Theory About Dreams
It is really strange that such a vulgar phenomenon such as the dreams have been the object of such indifference from the part of science and that we are still asking ourselves about the causes of such visions. The issue is not solved when someone says that they are the result of imagination; this is one of those words that are used to explain something that is not understood and that remains unexplained. Nonetheless, imagination is the result of knowledge. Well, since imagination cannot be admitted in brute matter, it must follow that the soul has some role in that. If the dreams are still a mystery to science it is for the fact that science has adamantly closed its eyes to their spiritual cause.
The soul is sought in the intricacies of the brain while it stands before us constantly, free and independent, in a number of phenomena that go inexplicable by the laws of matter, notably in the dreams, natural and induced somnambulism and in the double vision; they are not necessarily in the rare and subtle phenomena that require painstaking research from scholars and philosophers but rather in the most vulgar phenomena.
The soul is right there, seemingly saying: Look and see me; I am here before your eyes and yet you cannot see; I am with you every day; children can see me; the wise man and the most ignorant person see me but you do not acknowledge that!
There are people, however, that seem to be afraid of facing it and finding the proof of its existence. As for those that seek it in good faith they have so far missed the only key that could have it unveiled to them. That key has just been given to them by Spiritism in revealing the laws that govern the relationships between the corporeal and spiritual world. With the help of that law and with the observations that support it, Spiritism provides the most logical and never before given explanation. It demonstrates that the dreams, somnambulism, the double vision, presentiment, intuition of the future and the mind reading are not but variants and degrees of the same principle: the emancipation of the soul, more or less detached from matter.
Regarding the dreams, has Spiritism given precise explanations about all varieties that do exist? No. Not yet. We have the principle and that is a lot already. The ones that can be explained will give us the lead for the others; some elements are certainly still missing but those will be acquired later. There is not a single science that has explained everything from the beginning with their consequences and applications; it is only through successive observations that they can be complemented.
Spiritism was born yesterday and like in Chemistry, it is still in the hands of its Lavoisier and Berthollet, its initiators; they found the fundamental laws; the first landmarks led to further discoveries.
There are some dreams whose positive character cannot rationally be attributed to a simple game of imagination; those are dreams that find their proofs when wakening and that people were not absolutely thinking about before. The most difficult to explain are those that present incoherent, fantastic and unrealistic images. A more thorough investigation of the singular phenomenon of fluidic creations will undoubtedly give us the direction. While we wait, here a theory that seems to move us a step ahead in the subject. We do not provide it as the absolute truth but founded in logic and that can be submitted to a study. It was given to us by one of our best mediums in a somnambulistic but lucid state, during the following occurrence:
“A mother had asked him to provide her with news about her daughter that was in Lyon; he saw her lying down, asleep, and described with great accuracy the apartment where she was. The seventeen-year-old young lady is a writing medium; her mother asked him if she had the ability to become a clairvoyant medium; Wait, the somnambulistic medium said, I need to follow the wake left by her Spirit that at this point in time is not with the body. She is here, at Ville Ségur, in this room where we are, attracted by your thoughts; she sees and hears us. To her it is a dream that she will not remember when she wakes up.
We can divide the dreams in three categories, he adds, characterized by the degree of recollection that remains in the state of detachment of the Spirit. These are:
- Dreams that are provoked by the action of matter and the senses upon the Spirit, that is, those in which the physical organization plays a dominant role by the intimate connection between body and Spirit. We remember them clearly, and however little developed ones’ memory may be, we keep a lasting impression of them;
- Dreams that could be called mixed. Matter and Spirit take simultaneous part in them. The detachment is more complete. We remember them when we wake up to almost immediately forget, unless a given particularity excites our memory;
- The ethereal or purely spiritual dreams. These are only the product of the Spirit that is detached from matter as much as it is possible to life in the body. We do not remember or if much we have a slight memory of the dream and nothing could unveil the details of the dream.
The current dream of the young lady belongs to this third category. She will not remember. She was brought here by a very well-known Spirit of the Spiritist world of Lyon, and even of the Spiritist world of Europe – the somnambulistic medium then describes the Spirit Cáritas. The Spirit brought her with the objective of allowing her to keep a presentiment of the good that she can find in a firm, pure and sacred belief, and the good she can do to others, by doing it to herself. She tells her mother that if she remembered her preceding incarnations as well as she can do it now she would not remain much longer in the stationary state in which she is right now because she sees clearly and can advance without hesitation, whereas in the ordinary state we are like blindfolded. She tells the audience: - Thank you for your concern with me. She then kisses her mom. She feels happy – the medium adds at the end. She feels happy in this dream that she will not remember but that will leave her with a nice impression!”
These are the unconscious dreams from which we keep undefinable sensations of happiness and joy and that we cannot explain and that are a presentiment of what happy Spirits feel.
It turns out that the incarnate Spirit may suffer transformations that change their aptitudes. There is something that may not have been sufficiently observed and that supports the theory above. It is a known fact that one of the features of somnambulism is the forgetfulness of the dream. From the first level of lucidity the Spirit sometimes moves to another more elevated degree that is not ecstasy, and in which acquires new ideas and more subtle perceptions. When returning from such a level to the first level the Spirit does not remember what was said or seen. From this level to the wake state there is more memory loss. It is remarkable that there is some memory from the superior to the inferior level whereas there is almost no memory from the inferior to the superior level. It is then evident that between the two somnambulistic states that we just mentioned there is something analogous between the states of vigil and the first degree of lucidity. One could say that from the state of vigil to the first degree the Spirit has a veil removed from the eyes and that from the first to the second degree the Spirit has a second veil removed. At the superior levels the Spirit, now without those veils, sees and remember what is below; going down the levels the veils are recovered successively thus hiding what is above and the memory is lost. Sometimes the magnetizer (hypnotizer) may dissipate that fluidic veil and recover the memory.
As it can be seen, there is a strong analogy between these two somnambulistic states and the different categories of dream described above. It seems to us that it is more than likely that in one case as in the other the Spirit is in a similar situation. At each degree above the misty layer dissipates and the vision is clearer.
