Intuition and Hypnosis
A Doctoral Project
by Katherine Ann Rishel
Approved June 22, 1998
American Institute of Hypnotherapy
The following paper is a doctoral project considering the topic "Intuition and Hypnosis". It is based on the Intuitive Heart Discovery Process as developed by Henry Reed, Ph.D. I was fortunate to have been assigned Dr. Reed as my mentor when I was taking masters level courses at Atlantic University, Virginia Beach, Virginia. I have been interested in his work since that time. From October 13 until October 17, 1998, I participated in the Intuitive Heart Discovery Process as presented by Dr. Reed. This paper will tell about that process and how hypnosis played a role in its development. I will also present a complete transcription of one of the exercises, the Dream Helper Ceremony, and speak to its meaning to me. In addition, I will give an example of how I have already incorporated this work into my hypnotherapy practice. But, first, let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Reed.
Dr. Reed has worked for thirty years to understand how we can release our potential for extraordinary experience and creative living. He has pioneered in research on dreams, intuition, and special consciousness.
Beginning with his doctoral research at UCLA he pursued unusual investigative possibilities in the laboratory and beyond. He pursued a hint from Sherlock Holmes to discover how we can improve our memory by learning to intentionally forget unnecessary information.
When he began his work as an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Princeton University, he conducted the first experiment on helping people to improve their memory for dreams. He employed a unique classroom methodology in this work and it was published in the Journal of Humanistic psychology in 1974. Soon, his work with dreams took him beyond the laboratory, out into more natural settings. He is internationally known for his recreation in contemporary form of the indigenous ritual of dream incubation, and proved that the Gods speak to us in dreams just as in days of old. The Journal of Humanistic Psychology published that work in 1976.
For several years in Virginia Beach, Virginia, Dr. Reed administered a special project with the City's Art Center, to show that students, teachers, and professionals in the art community can enhance their work through dreams.
In his book, Night and Day, Jack McGuire writes: "By common agreement, the father of the modern dreamwork movement is Henry Reed." McGuire writes of Dr. Reed's innovative publication that made dream work expertise available to the general public: Sundance, The Community Dream Journal.
The insights into the nature of creative consciousness that dreams provided to Dr. Reed led him to the study of intuition. His discovery of the Intuitive Heart Discovery Process has provided a new basis for people to recognize the natural intuition that lies within them. His methods are simple and universal, making it possible for enthusiasts to share these techniques with others. His work on intuition is providing material for teachers everywhere. Dr. Reed has recently expanded his work to train teachers in his methods of releasing human potential.
Before I discuss the actual Intuitive Heart Discovery Process, let me tell about the history of its development and the concepts upon which it is based, in particular, its basis in hypnosis.
In his teacher's handbook, Caring for the Creative Spirit, Dr. Reed says, the Intuitive Heart begins with an ideal. It is love. Love opens the heart. Love expands one's boundaries to include the beloved target (person, thing, idea, or being). Dr. Reed tell us that one important thing to note is that by expanding itself to include beloved, the intuitive heart finds the external target within itself, it makes a subjective connection with the external object. Caring makes the bridge. Caring becomes a channel of the creative spirit.
By sharing a dream, by sharing a personal memory, the observer involves him or herself within the observation. If a connection is made with the external "other," it is not a detached, objective observation that creates this connection; rather it is a personal confession. I share something of myself, intuitively chosen with the hope that it relates to you. If you find it relates, it is because you can find meaning in my story. The intuitive heart is an introverted intuition, one that pays tribute to the postmodern discovery that there is no objective reality "out there," and every discovery is also a confession of a personal viewpoint. This subjective relativity provides a significant, intimate foundation for all the discovery processes that form the training of the intuitive heart.
Dr. Reed's story of the development of the Intuitive Heart Discovery Process begins in the early 1970's while he was a psychology professor at Princeton University. He was researching creative problem solving in dreams with students sleeping in the laboratory. He realized that the typical laboratory approach was not conducive to inspirational dreaming. In searching for an alternative approach, he had a dream of his own in which he was on a vigil in a tent. That tent was upon holy ground overseen by a wise old man. In 1972, based upon this dream, he created a vision quest ritual using a "dream tent."
The Edgar Cayce organization, the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.), invited Dr. Reed to conduct dream research at their summer camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He installed his dream tent at the lovely nature shrine, alongside White Rock Creek, which flows through camp. He guided several campers who wished to incubate a dream in the tent in quest of inspiration. The experiment was a success, demonstrating that visions exactly like the classical accounts of spiritual encounters in antiquity can still be obtained in our modern world. When Dr. Reed published this research, he commented that normal experimental methods, focused on manipulation and control, were not appropriate for transpersonal levels of the mind. When we try to go beyond the familiar boundaries of who we believe ourselves to be, it seems more fitting to use rituals of seeking, beseeching, and surrender to a higher order of harmony. Insisting on personal control or the traditional methods of mechanistic science may not allow the desired experiences to emerge.
The dream tent marked the beginning of Dr. Reed's evolution of a new research paradigm that is suitable as a spiritual path. It is a process of co-creating consciousness, a process shared among the researchers, the research participants, and the Creator. This new style of research was one in which the participants learned something themselves, at the same time as the researchers learned from the data collected. This method of research was officially accepted by the A.R.E. in 1973. At about this time, Dr. Reed had a dream: A group of A.R.E. Board Members, of which he was a member, had met for "research into enlightenment," and they were stumbling in the dark searching for the right method. Suddenly they began to dance together in a circle, each one recognizing the other by a particular individual symbol that they had displayed. As they danced, a fountain of sparks burst forth from the center of their dance and illuminated their space. They knew this dance was the research method they needed. Later as the A.R.E. Board Members heard of Dr. Reed's dream, they accepted it as an expression of their ideal.
Soon after this dream experience, Dr. Reed was working at the A.R.E. Camp and his research was carried to yet another level of co-creative discovery. The morning after a certain person was incubating in the dream tent; someone else in the camp community approached him with a dream concerning that very person. Then another person came to him with yet another dream about that same person who had slept in the tent. These "bystander" dreams reflected the dreamer's sincere desire to be helpful to the healing quest of the person in the dream tent. Since Dr. Reed alone knew the private concern of the questing person, he recognized that these bystander dreams had clear telepathic elements.
There was something of a psychic sort happening here in an unplanned manner. Seeing the possibilities, Dr. Reed wanted to transform this spontaneous phenomenon into something he could explore intentionally. Dr. Reed remembered that Edgar Cayce had criticized psychical research that seemed to have no goal other than to prove that one person can read the mind of another. Cayce had made some general suggestions to the effect that if we would create experiments in which we tried to help each other with ESP, we would discover the real meaning of psychic ability. That Cayce suggestion, plus the spontaneous bystander dreams and Dr. Reed's own dream of the research dance combined to form the next step in this new research approach. Dr. Reed called it the Dream Helper Ceremony. Here is the way it works:
Among a group of people, who have gathered for the ceremony, a volunteer who is suffering from some personal dilemma asks for help. This volunteer does not reveal the nature of the problem, but the group "sleeps on it" and tries to help in their dreams. The next morning, the group shares their dreams and examines them for what help they may contain for the volunteer focus person.
In the twenty years since Dr. Reed first attempted this experiment, he and many others have conducted these ceremony countless times and have observed similar results. Usually no one individual dream appears to have any obvious relevance for the volunteer focus person, especially since the group doesn't know the nature of the volunteer's problem. When the dreams are viewed as a whole, however, they find surprising commonalties. The dream themes form patterns that ultimately prove, when the volunteer does finally reveal the nature of the problem, to zero in on the targeted problem and point to potentially helpful lines of resolution. Even more revealing and helpful is when the dreamers reconsider the dreams and interpret them for what they reveal about themselves. The dreamers find their dreams are attempting to achieve resolution in their own lives to some aspect of the same dilemma that is confronting the focus person. It is as if the focus person's unrevealed problem acts like a telepathic innoculant, and each helper then creates healing antibodies during the dream state. In effect, each participant inwardly knows the plight of the volunteer and inwardly seeks to create a gift of resolution. Dr. Reed states that repeatedly he has seen the Dream Helper Ceremony demonstrate the principle of the intuitive heart: Out of compassion, we find the other person within our own experience. Truly, this is an experience of oneness individually expressed.
The Dream Helper Ceremony is not the usual telepathy experiment. Rather than isolating the participants from each other, the ceremony creates a sense of spiritual community. Rather than attempting to prove something, it attempts to be helpful, and in so doing, it creates some meaningful intuitive connections.
Taking these intuitive connections to the next step, to experience them directly in the conscious state of mind, did not happen for Dr. Reed right away. It took several years to digest the implications of the Dream Helper Ceremony and to realize what the next step would involve. Dr. Reed states that it has required facing the fact that we are shy about the implications of face to face telepathy. For example, a teenager who participated in a Dream Helper Ceremony remarked that to think that your own dreams are perhaps not really yours is "spooky!" Dr. Reed translates: the dissolving of boundaries awakens concerns over unwanted intimacy. According to Dr. Reed, intimacy, is an inherent, but little discussed, aspect of oneness. His research using this approach to telepathy has determined that intimacy is one of the new frontiers of psychical research.
According to Dr. Reed, today we are gaining a greater appreciation for the axiom of "oneness," or the interconnectedness of all beings. It was Edgar Cayce's first principle, as well as many other psychics. In mythology, oneness is the condition before the creation of the separate beings. In psychology, it is the condition of merger between mother and infant before the baby begins to experience itself as separate. Learning to tell lies and to keep secrets, for example, are two important ways a child discovers that its mind and mommy's can be distinct. Dr. Reed has found many examples, in fact, many people whose family members have unwittingly stumbled onto family secrets through accidental ESP. Many stories contained some embarrassment. Sometimes ESP is unwanted. It would seem we are not ready to live in a consciously psychic community until we are ready to do without our "fig leaves" for cover. As Dr. Reed sifted and correlated insights from the statements of psychics with findings from parapsychological research and interpersonal behavior, he became convinced that the psychology of intimacy (more than the biophysics of brain wave transmission) governs telepathy.
To explore this insight, Dr. Reed created several "rituals of discovery," experiments that provide an intimate, new form of psychical research. Unlike experiments based upon a mechanical model, they involve meaningful situations and tasks that are engaging to the caring human being. These rituals often have symbolic dimensions. They allow people to explore possibilities of experience and to discover truths that may have applicability in their own lives while simultaneously providing data that may have significance for a scientific theory. Rather than a laboratory, the natural places for these rituals of discovery are conferences, workshops, and study groups, where people are intent upon learning and self-exploration with others.
To design one such ritual of discovery, Dr. Reed drew upon parapsychology's roots in hypnosis. An important phenomenon from that history is "rapport," or the remarkable ability noted in the late 1800s of the hypnotized subject to respond to the unspoken suggestions, and even private experiences, of the hypnotist. Hypnotic rapport led to both the discoveries of "medical clairvoyants," such as Edgar Cayce and others, as well as to the laboratory study of telepathy. Rapport is a form of oneness that can be quite intimate because of its co-creative nature.
A clue about how rapport can work came to Dr. Reed unexpectedly one day in his psychotherapy practice. He was lost in a daydream about something from his own past and he thought he had not been paying attention to the client. After some conversation, he realized that his daydream was in fact a telepathic response to the repressed history of the clients' problem. In a state of rapport, personal experiences from his past that connected with experiences of his client were brought to his consciousness through a direct, telepathic process. Like the teenager commenting about the Dream Helper Ceremony, he at first asked himself, "Are not even our own thoughts really our own?" Then he realized that such rapport could be put into the service of interpersonal relationships.
In Dr. Reed's recreation of this phenomenon as a ritual of discovery, he teaches people to become absorbed in the sound of another person's voice vibrations, while observing their own inner (i.e. intuitive) responses. In one version of this experiment, called "The Getting to Know You Game," the ideal is "mutuality" and resonance becomes the medium of discovery. When you "resonate" with someone, you find that the two of you are in accord. You and that person, although of different personal histories, are of one mind. When a group of people become one with the sound of a single target person's voice, they each resonate with the subject in a different way. Each member of the group experiences different internal events (memories, images, and feelings). A little later, when they share and explore the personal meaning of their own experiences, they find that those inner experiences reflect a personal connection with the target person -- a shared interest, hobby, emotional pattern, or other piece of personal history. Sometimes their experiences zoom in on some thing significant about the subject, as in a "psychic reading" providing some helpful information to that person. Here again is one of the clearest signs of the intuitive heart.
From all of Dr. Reed's years of pursuing a new model of psychical research, one essential theme stands out: The rituals of the intuitive heart ask people to search within themselves and share something from their own experience that might be helpful to another person's unexpressed need. This approach seems better than asking people to attempt to "be telepathic" and "read minds." The belief that we can read minds can easily turn into a belief that we have insights into another person, which can easily turn into a belief that we know what's best for this person, which too often results in offering advice. Research into the intuitive heart has affirmed the philosophy derived from intimacy research that we give more and do a better service to another person when we share our own experience than when we give advice.
Dr. Reed firmly believes that it is possible to enlist our intuitive abilities to be helpful to another person without having to give advice to do so. In fact, through his research he has discovered that when we are willing to share of ourselves and to speak from the heart, we all can demonstrate the functioning of intuition.
Later in this paper I will present an overview of the Intuitive Heart Discovery Process, and I will give an example of what happened during one the exercises, the Dream Helper Ceremony I was privileged to recently experience. I will also give an example of how I am using the process in my hypnotherapy work. Right now, I would like to further explore how Dr. Reed used hypnosis in the development of the Intuitive Heart Discovery Process.
In his teacher's handbook Dr. Reed states: We have all known that creativity and intuition thrive in the special environment of an exalted state of consciousness. Hypnosis is the traditional path toward that consciousness. The popular notion is that hypnosis is a process of surrendering control to an outside influence due to increased suggestibility. A newer conception recognizes that hypnosis is an alteration of consciousness that lies within one's own personal control. It is a paradoxical state of mind; some have called it passive volition, indirect willingness, allowing something to happen that cannot be produced directly. It is learning to use the imagination to create a state of consciousness conducive to intuition and creativity.
You can obtain from Hermes Home Press Dr. Reed's hypnotic scripts which are used in the Intuitive Heart Discovery Process. One is the self-hypnosis script for Meeting a Spiritual Benefactor at a Sacred Sanctuary. The second is Create In Me a Pure Heart which is the basis for the process.
The scenario used in the first script - the scenario of going to a sacred place is symbolic of entering an enhanced mood, protected and purposeful. The image of the revered benefactor is a symbol of the intuition. Hypnosis functions as an aid to contemplation, enhancing the degree of absorption, becoming so merged with the contents of one's imagination, that the images have more power to elevate one's consciousness to a state of maximal intuitiveness. The second script, receiving a new heart from a revered benefactor then using that new heart as a gateway to higher consciousness, is a more direct route to the creative spirit.
Dr. Reed continues: "Stare at a spot high upon the wall across from you. I am going to slowly count backwards from ten to one. Each time I count, take a deep breath and very slowly blink your eyes. Ten....blink your eyes ever so slowly...nine....eight...."
We are eavesdropping on a session of hypnosis. The hypnotist is giving the person instructions that will lead into the state of hypnosis. Let's continue listening.
"...two...one. And now you can just close your eyes and keep them closed. Your eyelids are now very tired. In your eyelids, you find a comfortable feeling of tiredness, of relaxation, or a moving sensation. However, you experience this feeling, let it magnify and multiply, let it increase until your eyelids are totally, completely, and pleasantly relaxed.
"This is something you do, no one else can do it for you. Take your time and relax your eyelids. As you relax them, you can allow that feeling of relaxation to flow outward in all directions. "Imaginary waves or ripples of pleasant relaxation now move throughout the entire face. Allow your entire face to relax. As you do so, waves of relaxation spread over the head....
".......Welcome this wonderful feeling as it spreads throughout your entire body. Completely and pleasantly, your entire body is relaxing and you slow down just a little bit...you can slow down a little bit more and a little bit more....
"...More in perfect harmony now, you're at your own natural level of relaxation. It's something you want, it's happening here, it's happening now."
Dr. Reed continues: These particular instructions are adapted from Henry Bolduc's book, Self-Hypnosis: Creating your Own Destiny. They are typical of the instructions hypnotists use in leading a person into a hypnotic state. Dr. Reed states he has experienced hypnosis under the guidance of several hypnotists and has found their procedures quite similar. All induce a state of relaxation.
And as Dr. Reed continues he states: You may be wondering, as he did when he first began, where the actual hypnosis comes into play. Doesn't the hypnotist invoke some magical words to put you into a trance and take control of your mind? No. That's a false stereotype of hypnosis. Entering hypnosis is basically a process of deep relaxation while maintaining a quiet awareness. In order to further explain the Intuitive Heart Discovery Process connection to hypnosis, Dr. Reed tells the Edgar Cayce's story of hypnosis as follows:
Hypnotism played a significant role in Edgar Cayce's development as a psychic channel. As a child growing up in Kentucky, young Edgar had a strong interest in religion, a tendency toward mystical experiences, and showed evidence of psychic abilities. The concept of a mystic or a psychic being a channel, however, did not even exist until several years after he began his psychic work under hypnosis.
The first time Edgar Cayce functioned as a trance psychic, there was a great personal need. According to the account given by Thomas Sugrue, in his biography of Cayce, There is a River; it began with a strange event:
In the spring of 1900, at age 23, Cayce began work as a traveling salesman. One night, in Elkton, a town about 40 miles from his home in Hopkinsville, he stopped at a doctor's office to get some powder for a headache he had been experiencing for the past several weeks. The next thing he knew he was home in bed. A friend of the family had recognized him in Elkton, walking about disheveled and disoriented and took him home. The family doctor suspected that the headache sedative had been too strong. When he recovered he had lost his voice and was quite hoarse.
The hoarseness didn't go away and remained that way through the summer. Several doctors diagnosed and attempted to treat the malady, but without success. Cayce decided his throat was incurable, gave up sales work and began working in photography, which was to become his career.
Hypnotism was a fad in America at the time, much as channeling has been for awhile beginning around the 1980's. One of its more dramatic aspects was the psychic power it often revealed.
At that time, a traveling stage hypnotist, by the name of Hart, came to perform in Hopkinsville. He had a trick of inviting someone to hide an object anywhere in town, then he would ride through town blindfolded and direct the carriage to the hidden object. Hypnosis was also claimed by some (not incorrectly, although prematurely) to be the medicine of the future.
Hart learned of Cayce's problem and bet he could solve it for $200, nothing if he failed. Under hypnosis, Cayce talked normally, but when he came out, his voice was hoarse as usual.
A physician from New York heard of Cayce's situation and traveled south to try his hand with a hypnotic cure. He, too, was a failure. In a letter to the Cayce family he noted, however, Cayce seemed to resist accepting the post-hypnotic suggestions about his throat, as if wanting to take charge himself. The doctor suggested that someone hypnotize Cayce and then give him the suggestion to talk about his illness. A local hypnotist, Al C. Layne wanted to try and Edgar Cayce was willing to undergo one final experiment.
A year since the problem had first begun; the fateful experiment in hypnosis was attempted. Layne gave Cayce the suggestion that Cayce would put himself to sleep. When Cayce was breathing deeply, the hypnotist suggested that Cayce would "see his body and describe the trouble in his throat."
Cayce then spoke in a clear voice, stating what would become his trademark of an opening line: "Yes, we have the body." Cayce went on to describe the problem in the throat as due to poor circulation. He indicated that the circulation could be improved by the use of suggestion while he was in this unconscious state. Layne gave the suggestion and Cayce's throat turned bright red. After about 20 minutes, Cayce said the condition was removed, and asked that it be suggested that his condition return to normal, and then awaken. The suggestion was given, and it did and he did. His voice was restored.
Within a few days, however, Cayce's voice was weak again. Using the same procedure as before, Layne was able to help Cayce regain his voice. For almost a year, Cayce needed these periodic hypnotic sessions to keep his voice functioning.
Layne immediately saw the potential value of Cayce's trance. Hypnotists in Europe had demonstrated that while in trance, the hypnotized person often evidenced the psychic ability to diagnose another person's illness. Cayce had been able to diagnose his own problem and effect a treatment. He might well diagnose someone else's condition. Layne decided to use Cayce's trance to build his own medical practice. Soon Layne (a self-taught, non-licensed osteopath) had opened an office and was using Cayce to secretly diagnose and prescribe treatments for patient's conditions. In this way, Cayce began giving what Layne called "readings" without Cayce's conscious knowledge.
When Cayce learned what was going on, he was quite upset and made Layne promise to stop. However, Cayce was dependent upon Layne for the hypnotic treatments, and they continued their work. Cayce later learned that Layne had also continued with the readings. Layne insisted that the readings were definitely on target, the diagnoses given to the patients were accurate, and the remedies suggested were working well. Nevertheless, the practice bothered Cayce and he broke their relationship. Difficulties with his voice forced Cayce to return to Layne, once more, however, and Cayce reluctantly agreed to give readings for Layne's patients. Word of Cayce's and Layne's work finally leaked to the press and Layne, who was practicing without a license, left town.
Cayce found another hypnotist for his treatments, and gave readings for other people only occasionally as the need warranted. It took many years before Cayce finally accepted that his psychic readings were beneficial to those in need. Only then did he accept his role as a psychic.
When given the name of a person, Cayce would often describe the person's environment. On one occasion, he described the room perfectly, but noted that the person was not there, as he was supposed to be. Moments later, he indicated that the person had just arrived. It was as if he had traveling vision, as well as a sixth sense of knowing where to look. With his psychic X-ray eyes, he could look within the body and describe internal conditions that doctors would then verify with their own examinations.
It was the accuracy of his psychic perception and the fact that doctors who followed Cayce's prescriptions with their patients had success that finally convinced Cayce to continue the "Readings." His clairvoyant power was phenomenal. He once prescribed a medicine that could not be found anywhere. It was no longer made. Cayce then gave the formula for making it. Soon after, a letter came from a doctor who had located the formula for the treatment and it was exactly as Cayce had formulated it. On another occasion, Cayce prescribed a remedy that no one could find. Cayce then identified a particular pharmacy, described a shelf in the stock room, and indicated to look in the rear, behind more currently used medicines. The pharmacist was located, asked to check out the directions, and found an old bottle of the remedy.
As the father of holistic medicine, he described the interaction of mind and body, especially the workings of the endocrine system and the healing functions of the body that would take medicine over forty years to discover for themselves. Cayce restricted the use of his psychic talent, in fact, to medical diagnosis and prescription, until one fateful meeting.
Some twenty years after that first experiment hypnotizing Cayce; a wealthy printer named Arthur Lammer asked Cayce if he had ever sought out the mysteries of the universe through his psychic trance. Cayce hadn't even thought of the idea. Lammer's suggestion came as another challenge. He agreed to the experiment. Lammer asked many questions concerning metaphysics, reincarnation, and the spiritual nature of the human being. The answers that came from Cayce's psychic trance to such questions opened an entirely new horizon for Cayce's psychic vision. What followed were Cayce's teachings on the various ways that human beings are channels of divine energy and the significance of that spiritual potential.
Dr. Reed continues to explain the basis for the Intuitive Heart Discovery Process under the title: Hypnosis: The Suggestibility of the Subconscious. Dr. Reed says it is common today to define hypnosis as a state of heightened suggestibility. This definition is another way of stating what Edgar Cayce explained was the essence of hypnosis communicating directly with the subconscious mind.
The subconscious mind operates upon the principle of suggestion. It accepts any statement as being true. The conscious mind operates by reasoning upon sense impressions. It regards any statement, Cayce noted, as a proposition to be analyzed and evaluated.
If I suggest to you that there is an apple in front of you, your immediate reaction will be to compare that statement with the impression from your senses. Your conscious mind will disagree with me. The conscious mind can not accept suggestion, but first evaluates the statement.
On the other hand, if I suggest that you imagine an apple, or pretend that an apple is in front of you, your conscious mind will step aside and allow your subconscious to bring up an image of an apple. The subconscious mind readily accepts the suggestion concerning an apple and immediately complies with a suitable image.
While the subconscious mind is involved with the imaginal apple, the conscious mind may kibbutz from the sidelines. It may note that the imaginal image isn't like the experience of a real apple. It may note that pretending isn't the same as reality. If the conscious mind is distracted, however, from the activity of the subconscious, then there's nothing to interfere with the effective reality of the imaginal apple.
The process of hypnosis is like seducing the attention of the conscious mind and redirecting it elsewhere. Relaxation helps in this process. As the body relaxes, the sensory system also relaxes and the conscious mind grows dim. It is very much like what happens as we fall asleep. The only difference is that in hypnosis, the conscious mind doesn't dissolve, because the hypnotist's voice has captured its attention and gives it a place of restful focus. If the hypnotist were to cease talking for a prolonged period of time, the conscious mind would lose that focus and the person could easily fall asleep.
As the person relaxes more fully, and the dimming conscious mind rests upon the pillow of the hypnotist's voice, the subconscious becomes uninhibited in its response to suggestion. Whatever the hypnotist suggests can be vividly imagined by the subconscious mind - and what it thus imagines, it takes to be reality. In this way, hypnosis becomes both a state of heightened suggestibility and a state where the hypnotist can communicate directly with the subconscious mind.
Dr. Reed then presents the concept of progressive relaxation as the means to enter the hypnotic state yourself where you can learn to respond to your own suggestions.
Dr. Reed then discusses hypnosis and ESP. He asks us to recall that Cayce indicated that all subconscious minds are in contact with one another. If hypnosis is a means of communicating directly with the subconscious mind, we should expect that ESP would be more pronounced during hypnosis than during the normal, waking state. Hypnotic subjects should be mind readers. Experience and research proves this assumption to be correct.
In the original golden years of hypnosis of the 1800's, the psychic aspects of hypnosis were almost taken for granted. Hypnotized subjects could read books blindfolded. Hypnotists could deliver suggestions simply by thinking of them. In demonstrations of the "community of sensation," meaning the telepathic sharing of experiences, the hypnotist could bite into an orange and the subject would report the taste, think of the lyrics of a song and the subject would sing them, have himself be pinched and the subject would cry ouch. In fact, some hypnotists could telepathically hypnotize their subjects even over great distances. Witnesses verified that the person, for no apparent reason, would lay down on the couch and seemed to go to sleep. In other occasions, the person would stop what they were doing, make some excuse, and go to the telepathically suggested location.
Telepathic hypnosis is a controversial subject. Dr. Reed tells about a personal experience where without his knowing that he was even thinking of him, a hypnotist telepathically induced analgesia in Dr. Reed's arm. Dr. Reed was unaware of the effect until it was pointed out to him that he could not feel his arm being pinched. Cayce reminds us that we affect people by our thoughts. The saying "Don't say anything about a person unless you can say something positive" should be extended to what we think. Sending people thoughts of encouragement is a natural and positive use of telepathic suggestion.
According to Dr. Reed, modern research in parapsychology, where ESP is statistically tested in laboratory settings, has confirmed that hypnosis often increases telepathic ability. Modern studies have also demonstrated the striking telepathic rapport that people in hypnosis can achieve with one another.
In his self-induced hypnotic trance, Edgar Cayce was able to clairvoyantly diagnose the medical problems of people who sought his help. Cayce indicated that we could diagnose ourselves if we would turn within.
Hypnosis has often been a catalyst for helping people to turn to the knowledge within. Marshall S. Wilensky, Ph.D., a Canadian psychologist, reported the use of hypnotic imagery to elicit self-diagnostic imagery in patients of varying medical conditions.
Wilensky used suggestive imagery, borrowed from Jean Houston's book, The Possible Human, involving a personification of the inner wisdom of the body. His experiments demonstrate the evocative power of such imagery.
After entering a light hypnotic trance, the person imagines being on top of a mountain searching for a path down. After making a careful descent, the person discovers a door leading into the depths of the mountain, entering an atmosphere that has the vibrations of renewal and restoration. The person comes to a door with a sign upon it reading, "The One Who Knows Health." The person opens the door and meets someone who is completely knowledgeable about the person's body. The person sits down in front of this knowing one and asks questions. The "One Who Knows Health" answers, not just verbally, but also through images and bodily sensations that the person experiences.
In Wilenky's opinion, the inner wisdom figure is an image representation of a state of consciousness, an internal awareness that has proven of therapeutic value. Once again, we see the value and power of the process of personification. Using an image of a person, or being, can unlock hidden powers within the mind.
Dr. Reed continues to establish the basis of the Intuitive Heart Discovery Process in hypnosis by discussing The Power of Hypnotic Role Playing. Role playing allows us to take on the characteristics of the role, to channel whatever characteristics the role suggests. Role playing is a process of pretending. It engages the channel of the subconscious mind through an act of the imagination. By neutralizing any interference of the conscious mind and providing more direct access to the subconscious, hypnosis can increase the power of role playing to an incredible degree.
In his book, The Laws of Psychic Phenomena, Thomas J. Hudson describes a very revealing experiment in hypnotic role playing that he witnessed in the company of many well educated people. The hypnotist, Dr. Carpenter, hypnotized a man and told him that Socrates was very eager to speak to him and would answer any question that the young man would care to ask. The young man began asking some questions and found that Socrates did answer. He relayed these answers to Dr. Carpenter. Members of the audience also suggested some questions to ask Socrates. As the man relayed answer upon answer, he gradually came to play Socrates himself. He amazed the audience with his eloquence and profundity. Hudson noted that these speeches, for they were becoming that, were delivered in a spontaneous manner with no hesitation. He proceeded to provide a complete account of the universe, a compelling spiritual philosophy worthy of the speaker's role. Although the audience had witnessed the artificial creation of Socrates, the man's performance was so convincing, his utterances so inspiring, that many people even took notes.
The demonstration dumbfounded the audience. In his waking state, the man, although college educated, was not an impressive intellectual or speaker. Yet, his Socrates was genuinely gifted. The audience genuinely believed that Dr. Carpenter had enabled the man to contact the spirit of Socrates. In later experiments, Dr. Carpenter suggested to the hypnotized man that he was in communication with a disembodied spirit of supreme intelligence. Again, the man proceeded to expound the most spellbinding and marvelous spiritual philosophy, exceeding even his Socratic performance. Hudson remarked that a transcription of the discourse, had there been one, would have made a very credible book.
Hudson told this story to demonstrate one of the powers of the subconscious mind that we vastly underestimate. He calls it "deductive reasoning power." If you give the subconscious mind a certain assumption, that Socrates is present, for example, it can take that premise and instantly draw out its implications. Using the powers of the imagination, the subconscious begins with the person's own unconscious memories to fabricate its performance. Being in contact with other subconscious minds, it can also draw upon the other persons memories. Conceivably, it could also attract actual spirits as a resource. It could tap into a universal level of awareness, accessing the Akashic records of all knowledge. Whether it is accessing a disembodied pattern of thought forms, or simply the unconscious knowledge of the person, is not possible to determine in a given instance. What is clear, however, is that the initial premise has a lot of power to generate a surprising performance. The subconscious was able to deliver on cue in a very convincing manner.
Dr. Reed continues: the story of channeling Socrates has a double-edged, good news, bad news lesson. On the one hand, by demonstrating how the subconscious mind is capable of amazingly creative improvisation, we are reminded that the appearance of channeling a spirit does not necessarily mean a spirit is involved. On the one hand, the demonstration also shows the power of personification, how proposing an image of a being can open a profound channel of inspiration. We might wonder, therefore, if it is possible that given the right image, one could actually open up a valid channel of universal intelligence. What might this right image be? Cayce suggests that we choose according to our ideals, that it be an image of the higher self. Cayce's own experience serves as an instructive example and, along with hypnosis, form a basis for the Intuitive Heart Discovery Process.
Dr. Reed continues to establish the basis of the Intuitive Heart Discovery Process by telling us about Edgar Cayce's Hypnotic Journey. When Cayce went into trance, he experienced what he called the "Hall of Records" and was getting his information from an old man. Although his trance source did not describe the process in such concrete images and personifications, the waking Cayce did. Here is a verbatim account of Cayce's waking description of his journey in the trance state, taken from comments he made at public lecture:
"I see myself as a tiny dot out of my physical body, which lies inert before me. I find myself oppressed by darkness and there is a feeling of terrific loneliness. Suddenly, I am conscious of a white beam of light. As this tiny dot, I move upward following the light, knowing that I must follow it or be lost. As I move along this path of light I gradually become conscious of various levels upon which there is movement. Upon the first levels there are vague, horrible shapes, grotesque forms such as one sees in nightmares. Passing on, there begins to appear on either side-misshapen forms of human beings with some part of the body magnified. Again, there is change and I become conscious of gray-hooded forms moving downward. Gradually, these become lighter in color. Then the direction changes and these forms move upward and the color of the robes grows rapidly lighter. Next, there begins to appear on either side vague outlines of houses, walls, trees, etc., but everything is motionless. As I pass on, there is more light and movement in what appear to be normal cities and towns. With the growth of movement, I become conscious of sounds, at first indistinct rumblings, then music, laughter, and singing of birds. There is more and more light, the colors become very beautiful, and there is the sound of wonderful music. The houses are left behind, ahead there is only a blending of sound and color. Quite suddenly, I come upon a hall of records. It is a hall without walls, without ceiling, but I am conscious of seeing an old man who hands me a large book, a record of the individual for whom I seek information.
On other occasions, Cayce "felt himself to be a bubble traveling through water to arrive at the place where he always got the information," according to records in the A.R.E. library. In another instance, "he went up and up through a very large column; passing by all the horrible things without coming in contact personally with them, and came out where there was the house of records. It, the column, wound around on a wheel like the Rotarians have. He felt very secure traveling that way."
That was Cayce's experience of the imagery that accompanied his psychic trance. Dr. Reed then wondered, what would happen if that imagery were used as a series of suggestions to someone in a hypnotic trance? Would it lead to the same type of psychic, universal awareness Cayce obtained?
A hypnotist named Henry Bolduc, tried that experiment. In his book, The Journey Within: Past Life Regression and Channeling, Henry tells the story of what happened when he turned Cayce's description of his trance into a script for hypnotic suggestions.
Daniel Clay is a lay minister whom Henry had trained in self-hypnosis, and who initiated the idea of following in Cayce's thought patterns.
After Clay was in the hypnotic state, Henry began by turning Cayce's first statement into a suggestion: "You will see yourself as a tiny dot out of your physical body, which lies inert before you." That suggestion was easy for Clay to follow. At the next suggestion, "You find yourself oppressed by darkness and there's a feeling of terrific loneliness," Clay's face dropped in sadness. Clay's facial expressions showed appropriate responsiveness to each of the remaining suggestions. At the end of the sequence, Henry gave Clay the name of someone and it was suggested that the old man would produce that person's record book. Clay made a few statements about the person in question. Afterwards, Henry was able to verify that some of what Clay indicated was correct. They decided to continue this line of experimentation.
Each time they repeated the experiment, Clay's body seemed more adjusted to the sequence. There was less physical torment expressed during the passage by the grotesque figures, and the clairvoyant information was clearer and more accurate. The result was that Clay began to channel what appeared to be a universal consciousness called, "The Eternal Ones." This source identified itself as a state of consciousness within us all. It distinguished that source from spirit mediumship, a channel the Eternal Ones discouraged in no uncertain terms. Clay has since built a reputation for accurate and inspiring channeled readings.
Dr. Reed has met with Clay on numerous occasions and has interacted with the Eternal Ones. What has impressed him the most isn't how different or spellbinding the Eternal Ones might appear, but how much resemblance he sensed between the spirit of Clay's sincerity of purpose and gentleness as a human being and the effect of being in the presence of his trance channeling. That resemblance has confirmed for Dr. Reed Cayce's perspective that channeling, when it is not "trick shooting," is an expression of the channel's own growth in consciousness.
Dr. Reed wanted to use Cayce's imagery as a basis for suggestion and to test its effectiveness as an approach to trance channeling. So he worked with Henry Bolduc and through a number of sessions on himself, he was able to incorporate the concepts into the Intuitive Heart Discovery Process.
In the following section of this paper I will present an overview of The Intuitive Heart Discovery Process. I will also present a transcript of one of the exercises in the process, the Dream Helper. In addition, I will give an example of how I have used the Intuitive Heart Discovery Process in my hypnotherapy work (See "Power of Heart Connections, below).
In his book, Exercise Your Intuitive Heart, The Official Practice Guide for the Intuitive Heart Discovery Group, Dr. Reed states that the Intuitive Heart Discovery Process is based on a small group, which he feels is an ideal setting for personal transformation. Dr. Reed has noted, as have social psychologists, ministers, and metaphysical teachers that there is something about group dynamics which intensifies, quickens and promotes the type of self-exploration and sharing that is conducive to growth and change.
The main purpose of the group program is to encourage participants to have the experience of small group interaction, to enjoy the benefits provided by a small, supportive group as they further explore, at many levels, the meaning for them of intuitive development.
The purpose of the group format, more specifically, is to provide some structured group activities that will help the participant to practice some basic skills of intuitive functioning that also has significance for spiritual and soul development.
These skills include:
During the group process, the participants have the opportunity to learn and develop specific skills. They can practice them further and learn to combine them in new ways. Their practice will build and improve their self-confidence. Using new combinations of these skills, the participants can generalize their learning. Reading and discussing material on intuitive ability and psychic development is not the primary purpose of the group. The group is too busy with activities. The Intuitive Heart Discovery Process is not an intellectual exercise in discussing ideas but one of practice and application.
The Intuitive Heart Discovery Process is set up to be presented in six sessions, one night a week for approximately two hours. While each week features a different training exercise the group meeting format stays approximately the same.
The group begins with a fifteen minute meditation. The specific form of meditation is geared to the process of intuitive functioning. It is Dr. Reed's experience that everything that goes on in the group goes better following meditation than before meditation, so he makes the meditation first.
There is some time for discussion of any practice experiences since the last meeting. About half an hour is devoted to sharing experiences from the past week.
Each lesson provides some instructions for the type of discussion, some questions to discuss, or provides some specific objective that the discussion will achieve.
The bulk of the meeting, an hour or more, is devoted to the training activity for that week. This activity is the primary focus of the group's getting together. The lesson includes instructions for the activity. For the most part, these activities will draw upon the participant's willingness to experience new levels of their natural abilities to play, to listen, to enjoy conversations and getting to know people, to explore images and subtle feelings that are quite commonplace, yet usually overlooked.
Many of the lessons include some form of practice exercise or application for the participant to try out during the week. They are simple little exercises or assignments that help to assimilate and put into practice ideas from the lesson. Following through on these exercises are important to insure that the participant gets the most benefit from their participation in the venture.
The last fifteen or so minutes of each group is spent reviewing the exercise and planning preparations for the next meeting.
Dr. Reed has set two goals for the group while they are on the journey of learning the Intuitive Heart Discovery Process. They are:
- The participants will be able to turn within for intuitive guidance about themselves and the world around them.
- They will be able to intuitively connect with someone important to them as a means of increasing their empathy for that person to further enjoy or improve that relationship.
The Intuitive Heart Discovery Process groups begin by practicing the easier skills, then move to the more challenging ones. The next step is for the group to begin combining the skills in new ways as the participants gain the confidence to function intuitively.
Session I
The first session focuses on learning to be intuitive about intuition. The participants learn about entering the "flow" state and develop their trust in "inspiration." They learn about making a "heart connection" and practice "speaking from the heart," as they play the game, In My Experience.
Session II
The second session focuses on what is perhaps the form of psychic functioning most people think of when thinking of the Edgar Cayce method--the use of the "trance," or the altered state of "absorption," which research has shown is associated with psychic experiences. The group has a chance to discuss this procedure, then listen to a specially recorded cassette version.
The participants are provided with a copy of a cassette version of the script Creating a New Heart to practice with at home. They are requested to make their own version at home, so they can get used to listening to their own voice. They are asked to try out whatever advice they receive as part of the process. Dr. Reed feels that testing out the process is important.
I have provided below an example of how I have already used this exercise in my hypnotherapy work. It shows the power of the process and the heart connection that was made when one of the Intuitive Heart participants, Matt Holg, and I made a heart connection to work on healing with this process.
This session concludes by selecting by lottery the "focus person" for the Dream Helper Ceremony. That person - and the question or problem they are secretly concentrating upon - will be the subject of everybody's dreams that night. During the week, the participants will work with their dream for that person, preparing their work for the session the coming week.
Session III
The third session is devoted to processing the telepathic dreams meant for the "focus person", the Dream Helper Ceremony. In this ceremony the participants see how their ordinary appearing dreams do, in fact, tune in on the person in need. It builds great rapport and spirit in the group, adding to what they have already got going in the group through their meditation and chanting. Because it was so profound to me, I have provided at the end of this article, the transcribed Dream Helper Ceremony from the group in which I participated in during my October workshop with Dr. Reed. In order to understand how the Dream Helper Ceremony works I am including below the detailed instructions which are given to the participants and taken from the Exercise Your Intuitive Heart guide, The Dream Symbol Substitution Method which Dr. Reed recommends to interpret our dreams.
Experiment for the Week
The Dream Helper Ceremony
READ ALOUD:
Discuss anyone's questions about the process. The group can decide, based upon their own inner guidance, how to handle any question of procedure for this ceremony.
Do It!
People who would like to be selected as the focus person place their name in a container. Pass the container around the room while someone reads this prayer:
READ ALOUD: May the person who could best be helped by this dream helper process, by those gathered here at this time, be the one whose name is chosen. May this process be guided by love and caring.
Someone who is not a candidate draws a name out of the container to determine who will be the focus person.
Do It!
READ ALOUD:
In a moment, the selected focus person
will lead the group in a brief meditation. First, let's review our
experiment for the coming week--going over what we will be doing
between now and the next time we meet.
Discuss any questions.
READ ALOUD:
Discuss any questions.
Examine the worksheet for the Experiment of the Week. See if anyone has any questions.
The group should agree to focus together their dreams on a SINGLE NIGHT, preferably tonight,
for the focus person. Allowing the ceremony to diffuse over several
nights weakens the power of the group's cooperative dreaming ability.
The designated focus person can now lead the group in a brief closing meditation.
Hold hands in a circle.
The focus person will call for a minute of silence. Then the focus person will say a brief prayer, asking that each member be guided in their dreams to experience what would be helpful and healing for both the focus person and the dreamer. The focus person brings people out of the meditation and distributes the personal objects for the dream helpers to sleep with that night.
Final instructions for focus person: Before going to bed tonight, the focus person will write out, on a piece of paper, the issue or question to be dreamed about. The focus person will put that "dream petition" under their pillow to attract the group member's dreams.
Hold hands in a circle and have a closing for the night.
(Note: In the session in which I
participated, the focus person gave us a slip of paper on which she had
signed her name to put under our pillow the night of our dream.)
Session IV
The fourth session focuses on the "Getting to Know You Game" involving gaining impressions based on voice sampling. This game is a good icebreaker and provides a way for the group to get acquainted.
Listening is a basic orientation of intuitive sensitivity and this week's experimentation has the participants practice intuitive listening to people they encounter.
Session V
During the fifth group session the participants work with many partners to develop a sensitivity to the role of the imagination as a psychic channel. They learn how to connect with the feelings of another person, to experience their energy level, to allow themselves to be attuned to the patterns of their thoughts. Dr. Reed compares it to something like the "mind meld" that the Vulcan people can do on Star Trek and it is part of learning to be the "empath" described in science fiction literature.
Session VI
The sixth and final session explores improvisation and play. The participants begin by trying their hand at playing with sounds to get into a really good mood. They "get high" from the Sound Symphony, which is followed by inspirational writing. The spirit of play, of the inner child and of creativity are important to intuitive functioning. The Sound Symphony not only reminds participants of how much fun it can be to simply play, it also shows them how they can raise their vibrations through cooperative play. The inspirational writing that follows is shared in the group.
The "fruits of the training", as Dr. Reed puts it, are many. Learning to trust in your inspiration (breathing in), you have reason to be grateful for your intuitive heart. It is special, yet natural. It is your true self, and all it requires is that you simply be yourself. But that self that you truly are is your soul, wise beyond words.
Dr. Reed continues: Soul is your transpersonal identity, that part of yourself that is universal, infinite, eternal, that contains a unique seed image of the whole of creation, just as a leaf, although different from all the other leaves on the tree, bears some information, via DNA, about the tree that grew it. To become the "you" that you uniquely are, is to live the individuality that Edgar Cayce and Carl Jung both said was the visible hallmark of soul manifestation. That individuality is less the result of conditioning, the public personality, and is more the natural, spontaneous you. Your natural self then is your soul self.
Dr. Reed has interpreted that vision of soul development in the practical terms of a two-step process:
Dr. Reed continues, this training, besides focusing you on opening the channel of your intuitive abilities, should also have some side benefits that you will notice. There should be some fruits of the training, in other words, beyond merely the ability to "read minds," for instance:
I would agree with Dr. Reed when he summarizes his introduction to the exercises and states that these are but a few of the side-benefits that one might expect to come from this type of training. No doubt many of them relate to aspects of your growth that you have already been working on. The idea is to integrate intuitive training into the rest of life, to use it as a tool for being able to sensitively guide your growth and development in other areas. The highest intuitive realization may be to know that the Creator still talks to us. Another way of saying that is that it is the inner, intuitive sense, not the physical sense, that perceives the spiritual in life, and it is all around us.
The Power of the Intuitive Heart Process
What follows are copies of two email communications between me and another Intuitive Heart Discovery Process participant, Matt Holg. It shows the power of the Intuitive Heart process and, in particular, of making a heart connection. I did not use my client's name for confidentiality reasons. Matt Holg has given me permission to use our story in this paper and for this I am particularly grateful.
********************************************************October 31, 1998 9:39 AM
Hi Matt,
This morning when I was meditating on a 22 year old man named XXXXX who has a serious disease and was placed on the lung transplant list about a week ago, your presence came to me very strongly. XXXXX's uncle made an appointment with me for tomorrow at 2:00 PM for a past life regression for XXXXX to see if they can find the reason why he has this disease in this life time. I've been going through the usual fear based thinking that seems to be my nature, should I do this, can I do this, do I know enough to do this, I don't want to do anything to hurt him..........and on it goes.So I thought I'd do the memory technique this AM and see if I could get some help. I got a memory of myself as a young child. I was supposed to get my tonsils out as I was sick with a sore throat all the time. I was scheduled for a particular morning and I was prepared by my family, got a bath, washed my hair, and went to bed expecting to be taken to the hospital the next morning for surgery. When I woke up I was told that there weren't any beds in the hospital and that my surgery was canceled. It was never rescheduled and I was never told why. While, and after, this memory was happening - throughout this meditation - your presence was very prominent. I said at one point "Oh, Matt Holg is here with me" and I thanked you for being with me.
Well, I'm not quite sure how that memory relates to XXXXX except that it may mean he's not going to get the answer, but I think I'm going to see if he might be interested in channeling his Higher Self rather than the past life scan right now. That's how I came out of the meditation feeling. Any comments you have on this would be appreciated.
So, I guess I'm just telling you that and asking for your psychic support tomorrow afternoon when I meet with XXXXX.
Thanks and please accept my deep love for your presence.
Kathy Rishel
**********************************************
Matt Holg's response on October 31, 1998 1:19 PM
Hi Kathy- life is so inter-related! At some point yesterday after work I had Headline News on TV. I wasn't really paying attention, but a story caught my attention about a young boy who had survived a multiple organ transplant. His mother had moved around, I think from Ca to somewhere else and then to Florida -- because availability depends on where you live. So they listened to doctors' advice about where to move to increase their chances. Anyway he finally got his intestine (I forget which one) transplant, but by that time he also needed a pancreas and something else. They finally became available and the multiple (that's why it was news) operation was done. He's doing okay and he was on the TV in a wheelchair talking about how far he had come and how proud he was of himself for coming this far and getting through all the wait and pain and stuff. He did not look very well, but had a deep spiritual look to his eyes which were circled in black. For some reason I put my hand on the TV to touch his face and sent him some love/healing/respect/strength. His mother was tearful in thanking the organ donors and said they couldn't possibly know the great good they had done. It touched me deeply, and I sighed for the pain we all feel and the strength that we all have. So was I with you? With him and his mother? With myself? With God and the All in all of us? I don't know how it all relates to your immediate situation of knowing what to do to help, but I will say a prayer for XXXXX, his mother and you. God Bless, k. Also, on a lighter note, the other day I was getting my mail and thinking how nice it would be to hear from Henry because I like him so much, and what was in my mail but an issue of Venture Inward magazine, for which he writes a column. So I would hear from him via his words! How nice. I wanted to check my computer before I read my mail so I turned it on. For days I had been having real difficulty in getting logged on and having everything work properly. Every day was a pain. I just started talking to my computer like You can do it! Come on, you can do it! Giving some old-fashioned encouragement. And it worked!
Don't you know when I read Henry's column, he was reviewing a book that indicated that when people made a "heart connection" with machinery, the machinery operated more successfully. I had just done that! Anyway, thanks for the card!
*****************************************************
My client chose to meet his Spiritual Benefactor that day and what a powerful experience it was both for him and for me. We learned of how his Guide has been with him from the beginning of this life time and of the many times that her Guide has made him laugh. In particular, we learned of the times when his Guide would cause him to break out singing in the back seat of the car on the way to another difficult stay in the hospital. And we learned of the many times when his Guide ran and played with him when she was young. We learned that the feeling he has of a presence outside of his bedroom door at night - that there is someone walking up and down the hall - is his Guide watching over him. We learned of many more times that his Guide has protected and comforted him. What a beautiful experience this was for both of us.
A Dream Helper Ceremony
What follows is a transcription of the Dream Helper Ceremony which we held at the Intuitive Heart Conference the week of October 13-18, 1998 in Wytheville, Virginia. The participants were: Henry Reed, Barbara and Richard Reuters, Libby Baston, Martha Kennedy, Dorothy Setter, Sally Stockton and myself (in what follows, all names but mine and Dr. Reed's have been changed). The Dream Helper Ceremony was for Sally and she has given me permission to use it in this paper. I am especially grateful to Sally for her willingness to share her ceremony for, as you will see, Sally's ceremony became mine. And although the reason for the separation from my mother and my family was a bit different, the result in my life has been very similar and very painful. And as Sally expresses during the discussion, our souls were on the line and we felt naked.
This transcription was difficult. There was another group going on at the same time and at times I had difficulty determining who was speaking within our group. In the event I have mixed up a speaker, the content of this powerful ceremony has not been changed. I ask your patience as you read this transcription. The wisdom of its message is worth the effort.
SALLY'S DREAM HELPER CEREMONY
Dr. Reed - ..And seeing the patterns that connect may not seem like an obvious intuitive process to you, but think about it for a second with the "In My Experience Exercise." Here you've got a person that's dealing with a situation and you don't know what it is and you're drawing from yourself an experience of yours that you're hoping is going to be analogous in some way. And there you are using intuition to match patterns. Where does the - you might say - where does - if - if the pattern that connects two sets of information - where does that pattern come from? How do you think of that pattern? And so on. How do you go about doing that? And so, I want to give you an example of two dreams that don't seem to have anything to do with one another because they are so different and encourage you to go beyond just looking for two cars and three children and two people getting angry and so on. OK. Dream One - a person has stopped at an intersection at the red light and that light goes green and they're ready to go. They start to enter the intersection and they notice off to the right a car is running through the red light and is about to hit them and they have to stop. And then the car goes on and then they travel across the intersection. That's dream number one.
Now in dream number two, a person is going to make - they're watching television and they decided they want a mayonnaise and pickle sandwich so they get up go into the kitchen, and open up the refrigerator and they get out the pickle and they get out their mayonnaise and they dip into the mayonnaise and discover that it has all turned bad. So, those are the two dreams. Now what do they have in common? What's the common pattern?
Libby - Having to stop
Dr. Reed - Having to stop. Ah! Huh! There must be some other formulations.
Barbara - A near miss they could have got sick from the mayonnaise.
Dr. Reed - Ah! Huh! More? Those all have validity. What else?
Barbara - Paying attention.
Dr. Reed - Paying attention. Ah! Huh!
Richard - You have two choices.
Dr. Reed - You've got two choices? What's that?
Richard - Well you had the - not exactly two choices - in one
case you've got the bad mayonnaise and in the other case you've got the
bad driver.
Dr. Reed - And the choices are?
Richard - To stop in each case.
Martha - Obstacles!
Dr. Reed - Obstacles!
(A short part of the tape can not be understood here but it had
something to do with blockages and an effort to move forward which was
blocked)
Dr. Reed - Everything people were saying was certainly correct.
But I think Dorothy got into that things did not turn out as expected.
There was an anticipation and a movement forward and it was blocked and
frustrated because events didn't turn out as expected. Then later, in
the part where we're saying what these two dreams will come up again -
(?????) we're going to look through and find the patterns in the dreams
and come up with some hypotheses about what area of life is probably
the person asking about? Second, what seems to be the underlying cause
of the problem? And third, what are the dreams suggesting to be done?
And in the suggesting to be done - could be looking for constructive
activities, creative actions in the dreams, and so - and the
constructive, creative activity in the two dreams I just mentioned -
look before you leap - pay attention - be careful - and make sure
things are as you expect before you move ahead.
Dr. Reed - Who want's to go first?
Richard - I'll start. I had three dreams and I only remember one of them. I assume that's the dream I was supposed to remember.
Dr. Reed - I've heard that rule stated by somebody else. The old dream recall axiom.
Richard - I've had as many as eleven dreams that I have
remembered for people and it gets awfully complicated. A group of us
were off together with deer rifles. One young man kept swinging his
rifle around and aiming at me. I told him if he did that again I'd
shoot him. And I don't have that written down here but that's the last
I saw of him in the dream.
At that time I had my gun pointed at him. We then started looking at a
wooden enclosure for a gun. There was a door on the side. On the shelf
inside there were a bunch of empty cartridge cases from a previous
time. I was looking for some live ammunition but didn't see any. I
closed the door and someone said, "You'd better put a lock on that."
Someone else said, "It would just get rusty." Jokingly I said. "It
wouldn't dare." In the next scene, I guess it's the same dream, we are
now standing on a high bank overlooking a river. I can see some red
rocks sticking out of the water. I decided to take a shot at one of
them just for practice. I reach in my pocket for a cartridge but all I
had were cartridges for other guns. One was similar. I tried it but it
would not go in and the bolt would not close. End of dream. I awoke.
Barbara - Interesting.
Dr. Reed - That's It?
Richard - That's it.
Dr. Reed - I had a song that played all night. And I think there
might be two songs. I can't put the lyrics together now but I can hear
one, Susie Q. And I don't know how Susie Q goes.
Martha - Oh, Susie Q.(Martha sings)
Dr. Reed - Nope, that's a different song. It was wake up Susie.
(Dr. R. sings) Wake Up Susie. Wake up little Susie wake up. Wake up
little Susie, wake up.
Martha - (Sings at the same time) Wake up little Susie wake up.
Kathy - The movie's over it's something o'clock and we're in trouble deep.
Dorothy - Yes!
Martha - (continues singing) The movie wasn't so hot. It didn't
have much of a plot. We fell asleep. Our goose is cooked. Our
reputation is shot. Wake up little Susie. Wake up little Susie.
(laughing)
Dr. Reed - That would kinda be like - what? sleeping through a
dream or something and not recalling it. I looked up a four o'clock and
it was going and going and I didn't know the words just wake up little
Susie, wake up. And then I guess by morning it shifted to Susie Q how
does that one go?
Martha - (singing) Susie Q - I love you - Susie Q. I don't remember too much of Susie Q, but it's a good song.
Sally - This isn't about my dream, but yesterday while I walking
down the hall that song was playing and I said to myself, "I wonder if
that's a message?"
Dr. Reed - Susie Q?
Sally - That song, Susie Q, was playing in the hallway and I
stopped and said, "I wonder if there's a message to this?" Because my
parents called my Susie Q and my personal Internet name is Susie Q.
Dr. Reed - When I woke up I saw a picture of our Sally here, our Sally riding a cow over a hill - gracefully.
Sally - It was graceful?
Dr. Reed - Yes. And later I was visiting the doctor and we had
some tests done and as I was leaving he asked me if I wanted a pill and
this pill had something to do with the tests. The reason I'm hesitating
is because it seems like I'm there for the doctor for purpose A and
telling about how I moved and lost my doctor for purpose B but they
seem to be the same thing. But the doctor gave me a blood test and then
is giving me a big pill that has something to do with dissolving
cholesterol or something of that sort. I take cholesterol medicine.
Then when I say to him that the doctor I've had for a zillion years I
don't have any more because we moved and I have a new doctor. And
somehow the fact that I have a new doctor - it's sort of like some
things are being missed or there's a break in continuity or something
there that allows something to happen and he asks me how as if I had
had blood - what's the word? - chelation - where they run your blood -
there's a chelator clinic up where I live one - of the rare ones - and
how was it going, was it still clean, was I sort of confused. Sort of
like the dentist where you clean your teeth and have you still been
flossing to keep them that way sort of idea with the chelation. And I
acted surprised because I assume that once you've done it you've done
it and you don't have to worry and you can do what you please. And then
he asks, well, what about Veronica, his ex-wife, she had chelation and
how's she doing from it? And gosh, I don't know, she could be doing
like me, you know, whatever - ignoring it and assuming that it's once
and for all and this condition could return if you don't do whatever.
So, the theme was kinda like being tested against some kind of a
condition, being given preventatives and talking about a past treatment
for it and concerned about backsliding. That was my dream. I've never
been to chelation before.
Libby - I entered a building. I don't know if it was just a very
large home or if it was an apartment building but there was stairs,
balcony, and so on. But the police were there and it seemed like a
crime had been committed. And I don't know what the crime was. It
seemed like it had to do with objects and the police were there to
arrest someone, but I knew that this was wrong because there was just
absolutely no logical way this person could have committed a crime. And
then the next thing I know I am washing a dish under a clear stream of
water and the bowl is low, rectangular shaped bowl and it's Italian and
very old and there are two places on the edge of the bowl that are
broken. It's not like they are just chipped it's very jagged breakage
on it. Neither one was very big and this was a very thin gray porcelain
bisque but the gray was just on the outside. It wasn't on the inside.
Sally - Was it fragile?
Libby - Yes, very fragile. The inside of the porcelain itself
was white with a very, very, matte finish that looked like just bisque.
And that was it.
Sally - But there were two broken places on the bowl?
Libby - Yah! Yah! One was on the side and they were both near
corners but they weren't at corners and one was at one side and they
were both the same type of breakage. You know, not chipped.
Sally - Ah! Bing, lightbulb!
Libby - OK
Sally - Thank you!
Dorothy - Well in the beginning I just had a picture of a dry erase board. Kind of like .....
Sally - A dry what?
Dorothy - A dry erase board - kind of like you see in classrooms.
Sally - Oh, yes.
Dorothy - And for most of the night this is all I got.
Eventually the phrase that I had in my head was that this was a new way
of teaching. And it won't be the traditional chalk board. But then
towards the end, right before I woke up, I had a real quick series of
dreams and I don't remember them all but what I do remember is
that........well the strongest image I have is of trying on different
clothes. And I actually bought these clothes and they were only tops.
Like one was a leather vest that had a fringe. Another was - was a red
satin kind of oriental embroidered thing and others were more like
traditional work clothes. You know, that kind of thing. And I remember
that there was someone standing there and it wasn't any particular
person that I knew but I knew that they were looking and kind of
judging the clothes that I had on the ............ and they were more
traditional and they were saying, "You pick that." And I was explaining
- well, that not all of them were for work - like work clothes - but
others were appropriate for different things. And that basically I made
the comment that they were new and that I hadn't worn them so I was
thinking about shipping a couple back . And I was told by this person
that I didn't have to make the decision right now that may be I should
wait a little bit. What else? Also, I was walking through this building
and it was on carpet but it was kind of, you know, you know - how you
just find coins on the ground? And I found pennies on the ground -
about 5 or 6 pennies all around the same place and picked the pennies
up and then in the background all of these were part of a much larger
dream. There was a woman giving birth. And she already had a little two
year old and she was just giving birth and every body agreed that the
baby had a very wise expression on its face. You know how some babies
looks older. It was almost like it didn't look like a newborn but a
little bit older even. But through out the little vignette there was a
bigger dream of trying to do something and not quite doing it. And in
the end eventually doing it and I am trying to remember what I'm trying
to do but it didn't seem quite as important as this memory of trying to
do something and eventually doing it and then worrying about not doing
enough.
But I couldn't remember the details of what I was trying to do - the
whole story.
Dr. Reed - You're trying to do something?
Dorothy - Basically the whole thing it seems like I was trying
to do something not quite good enough and then towards the end doing
something and then concerned that it wasn't exactly that great - or
what I would have done - or a little concerned or worried that I hadn't
done enough.
Sally - OK.
Martha - Well, I had this - it was like a - it was like a big
house and it was sort of like - sort of like a big cement brick old and
it had these beautiful windows and it was high - sort of cathedral like
and very beautiful and I don't know whether it was night time or day
time. I'm resting with my boyfriend. Then all the sudden there was this
woman that comes in and she has long hair and she says her hair's on
fire. And it's just the bottom of it. It's just the bottom of her hair
that's on fire. And we get the hair put out so that she's OK and
everything is all right. And then we said, "well how did this happen?"
And she said, "Well there was some kind of a gas heater or something."
So we go to the heater and the fire is in the heater and my boyfriend
turns it down some and it need a little more and then I reach in and I
turn and I help where he can't reach. I turn and it all gets shut down
and everything's fine. Nothing's hurt. Everything is OK. Then the next
is scene is out on like a street and there are trees and there are a
lot of people on the street and this time I'm by myself and I have a
sense of smelling perfume and then this voice way down the end of the
street is saying back to me, "I love you." And then it says something
about about wife - "I love you, wife" - or something like that and
that's pretty much it.
Dr. Reed - There's a message for Susie Q. OK who haven't we heard? Kathy!
Kathy - I didn't have a dream. I mean I'm sure I had a dream but what I woke up with was a monstrous headache.
Sally - She had my headache from yesterday.
Kathy - It went right up the back of my head and neck. Where was yours?
Sally - That's where mine was. And you know you emphasized with
me yesterday and gave that medicine, too. (I had given Sally medicine
to help her sleep because of her headache.)
Kathy - And it lasted all night. I slept may be three hours and
then this headache woke me. I went to sleep really early maybe about
10:00. Really tired but then this headache - I just thrashed with this
pain.
Sally - Almost like a non-functioning kind of headache?
Kathy - Yah! You just rolled and tossed. I kept putting something under my neck.
Sally - That's exactly where I had mine.
Kathy - I kept hoping that something would help. I didn't have a
heating pad. I didn't have anything. I can almost hear it in my head.
So what I did this morning was do a memory for you.
Sally - That's fine. Gosh - I feel bad. You got my headache.
(A lot of people laughing here)
Sally - Now it's gone. We're cleaning it out today.
Kathy - OK. No, I don't want you to have it back. So anyway, in
my memory I wake up
and I'm a pre-teen. I come out of my bedroom in my house and I walk out
the hall and down to the living room where there's a big basket of
clean clothes and I'm searching through the basket to find an article
of clothing to get dressed. That's where the clean clothes were. So I'm
in my nightgown and all the sudden my mother gets really furious
because there is some other neighborhood children in the house and I'm
running around in my nightgown. But I'm just kind of roaming around.
You know, I'm just up and I'm walking around looking for clean clothes,
you know. And so I'm really shocked that I'm in trouble again. You
know, I roll out of bed and there I am in trouble again. But that's not
unusual for my mother. My mother was always mad at me and I never knew
the reason.
It would just come upon me. And so I'm hurt again because of my
mother's anger.
How that connects to the headache I really can't say but.....I just
didn't get a dream. I'm sure I had a dream but I couldn't focus on them
- I could only think about my headache.
Sally - you picked up on what I was feeling yesterday.
Kathy - Yep!
Sally - Oh Gosh! I feel so bad.
Kathy - Well it was interesting though - that it happened.
Sally - Yah! That is.
Dr. Reed - Ah! Huh!
Sally - That happened to me once before where I picked on the physical pain of someone else that I was dreaming for.
Kathy - And I did have your autograph in my pillow.
Sally - Did you take it out?
Kathy - No!
Sally - Why didn't you?
Kathy - No, I didn't even think about it. It was under - I
brought my own pillow because I sleep better with it. I had slid it in
my pillow which is the pillow that I roll up and put it in my neck. I
didn't even think about it.
Barbara - OK. This is the typical procedures I go through when I
know we're going away for a week or more. I dreamed that I was cleaning
out the refrigerator. Throwing out anything that would go bad while we
were gone. And leaving the things like pickles, ketchup and mustard. I
don't know where we were going. Apparently that wasn't important in my
dream. I made sure the bills were all paid. And, but there was this BIG
stack of mail and I looked at it and I said, "Well, I'll just have to
deal with that when I get back." Now that was one dream and then there
was just this flash at another time where I lit a candle and I carried
it into this dark room and it went from one candle light to a million
candles because every bit of the room was mirrored and I think it was a
round or octagonal rather than a rectangular or square room. And even
the arched ceiling was like all little pieces of glass and it just all
lit up. And those were my dreams. But every since I knew we were
dreaming for you, a memory kept going through my head so I'll tell that
one too. When our son was probably 10 or 11 he came to me one day and
he said, "Mama, why don't you call me Pumpkin any more?" And it was
though - "Don't you love me any more, why have you stopped calling me
Pumpkin?" Because I'd called him that since he was a baby. And I said,
"Well Richard," I said, "Your quite bigger now," and I said, "The kids
already tease you for being smaller" (we were in Mexico at the time)
and I said, "For being a Gringo" - and I said, "So I don't want to
embarrass you by calling you Pumpkin any more." And, I said, "It
doesn't mean that I don't love you any more but I just don't think I
should call you that anymore." "Oh, OK," and there was this big smile
and sigh of relief and that was that.
(Somewhere in here I tell Sally that my life long nickname is Pumpkin.)
Dr. Reed - Well we have a lot of varied dream material here.
(Sally must have motioned to Dr. Reed not to forget her dream.) Oh yes,
excuse, yes of course.
Sally - I was at my old place of employment visiting. It was a
newspaper office and I had been (guarded ?). I noticed immediately when
I came in that every one in the dream was wearing white and that the
whole office atmosphere was white. I went into the sales office and my
friend Jackie, who used to be the receptionist, was now in sales. I
chatted with her for a few minutes to see how she was doing and then I
noticed that Michael was no longer there. Michael was a very sleazy ad
sales rep that worked there when I worked there. And Jackie told me he
had gotten fired and told me why. But I can't remember what the reason
why he had gotten fired but he was no longer there. Next, I went into
Andy's office, who was my old boss, and there on the floor was a woman
lying, she also wearing white, and she was ill she was lying on the
floor in my bosses office and then Andrew just kind of walked through.
He didn't say anything but I knew he was there. And I remember kneeling
down and asked the woman if I could help her in any way. And that was
the end of the dream.
Dr. Reed - Well they're quite a bit different. I've looked to
try get some kind of beginning. It occurs to me a phrase something
like, "people responding to situations."
(laughter, and comments like yah, right, really!)
Dr. Reed - Some things that don't fit, for example, having the
wrong bullets for a gun and someone else having to explain that these
clothes I'm getting don't fit maybe the situation you think I'm going
to use them for but they fit in another situation that I'm going to use
them for.
Libby - Also the person being accused of the crime not being guilty.
Richard - Not fitting the crime.
Dr. Reed - We have at least two, and maybe more in disguise, at
least two ones in which the concern whether or not mom loves us is the
issue.
Richard - And there's another one here we had - OK you said
about the bullets not fitting - and then we had the question of
worrying about not doing it right. The bullet wasn't right, the houses
aren't right, trying - the woman giving birth I have written here -
doing something worrying about doing enough and not doing it right.
Sally - Ah! Hah! Yes!
Dr. Reed - And that's in my health dream. About something, I'm
not living right, I'm doing that treatment or something like that -
right.
Libby - Also, in the crime.
Dr. Reed - The crime - say it again.
Libby - The police were going to arrest someone and they were wrong in their assumption.
Dr. Reed - Ah hah!
Richard - Yep!
Dr. Reed - They were making some kind of a mistake.
Barbara - Oh that's a good one. The doctor assumed you were -
that you were continuing to monitor your blood, the police assumed the
person was wrong, my son assumed that I didn't love him any more.
Dr. Reed - Right! Ah huh!
Barbara - Some wrong assumptions here. Yep! Richard assumed he had the right bullets in his gun. A lot of assumptions here.
Dr. Reed - Yah! Right! Right!
Richard - Turns out I didn't have any bullets for my gun and here I am attempting to shoot somebody.
(laughter)
Dr. Reed - An empty threat, huh!
Martha - He really didn't want to shoot them, you were just threatening.
Libby - Or the woman who was assuming that your clothes were wrong because she had no idea what you were going to do with them.
Dorothy - And the employer or the boss?
Libby - But the traditional was expected.
Sally - What!
Barbara - The traditional clothes that you wanted - the traditional method was acceptable.
Sally - Oh!, Oh! And how about yours any assumptions in there?
Martha - There was assumptions.
Libby - I think Kathy's mother's assuming that she's trying to wear these things in front of the kids.
Kathy - Yah! Right! Right! According to your mother you're doing something wrong.
Richard - You assume you're going to take care of that mail when
you get home. You know it will be in a box for a month when you get
home.
Dorothy M- There seems to be kind of an underlying theme of
fragility. The china, the glass and the baby in my dream, even the
marriage (?), emotional sensitivity.
Richard - Here you are running around in a bathrobe and the neighbor kids in the house and your mother's upset.
Kathy - I was in my nightgown.
Richard - Nightgown! OK.
Dr. Reed - And I guess I feel fragile in terms of how's this blood test coming out and stuff.
Sally - Did you ever get an answer of how it's coming out?
Dr. Reed - You know what, that's the thing that is confusing to
me now unless I'm forgetting some kind of a detail. Because I only have
one blood condition to discuss here and that's like cholesterol and but
they're actually two different situations, one is that the current
doctor is taking care of and another is a past doctor had been dealing
with so the one - We're in the office and we've just done the test,
it's fine, and he's giving me a pill to keep it that way or whatever to
maintain something good.
Richard - We've got another pair here - a voice down the street
saying, I" love you," and the mother telling the son that "I love you."
Dr. Reed - Right and the Susie Q the two songs.
Richard - The two songs, yeah!
Dr. Reed - Also wake up Susie and Kathy waking up and getting out of bed and
me waking up to realizing that maybe there's something I should be doing. I'm just sort of blas about something.
Martha - Let's see, I have to wake up too because I was waking
up or almost when the fire so that was waking to what all that
situation was about that was waking up.
Sally - You woke up? You woke up in your dream?
Martha - It was one that the controlling was - what very easy -
it didn't get out of hand because everything did work out - it just
these little fires had to be sort of.
Libby - Also, in my dream this person was going to be put on
trial and the innocence had to be proven before they went to trial so
they wouldn't have to go.
Dr. Reed - One way to describe some of these is that something comes into someone's awareness.
Barbara - I think in Dorothy's and mine too we have don't make a
decision now type of thing. Mine was mail and they told her she didn't
have to decide now about the clothes.
Sally - Who had white?
Richard - Dorothy had the white chalkboard. Libby had the white bowl.
Libby - That's right the inside was white the porcelain. The porcelain glaze was gray on it.
Sally - The whole setting of mine was white. Everybody was wearing white.
Libby - Right!
Richard- In your dream (to Sally) you've got everybody shifted
around, everybody changing, everybody going to something different
including the man that was fired. He went out the door. He is going to
something different. Nothing's the same when you came back.
Barbara - You no longer worked there? You came back to visit?
Richard - Yeah! And everything is different. Everything has moved one step or one stage except the woman that's lying on the floor.
Sally - And the boss.
Richard - And the boss, yeah, he's not much concerned about the sick woman.
He could care less.
Sally - Evidently. Just for your interest yesterday I picked
up a penny outside of Wendys. I stopped and picked up a penny off of
the ground.
Barbara You picked up what?
Sally A penny.
Barbara A penny.
Sally In one of her dreams (to Dorothy) she was picking up
pennies and yesterday I picked up a penny. Do you remember
when I did
that? (to Kathy) I usually don't.
Richard I always do.
Dr. Reed I do. I pick them up. If they're showing tails I turn
it to heads. If they're showing heads it's OK. Then I move them to
another spot for someone else to find.
(laughter) Don't ask me how and why? (laughter)
Martha Was yours heads?
Sally It was heads. Yes
Sally And Dorothy said that was good 'cause it was heads. I've
never noticed if they were heads or tails before but Dorothy says the
heads are what to get.
Barbara - I just found a penny the other day and it was - I
didn't realize it until just now - but it was a very old penny. I
didn't look at the date but I remember looking at the back because it
was tails. The back was wheat.
Sally Martha, I wanted to ask you, when you heard the person calling down the street was it a male or female?
Martha No, it was a male calling. I was a female and it was a male at the end of the street.
Richard - What kind of perfume were you smelling?
Martha - Pardon?
Richard Could you smell the perfume?
Martha I couldn't identify whether it was a flower perfume. I couldn't identify a particular scent. Only that it was perfume.
Barbara Was it a nice smell?
Martha Oh yeah! It was. It was, I guess it was just sort of
like homecoming. My mother was a perfume person. That's the only way I
can put it. I'm not so much the perfume person but my mother was so
it's having the expression of love and having the perfume a warm
loving kind of thing.
Libby What kind of trees where they? Were they great big heavy old trees or newer ones or ornamentals?
Martha I guess it was like it could have been sort of a
southern setting. Lush is the word that comes. Maybe from a New Orleans
background or something like that.
Kathy Magnolias?
Martha Well I didn't sense Magnolia trees per say. I think I
might have noticed that because I like Magnolia trees and if I'm around
Magnolia trees I'll notice them. But I didn't sense that - just that it
was green with perfume and the lush and just homey and warm andIt was
surprising in a way. I guess it was something I didn't expect. I was
very surprised, very happy.
Sally This is not the issue I wanted to discuss.
(Laughter)
Barbara I was thinking, is it more than one?
Sally Well it has tentacles to it but this isn't the issue. I didn't think this..never mind, I'll shut up.
Dr. Reed What does it seem like the issue is with the dreams?
Barbara It seems like there's something else I just caught a
glimpse of here that resonated with several of them and now I've lost
it.
Richard Are we ready for the question? Are we?
Dr. Reed I think so. I was just tossing it out. I wanted to
mention that it seems to have to do with interpersonal and then it has
to do with somehow a relationship and may be about how one person feels
about another or the one person does something to another that causes
that other person to make some kind of an assumption or something about
it as if, say, Barbara's memory was a paradigm for pattern for what
happened
- Because a crime is there the police wrongly assume that
- Because Dorothy is laying clothes this way a person wrongly assumes that
- Because a kid runs out into the room with her nightgown on someone assumes that she's not showing respect or
- Because somebody's waving a rifle or something someone assumes that
- Because someone has received a blood cleaning they assume that
- So I feel tension between a couple of people. And there's tension going on. And the tension is created over one person's interpretation of someone else's stuff. But then if that were the case then some other things might fall into place. For example, a person is getting overheated. I've looked at this. There's a song we used to taunt with and then they had pants on fire was in the phrase. Pants on ants?
Richard Liar, liar, pants on fire - nose as long as a telephone wire.
Dr. Reed Say it again.
Richard Liar, liar, pants on fire nose as long as a telephone wire.
Dr. Reed OK
(laughter)
Dr. Reed Here we are just making random comments stumbling around in the dark and(laughter)
Libby We have a specific color red. We have a red rock that he mentioned. Of course, that could definitely refer back to Sally's rocks. (Sally gave all of us red rocks harvested from Sedona as a gift).
Dr. Reed Oh, the red rock she gave us. Ah! Huh!
Libby - Mine definitely was gray and of course the white color. She (Dorothy) was talking about red, gold and let's see did anybody have colors specifically mentioned?
Martha The brick of my place was white.
Libby Right!
Barbara My refrigerator was white.
Libby Yeah!
Martha Not only that, you had all that candle light reflection too
Richard I've been trying to think about that and where does that it fit in? Where does it fit in? One candle goes to a million candles because you have all of these little mirrors up here - each one set at a different angle reflecting. If they're all at the same angle they wouldn't reflect as a million candles . But they - each one - is a little different angle.
Dr. Reed I was thinking of it in terms of this. The philosophy, the underlying whatever aspect of nature, that this process touches on - holographic or whatever.
Barbara And the fact that there are so many increases in volume of it. The intensity of it.
Dr. Reed In looking for - doing the library research underlying the Sundance motif one of the images was from Hinduism talking about creation being what's call (Indera's Net ?) And that everybody - every soul - was kind of like a multifaceted jewel in a network of other multifaceted jewels. And each jewel because of its many facets would reflect every other jewel in the net so that you could study all of creation by looking into any one of the jewels. And this is a theme - because we are saying - kind of like with intuition - because we are like this, this is what makes intuition possible. We can look into you and discover everything about this whole world. It may be flavored, sort of Barbara's version, but still we could find out everything. And once I remember, the first trip I lead to the Yucatan, we were down in Cosamel (?) and we were at this old lighthouse. It wasn't being used any more. But I remember being fascinated by it because they had one light but the surrounding cage was made of all these different lenses that made it shoot out in all different directions and that was what your picture was of. And it was like saying in terms of the "Big Bang theory" it's a metaphor how this comes to be that God comes to express the actual experience via many, many, many, many, many counterparts. Where the one light is multiplied and magnified through all these different things. That's my association. And it often happens that there is some dream in the group that reflects the underlying process as much as the individual person's problem.
Sally (To Dorothy) I wanted to ask you what pennies mean to you?
Dorothy They generally are symbols for me. I find pennies all the time on the street. And being a Capricorn/Cancer/Taurus person I don't put them back down. I take them. And I generally make a wish, you know the standard thing. And just use them for regular money. But they symbolize for me something about prosperity and. Just a brief story - but one time I was working on a site and I didn't know why I was there and went to a fast food restaurant for lunch and spinning around in my head was why am I here, what am I doing, but I pull up and into a parking spot -there were a number of spots to pick from - I open the car door and got out and as I stepped out there was literally a pile of money, quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies sitting on there so it didn't take a rocket scientist to get the answer to my question - at least part of it - so having money especially - not just one but five or six or a cluster of coins means I'm coming into prosperity.
Dr. Reed So to get back to the question - the question being - what is the question? Ah! How many of you think it has to do with a career type thing? Should I change jobs? Ah! Any kind of work - intuitive? She goes back to where she used to work and things have changed.
Dorothy May be not a job - job but more like a life mission or profession or making choices like that.
Dr. Reed If the question were related to life mission type of things, what would be the question about it?
Dorothy Again, I pick up making choices or making decisions from a group of things you could do or trying something out like with the clothes or making the right choices from a number of different possibilities.
Dr. Reed For me, when I think about your clothes dream and turn that into a life mission the question would be - am I making suitable -taking on suitable postures or attitudes - relative to my life mission. Am I handling my life mission?
Barbara Even with the refrigerator, getting rid of the things that won't be suitable at a later time.
Richard Cleaning yourself out.
Dorothy Barbara and I both put the decisions off - thinking that you don't have to make the decision now.
Barbara Yeah! I cleaned out the refrigerator but I left the mail.
Dr. Reed When I mentioned it I think now that's clearly not one of the ways but maybe it is. Now what about medical? How many of you might think the question is some kind of a medical concern or health issue? I don't get any response on that.
Libby You as the main theme of the question?
Dr. Reed Yes, unless her question is tell me everything that's wrong with me, I guess?
Richard No, you're hesitation is to me more, how do you decide what you're doing to do things correctly and it doesn't necessarily apply to your health, it's to any part of your life that you have to take charge of your life and manage your life and go on.
Dr. Reed The thing that I was saying now - that I was mentioning interpersonal - because another person seems to be involved in questioning your decision.
Barbara You went from the old doctor to a new doctor.
Richard Yeah!
Martha I was wondering if all the messages of love that came up from us were sort of a confirmation of may be that part which you are doing correctly. Because it would seems to me if you aren't doing it correctly that wouldn't be there, and if it was then wouldn't let you quit. It is saying to the Universe yes this is ??????????
Dr. Reed What I'm always curious about just to throw this question out to you can you be aware of the process you are going through in you mind right now as you try to sense what the question might be based on all this? How do you go about assessing this? Because to me - who is always trying to understand what we mean by intuition - I sense somehow reaching in to all this stuff and trying to get some kind of impression from it that falls into place. That's what it's like for me at this particular stage or moment of process. You have all these things floating around, the themes, the things that we've said, and it reminds me of detective work.
Libby It reminds me of my dream because if they would follow the clues that were there they would not make the wrong decision.
Martha The other thing I was thinking about was the issue of safety because in my dream I have the fire's safe, and hers she's got the crime and in yours you've got the medical and he's got the guns so each one is kind of something going on here but eventually it gets safe, whatever it is. She's finally going to comes to that, too, in your dream. (to Kathy)
Kathy - No, my mother is still mad a me. She's still mad at me.
Richard Is your mother alive?
Kathy Oh yes.
Martha OK.
Kathy But she's still mad at me.
Richard Huh!
Dr. Reed Is it hard for your mom to be your mom?
Kathy I don't think she's ever will be.
BarbaraK Are you an only child?
Kathy No. And what I'm doing for is listening - and then waiting for the right feeling to happen. That's what happens.
Dr. Reed OK.
Kathy And it's getting really close.
Dr. Reed Now, does that feel like intuition to you that process of waiting for the right feeling to happen?
Kathy Well, I don't know what else to call it.
Dr. Reed Well, it's not really relevant to our task but I'm curious because I've made these pronouncements from time to time and I feel it relates to what we all mean by hunch or intuition.
Kathy It's a feeling that for most of my life I ignored and finally when I started to learn not to ignore it, things started going a lot better. I mean, what I'm thinking I'm afraid that I'm biasing it with my conversation with Sally yesterday, though, and that's what I'm trying to sort out because we had some time to talk yesterday over dinner and so I don't want to bias whatever her question is with that previous conversation.
Dr Reed You know, that often happens though in trying to process intuition. I'll say is this intuition or is this a bias of thought or what have you?
Sally Or is it resonance?
Dr Reed Resonance?
Sally Resonance? What's going on? Resonance between the two of us? Between the two if there's some kind of resonance. She got my headache. We're in the elevator. (I gave Sally headache medicine in the elevator the day before) I'm not sleeping well. I have a headache. I always think something big is about to happen. You know, and gee, I'm thinking are we resonating with the same issue because we resonated with the headache.
Dr. Reed My way of thinking is that intuition operates via resonance. So anyway, I didn't mean to disrupt your thoughts. I was just curious about this intuition process.
Kathy (I said something about giving the headache back but it's unclear.)
Kathy What's yours doing (headache) (to Sally)?
Sally Mine's fine.
Kathy But I'm processing your issue right now.
Sally Yeah, I know you are. I know you are.
Dr. Reed May be you have something related?
Kathy and Sally together I'm sure we do. I'm almost certain we do.
Kathy I'm almost certain I know what her issue is.
Dr. Reed Mom does not love her and you had that memory. And we ought to go on record - I make a prediction when this is all done that you two bringing up memories shows the value not only in using that so you don't have to come empty handed but then in the "In My Experience" exercise - the value there. That's just my prediction. But anyway we're trying to figure out what the question is.
Kathy Did you make a specific question, Sally, or was it a general one? I mean I'm asking myself how specific to be.
Sally Well , it is a specific and a general. It is a specific question toward a certain goal. But I can see why what is coming up is coming up.
Kathy Such as?
Dr. Reed She wrote somethig down and she will read it.
Kathy OK.
Dr. Reed Let's modify or go on or what have you. I'm just trying to put something into words to give us something to interact. I said there was some kind of interpersonal tension because one person made an assumption about another person because of what they did and that caused some reaction. And so that I was suspecting that the question may be would relate to some kind of interpersonal issue. And then wanted you all to not necessarily say yay or nay, but what do you think? That's my thinking.
Richard Well mine started out definitely interpersonal where the person was may be not knowingly but carelessly threatening me. In the dream I can see him. He's just standing there swinging the gun around and he stops with it pointed at me. And I pointed my gun back at him and I said, "Look, if you do that again I'm going to shoot you." Not knowing that I don't have any bullets in my gun or in my possession to shoot him with. But I'm still it is an interpersonal question where he's threatening me.
Barbara I think we probably all agree on that.
Dr. Reed Well, if we think it's an interpersonal question, then what would be the interpersonal issue that seems to me the interpersonal issue seems to be appropriateness. Am I or is this person guilty, appropriate, or impaired. or doing the right thing or something along that line and is being told or suspected or something of not but there's a mistake involved or wrong assumption, or
Barbara Certainly not a pleasing attitude involved. You didn't please your mother, you didn't please the critic of the clothes. The police didn't please you with their assumptions.
Richard She's got a bowl that's not very pleasing it's been chipped.
Barbara Yeah! Obviously some fragile feelings in there as well.
Richard And you've got it blown all out of proportion by having all these lights coming back from one candle.
Martha I like that one.
Dr. Reed Well what?
Barbara It magnifies. One thing leads to another to another to many things. Just one wrong assumption even.
Dr. Reed Well, what would be like constructive or what in the dreams seem to be suggesting that we do about it? Making an adjustment in the heater? Maintaining the health regime? Checking to see if you're prepared with the right bullets? If we say that there is some kind of interpersonal thing, wrong assumption, tension, things magnifying, well then what are we suggesting they do about it? How can this be healed? Or corrected?
Richard Communication.
Barbara Bring up the issue and discuss it.
Dr. Reed There so little communication in the dreams.
Barbara Right and Dorothy has to explain why she did what she did. I have to tell my son why I did what I did.
Libby I have to tell the police they're wrong. They're not looking at the right thing.
Barbara And basically her mother was totally off - you couldn't explain that you were just getting clean clothes up you just got up.
Dr. Reed Why isn't there communication?
Martha You have turn off the heater and you have to watch your health. You're doing something - an act.
Barbara There is a communication but there's an assumption too.
Dr. Reed Right, exactly, exactly. I was sort of fixated on Dorothy's dream where she doesn't see any need and she's laying the clothes out to explain to anybody her purpose. It's only when the disruption comes up that she then
Barbara When they start telling her what to choose.
Dr. Reed Right!
Barbara That's when she has no choice in her reaction. Also the distance between Martha and the message. It was way at the end of the block and they had to holler to her. Separation.
Dr. Reed Separation?
Barbara That's a good point.
Richard There was something said in and it talked over and I missed what the conversation was.
Dr. Reed You were sleeping?
Richard No, I wasn't sleeping but people mumble and the older I get the more trouble I have with people mumbling and .
Kathy You mean lack of patience to listen to the mumbling or you just can't hear the mumbling?
Richard Partly I lose patience with listening to the mumbling, but I'll be lost in my own thoughts and not hearing because I'm not listening. I'm aware of that.
Dorothy OK Richard, we have reading glasses and hearing aids now.
(laughter)
Richard I'm trying to avoid both..
Kathy I'll send you a transcript of this tape.
Sally I would love to get a copy of it.
Dr. Reed OK, so we think that there's an interpersonal issue something about the appropriateness of doing something wrong - may be really - not because of a wrong or faulty assumption and communication and so on seems to be some how let's look at communication. It's really interesting in terms about the story about the Holy Grail where everything is falling apart because the King is wounded and is not dealing with it and possible question, what ails you? what's wrong, what's wrong. And turns everything around. In your memory (to Barbara) the innocent child says , "Don't you love me any more?" It's so hard for us to ask those kind questions? The innocent kid asking that question, it starts this whole communication chain you know and it just - he's so happy and it all works out. OK, (to Sally) this has been interesting?
Sally Extremely, very interesting I cannot tell you!
Dr. Reed One of my funniest moments in this process I'm not usually getting to sit in on one but have lots of groups going around and I'm going around to the people who have been processing the dreams and they've been finding common and we don't know what we're doing. We don't know if we're onto anything or not and I'll turn to this person and say has this been an interesting conversation for you to overhear and they'll say OH, MY GOD YES! And everybody's surprised because our feeling is that we're stumbling around in the dark. We don't know what we're doing.
Richard Well I knew we hit something when she had to have a Kleenex.
Dr. Reed Right.
Sally My soul's laying out here on the floor and everybody I feel naked.
Dr. Reed She's just a mushy lady. OK.
BREAK
Sally I'll tell you the question but we won't discuss it yet. The tentacles are so amazing. The question is "What blocks or changes or beliefs need to be removed within myself so that financial abundance will flow to me?" And what you guys hit on were the blocks. That's my question. What blocks need to be removed?
Dr. Reed That's interesting the blocks that need to be removed - because I kept thinking darn it, there's something between Richard's bullets and the gun and my blood test. Because I keep seeing these blood vessels that go through it and they're blocked. They are being cleaned out interesting. OK
(Some of the tape is missing here but Sally must have discussed her mother's disapproval of her since she left the very conservative religion in which she was raised.)
Kathy - Would you say that again.
Sally (talking about her mother) Because of our lack of communication she (her mother) doesn't know I'm a medium.
Dr. Reed Oh! because of you having Sally's headache and because of your memory where you're telling us about how your mom, you know was always angry with you I thought her question was "Why my mom doesn't love me because I'm a medium?"
Kathy Which would be a very good question considering what we just saw.
Dr. Reed - Right. Sure.
Sally And to take the mother and the mother angle perhaps another block further would be your own role as a mother to your children.
Kathy That's what I just wrote Don't do the same thing to your son. I wrote that right before we left.
Sally And I - middle one I think my middle one?
Kathy I just had son. I didn't zero in.
Sally Because there's one son that is kind of a pain in the neck only in the opposite direction but I don't know how to fix that. And I think if I heal within myself. I'll heal my relationship with my son. What do you want me to do (to Dr. Reed) go around to each one?
Dr. Reed However you want. However you wish to respond.
Barbara Tell how each one responds to your questions maybe.
Dr. Reed That would be great.
Sally Richard with the deer rifle - it's really interesting because my higher self represents itself to me as a deer. OK, and so whenever I meditate I see the face of my deer that comes to me then I know I'm connected to my Higher Self. So the deer is very significant. The deer rifle you guys were hunting?
Richard NO.
Sally - No. You were just carrying them around?
Richard Yes.
Sally But somebody aimed a rifle at you. So being attacked and then you stood up was very, very interesting but we'll get into more of the significance once we go around to everybody else, but the deer was very significant in my life and the feeling of being attacked. Having had someone once attacking me. The confrontation is interesting because I haven't aimed back even though I don't want to hurt them. I'm afraid to aim back. And I'm looking for the wooden enclosure and looking for the right animal and aiming for the red rock. Spirit has indicated it's very possible we'll be moving out to Sedona. And so that's where we are aiming and looking for guidance and direction in moving out there but a fear is what will my family say. How am I going to explain this to my mother?
Dr. Reed She knows Sedona is a wacky place?
Sally - I know that she knows but her immediate reaction will be "Oh, it's so far away." And it won't be - Oh! I'm happy for you - it will be - you're deserting me. And she may or may not know it. She may learn that it's a wacky place and then how am I going to deal with that? How am I going to deal with the fact that this is a quote "wacky" place?
Barbara - Where does she live?
Sally - Tennessee - I'm Southern - Matter of fact we grew up across the street there's a big plantation right across the street - right across the street that used to be a large plantation - so the house is right across the street. A big old plantation house.
Barbara - So may be that's the traditional part?
Sally - Well, we're getting there.
Barbara - OK
Sally - So that's yours. My spiritual beliefs have been attacked. Now that I'm connected with my Higher Self, my spiritual beliefs have been attacked. I haven't been able to confront that issue because - well we'll get around to it - and then one of the issues is if Spirit leads us to move to Sedona and to Red Rock - that's where we're aiming for - this is one of my big issues, this is what has been keeping me from wanting to go there because I don't want to deal with what, particularly my mother, is going to say. Or the reaction that I'm going to get from my mother.
Richard - You got to have the right ammunition.
Sally - But I don't have the right ammunition right now. So we get to Henry (Dr. Reed) - my mother calls me Susie. To my family I am Susie and Susie Q. I haven't got a clue what Sally riding a cow is. Unless it's just means that I'm taking the slow route. You know, I don't know what that means, but that's the only thing I can think of. Instead of riding a horse I'm riding a cow.
Dr. Reed - A cow is a mother image.
Sally - Is it?
Dr. Reed - Oh, yeah!
Dorothy - You're on top of the mother.
Sally - Interesting Ahhhhhhhhhh! Interesting! Nurturing.
Dr. Reed - Riding a cow would be you're trying to or you're working with the whole mother energy.
Sally - And this is true. I did note - this is very fascinating - because I had done a circle last Friday with other psychics who just got together to work on healing issues and this issue - one of them kept saying there's a mother issue - and I keep thinking - no I've healed that - I've cried over the loss of my mother and that kind of thing but she says, you're afraid to touch it - and all this emotion came up - because I'm so afraid of being hurt again. So let's go on. The mother - OK - visiting the doctor - of course you picked up the blockages - you know - this old doctor was my old spiritual beliefs and the new doctor is my new spiritual beliefs where everything has been cleaned - I'm cleaning everything out and I'm trying to make (payment????) - I'm in the process of trying to clean out whatever I need to clean out so that Spirit and love can live fully present and through me. So this is been my major focus over the past year is let's get all this junk cleaned out. Cleaning out the old stuff from my old beliefs in my past. And now the new stuff and maintaining that clean. So those - I'm working on cleaning out the blocks. So I feel like that was the thing. Being tested - may be what's happening now is this issue is testing - what has been cleansed out - I mean - how am I going to react now to what's going on? I'm not sure that just came up to me but I don't have that written down.
Sally - You - Libby - your dream with the police - it is exactly how I feel because once I had my spiritual awakening and all these changes - I tried to explain to my family what was going on - that God had really done great work and this Spiritual change and I been rejected and I get nasty letters from my brother preaching to me.
(Tape ran out here - may have missed a little)
Sally - I've been attacked so many times that I've withdrawn and I can't communicate any more because I'm so afraid. (in tears ) Afraid of being attacked again, so I have totally withdrawn from my family. I think the dish just represents me cleansing. It's me and I'm broken. This issue has broken me in many ways. And even though a lot of cleansing has been done in the clear water and stuff there are still these gray issues that are still needing to be washed and there's some broken places that are still needing to be healed and this is one of the issues. My innocence is attacked. And I'm wounded deeply.
I don't understand it. And..
LibbyM - May I
Sally - Yes
Libby - In the dream the edge of the bowl in these two places was almost like a soft edge where it was so cut and fractured and it was very sharp. And it could hurt.
Sally - And just something somebody pointed out to me - my identity is so much in my family and the home - they were so spiritual - they were so religious oriented - and that was my whole identity - that's the changing of the clothes - from traditional to something different. OK. I've changed clothes but I'm being judged. And there's a part of me that wants to stay traditional so I won't be judged any more. OK. So that my identity is in my old religious beliefs and if I totally let go of that I'm going to be judged. I'm going to be attacked again. Sedona is very symbolic of totally letting go of that because it is so far out there it's more symbolic than actual but there's a part of me that wants to hang on to that tradition so I won't be judged by the family.
Barbara - One comment, when you were talking about the dish - Libby pointed out that even though the edges were gray, the inside was pure white porcelain and I think your family is seeing the broken pieces, they're seeing the gray, they're not seeing the white. Sally - Right. I think what's happened, it's not really my family - this is a mother issue. I mean the family is a tentacle of it but what I'm realizing it is a mother issue. Because just several weeks ago I really had to grieve the loss of my mother.
Libby - Oh something that was strange which I made a note of but I didn't bring it up it was a double edge - it was a double edge and it, well what I'm saying is that there were two layers because the outer edge came out and then folded back under and still this was broken. So it was a very firm edge at one point.
Sally - Interesting - We get to Deb - Of course the dry erase board and I feel like you picked up on more of the issues of the financial end of it because I very, very much love teaching and that has just opened up to me and I've been doing some and I actually love it - you know more spiritual teaching on forgiveness, on spirituality, metaphysical experiences and really helping people to start to connect with God or Spirit again and this is what sings - to be able - and I've had some really neat wonderful experiences. For the first time a couple people have said - "Gee I never thought to ask Spirit to work with me. I always ask outside of my self." - You know - and so I've seen just really neat things - this is where my heart is in teaching people how to reconnect with Spirit and how to reconnect with God or whatever they want to call it - their Higher Self - you know - and be able to heal. So that's what I kept seeing.That is my future - I really feel strongly that is my future. I love my mediumship abilities and healing abilities but teaching is where my heart is. Trying on different clothes and tops is trying to find the right way to teach and yet I still got the traditional thing in the background that hounds me because if I totally let it go - this traditional belief system - will be judged? And there's that somebody standing back - which is probably my family or my mother standing back and judging me for the choices I've made. It was interesting, you said you didn't have to make the decision right now - in other words - I don't have to decide right now the way in which I want to do it. I can opt to go ahead and do it but don't feel like I have to be do it one way and stay that way it will resolve and grow as I do it. The pennies - to me that was like abundance was coming - you know - as soon as I get done with this healing it's going to come right now it's just in little bits, you know, one at a time.
Dorothy - There was something else to do with pennies and I remembered it during break - it is that while I was picking up the pennies I kind of felt funny doing it, you know ,like somebody was watching or were they mine or was it mine or, you know, and that was the feeling I got.
Sally - And that's really interesting because I struggle with getting paid for what I do. Like I should give this gift for free. And it's just in the last three months that I'm finally charging $75 for my readings. At first I didn't charge anything, then it was like $35, and I felt guilty for charging for what I do. You know, and yet so much feeling was involved and people were being healed but I fell guilty. I guess it's - that old spiritual belief that if God gives you a gift you got to give it away instead of, you know, exchange energy. And exchange energy is important. It 's more meaningful to the other person because the paid for the information.
Kathy - And it's important to yourself also.
Sally - Right! Right! It goes back to the issue of well - I don't want to go back there because the dream didn't go into it.
Barbara - It's also important for your self esteem to be paid for your work - for the work you do.
Sally - Right!
Richard - If she doesn't get paid for it it's not worth anything.
Sally - Right - and part of the thing is that I don't feel worthy of it. It goes back to my family.
Martha - I think it depends on circumstances, too. I mean if a person has a lot of money already and can give it away that's one thing, but if a person doesn't have any money and make the attempt then I think it's justified. I mean it depends on the circumstances of the giver as well as the people who will receive. You know?
Sally - Yeah! I agree. But the money issue this goes back to my mother issue because there's a part of me that feel unworthy until I get my mother's love and acceptance I'm unworthy of what I do so, therefore, I'm withholding, you know, until I feel worthy of what I do and the money I make in it - that I don't need my mother's love and acceptance to be able do what I want do. I'm riding that cow.
Dr. Reed - Yeah, the cow image. The nursing and the worthiness of being fed the universal feed me.
Sally - Absolutely! And .
Martha - You know, even mainstream preachers get paid. And they take up collections for the church and all the rest of it. So don't think that's all just (???). It's not. There's a connection here. Kathy - You can logic that out all you want, but it's the emotional part you have that you have to deal with before you can come accept it.
Sally - Right - you can logic that..
Kathy - You can tell her she's got to get paid but she has to accept that.
Sally - Right! The emotional part - the feeling unworthy - if my family doesn't love me then I'm not worthy of doing this or being this, you know.
Dr. Reed - It seems to me in following up on that then trying to hone in, tune in, focus in on the patterning of energy or the patterning of the dynamics or symbolism or thoughts or whatever that is the emotional acceptance that you're describing. How do you characterize this emotional acceptance? By what adoption of what postures, attitudes, thoughts would be packaged together for her to step into that suit of clothes and say Yeah! - You know, have that experience. How would we create that? Is our dream in any way providing us with little hints without us knowing it as to exactly what that suit of clothes or how that suit of clothes might be made for her to step into.
Sally - I think it is. I think I should finish going around.
Dr. Reed - OK.
Sally - And I think there is an answer there. The woman giving birth - that's such good symbology. Just a couple of months ago I gave birth to a baby in one of my dreams and it was just a beautiful baby - so meaning that there's a new part of me that's been birthed and it's about two years old - that I'm getting ready to have another one. So, you know, I'm going through another major transition and shifting, that's really comforting - that symbology is really comforting to me that all this work is at least getting you somewhere - you know - like - yeah! There is a new me coming out of this - something new and something wiser - so that was just really true. Try to do something but eventually working it out but feeling like I'm not doing enough. I always feel like I'm not. There's still more I got to do to fix it. You know. I'm this kind of person that's a perfectionist. Like I - sitting here looking at my book - I already say "Oh! This should have been - there should be no indentation here." - you know - this is in my graphic work I'm such a perfectionist and I always find mistakes in myself or what I do. And so it's never enough, it's never just this is good and I can let it go. It's like that when I do readings. I really get - did I say it in the right way - was I open enough to Spirit - I'm always going back and judging myself as to whether I did enough to help that person instead of just saying what was to be done was to be done - let it go and move on.
Barbara - Or that you do the best that you can and then let it go.
Sally - Right - and that it's really not me. I just have to allow that what Spirit wants to happen will happen and I have no, you know, prejudgement like ahead of time I'm concerned about let's see now what if I don't get it right, what if II get this anxiety about not trusting, you know, what's coming. And after I do the reading they're sobbing and crying and see the release in the room and they're gone and it's a wonderful experience and then I start questioning, well did I do enough or did I do it the right way or should I have done it you know, everything that happened. That's a constant thing with me that needs to be healed - so it was very good - you kinda picked up on the whole world there. Martha, I am from the South. And my mother is very, very much a Southern woman - an elegant Southern woman, you know. And there's parts of me that really loves that part of it - that tradition - you know - of hospitality and making pies for people and..
Dr. Reed - It shows when I come over to your house. You and Milt - the little spread that you lay out - all the care and so on - the love.
Sally - Actually, that's Milt - that's not me. Milt does all that. See, I think I resisted that because, you know, I don't want to be like my mother.
Kathy - Did you have magnolia trees?
Sally - Yes, there was in my neighborhood.
Kathy - I know there is. And they're pink and they're big.
Sally - I can't remember but I know that my mother always shopped for clothes called Magnolias and there are Magnolia trees just down the street from us where I grew up and Magnolias were - my mother did love Magnolias. So that's very significant. The hair on fire is my thought. The panicky thoughts that are going on in my head. And all these little fires that need to be put out. The perfume - see isn't there - I guess I'm thinking of jungle gardenia - that perfume that smells like flowers - but still the Magnolias are that beautiful smell.
Martha - It was significant that smell.
Sally - Could related to my mother because she always wears perfume and that kind of thing.
Dr. Reed - Aroma - aroma therapy could play a real big role in acceptance - patterning and emotional transformation.
Sally - Oh really!
Dr. Reed - I was thinking I wish now I had brought some of my scents. You take that smell and you get into this and trying to imagine.
Kathy - I have been trying to grow a Magnolia tree for many years. It got aphids and we had to cut it down. I know - I think aroma therapy is probably right. You know the olfactory sense is developed first and the strongest and most significant one.
Dr. Reed - Oh, yes!
Sally - And this is really interesting because this morning I'm standing at the sink and I'm going - "Gee, Deborah, something smells so good." - And she says, "Oh, That's my essential oils - my aroma therapy essential oils." Which is another connection with it- something that just came into my life right before we did all the dreaming. And I think you might be right - I don't know anything about aroma therapy.
Kathy - Another field for you to go into, Sally.
Barbara - Rick has just started doing it. Talk to him.
Dr. Reed - Who?
Barbara - Rick, he said it really helped him. (Rick is another IHeart participant.)
Libby - By the way, before we go - you didn't mention anything about the expression on this baby's face.
Sally - Yeah, we did it - was very wise - an old soul - very wise, yeah! Yeah! I think that's what all these issues are based on.
Sally - Kathy, yours -you know, boy -that image - that's a perfect image for what's going on between me and my mother. Me walking around in my innocence trying to find clean clothes to wear - a new impression and being judged for what I'm doing. And that's what's going on and she's angry. Although my mother doesn't show anger she holds it all in - she's angry at me. And again that's me afraid to communicate - to tell her - you know all I'm doing is looking new clothes to wear.
Richard - A new identity.
Sally -A new identity, yeah! And the old ones don't work anymore, you know. And this cleansing that I've done - I've cleaned this all out and interesting how a lot of dreams about trying on my mothers clothes - that's been a dream pattern.
(All of us at once - HUM!)
Sally - Going into my closet and wearing my mother's clothes. I'm trying to identify with my mother so I don't lose her and yet the other part of me is trying to change my whole identity and not be that any more. And, of course, the headache, and like I told her, I said, Whenever I'm getting to a major emotional release I get headaches like I did yesterday. And when something is about to happen like that. I didn't identify it till today - I go, that's what that headache was about because I was getting ready to hit this issue with my mother that I have been not wanting to look at because I've been afraid to touch it. You know - afraid if I touch this, if I confront or aim back, I'm going to be hurt. And what did the guy do? He turned back and left.
Richard - He was gone.
Sally - He was gone. You know, so the issue is here until I confront it. Total lack of communication I'm afraid - I'm so afraid to be hurt any more that I won't address it.
Barbara - Is your mother still alive?
Sally - Yes.
Richard - But you said a couple weeks ago I lost my mother.
Sally - I meant emotionally.
Richard - Oh! OK.
Sally - I had to grieve the loss of my mother because I've lost her emotionally.
Kathy - OK. That's what she means - emotionally.
Sally - Because I really miss my mother. My little girl inside of me. But she's gone.
Richard - Going back - The person that left the picture was named Philip Moore. I don't know if that has any significance. I know who the person was in the dream.
Sally - What does he mean to you?
Richard - It's somebody I had all kinds of confrontations with when I was a kid.
(Laughter)
Sally - The confrontation with my mother.
Richard - Yep!
Sally - The thing is, I've tried and tried to explain what's going on in my life and finally my mother got up and said I don't want to hear about it any more - so when I talk to her on the phone it's obligatory. Hi how you doing - how's the doctor? You know, goodbye. There's no emotional bond and I've lost that and I was close to my mother. I think what really struck me about yours (to Barbara) is that my birthday is October (In tears)and my mother used to make me pumpkin cake every time for my birthday so the little part of me really misses my mother. You know. And I think that - riding the cow - I miss my mother so bad I want her to understand my innocence and no matter how hard I've tried I've only got attacked for it. So that's what struck me - the idea - of my little - how she went out of her way to make pumpkin cake for me - and you say Pumpkin - do you still love me? Pumpkin cake - you know. I think, that's what really struck me. Because I really miss my mother and I want this situation to heal. Everything I've done I've just gotten nothing but attacked. So I want to hang on to the traditional because I think somehow that's going to keep that connection going and I'll feel loved but it's not happening. (Somewhere in here I tell Sally my nickname is Pumpkin.)
Barbara - But she's avoiding the issue too.
Sally - Oh yes! Major big time.
Barbara - I mean, if she doesn't want to hear about it she's refusing to acknowledge that you've changed.
Sally - Right - and there's no way to explain to her because I've tried and tried. And so it is how do you let go of your mother? How does little Susie let go of her mother so that I can move ahead because there's a part of me that just wants to know that she still loves me - that I'm still loved. Right now I don't feel unconditional love or accepted by her.
Barbara - This is stemming from their fear for you. And if they didn't love you they would never fear for you.
Sally - True - even though it's misguided fear. And that's the way off - them saying, "I love you," from way off - but we can't be close together.
Dr. Reed - This could be an approach - I don't know if it would be - you could imagine being a mom, you're a mom, and seeing your son do something that's scary to and because of your love for your son you're afraid for you son and you try to stop him. So then take your mom and her - dash - fear - at you and experience it as her loving you. I'm trying to with the cigarette smoking that I had to work on for myself - a major turn around was realizing that when my dad could get mad at me for smoking I wished he'd put me on his lap and smoke a cigarette with me and we'd talk about what it was like and so on and I could have told him that I was afraid that I was already addicted and blah, blah, blah. Later then getting him to see how his being so angry at me was actually his love and desire to help me being frustrated and so I was getting all that love and support but it was just coming through this strange kind of thing.
Martha - You don't recognize it.
Dr. Reed - Right, exactly, exactly.
Sally - Well, you're right - I mean it's very true - I do know my mother loves me.
Dr. Reed - I don't know if that would be an example about you said (to Kathy) you said you can talk about it all you want and have reasons but it's not the same as experiencing it. If what I was describing would be just more of talking about it or if there could be an avenue to an emotional experience.
Sally - Well what's happening now is that there's two walls up. And how do you get the walls down to reconnect? Because you see what happened is I stepped out of their belief system - it freaked them out - and they don't know any other way to try to fix me other than try to bring me back to where I was - because they feel.
Richard - Are they afraid because of their - it casts doubt on their own belief system?
Sally - Absolutely!
Richard - You're questioning their belief system.
Sally - Right and they're afraid of that.
Barbara - They also are very much afraid for your soul.
Sally - Oh yes! They're afraid Satan has gotten hold of me. I'm in a cult and Satan's gotten hold of me. The words - I have been dabbling in things that I shouldn't be dabbling in like meditation - like I mean I've got it from every angle - just every angle. So now what's happened is that everybody has backed off and nobody communicates anything because everybody's afraid to communicate. The walls are so tall and high there's no way to get to the heart - to say, "Mom I'm OK. This is OK. I'm innocent. I haven't done anything wrong and I'm being accused of doing something wrong," and I'm being accused of doing something wrong and there's purity here -it's all the cleansing and spiritual growth so that is the problem. How do you get.Oh! Richard is saying I don't have the right bullets - what I've been doing before hasn't been the right ammunition to come back and confront the situation and I'm looking for the right way that will come and help me heal the situation. So, of course, Barbara cleaning out the frig - again the cleansing process the cleaning out the old.
Richard - The old garbage.
Sally - Yeah, the white is significant for me, you know, the white refrigerator - of doing the cleansing and purifying and getting the old out. Of course, concerned if the bills were all paid - those are my financial issues. You know, it's like.. Really one of the main issues is .which hasn't even been brought up so must be it isn't even important .is that my ex-husband left me with $60,000 worth of credit card debt that I have no way of paying back. And
Barbara - What happened?
Sally - My ex-husband left me with $60,000 worth of credit card debt which he ran up from drinking and gambling when he was in Las Vegas. My name is on the card.
Martha - Isn't there some legal redress for this now? Seems I was just reading about that.
Sally - Yah! You can't prove that that's where he spent the money. And I haven't been able to do anything about that. I mean they're not coming after me. They know I'm not making any money.
Richard - So don't worry about it.
Sally - That's what I'm saying. I think because the issue wasn't brought up I'm not supposed to worry about it. When the money comes I'll be able to take care of that issue but they're not coming after me. They're leaving me alone because they know I'm not making enough money to even do anything with it. So that was kind of the issue I was going after and that didn't even come out. Because I wanted to be able to pay off this debt but evidently it's not important right now.
Dr. Reed - He won't have a role in the debt? Or is he dead? Or what?
Sally - He does have a role in the debt. And I'd rather him pay child support than that. I don't know about the big stack of mail, but a lot of incoming?
Barbara - Yeah!
Sally - All money coming in the mail and I'll deal with this problem when I get back. It's like the financial right now - it's the mother issue. And, of course, the lighting - the one candle that was a very neat symbolic thing.
Barbara - I think that you are the candle. And it's your duty to light up the Universe. I don't know if that has anything to do with Sedona or not but I think you are the candle.
Sally - I can understand that. Thank you. That ..Get a little light in here.
(laughter) In all this stuff, get a little light.
Barbara - When you do readings for people you are bringing light into their lives that they couldn't see before because they weren't aware of it. And it doesn't matter if its your light, the candle, or the reflected light from the mirror which passes it all around to others.
Sally - So all I need to do is just shine my light and it will effect others.
Dr. Reed - I wonder if we're getting into the advice giving stage that would be time to go and turn the dreams back on ourselves.
Sally - But I've been thinking about my dream.
Dr. Reed - When well why don't you do your final sharing, OK.
Sally - Yeah!
TAPE ENDS HERE.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Reed, Henry, Ph.D., Caring for the Creative Spirit, A Teacher's Handbook of Special Methods and Insights for Exercising the Intuitive Heart, Virginia Beach, VA, Hermes Home Press, 1996
Reed, Henry, Ph.D., Exercise Your Intuitive Heart! Develop Another Way of Knowing, Book One: The Foundation Series, Mouth of Wilson, VA, Hermes Home Press, 1996
Reed, Henry, Ph.D., Exercise Your Intuitive Heart! Develop Another Way of Knowing, Student Workbook: The Foundation Series, Mouth of Wilson, VA, Hermes Home Press, 1996