Presenting the report

Sunday, August 15, 2021

1:40 a.m. The dream fades, as they do, but I remember being in some open field, with a stream at the left, and before me and on my left side are all these important figures, including the king, sitting behind a table or at desks, in an open field. I was there to explain to them the printed report we all had in front of us, and I suddenly realize that I am to explain it, and answer questions on it, and I have not even opened it. I have no idea what is in it, but I am supposed to explain it, and I’m stating there as if I knew what I was to do. By the fact that I am there and in that position, I gathered that a part of me had assumed or possessed competence. But I sure didn’t have it. yet, there I was, and I was expected to begin.

4:10 a.m. A long night. At least two other dreams, pretty quickly forgotten, but they were there. Perhaps we can pick apart this dream I recorded, if we can do it quickly and easily. That is, I wouldn’t want the whole session to be used up on it.

Why not? If it were that important, why not?

Only that I’d want to get on with what we were doing.

Let us worry about lesson plans.

You’re right. Okay then, the dream?

The overall feel of it is obvious to you, so let’s look merely at details. Why in the open, why in a field bounded on the left by a stream, why at desks and a long table placed in the open rather than in a room. Why – and who – the king? What is the printed report, what is your relation to it, and so forth.

Yes, other than those minor details, clear enough.

You’re joking, but in fact emotionally it is clear enough to you. Is it not?

Well, certainly the sense of being caught by surprise, of coming into consciousness into a scene already prepared, of being expected (and apparently expected by myself not less than by those around me) to do something I have no conscious knowledge of how to do.

But there are these people in authority – and not merely in charge of something, but encompassing in their person “authority” (the king) – ready and willing to listen to you. Indeed, expecting you to serve them by giving them understanding of a complicated subject encompassed in that slim printed report.

Yes, that’s one of those “too good to be true” things, that I could speak to authority and be heard.

No, you aren’t quite hearing us, perhaps out of a natural humility that co-exists with a natural arrogance. You are expected by authority to instruct authority. It isn’t that you will “be heard” but that you will be fulfilling your responsibility, in speaking.

And I am well aware that I don’t know what is in that report that I am supposed to explain.

No! Set your slide-switches.

Okay. Maximum clarity, focus, receptivity. Yes, I get it. The dream is portraying a split in my awareness. I, as narrator or observer of the scene, don’t know what is in the report. But I, as the

Oh!

We smile. Well done. Spell it out for the studio audience, please.

I as the person within the scene do know; I perhaps wrote the report, who knows, but anyway, that, I know. What stopped me is realizing, “Oh, of course, they’re showing the interaction between spirit and soul.” Only it doesn’t seem as clear to me, putting it into words, as it just did. Why is that?

Words and the marshalling of words tend to interfere with gestalts. Words by nature are sequential, not simultaneous.

Oh, and a dream comes to us as visuals and as understood “knowing” and thus allows us to bypass the sequential processing, to some extent.

Yes. So now – with your maximum focus, we remind you – bring that dream scene to your mind’s eye, look at it, feel it, and when you come back we can talk about it. It should take only seconds, but don’t worry about time. Sink into that dream.

[Did.]

All right. And you know, it hadn’t struck me, remembering it, but the dream didn’t really have any action. There wasn’t a word said. It was a scene set up for me to experience.

And then you turned it into words as best you could, having no other way to preserve it.

If I had the ability, I could draw it, or paint it. Only the sense of it is much clearer than the sight of anything in particular, except that printed report, which was vividly there.

So now, try again, the “aha” that eluded you when you tried to put it into words.

Well, there was one “me” that was observing the scene. There was the “me” that belonged in the scene, and clearly must have done the work that resulted in his knowing what was in that report. And there was a third “me,” and this one is sort of puzzling. At first I thought, “Aha, this is soul and spirit,” but when I realized there were three rather than two versions of me involved, I was stumped.

Describe that “third me.”

Well, there was (1) the observer of the dream, there was (2) the implied presence of the participant beforehand, and the third element was me coming to the scene, feeling responsible to act and knowing that I was not prepared because I had just come onto the stage in mid-scene, so to speak.

So now instead of forcing the three into a two-being scheme, look at it again, fresh – for the insight was real; it did stop you in your tracks; you did feel something. Now retrieve that understanding from the mental processing that would result in your losing it.

I suppose (1) is me, the 3D-bound dreamer, receiving feed from non-3D. Then (2) would be the soul as it proceeds moment by moment, living its life as if taken for granted, a moment-by-moment existence that sort of disappears from our awareness as the following moment moves us along. And (3) would be us in those sudden moments of clarity in which we see (rather than merely abstractly understand) that the 3D is theater.

Well, not quite. Look again at that third point.

Hmm. More like, those moments when we think, “How in the hell did I get into this fix?”

We smile. Somewhat. But it is a third point of view, you say. Now we’ll take it from here. You did get the sense of how your (anyone’s) life is experienced in divided fashion. You proceed moment by moment in good faith, taking the 3D environment you live in as real. That’s JFK spending years of his short life politicking, playing an intricate game and mastering it. (That’s your #2 “you” that you mentioned.) Now, every so often within that existence, your mundane mind may reach a moment of unusual clarity, for whatever reason, and you look around at your life, and you say to yourself, “What am I doing? I am wasting my life on routine, on things that don’t matter.” That is more your #3 you. Spirit always knows what you’re doing. It is soul that gets confused.

And in a way the confusion is part of the role the soul plays.

At least the possibility of confusion is, yes. Depending upon the individual (and depending upon the stage of life the individual has attained), there may come moments of beyond-3D-drama clarity that punch through the role and remind the soul that “there is more to life.” Very busy people – a JFK, say, – may have such intervals and place them in a sort of philosophical-moment framework. People more like you will find such moments demoralizing, almost crippling, because they undermine your ability to believe in the routine they interrupt.

Yes. That’s always been true. Not that I regret it, but it did make things difficult.

Somehow we have used up an hour, and eight full pages, on the dream, and we haven’t even looked at the symbolism.

Easily done. What we just did was the more important point, and the more difficult to convey in words; that is, using the sequential mind.

• In the open, not “behind closed doors.”
• A field bounded by a stream. Let’s say, the field of life, bounded on your left by the River Styx, or the River Lethe, that which cannot be passed while you are yet in form.
• Desks and a long table (as if a head table at a banquet, though you didn’t catch that allusion). Again, in the open but proceeding as it proceeds behind closed doors.
• The king. Real unquestioned authority stemming from his person, not from circumstances. Note that the king sat to the left, and not in the front of the leftmost desks, either, merely solidly on your left, by the stream.

My larger being? My soul’s source and sustenance?

Close enough. A spiritual unquestioned authority, you see.

• The printed report. Your report, for it is up to you to present your understanding of it. You have been thinking it is these conversations, for the world. That may or may not be, but that isn’t the primary meaning here.

Oh my gracious. I hadn’t thought of it.

That’s why you have us. (Smiling.)

It is me presenting my report of my life I led.

Yes it is, and you are each the authority on the report to be given. You will notice, the report is considered important. You don’t lead your lives only to shrug and say, “Well, that was weird.” When you come to present your report, you aren’t under any illusion that your life didn’t matter.

Well, this has been surprising. I told you it would be shame to waste a session on a dream!

We’ll try to listen better, next time.

Laughing, actually, not just smiling. My love, friends, and till next time.