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Hippocrates of Kos taught about dreams indicating illnesses.

This raises the question of how do you know if a dream might manifest in waking life? From nearly forty years of dreamwork, I have made these observations about my own dreams. You might see if they apply to your own.

1. Very realistic dreams tend to manifest in waking life. If I have a dream that is realistic and probable, i.e., I am driving my own car and not some fantasy car, then it probably has something to do with manifesting something in waking life. For example, any physical ailment which I knew about ahead of time in dreamtime presented quite literally and showed up later on a medical test as when years ago I had a dream in which a voice said I had blood in my stool. A medical test actually concurred with that even though a later colonoscopy proved it was nothing to worry about. This rule applies also in cases where the symbolism is present but there is a clear resemblance such as dreaming of having overflowing pipes and end up having diarrhea. This is possible because there is a close proximity to the symbol and waking reality. In fact, Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, said much medical and diagnostic information of this sort could be gained from similar dreams.
2. Somewhat surrealistic or unrealistic events may be relating events in the far off future. Years ago I had a series of dreams in which I was traveling around Hawaii with my brother. At the time I was living in Massachusetts, and so the possibility of this happening seemed a little far-fetched. The island’s scenery was stylized in my dream, not being typical of a specific place on any of the islands. Yet, as I read my dream journal years later, I found that after I moved to Hawaii, we did travel around the island of Oahu as we did in the dream, and we shared certain concerns that showed up in those early dreams.
3. Very surrealistic dreams tend to be making a statement about the interior world of the dreamer. Really bizarre, odd or unusual objects in places they don’t usually belong, such as a rare or extinct species of owl in a refrigerator, are most often aspects of the dreamer and need to be looked at as such by asking, “What about me is like this owl?” or “What about me is like the refrigerator?” In this type of dream, I personally have not seen a close or frequent connection to events or objects manifesting in waking life such as opening the refrigerator and finding a rare spotted owl perched next to the orange juice.

Déjà vu: How could I be here before?

After nearly forty years of recording my dreams, and having so many dreams of being in strange places and meeting new people that become manifest in waking life, I am almost convinced déjà vu is an experience of remembering something or someplace previously seen in dreamtime, and the memory surfaces from the long-forgotten, or possibly never-remembered dream when waking reality mimics the earlier experience in dreamtime. I was first made aware of this dual reality when I was in college and had a dream just after my roommate became engaged.

Dream:
I dream of attending my college roommate’s wedding in a white church I didn’t recognize in waking life. The dream is vivid and clear in every detail, especially the completely white color of church exterior, the unusual reddish brown design inside the church and the fact that I am taken to the church in the groom’s parents’ white car, sitting in the right rear seat.

On waking I completely forgot about the dream because I wasn’t in the habit of recording my dreams at this stage of my life. When the day of the wedding arrived approximately six months later, and we were about to go to the church, I was told to ride in the groom’s parents’ white car. As I looked at the car, I suddenly I recalled the dream and remembered I had seen this before, been here and done this! I got goose bumps. Reality then played out according to my dream. I was told to sit in the right backseat, exactly where I was in the dream. On the way to the church I suspected the church would be all white on the outside and inside would have that unusual reddish brown design. And sure enough, it did.

Déjà vu suggests a Similar Dreamtime and Waking Reality

Edgar Cayce and others have stated that in dreamtime we get a foreshadowing of all the important events in our life before they become manifest in waking life. It is in dreamtime where we make choices that may eventually play out in waking time because dreamtime puts us into the future to prepare the way for us. That is one reason why Casey is quoted as saying “Dreams are today’s answers to tomorrow’s questions.” It’s like we are given a trial run. If we are dream-aware, we can make use of this test case scenario. If not, it’s as if we are programmed to follow through with the same decision in waking life as we made in dreamtime.

Living Twice in this Life

This concept of living our life twice, in dreamtime and waking time, is hinted at in popular culture with the James Bond theme song sung by Nancy Sinatra,

“You only live twice or so it seems
One life for yourself and one for your dreams.”

While some may interpret this to mean we live two different lives, one in our dreams (perhaps daydreams) and one in waking life, and these realities might not necessarily match in quality or enjoyment, my experience indicates that night dreams pretty well do match waking life—unless I consciously NOT make a decision I made in dreamtime because I didn’t like the outcome I saw in the dream. However, this type of decision-making requires knowing what was dreamed about and remembering it, perhaps many years after the dream! To me, this is what is meant by getting answers about the future from the dream. If you liked the outcome of your choice in dreamtime, go with it. If not, make another choice.

So the next time you experience déjà vu, consider that you may have passed this way before—in your dreams, and your dreams were preparing you for this experience.