The practical student of Occultism (and what I mean by this is an individual or soul who is sincere in their desire to learn and become developed in an Occult and spiritual way, for there is nothing but a curse that will ever come out of the effort of a soul that is not sincere in seeking after occult teachings) will before long become developed so that he can reason out any kind of a dream. The nature of these dreams is one that has been given to every ancient prophet and Hindu Priest. The dream I allude to is one that is a remembrance of the soul's experience while entirely free from the body. The memory as it is of your second life, because you people of the western world prefer to remark that when death takes place you have lived one life, but you should always recollect that you only live one life, and that that life is eternal. It would be far more sensible and intelligent upon your part to say that you have experienced a section or a given part of your existence. Every person should use great care in distinguishing between the two kinds of dreams that everyone is liable to have, for as remarked before in this chapter, there is one dream that may be given by an evil spirit, the other is a kind of a dream that is produced by the experience of the soul in its future life.

The true dream is a product of the emancipation of the soul and is rendered more real and active by the suspension of the active life of relation to the earth plane. The soul in this state will now enjoy a sort of clairvoyance which extends to places at a great distance from it, that that soul has never seen, even to other worlds. This state of interior concentration of the soul, or emancipation as it is generally termed in India, but spoken of in this country as clairvoyancy, is also due to the remembrance which retracts to our memory the events that have occurred in our present existence or in our preceding existence. The strangeness of the surroundings of the soul when the Astral Body is propelled and taken to worlds unknown, is something that will be realized by their soul in this condition. A failure to remember all of your dreams is explained by the gaps resulting from the incompleteness of your remembrance of what has appeared to you and what you have experienced while in a deep sleep. This incompleteness is similar to that of a story where whole sentences or parts of it have been dropped or forgotten by chance, and its remaining parts have been thrown together at random and have lost all intelligent meaning.

The reason why many do not remember their dreams is that what they call sleep is only the repose of the body for the spirit and soul is always active and in motion. The soul during sleep again recovers its liberty and can enter into communication with those who are dear to it, either on the Earth Plane or upon the Astral Plane, and this is the reason why so many persons dream that they have been with and had certain experiences with people who are dead. A person will sometimes dream that they have been with a soul which has died, and experienced the same suffering that the soul did while on earth, but in reality they have been in the society of those souls and mingled with them on the Astral Plane, while they themselves thought they were only sound asleep. The physical or outward bodily senses are heavy and gross, and a dream cannot always be remembered by them. Consequently it is very difficult for these senses to retain upon waking the wanderings and experiences of the soul while said senses have been asleep, because these experiences have not been received by the soul through the outward or bodily organs.

No dream is really an indication of the sense attributed to it by many of the so-called fortune tellers; but it is not foolish to believe that a certain kind of a dream is the sign of a certain event which is about to happen. But they are indications in this sense - viz., that they present images which are real for the spirit, though they may have nothing to do with what takes place in his present corporeal life. Dreams are also, in many cases, as I have said, a remembrance; they may also be sometimes a presentiment of the future, if permitted by God, or the sight of something which is taking place at the time in some other place to which the soul has transported itself. Have you not many instances proving that persons may appear to their relatives and friends in dreams, and give them notice of what is happening to them? What are apparitions, if not the soul or spirit of persons who come to communicate with you? When you acquire the certainty that what you saw has really taken place, is it not a proof that it was no freak of your imagination, especially if what you saw were something which you had not thought of when you were awake?

Those things may take place in the experience of the spirit, though not in that of the body; that is to say, that the Soul sees what it wishes to see because it goes to find it. You must not forget that, during sleep, the spirit is always more or less under the influence of matter; that, consequently, it is never completely free from terrestrial ideas, and that the objects of its waking thoughts may therefore give to its dreams the appearance of what it desires or of what it fears, thus producing what may be properly termed an effect of the imagination. When the mind is much engaged with any idea, it is apt to connect everything it sees with that idea.

You may say that in a dream, we see persons who are well known to us doing things which they are not in any way thinking of, is it not a mere effect of the imagination?

Of which they are not thinking? How do you know that it is so? Their spirit may come to visit yours, as yours may go to visit theirs; and you do not always know, in your waking state, what they may be thinking of. And besides, you often, in your dreams, apply to persons whom you know, and according to your own desires, impress or influence them. Is it necessary to the emancipation of the soul that the sleep of the body should be complete?

The soul recovers its liberty as soon as the senses become torpid. It takes advantage, in order to emancipate itself, of every moment of respite left it by the body. As soon as there occurs any prostration of the vital forces, the spirit disengages itself from the body, and the feebler the body, the freer is the soul. For even in the dozing state or a mere dulling of the outward senses the same phenomena will be experienced. Again, many times a person will hear as it were within themselves words distinctly pronounced or spoken, still having no meaning or connection whatever with the subject which they are thinking. Indeed you may often hear words and entire sentences, especially so when the outward or physical senses become quiet. This is an impression or transmission of the utterance of a spirit who wishes to communicate with you. Again when only half asleep with your eyes closed you see distinct images or figures around you; these are disembodied spirits. There are many times when a person is half-asleep that they have superior ideas pass through their mind in relation to some business or project, but which despite all their efforts to recall them are effaced from their memory when waking.

This is the result of the freedom that the soul has enjoyed during its emancipation from the body when it can use the proper faculty during its time of liberty from the body to become advised and counseled by the spirits of the Astral Plane.