I have recounted my dreams to many people over the past several decades. Somehow, there are always people who interpret my descriptions as tacit evidence that I believe every single thing in all the dreams are true. More than that, but true in the context of how the listener understands it. This is not correct.
Each dream has content that may or may not be interesting. The content may be literal, symbolic (extremely rare), or undetermined. It might relate to the past, present, future, or no time at all. The fact that I think a dream is interesting enough to tell someone about it does not mean I believe every particle of it. I might, but more often, particularly with dreams that appear to be prophetic, I am undecided.
For instance, I have had over a dozen dreams wherein God has appeared. In each, he looks the same, like an ancient but immensely strong glowing giant. He has long hair, a white beard, and his face is creased with many wrinkles. He emits a powerful but not blinding white light. I do believe in God, but do I believe he looks the way he does in my dreams? That is, do I believe my dreams are an accurate visual representation of God? Maybe.
I don’t see any reason to think they aren’t accurate, nor is there a reason they must be. Dreams are plastic in the sense that they are malleable. They are extremely sensitive to thoughts, and as I have noted elsewhere, independent agents within dreams make an effort to communicate by using imagery that can be understood by the dreamer. Therefore, it would make sense to use a symbolic representation of God that I am familiar with from western art, one that resembles Michelangelo’s “God” of the Sistine Chapel. Apart from size, resolute power, and the immense glow he emanates, Michelangelo’s version is a fair approximation of what I see in my dreams.
My guess is that if there is any genuine resemblance, it is about as close as a child’s stick figure is to the person it is designed to represent. This does not mean that I believe that God’s appearance in my dreams is wrong. It just means that I don’t know so I haven’t taken a position. I can say what he looks like in my dreams, and that is enough.
This brings us to reincarnation. I have avoided this subject until now due to controversy surrounding the subject. However, it does appear in my dreams occasionally. Leaving it out would be an error of omission, so it will be discussed here as an introduction, and in later posts to flesh it out.
My most recent post hints at the subject, but doesn’t reference it overtly. This is typical of dreams that I classify as “reincarnation-related.” Offhand, I don’t think any of my dreams specifically discuss reincarnation. Instead, while dreaming, reincarnation is as much a part of reality as the air we breathe. It is so pervasive that it isn’t discussed, nor is it interesting enough to discuss. It just is. Regardless, some dream content only makes sense in the context of reincarnation. That is, if reincarnation is a genuine phenomenon.
The popular notion of reincarnation, like the popular notion of almost everything related to dreams or spiritual subjects, does not match my experience or knowledge of the subject. That is, when I use the word “reincarnation,” the phenomenon I refer to is usually not the same as what many readers imagine when they read the word. The “rebirth” part of it is pretty much the same, but everything else is where it goes off the rails.
Here is my understanding of “reincarnation” and related components:
“We” are spirits, not bodies. All of our “thinking” takes place in our “mind” which is a component of our spirit, not our brain or body. Our “memories” are not “stored” in our brain, though physical impairment of the brain can interfere with recall.
Our spirits are either eternal or, at a minimum, survive beyond the lifespan of any single physical body.
“Incarnation” is the joining of a spirit with a body. That is, an eternal spirit that pre-exists the creation of a physical body voluntarily inhabits a specific body after it is created.
“Death” is when a physical body dies. The spirit that was incarnated within that body remains eternal, and is freed from the body when it dies. Therefore, the spirit exists independent of the body before and after the lifespan of the body.
“Reincarnation” is when a spirit previously incarnated in one physical body is “reincarnated” in a different one.
There is no mechanical difference between incarnation and reincarnation. In both, a spirit that exists prior to the creation of a physical body, is joined to a physical body, from which it is later released. This is like water in a glass, where the water is the spirit and the glass is the body. If the glass shatters, the water will pour out, and can be contained in another glass, until it also breaks. One could go a little further and say the water could also evaporate and rejoin God.
That is my view of reincarnation. It does not include references to karma, animals, insects, rituals, rules, religion, or anything else. The reason those references are missing is that I believe it is a mistake to believe that reincarnation is governed by rules that make sense from a human perspective. This doesn’t mean that I think everyone has it all wrong, but that there are significant errors even if in other places it is better understood.
For instance, mainstream Abrahamic religions (Jadaism, Christianity, and Islam) reject reincarnation as heresy. Each of these groups have sub-groups that accept reincarnation, but they appear to be a minority in each case. Other religions accept reincarnation (Buddhism, Hinduism, and some tribal religions). I believe it is a mistake to completely reject reincarnation, but I also believe that many of the rules or notions associated with reincarnation in other religions are mistaken. This creates a problem.
When Abrahamic religions reject reincarnation, they usually refer to the Hindu karma-based version of reincarnation. This specific form of the doctrine has what I consider to be errors as well, namely that an evil life is punished by a succeeding life in the body of an insect or a deformed human, and a good life is rewarded by birth into a healthy body in a wealthy family, with all the expected advantages of such a life. I wouldn’t be surprised if this belief, which I think is mistaken, is largely to blame for India’s caste system. The error of rejecting reincarnation due to errors in a specific doctrine related to reincarnation is like not believing in the existence of the Sun because the explanation given for the Sun is unsatisfactory. The Sun is still there, no matter how it is described or how faulty the descriptions are.
The core of reincarnation is that we are spirits, not bodies. All religions accept this, unless one counts atheism as a religion. As spirits, we have no fixed life span. Implicit to this idea is that if “we” are spirits, but we “inhabit” bodies while incarnated, we had to get into those bodies somehow. That method is called “incarnation.” Incarnation is the same whether it happens once, twice, three times, or more. If the spirit is eternal, there is no ascertainable upper limit to how many incarnations we can have.
In other words, if there is a limitation, it is not a matter of physics or natural laws, but a kind of spiritual regulation imposed by a higher power, such as God. By accepting spirits and incarnation, every religion accepts all of the elements of reincarnation save one: permission. That is what rejection of reincarnation amounts to, that permission to incarnate again has been denied.
My dreams are consistent with the concept of reincarnation. To my knowledge, I have never had a dream that was inconsistent with reincarnation. This doesn’t mean I believe my dreams on the subject, it just means that at face value, they are all consistent with it. This is as true of dreams that I had before I researched the subject, and those after.
I do accept the idea of reincarnation because I accept that we are spirits. On that level alone, I see no reason why reincarnation cannot happen outside of a bureaucratic prohibition. The basis for my position is not my dreams, because I have only had a small number that deal with the subject in any detail, but my reading of the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson and his associates at the University of Virginia.
We all have the ability to reason. That faculty is important and should not be allowed to atrophy. Accepting the word of someone else, such as a member of the clergy, without independent research and confirmation, is an excellent way to be misled without realizing it has happened. It also cedes authority for your decisions to someone else. This is normally unwise. Even trusted and knowledgeable people should only be trusted after a careful evaluation of their knowledge and integrity. “Blind faith” only makes sense after a thorough evaluation has been made and the person or entity has been deemed worthy. Regardless, once that status is conferred, you have ceded authority to make decisions on your behalf to someone else.
My dreams eventually led me to start researching paranormal subjects at the research library of the Parapsychology Foundation in New York. They had a full collection of Stevenson’s monographs there. Most have titles such as “twenty cases suggestive of reincarnation…”. None claim to be proof of reincarnation. Stevenson studied claims made by children that they had lived previous lives. He and his team tried to track down the previous personality to verify that the person had existed. They were able to assemble convincing evidence in thousands of individual cases.
Stevenson’s research describes reincarnation that does not follow patterns expected in Hinduism or Buddhism, and violates expectations of Abrahamic religions as well. For instance, geography appears to play a role in where a spirit will be born. For instance, an Indian girl who remembered the life of a caucasian British traveler who had died in India, near where the Indian girl was born. Stevenson and his associates have found cases of Christians reborn as Muslims, and Muslims reborn as Christians. There is one case of a Jewish man reborn into a family of Germans (understood to have been Nazis), wealthy persons into poor families, and vice versa. Every variety of incarnation you can imagine, he has found cases that could be used as illustrations. Black to white, white to black, male to female, female to male, atheist to believer, beleiver to atheist, etcetera.
Stevenson doesn’t explore the spiritual ramifications of his work deeply. Instead, he is concerned with establishing that the phenomena occurs. In his lifetime, he did occasionally discuss this subject at a deeper level with colleagues, but it rarely found its way into his writings. When it did, it tended to be in the form of a clinical reference to the fact that his observations either do not match expectations of the local custom, or that they do.
If reincarnation is a genuine phenomenon, as Stevenson’s research suggests, it is a significant obstacle to many religious traditions. The reason is that it is difficult to say that any tradition is wholly correct when a person from that tradition may have come from any other tradition, and could just as easily go back to it in a subsequent life. The same is true of non-religious people. If reincarnation is real, then every attempt to define, regulate, and assign value to people based on demographic characteristics like race, sex, age, religion, wealth, professional attainment, or anything else, fails. This is because each person’s merit is attached to the spirit, not the body inhabited by the spirit.
Having said that, religious traditions that accept the existence of spirit, or souls, even if they do not accept reincarnation, generally agree with the principle that our merit is in our spirit, not our body. This means that reasonable adherents to these religions tend to reward actual merit, rather than skin color, educational attainment, or other demographic characteristics. The good of a soul, as measured by that soul’s words and deeds, is the basis for determining merit, and nothing else. On this level alone, religious people can be far more tolerant of demographic differences than atheists or agnostics.
Keep in mind that I inserted a qualifier in the previous paragraph. I wrote “reasonable adherent” not “any adherent.” The qualifier is important because there are always people who are unreasonable, who do not follow, understand, or agree with the precepts of their faith. For the same reason, there are also “reasonable atheists” who tend to be more fair-minded than would be expected based on atheist philosophy. Again, it is the soul that matters, not the trappings surrounding the soul.
All of this is my way of introducing one of my longer dreams that happens to refer to what was purportedly one of my past lives. Again, I am reporting what I dreamed. Take from it what you will. Before I get there, I have to mention that there a couple of related dreams, much shorter in length. Here is the first:
From the journal, 5/1/1988 (date approximate):
In the middle of a much longer dream about something else, one of the characters “looks in the direction of Chicago and then New York. He said I was from the former and was going to the latter.”
Note that I am not from Chicago, but was born in nearby Minnesota. I have visited Chicago only once, in 1984. However, I do live in New York now, and lived in New York City in the late 1980’s.
From the Journal, 9/18/1989
In the middle of a much longer dream, a photo jars my memory of seeing a handbill on a lamp post, “The photo was supposed to have been Chicago but it seemed too sparse for that--not enough buildings or people. The year was 1935 though. There were election posters with Franklin Roosevelt's face on them on a few lampposts as well as announcements of the 1935 (36?) World Exposition (Chicago).”
Note that the Chicago World Exposition was in 1933-1934, not 1935-1936.
From the Journal, 1/16/1990
I was somehow contacted and summoned to the estate of my father, who owned a department store. He was an Arab and had another son named "James" or something similar. "Jean" maybe, and a "faithful servant" was also present (another Arab man in his 60's.) I was overjoyed that my father had found me. My heart was bursting with happiness, so I gave him and my half-brother a huge hug. We were outside on the lawn in front of his mansion as we talked. There is a green Duesenberg auto near the mansion.
When we were through, I was brought to the mansion and told that I could have any room (or rooms) that weren't essential to some other purpose. All of a sudden, I had all the money in the world, good clothes, and a mansion to live in. Strangely enough, I acted as though I expected it. Somehow it felt like the way things were supposed to be.
The mansion was located in Chicago. I experienced a passage of time roughly equal to several weeks during the course of the dream, which in itself lasted about six hours or so (a long time for me). It was vivid and emotional for the first couple of hours, [and trailed] off in the end.
The room I chose had bookshelves that went all the way up to a very high ceiling and stacks of books all over the floor. After choosing the room, I decided to explore. I seem to have felt there was an actual store on the premises, with sales clerks, closing times, security guards, etc. The mansion must have had more than a hundred rooms. It was gigantic. It even had a separate building for the family art collection.
I went to the store cafeteria and easily found acceptable food for myself. All the employees recognized me, and I could get anything I wanted for free. I went outside and walked just a little ways outside the mansion. It was still in view when I got to a local high school and a little street with a seedy atmosphere. I saw two boys carrying off a couple of girls into the bushes. The girls were screeching "No, I don't want to, I don't want to." I realized that rape was intended and decided I'd best call the authorities. I was also aware that a couple of murders had occurred in this neighborhood.
I got to a telephone, but just as I went into the booth, a murderer-type guy got into the one next to me. This made me nervous, so I got out without making the call. This made me feel bad, especially later, when I discovered that both girls had been assaulted, one killed. I went back to the mansion because it was obviously safer and more pleasant there.
I experienced several weeks during the course of this dream, and in that time I did a lot of minor things, many of which were repetitive, like bumping into my newly found father or brother, or the manservant and having a little talk. I would also attend to my daily needs, eating, sleeping, showering, getting dressed, etc. At first it seemed like I was just exploring the new environment, but after awhile, I distinctly felt as though I was somehow involved with the family business. I dressed well and seemed to have direction and purpose. I remember walking by a section of the store that had a display of crystal pyramids and other crystal items as well as prisms, etc.”
Comments
Some time after I had this dream, (about two weeks) I spoke with my father on the phone. We discussed unrelated topics when the conversation turned to the subject of reincarnation. At that time, my father hadn't heard of this dream nor did he know much if anything about other dreams of mine. He remarked that he hadn't ever had 'dreams' about another life, but that ever since before he could talk, he had strong imaged memories of one. He then went on to describe it:
His name was ‘James’; he lived in a large house beside a lake near Chicago. The family owned a green Duesenberg and a boat. He had an older brother that was aloof. He was disconsolate and had been ever since his mother's premature death a few years earlier. He wasted most of his time playing tennis. The time period was evocative of the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century.
In other words, the life my father claimed to remember corresponded with details of my brother, “James” from my dream.
I also just found this fascinating video discussing reincarnation by Jimmy Akin, a former non-Catholic Christian who studied Catholicism and the early Church Fathers (later writing his book The Fathers Know Best) and then converted to Catholicism. (Now he is a speaker and author and has the YouTube channel “Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World” in which I found this informative video, linked below.)
https://youtu.be/TdFhZkg9GEY
I hope you like it as well!
Fascinating.
Andrew, I remember you said once that you attend church. How do you reconcile your beliefs about reincarnation with your church's teachings?
Do you just take the bits from Christianity that resonate with you?