesting passage in a book I'm reading by Ram Dass called Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart. It reminded me about dad's dream about horses. I think that dream is very important, and the synchronicity event that you experienced at the oil change shop (seeing the figurine) reinforces that thought in me. Some other part of dad, maybe his soul or God, is trying to get his attention.

Ram Dass broke his hip in 2009. As a part of relating that story he has this to offer:

"The body and the soul are like a coach and horses and a coachman. The horses are desires. The coachman is the ego, the "I" that controls the desires and looks where he's going...But inside the coach is a passenger. Who is riding in the coach? It's our soul. 'Coachman, would you stop, please?' 'Coachman, you are going a little too fast.'
I am riding in my coach, and now and then my coach needs a grease job or a new bearing or a joint replaced. I'm in the coach shop for a hip joint, and they're the coach repair experts. That's fine as long as I know who I am- that I'm not the coach, that I am a passenger inside the coach riding along, merrily, merrily, merrily.
On the outside I am recovering from a hip replacement operation, but inside I am dancing. I look like an old fart, but I am dancing inside. And what a joyful, joyful dance! In India it's called lila, the dance or the love play of the soul. And you can join in the lila anytime, because it's always going on. Here in this moment, it never stops."

The idea that the horses are desires is what is most important here. It could be what the horses represent in dad's dream, and the fact that they are wild and he is being chased by them and they are making him afraid could be a very important clue. This could very well be a dream about dad's health, and concerns about it in his conscious life.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. That's really interesting, my dear Tobin...

I had not been aware of the body/soul being horses/coachman. It seems logical, if you will. Or maybe logic has nothing to do with it.

Perhaps you will let us hear how your dad responds to this email.

[Tobin S.]

4. I will let you all know of any developments on this situation.

Yeah, it's an interesting analogy. I've become a much more spiritual person in recent years, so this kind of thing holds meaning for me. When it comes to matters of the spirit and the body, the path can be paradoxical, i.e. we are all separate individuals, but at the same time we are all one with God. These kind of ideas defy logic which leads some people to just totally write them off. And if that's where some people are at, then that's where they are.

I was telling someone here the other day that these kinds of things are about the interior world, that is the world that resides inside each of us. It's not a scientifically testable thing for the most part, and, rationally, things like this can easily be explained away. In my view, there is something beyond all of that- that is my experience. I subscribed to the scientific materialist view of the universe for a long time, but I left the door open for other possibilities. I called myself an agnostic for most of my life. It's a good thing I left that door open.

But there has been at least one attempt to explain Carl Jung's theory of synchronicity scientifically. It's not necessarily the domain of the spirit. The work is called Synchronicity: Nature & Psyche in an Interconnected Universe by Joseph Cambray. I own the book but have not finished reading it yet. It's a hard read, like most scientific works, but it might well be worth it for those not satisfied with a more spiritual explanation of the phenomenon.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. I once read something about dreams that suggested

that sometimes we dream of something that's in the future, the same way we can dream about something in the past. And the dreams of future stuff will be just as confused and nonsensical as a lot of other dreams.

Your father's dream of the horses seems very much to fit that model. Yeah, someone who utterly does not believe such "prophetic" dreams are possible the dream and the figurine are simple coincidence.

Several times in my life I've had what I think were prophetic dreams, but what they were foretelling was not obvious at all until after the event being foretold came to pass.

[Tobin S.]

5. Those foreshadowing dreams have been like that for me as well.

But I've had a couple recently that were obviously related to a current event in my life and have seemingly foretold what has come to pass. I've not had anything like that happen that was about the world outside of my own individual drama. These dreams have been about my personal life. But I have heard of people having seemingly prophetic dreams about the wider world.

[secondwind]

3. This happens to me a lot. I call it serendipity.

[Tobin S.]

6. UPDATE: I just had a dream that my step-dad died of a heart attack.

Hopefully, this is just a reflection of my own concerns.

I had lunch out with my mom and step-dad the other day. When my step-dad excused himself to go to the restroom, my mom told me that she understood what I was getting at with my email, but my step-dad was oblivious to it. He either doesn't understand, doesn't care, or the prospect of it frightens him to the point of inability to do anything about it. I think it's the latter.