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Esoteric Psychology II - Chapter II - The Ray of Personality - Some Problems of Psychology
2. Dreams of Remembrance. These are dreams which are a recovery of the sights and sounds encountered in the hours of sleep upon the astral plane. It is on this plane that the [501] man is usually found when the thread of consciousness is separated from the body. In this case, the man is either participating in certain activities, or he is in the position of the onlooker who sees actual sights, performances, people, etc., etc., just as any person can see them as he walks down a street in any large city or as he looks out of a window in any environment. These sights and sounds will often be dependent upon the wish-life and the predilections of the subject, upon his likes and dislikes and his desires and recognized attractions. He will seek for and often find those he loves; he will sometimes search for and find those he seeks to damage, and find occasion to hurt those he hates; he will favor himself by participating in the fulfilment of what he desires, which is always imaginatively possible upon the astral plane. Such desires may range all the way from desire for sexual gratification to the longing of the spiritually-minded aspirant to see the Master, the Christ or the Buddha. Thought forms, created by the similar wishes of the multitude, will be found to meet his desire and - on returning to his body in the morning - he brings with him the recollection of that satisfaction in the form of a dream. These dreams, related to astral satisfactions, are all of them in the nature of glamor or illusion; they are self-evoked and self-related; they indicate however real experience, even if only astral in accomplishment and can be of value to the interested psychologist in so far as they indicate the character trends of the patient. One difficulty can, however, be found. These thought forms (to which the man has responded and in which he has found an imaginative satisfaction) embody the expression of the wish-life of the race and exist, therefore, upon the astral plane for all to see. Many people do see and contact them and can identify themselves with them upon returning to waking consciousness. In fact, however, they [502] have really done no more than register these thought forms in the same manner as one can register the contents of a shop window when passing by. A shocked horror can, for instance, induce a person to relate, quite innocently, a dream which is, in reality, no more than the registering of a sight or experience which was witnessed in the hours of sleep but with which the man has no real connection whatever. This experience he relates with dismay and disgust; most feelingly he tells the experience to the psychologist, and frequently receives an interpretation which reveals to him the depths of evil to which his unrealized desires apparently bear witness. His unexpressed longings are "brought to the surface" by the psychologist. He is told that these longings, when faced, will then leave him, and that the ghost of his mental and psychological disorder will then be laid. Unless the psychologist is of real enlightenment, the subject of his care is then saddled with an experience which was never his but which he simply witnessed. I give this as an example of great frequency and of much damaging value. Until psychologists recognize the actuality of the life of humanity when separated at night from the physical body, such errors will be of increasing occurrence. The implications are obvious.
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