Become a Teacher or a Preacher!

There is a notion that the reincarnating dreamer chooses his or her own parents for birth which provides a cultural context and a genetic make-up. My maternal birth line reached back to the copper mines of Sygun near Beddgelert, the slate mines of Blaenau Ffestiniog and the coal pits of the Rhondda. My paternal grandfather was a docker in Cardiff, helping to shift the coal from the valleys and the steel from the steel works. My parents met at the Guest Keen steel works in Cardiff, a very Welsh story. I have often joked that my physical make up is suited to shifting heavy things in confined spaces, I am genetically qualified to mine a two foot coal seam.

Folklore has it that in valleys where most of the men went down the pit there were only two ways out. You had to become either a teacher or a preacher. There were a lot of teacher exports from Wales who came to educate the English. I belonged to London Welsh rugby club for a while, the exiles, and our pack was made up of Ph.Ds., lawyers and financial traders. Education was a big thing in South Wales. Our pack was very qualified.

It could be argued that solely by mantra I found myself at UCL, The Royal Institution and Imperial College.  In the so-called research golden triangle and at the heart of UK science in the capital city. So, for a while I was indeed a teacher. Though my father was not so impressed his mantra was “those that can do, those that can’t teach”.  Even when I co-founded a laser company, he found it hard to praise and easy to find fault. My family were all extroverts and so often I wished they would shut the F up and I had to flee for quiet time. When you surpass you no longer belong not that I ever really did. The film Educating Rita speaks some truths.

And now it seems I am a tad surplus to requirements, the world has little or no use for me. I will fade away in quiet obscurity on a meagre pension. I have seen and experienced much and there does not seem to be all that much that I want to do. I don’t have a bucket list. I travelled to far flung places as a child. Wherever there was a lead or steel smelter we went, kind of. It makes one difficult to impress. I saw the Sistine chapel at 12 and the Victoria Falls at 11. My childhood taught me impermanence with seven schools across three continents. We also nearly went to Brazil! I had 150,000 air miles by the age of 13 in 1978, when travel was far less common!

I have read quite extensively on various “religious” things, both exoteric and esoteric. I meditated for two decades, daily.

The difficulty is that once I get the gist of how something works. I tend to lose interest. I am not a fan of refinement and repetition. I don’t get hung up on minutiae.

I had some mildly grandiose ideas when a young man, some visions. I am a dreamer after all.

I have a pet theory/hypothesis. Culminating lives do not end with a bang or fireworks. They simply fizzle out. There is no lust for. There is little desire or ambition. One simply pops one’s clogs never to return. One explores and explores until there is not much left which one has any kind of urge for. If I want to find out something about say Myeloma, I can read up on it and assimilate the gist quickly. I know the method and background knowledge helps the understanding.

I am probably not a common phenomenon, given my scientific background and my interest in Buddhism and raja Yogas. This makes me a slightly unusual animal. To me it is no big deal but it stands out as being a bit odd, an anomaly even.

I am probably mostly done. But the universe has a bag of spanners and is fond of the odd curve ball or two. So, who knows? I am sure that I understand the likelihoods moving on but weird shit can and does happen…

If my understanding based on dreams is correct the mantra in the title has been active across lifetimes for me. When I used to talk to university students, I had a fair idea about which ones would go into teaching, I was nearly ~90% accurate.

So maybe I did choose my circumstances of birth after all.

Yes, I think I am probably done now.

Karmic Conundrums

In the context of karma, if you don’t {yet} believe in karma then it is your current karma so to do and be. It does not alter the fact of karma but your denial and disbelief thereof is karmic. Eventually karma will teach you about karma and cause & effect. In the context of karma there is an inevitability.

Do you believe in karma?

Answering this simple question has karmic consequences which may be wide ranging.

If, however, there is no such thing as karma the answer is a facile no.

To plump for an agnostic maybe suggests that karma exists, sometimes and in some circumstances. You might cherry pick the circumstances in which you give a nod to karma. Picking and choosing thus implies you want life on your own terms. You are selective.

To answer yes, implies that you acknowledge at least some responsibility for your actions.

To fully believe in karma at first might cause you to freeze and say, think and do nothing. You may not wish to cause anything.

A belief in karma has scaling to it. I have looked into its applicability and the concept of karma is for me sound and can be observed in many situations and events.

There are numerous social media, and YouTube videos entitled “instant karma”. There is a song by Lennon and Ono. People enjoy watching comeuppance. As a loose concept karma is held by many. But it is not as simple as prompt and obvious payback.  Enjoying people getting comeuppance is not in itself wise or pleasant.

It is my observation that karma can be very subtle and by way of a complex conundrum which is difficult to solve.

An obvious hurdle or bar to solving some karmic “problems” is the notion of face. People might want to resolve a situation but the only way to do that is to maybe apologise and lose some “face”. Thus, the problem never gets solved and it acts like a burr under the skin. It does not go away. Prompt action eases situations quickly, putting things off makes them worse. Boris Johnson struggled to admit he was wrong in Partygate because his sense of entitlement had it that rules did not apply to him the world king, they were for little people. Truss still refuses to accept she caused the markets to plummet. “Face” can exact a high price. And that price may come in the twilight of a life. Payment is due and with interest. Her political relevance wanes.

It is my thesis that much karma ripens and bears fruit near end of days. Challenges put off due to inconvenience re-appear just when one no longer has as much faculty to solve or face them.

In my experience karma has a lot to with attitude. Hoity toity and arrogant people can be knelt by the universe, taught a lesson of humility. To suggest to an arrogant person that this might happen is a thankless task and unlikely to succeed at first, it might sow a seed, however.

Those who believe they are able to act with impunity are the most likely not to believe in karma nor accept that they are responsible for the consequences of their actions. An example in case is the migrations from Iraq and Afghanistan. We caused this by invasion and destruction yet are unwilling to accept the consequence of immigration. We moan and complain and demand that it stops. We fail to acknowledge the lesson and are likely to repeat the same folly as a result.

 Karma can take many cycles to teach.

A typical karmic conundrum may involve wanting to resolve a situation but being unwilling to take the necessary risks or appropriate steps. In some cases, those steps which once were possible and facile have become very difficult. The longer resolution has been delayed the harder it becomes. The “problem” has grown, spread or bifurcated.

The poor attitude has acted as a growth factor for the problem. What was once simple has become highly complex and entangled. Escapism, avoidance and denial have fertilized the karma.

The saying, “what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive”, is a statement of karma. With an inevitability one lie requires more to prop it up. An early stage fess-up prevents a massive web of lies, metastasising.

If is the word which most stops karmic resolution. People want to put conditions on their actions and keep apparent control. By trying to control a situation and not resolve it one can make it a lot worse. This seldom occurs to some. They can be very adamant and stubborn.

“If I do that what is in it for me?”

Is a mindset which negates the law of karma.  

Accepting responsibility for one’s actions and how they ripple out into the trajectories of the wider world is not something that most people do. Being me or egocentric they fail to appreciate the wider connectivity.

Karma ultimately teaches that we are all connected in the same world.  We are a part and not as separate as we might insist or imagine.

At the moment global karma is being initiated in the middle east violence. What will the longer term effects be? Will they be widespread or localised?

Do you believe in karma?

Place your bets…spin the wheel…

Visions or Visual Hallucinations?

If I understand it correctly the phenomena of visions plays a role in many religions. Things can be revealed by beings such as angels. Those prone to visions have been prone contextually to dreaming too.  

My general understanding is that angels are rare and play only a very important pivotal role in the religious context. They do not appear to common or garden people despite what many a new age book suggests. Helping you find the man of your dreams is probably not high on their to do list.

{I am generalising widely}.

Yet seeing something that others do not is classed as a hallucination, which can be a symptom of psychosis. Many of the figures in religious history might be diagnosed as having an episode of psychosis today.  They could be locked up and given anti-psychotic medicine.

In indigenous cultures going on a “Vision Quest” might be seen as a rite of passage. Isolated from the day to day and the tribe an individual seeks a vision of the future and his purpose. Visions can be had in caves, on high mountains. Usually, one has to step away from the mundane noise of life, maybe ease off the food.

I have participated in shamanic drumming and gone on a mini-vision quest. I can also use £250,000 femtosecond pulsed optical parametric amplifiers. It is possible that I am unique in this, there may be others. In non-linear optics world it is probably best not to talk about shamanic vision quests it could have a detrimental impact on promotion and employment prospects. So, many may have kept schtum like me.

It could be argued that I have relatively pure Welsh indigenous blood from the matrilinear line based in deepest darkest Snowdonia. As an indigenous it is not so weird for me to do indigenous things.

Anyway, I have had a number of visions over the years including when I lived in Brixton and was an academic. Needless to say, I told no colleagues nor a GP. This primarily because I always knew that I was having a vision/hallucination and was aware of my physical plane surroundings in day-to-day world at the same time. They did not overly impinge, nor were any of them frightening. If you speak to a medic about this kind of thing you could be opening a Pandora’s box and be exposed to pet theories and the latest pharma sponsored medication.

My working hypothesis concerning many of these visions is that most fall in the category of past-life recall. Some might think me whacko or that I have delusions of grandeur. People can have very closed minds.

Back in the mid seventies I used to travel by airplane from Zambia to school in Gloucestershire. There were six flights a year and by the age of 13, in the 1970s, I had 150,000 air miles. I am guilty about my childhood carbon footprint 😉. On occasion there would be a fuel stop at Malta. Each time I landed there I had a massive déjà-vu. Without knowing why, I knew that I had been there before.

This morning around 6 AM I was not sleeping so I started to do a meditation. For whatever reason, I was having difficulty and I started to have a relaxed enjoyable vision of myself in a cowled cloak and chain mail. The setting of the vision was around 800 years ago. I was aware of the vision and the bedroom. I could hear the wife breathing.

Why this is happening now I don’t know. It did point me back to a vision I had in 2003.

The vision last night may refer to “the knights of Malta”, a term used in Brittany for both Templars and the Hospitaliers, Ordre de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem.

I have had many visions associated with this putative life, a French one.

Nearby there is a hospitalier commanderie whose records do not go back past 1313 when the goods of the Templars were ceded to them.

There was also relatively nearby a Templar commanderie and the relics of a small church. The look of which is not far from one I saw in another vision.


What would you do?

Would you tell your general practice GP doctor?

Would you tell your line manager at work?

Would you imagine yourself off your trolley?

Or would you think that the sanest hypothesis was past life recall?


I am quite looking forward to seeing what may or may not happen over the next day or so…


The Four Stages of Awakening

Some speculations and developing a train of thought….


This excerpted from Wikipedia

“The ordinary person

An ordinary person or puthujjana (Pali; Sanskrit: pṛthagjana; i.e. pritha: without, and jnana: knowledge) is trapped in the endless cycling of samsara. One is reborn, lives, and dies in endless rebirths, either as a deva, human, animal, male, female, neuter, ghost, asura, hell being, or various other entities on different categories of existence.

An ordinary entity has never seen and experienced the ultimate truth of Dharma and therefore has no way of finding an end to the predicament. It is only when suffering becomes acute, or seemingly unending, that an entity looks for a “solution” to and, persisting, finds the Dharma (the ultimate solution/truth).

The four stages of awakening in Early Buddhism and Theravada are four progressive stages culminating in full awakening (Bodhi) as an Arahant.

These four stages are Sotāpanna (stream-enterer), Sakadāgāmi (once-returner), Anāgāmi (non-returner), and Arahant (conqueror). The oldest Buddhist texts portray the Buddha as referring to people who are at one of these four stages as noble people (ariya-puggala) and the community of such persons as the noble sangha (ariya-sangha).

A stream-enterer, having abandoned the first three fetters, is guaranteed enlightenment within seven lifetimes, in the human or heavenly realms.

Sole dominion over the earth,
going to heaven,
lordship over all worlds:
the fruit of stream-entry
excels them.

Pratyekabuddhayāna is a Buddhist term for the mode or vehicle of enlightenment of a pratyekabuddha or paccekabuddha (Sanskrit and Pali respectively), a term which literally means “solitary buddha” or “a buddha on their own” (prati- each, eka-one). The pratyekabuddha is an individual who independently achieves liberation without the aid of teachers or guides and without teaching others to do the same. Pratyekabuddhas may give moral teachings but do not bring others to enlightenment. They leave no sangha (i.e. community) as a legacy to carry on the Dhamma (e.g. Buddha’s teachings).”

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There are some elements of Buddhism which I struggle with. This stems from the notion of evolution, a planetary principle. Things change and generally get more efficient adapting to the times and circumstances. Therefore, to my eyes it is very unlikely that a “human” would reincarnate as an animal. If the being had progressed from monkey to human, it would not make a retrograde step even as karmic punishment. The being, a human, reincarnating, would need a human form. There are plenty of human forms in which life is difficult, so there is no need to invoke life as a dog.

Bearing in mind that the origins of Buddhism are ~2500 years old, humanity was very different back then. Life was different and complex abstract thought very uncommon. The majority were illiterate and living in a manner not so very different from their livestock. Life was generally short and hard. Animism as a basis for interpreting world was using the available daily template, a reality encountered on a day to day basis. The teaching metaphor and allegory available to Siddartha would reflect daily life, belief and superstition.

I am not a member of any mundane Sangha and do not go to “teachings”. I am a trained academic researcher and have read widely on Buddhism. It seems to me there remains debate about what the various teachings mean. I am aware that discussion and/or arguing the toss is not the same as attainment. Being attached to wanting to be right or winning an argument does not seem enlightened to me, it seems petty.

People like definitions, especially those educated in modern ways. People might then discuss what an arahant is and profess on the subject. It is human nature. I’ll speculate that most people pertaining to being Buddhist have never nor will they ever meet one. The arahants can be seen aloof and uncaring.

A cornerstone of Buddhism is taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the sangha. Some schools of Buddhism subscribe to the Bodhisattva ideal. A Bodhisattva roughly means one who will {one day} become a Buddha. They can be “beginners” or be very highly realised. These realised Bodhisattvas put off their own nirvana in order to come back to teach. They can put if off for multiple lifetimes. There is entreaty and prayer begging them, so to do. There is a prejudice perhaps in that they are more compassionate than an Arahant who pisses off, but too much compassion can be a weakness.

If we see evolution as a ladder, if you are on the top step, you need to vacate it so that someone else can use it.

There is perhaps a prejudice against pratyekabuddhas in that they do not need a sangha or teachers nor do they have a sangha of their own.

Implicit is that people seek and need teachers or guides. The student can thereby hand his/her power over to a guru or teacher. In so doing the responsibility for development is shunned to an extent. The teacher becomes partially responsible for progress.  

Those in a sangha do not “like” those not in a sangha. The human “we” does not like the rejection of the outsider “they”.  They are not a part of the/our gang. I have seen pratyekabuddhas talked down as lesser Buddhas. A little thought suggests that THE Buddha was pratyekabuddha. The sangha came later. This snobbishness is logically unwarranted.

If you boil it down the fetters are simply human foibles, without which there would be no television soap operas. Getting rid of anger, envy, hatred and jealousy. Lessening attachment, ambition and pride makes for a less exciting and emotional script. One could say that the core direction of Buddhist development is a reduction in human folly, even a tendency to be less “human”. In the limit one no longer wants to partake of the drama and simply stops coming back, stops taking on more meat. Someone like that would be weird to society and not readily integrated therein. If they wore robes it might be easier for society to accept them.

The sangha is a stepping stone offering camaraderie as one lessens engagement with the socio-political world view prevalent at the time of a life. The sangha is kind of like a crutch or support mechanism for those ordained monastic.

I personally have doubts that monasticism is altogether good. The temptation is to an extent removed. It is easier to remain calm and detached when removed from the mundane “lunacy”. Celibacy can cause deviance; suppression can cause explosion.

The basic requirement to enter the stream is to see and acknowledge the truth of the Dharma, the impermanence of all conditioned things. Attaining and realising impermanence starts to untie attachment. “They” say that there is a maximum of seven lifetimes before nirvana once the stream has been entered.

The sixteen close disciples of Buddha are given arahant “status”. They are almost deified and their intervention sought via prayer. There are statues, painting and thangkas.

If they came to Siddartha as a fresh disciple when the Dharma was in infancy it seems to me that to go from zero to hero in such a short time and achieve arahant in one lifetime was some pretty fast work. Religious hagiography is often exaggerated and idealised. One could say through the power of the Buddha evolution was vastly accelerated.

There was no stream until Siddartha, in this context.

If I use the dreams in the blog as a basis I have had three Buddhist lifetimes, one Indian, one Thai and one Japanese. In all of these I was monastic. The next lifetime was as a Christian priest / soldier. The most recent prior lifetime I was a civilian. This current life started with science, a lot of it.

I have reason to believe that my first Buddhist life was at the dawn of Buddhism ~2500 years ago. If I entered the stream then I am now five lifetimes on. Which means I may not be doing an Arnie many more times.

Of course, the only way that I will know for sure is to pop my clogs and see what happens.

I’ll speculate that the human love of ritual and ceremony has lead to quasi-deification. The social need of groups is for some kind of celebratory focus or rite. This has little to do with what I understand to be the core teachings. In some texts removal or ritual is at a later stage of the enlightenment journey. It serves a good social purpose but must be transcended, being attached to ritual is an attachment after all.

My hunch is that the days of guru-yoga are drawing to a close. There have been many scandals and some far out cults.

Humanity might need to do more for and by itself.  

Boulanger – Dawn – Harbour – Naked – Trinity or Triquetra – investigation Dream 26-09-24

On a restless night a few days after high does Prednisolone.

The dream starts in a village in France. The village is on a hill and I am with an Asian Indian man. We are looking to buy some bread. We try one boulanger and it is closed, we try another. It is also closed. We run down the street to a third and it too is closed. The man is upset that all the bakers are closed.  I note a corner shop which is open and go in. In the back room there is a small rack of bread. I select a roughly triangular loaf. I note some bottles. I select a clear see through, as opposed to green, bottle of Sprite. I go to the till to pay.

The woman won’t accept payment. In English she says that she has been given a budget to pay for bread because the bakers are closed. She says that she will put my food, my lunch on her card.

The scene changes and it is the next day around dawn. I am only wearing a white duvet which is secured around me with a wide royal blue plastic belt. The belt trails behind. I am at a hewn out Mediterranean port.  The stone is sandstone and there is warmth in the air. I see a truly magnificent pale yellow dawn on the soft blue sky. It is so bright I turn away. I turn back it is so yellow, radiant pastel. This repeats several times.

Across the harbour I can see some boys and teenagers chasing fish in the water. They are shouting to scare the fish. I get into the water naked to intercept the fish. The fish change direction and swim back towards the boys. Several flying fish launch themselves out of the warm water and fly off.

I head up into the village naked. I go into a village meeting clothed. There is a bingo like game going on in which audience members are drawn out of a hat. The last two drawn are winners. Twice a young man called Mark and I win. He is a student. Another draw is made and he and I win for a third time. I ask him what he does. He says that he is an actor and is currently playing a murder victim in a play.

He ushers me to follow him. We go to a wood panelled room where he shows me various lengths of rope. He hands me a thick crimson red rope the thickness of my thumb. It is longer than me. It is inlaid with a single fine gold thread and tied into a trinity knot or Triquetra at its middle. The knot is comprised of exact circles. If one grabs the end of the rope and swings it the knot can be used as a whip. The feeling is that this is a Welsh as opposed to Irish version. He gives me the knot and says that I need to remount it in the church.

The feeling is of Brittany. I am in a brightly lit room which has a church like feel. I am trying to mount the rope on a leaded glass window. People are watching and commenting. The place is a shit tip, a huge mess and I am finding it hard to work. There are bits of window frame and hinges everywhere. I am up a ladder fixing the bright red rope to the top of the window. The sides of the rope will be attached to the horizontal lower part with a vertical piece dissecting the window in two.  The rope and the knot are special, relic like and mine.

As I am doing this M walks in and sits down. She is very much younger and now with blonde hair. In walks J. She too sits down and starts commenting on what I am doing. I tell her that I do not need her advice. I ask them what they are doing here in Brittany. M says that someone has begun investigating into my genealogy and family tree. The sense is that the investigation is official.

Dream ends..

Dream Recall as a Metaphor for Past-life Recall.

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Phowa is a tantric practice found in both Hinduism and Buddhism. It may be described as “transference of consciousness at the time of death”, “mind-stream transference”, “the practice of conscious dying”, or “enlightenment without meditation”. In Tibetan Buddhism phowa is one of the Six yogas of Naropa and also appears in many other lineages and systems of teaching.

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Tibetan Vajrayana Bon and Dzogchen inspired Buddhism is highly complex and rooted deep in tradition and lineage. It has an extensive death practice called Phowa in which one transfers consciousness, consciously, at the transition between corporeal and not. Timing is everything. Lamas and priests can enable others with ritual and there are publications like “The Tibetan Book of the Dead”. To an experimentalist like me these could be seen as recipes or syntheses to attempt in my body laboratory. One aspect is to hold a visual of pure white Amitabha Buddha for another being in transition.

A text might stimulate a memory recall of something done before.

It is common parlance to suggest memory from past lives. I’ll speculate that a lot of this is wishful thinking. Anecdotally many claim “famous” named prior incarnations. Ordinary people claim these. I’ll speculate that a non-ordinary or special being will incarnate in an even less ordinary vehicle next time around. There is a bit of dodgy logic with Joe Bloggs claiming Genghis Khan. Evolution is a planetary principle. Most people will have “normal” “humdrum” lives, over and over.

To develop a train of thought.

If the consciousness leaves the body by sudden jolt or force or with the mental incapacity of age it is unlikely to remember the former abode. With jolt comes trauma which might overarch any memory.  To have sufficient control of mind to consciously withdraw requires a considerable degree of realisation and attainment, which is likely to be rare. Such beings able to exit smoothly and under control are more likely to retain memories of previous lives. They are lucid in the act of death, aware of event and conscious therein. They may have practised this across several lifetimes. They practise lucid dying.  So, if they set their intent on remembering a life learning, they do. Just as one learns to remember and recall dreams. Dream recall is a skill which can be developed. Metaphorically life recall may also be a skill which can be honed.

In this train of thought only the more highly skilled and practiced will have any decent recall. It is likely that they may be able to recall many lives. There will be a first time recall of life.

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From Wikipedia

Enumerations of special knowledges

In the Pali Canon, the higher knowledges are often enumerated in a group of six or of three types of knowledge.

The six types of higher knowledges (chalabhiññā) are:

  • “Higher powers” (iddhi-vidhā), such as walking on water and through walls.
  • “Divine ear” (dibba-sota), that is, clairaudience.
  • “Mind-penetrating knowledge” (ceto-pariya-ñāṇa), that is, telepathy.
  • “Remember one’s former abodes” (pubbe-nivāsanussati), causal memory, that is, recalling one’s own past lives.
  • “Divine eye” (dibba-cakkhu), that is, knowing others’ karmic destinations; and,
  • “Extinction of mental intoxicants” (āsavakkhaya), upon which arahantship follows.

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This suggests that past life recall is not a beginner’s skill.

To extend the metaphor just as one learns to remember and recall dreams night after night one starts to recall former abodes. The knowledge from which advises on karmic effort needed. In order to better recall one needs to die lucidly just as one needs to be lucid and aware of the enactment of the dreaming state of consciousness.

Each life is a new dream for the dreamer.

In the logic of reincarnation lucid dream recall is a metaphor for the putative recall of past life memories. It is internally consistent. The degree of lucidity and extent and detail of recall must vary.

If you start to remember your dreams better you might re-member previous lives.

Five Dreams With “Calligraphy” In…

Sanskrit-Senzar- Messenger Dream 26th May 2014

I am standing in a column of light which is shining down on me. It comes from above. As the light shines on me it etches into my skin black tattoos, these form on my arms, my legs, my chest and my back. They are letters, words and phrases in Sanskrit and Senzar. The letters are in a black ink and cover pretty much my entire body much like the Bulletproof Monk. I carry these letters.

Next, I am in a city landscape and everyone is going to a party at city hall. There is a concert on there and people are gathering. There is an ensemble playing, it is like the Academy of Ancient Music and the instruments are all original period pieces. They are up on stage. On the ground floor and in a “box” is Princess Anne.

By this time, I have told people about the tattoos and nobody believes me. There has been some press interest but the men with their 1950’s style newshound flash cameras have lost interest. This is because there is nothing to see. The party continues on undisturbed.

I now find myself in a department store which is old style. I am curled up on the floor near a counter wearing a grey long sleeved shirt. The shop people find me there and nudge me to get up. I get up and as I do so the sleeves of my shirt fall back to reveal a list of tattoos in Sanskrit, Senzar and Chinese. These are now in very vivid royal blue and the calligraphy is exquisite, it is almost moving and definitely alive and vivacious.

The store staff are all bewildered by this and take me to a back office. In the foyer to this back office are two small Tibeto-Chinese figures. They are dressed in ceremonial costumes and approach me. They are dwarves and twins. I show them my forearms and they recognize the Sanskrit and Chinese characters; they guess that the others must be Senzar. The tattoos are now moving like a “stock ticker” scrolling across my arms. The dwarves are awestruck.

Whilst I am waiting for the store staff, I get bored and so leave the store, into a busy “New York” city street. It is raining heavily and my shirt gets wet through. It is clinging to me. I am wandering through the city in the rain with these vivid mobile, deep royal blue tattoos being the only coloured thing in a grey and black and white-grey world.

In the dream I know that I am carrying messages. I am by way of a messenger.

Later people gather around me and I show them my forearms. People now start to believe what I have told them before and all are astounded by the tattoos. I show church leaders and statesman. They are all stunned.

IIn the city the younger people are setting up to go to a house party. It is the usual thing and people are gathering to go to someone’s house. They are all too busy with partying. They do not realize that the “party” is at my house.

I am now on a roof and there is a stack of old billboard type advertisements. There are several of us and we are sorting them. There is one which reads Toltec 7-14 which we find and as we do this one of the phrases in Senzar lights up on my arm. It says “Toltec 7-14 New Book” in Senzar. I know its meaning. I know it is both a date and has the meaning of dreaming symbols {7= guidance and 14 = new knowledge}.

I awake with very strong sensations on and in my forearms and chest. These are very similar to when I had the visions of myself in Buddhist monks robes and tattoos in Sanskrit of inter alia “Om Mane Padme Hum” nearly a decade ago. I can feel the place where the dream tattoos were, particularly on my forearms.

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Megatron – Magic Dream 19-12-22

It was a dark and stormy night I had woken at 4:30 and listened to the storm. At one point I heard a persistent high pitched whine in my left ear only. It lasted more than ten seconds. I must have drifted off to sleep around 7 AM and according to the wife I was kicking about.

The dream is set in Australia. I arrive at a dockland area. There are two vast cranes which are stacked with cars like car transporters. They are lifting these up into the sky. I, slightly nervously, walk under them and into a space below a spacious bridge. There is a gathering of people there sat on the floor. There are mostly young and I understand it to be a science outreach event called the Megatron. Z and Y are there. I sit down outside the gathering proper and listen in.

Z, seated on the floor, is boasting about all the other events they have done including one in the prestigious Sydney docks, they managed to close off some famous street. He is telling the participants that they should count themselves lucky to be here and that all the others are zeros. I get up and walk over to him and clip him on the head. He drops a white glass plate which he is holding and it breaks when it hits the ground. I say that he is setting a very bad example telling the youngsters that other people are zeros. He gets up nervously and I make as if to clip him again. He avoids and I chase him slowly around the listening circle. Every time I feign to clip him, he cowers and avoids. I turn my back on him and walk to the bridge wall. There I pick up my cigarettes, my mobile ‘phone and my fishing rod. I know that he does not understand the true meaning of zero. I walk off and they are all surprised that I am leaving the event.

I walk towards a town centre. As I do this, I smoke a cigarette. I put the packet and my ‘phone in my back right hand pocket. The sensation of smoking in the dream is very realistic. After I finish smoking, I transfer my green fishing rod to my right hand.

As I am walking along the street, I notice a little boutique selling artefacts, these are pieces of tree branch decorated with mother of pearl and other seashells. Some of them function as windmills. They are very shiny and sparkly. A woman who runs the shop notices me looking at the shells and artefacts. I comment that they are highly unusual are very attractive. She says that there are more upstairs and would I like to come in. I put my fishing rod to lean against a wall. I follow her up a very tight spiral staircase carved out of an orange-brown wood. We arrive at a landing and there is a two door thigh high swing gate fashioned out of the same wood. She lifts up the latch and ushers me in. She closes the door behind me.

We go deeper into the building.  A young woman with dark hair arrives. This is my daughter Helen says the older woman. I say hello and she replies.

“Helen is trying to go to the Megatron and has applied. They have asked her to do a montage as an application. Would you look at it for us?”

“Sure”

Helen hands me her montage which is between two cardboard covers of an intense dark brown colour. There are many laves of paper. Her pictures and calligraphy are exquisite. Some of it written in a metallic gold ink, which is gold in colour but not of gold.

I am very impressed with what she has put together. I ask to see the letter outlining the task.

This letter is handwritten on dark purple paper. And sure enough the instructions are there. They look to have been written in two different hands. One by a woman and the last paragraph by a man.

I show this to the woman who at first disagrees and then agrees. The writing again is in a sloping italic “metallic” ink.

As this point a large semi-bald man comes through the wooden gate. He is wearing a brown camel hair coat and is larger than life in his presence. He comes over to me and shakes my hand. He is the father of Helen.

My eye is drawn to a farmyard scene make out of porcelain statues. There are deer, two piglets, a dog and a cow. As soon as he finished shaking my hand the scene animates and comes to life. I know it is magic. Two deer come over to greet the man and I offer them the back of my hand to smell, which they do. The piglets start squealing and running all over the place. They run over my feet. Everybody now has sparkly eyes.

The man asks If Helen’s application is good. I say to her that it is very good but not to tell them about her magic animals. 

The man asks If I will be at the Megatron. I say no and that now I am staying at Alice {Springs}.

He asks if I am going back there tonight.

“Yes.”

“Are you flying?”

“I will get there.”

I wish Helen luck and then go to leave.

The man says to be careful with the gate otherwise the piglets will escape.

I go out through the gate, closing it behind me. I go downstairs, pick up my fishing rod and walk out into the normal city street.

I am aware that this dream pertains to a tarot card.

Dream ends

From Wikipedia:

Megatron is a fictional character and the main antagonist of the Transformers media franchise produced by American toy company Hasbro and Japanese toy company Takara Tomy. Megatron is the cruel and tyrannical leader of the Decepticons, a faction of sentient, war-mongering robotic lifeforms that seeks to conquer their home planet of Cybertron and the rest of the known universe. He serves as the archenemy of Optimus Prime, the leader of the rival Autobot faction. As with all Cybertronians, Megatron has the ability to transform between his robot form and various vehicles or weapons. His alternate modes have ranged from a Walther P38 handgun, a particle-beam weapon, a telescopic laser cannon, and a Cybertronian jet, depending on which continuity he is depicted in.

Megatron’s most consistent origin portrays him as having risen up from being an oppressed worker to a gladiatorial champion who took the legendary name of one of the original Thirteen Primes—Megatronus—as his own. He shortened his name when he became a political revolutionary who attempted to reform Cybertron’s corrupt governing body and called for an end to its decrepit caste system. As the mentor of the young Orion Pax, Megatron preached that freedom of self-determination was the right of all sentient beings. When Megatron grew corrupted by his power, Orion would utilize his teachings against him as Optimus Prime. In most incarnations, Megatron would eventually meet his demise at Optimus’ hands, only to later be resurrected as Galvatron.”

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Magic Fayre Dream 8-1-23

This is an extensive dreaming sequence whereby I woke up and then went back to sleep, re-entering the same dream.

I arrive at a middle size country mansion constructed in red bricks. There is a temporary car park roped of at a distance to the mansion and signage saying “Magic Fayre” pointing along the drive towards the mansion. The gardens are immaculate and it is a fine summer’s day. Many of the people are dressed for an English country garden party. I walk along to the entrance and wait in line.

When it is my turn to enter the gentleman on the door gives me a red plastic circular token with the number 16 printed upon it in raised yellow lettering. He says that I am getting a kind of VIP pass. All the other guests have pale yellow tokens with numbers starting at 200.

I go in and there are various exhibition style booths. At the first one there are two young women. Their stand is called “Modern Witchcraft”. On the stand there are examples of handicrafts and immaculate calligraphy. The two women are dressed in very smart stylish outfits without a trace of goth. They tell me that they are white witches and want to bring witchcraft into the 21st century. They are tired of the skanky image of witches and want to smarten it up. They say that the lost of art of spell calligraphy needs to be reborn and brought up to an impeccable level. I comment that I fully support what they are doing, the image needs to change. They beam with joy.

On the next stand there is a woman with long dark hair selling exotic candles of all shapes and sizes. Several of them are alight and the aroma is spiced and not unpleasant and manufactured like that of Yankee candles. It seems the woman has manged to make candles smell like exotic incense. I take the thumb and forefinger of my right hand and extinguish one candle between them. I am left with a light blue drop of oily liquid on my thumb. The drop is perfectly shaped. The woman claps her hands and says, “bravo”. She asks me to manually pleasure her which I do quietly beneath her table. She is wearing brown bikini bottoms which I push to one side.

I decide that I need to go back outside. There are a few people sat on the large stones which demarcate the drive. I find an empty one and take out an herbal marijuana joint which I spark up. A1 a man arrives and looks surprised to see me doing this. We chat briefly. The organiser of the event wearing a trilby and a beige suit comes over. He says that smoking weed is not allowed. I apologise. He says that I owe him a “sitting” in the basement if I can hack it. I agree to try.

I go back int the building and arrive at some demonstration area. There is a large head in a glass tank. The head is very much alive and the fluid which surrounds it is pulsating. He asks me to sit down on a chair at a distance from him and we tune into each other a little. Then he sends various articles towards me using telekinesis. The idea is that I must catch the objects with my hands. I manage to catch about 80% of the things he sends at me. The ones that I drop are all made of plastic. He notes this and thinks it funny that I cannot feel the plastic, whereas glass, metal and wood are easy for me to “pick up”. He is really happy and a sparkle appears in his one eye which is facing me.

He says to me in a booming telepathic voice, “you need to work with groups.”

I move on to the stairs and down into the basement. There is a well-lit library there with light wooden shelving and several librarians there. I know this library to be a library of white magic. I ask one of the librarians where to go for my “sitting”. She motions me to an armoured door in the corner of the room, in which there is a small glass window. She asks me to please close the door behind me until the “sitting” is over.

I go over to the door open it and walk through. I get my bearings and I am in a whitewashed medieval style cellar. I go back to the door close it and sit cross legged in the middle of the room. It very dark and quiet. The only light comes from the small window in the door. I start to meditate and close my eyes sinking in the darkness. Slowly a glowing rod of light appears. It is about 30cm long and less than 1cm wide. It is slowly alternating from white through pink to red and through pink back to white. I know that I cannot pick it up with my hands. So, I elevate it and bring it within my Anja centre. I absorb it and understand that I now have to radiate it out into the room. I do this for a fair time radiating a pinkish light into the otherwise dark cellar. I am aware that the librarian can see the pulsing glow. When I leave the room, the librarians are smiling I have fulfilled my task.

I come to

Next, I am outside the mansion again it is later towards the end of the afternoon. I am outside with A2 also a man.  We are standing near a rucksack on the floor. He says that he is changing his ways and is going to participate in a practise called Yeshe*-lam. I ask his if him if he knows what Yeshe means. He admits that he does not. I keep quiet. For some reason he is trying to impress me.

We go into the Magic Fayre. Several of the stands are closing up. At the back there is a table with three men in business suits going over some paperwork. I go over to ask them what they are doing. One of them says that they work for Samsung who have sponsored the event. I see that he has some accounts and joke that he should hide them from A2 who is an accountant. He plays as if to hide them. He asks me what I thought of the event. I say that it was well run, meticulously organised and very good. He comments that he is pleased that their investment has worked.

He says that he is going to work with lama Yeshe. I ask him how long he has been working with Tibetan Buddhism and the Bardo teachings. He comments intermittently. He takes one third of the year sabbatical to do this. He cannot work full on for Samsung and do Bardo at the same time, they do not mix well.

We go back outside to the ruck sack. Out of the corner of my eye I see two giant figures, one a mediaeval king {with crown} and the other some kind of knight they are over five metres tall and the same height as a big water tower. The king is fighting with the knight and is trying to kill him with a sword. They fall over knocking the tower to the ground. I motion to A2 to come with me into a stone built folly. Which he does.

Soon a number of larger figures come into the property. They start to fire arrows at us but I can deflect them with my mind.

I come to.

Next, I am outside my flat in North London. I know it is a bit of a mess. I open the door and on the floor in the corner of the room is sat an Indian “guru” in saffron robes and with long flowing grey hair. He smiles. I apologise for the mess. He says that it is of no import.

A2 turns up and says that he is hungry. I say that I have no food but that there are plenty of restaurants, nearby. I reel off the types of restaurant and we decide to go to a fish restaurant nearby. I say to the “guru” we will be back soon.

After we have eaten, I leave A2 at the restaurant and head back to the flat. When I open the door there is another “Indian” man sat on the floor meditating he is dressed in a 1950’s style suite with a black Muslim cap. He feels serene.

I come to.

I do drift back off but I can’t recall accurately what happens.

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*Yeshe (Tibetan: ཡེ་ཤེས་, Wylie: ye-shes, ZYPY: Yêxê) is a Tibetan term meaning wisdom and is analogous to jnana in Sanskrit.

The memory of this was prompted by one of the checkout ladies at the supermarket who has large witchy tattoos. There are quite a few women with tattoos like that around here.

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Tibetan Buddhist Search Committee Dream 29-04-23.

This dream was so out of the blue, unexpected.

The dream starts in the UK in England. I am hosting a personal development course in a country house with a large events room. We are sat in plenary in U-shape around the side of the high ceiling dance hall. It is ornate but now carpeted. A smartly dressed tall woman with a feint American accent and long blonde hair is speaking on a slightly raised wooden dais. She is using a long wooden pointer to point at a presentation she is making, which is running on a white screen.

It is time for a break before the final closing remarks and conference wrap up.

Everyone gets up for refreshments which are served in the antechamber. I walk through this into the back of the house which turns into a smaller building. This is where I have been living in the UK countryside. There is a wooden shed and outbuildings. I am checking on the content of these as we will be moving soon. Someone has started moving the items of furniture. I say to a woman there that she ought to have known better not to disturb my system. There is a symmetry to how I have fitted things in the shed. They only go in one way and must come out the reverse way. The passage to the shed is narrow and there is only one way to do this. I am slightly angry and the people are sheepish.

I return to the conference and it is over. Everyone has left, they are all people from my past in one sense. I have missed my chance to do the summing up and to thank the speaker. They have mostly left in embarrassment. The sense of embarrassment is strong and clear.

The speaker is now playing a video recording of semi-rural Tibet. The camera is running through the streets and I can see a large white and brown temple up on the hill. There are prayer flags and modern Tibetan people together with some more rustic “peasants”. I look at the woman and she has changed into an embroidered gold and red jacket over her novice nun robes. He hair is now short. I ask her about the video she says that it is of her people and that she has been working for them in making my acquaintance.

At this point a small party of people enter the room. They are all dressed in ceremonial Tibetan robes. These are very opulent. The embroidery is yellow, red, magenta, and saffron. It is ornate and slightly garish. There is a scent of incense accompanying them They are headed by a monk/abbot who is old and his right hand man who has jet black hair.  In the entourage there is a western woman with a round yellow-red embroidered cap over her bald head. I recognise her as someone whom I have met in this lifetime. I go up to her and say, “I know you”. She winks, smiles and says that yes, I do and that she had been sent to observe me. Amongst them is a tall athletic Tibetan man who moves with grace, poise and style. I point my finger into his chest. I say to him, “you are warrior and fighter.” He laughs and says yes. We can spar later using traditional Tibetan weapons to see what I remember.

Now into the back of the room furniture is being carried in by hand. I know it to be of a ceremonial nature and his has been carried from afar. My eyes are drawn to a very ornate chest with meticulous cabinet work. It is made in the shape of a Welsh dresser with an upper cupboard. The wood is highly polished, perhaps walnut. The detail of the closures is in gold.  It is a treasure and contained within it are relics. Although not visible to the naked eye, inscribed into the wood in “magic” lettering are some words in Tibetan script. The calligraphy is excellent and the downward strokes of the letters are longer and more artistic than is customary. They have been inscribed with flourish. There is a sense that the intense black calligraphy has been “burned” into the wood over the centuries and that only certain people can see it.

The carpet on the floor of the hall has been rolled back to reveal a parquet dance floor of some considerable sheen. Amongst the entourage I can hear gossiping. “It cannot be him; he is too coarse thickset and muscular.”

I hear this and whip off my shirt to reveal my muscular bare chest. I say that I will cooperate with whatever it is they must do. Take a look if you must. I am now wearing saffron yellow trousers, training pants, that are “elasticated” at the ankles. I start to do a forward splits on the floor to warm up. I say that given I am nearly sixty I am surprised that being that old I can still do that.

One of the woman in the entourage says to me that I am much older than that both in this lifetime and stretching way back. I am nearly 73 she says. I do the mental calculation that I must have been “born” in the early 1950s. She says, “we tried to wake you five years ago”. You have been “asleep” and we have been waiting.

I briefly wake up and then drift off.

I am at an oriental Temple scene with ponds and in an immaculate garden. At first pass I think Chinese and then know Japanese. There are people there with round black ceremonial hats and flowing Japanese robes. I am poured into the pond as very large and bright, shiny goldfish. I swim in the Temple ponds and in the dream, I know that my second Buddhist life was Japanese. These ponds are my home, where I swim.

I the return to the hall in the previous part of the dream and the warrior comes into the room carrying some odd looking Tibetan martial arts weapons. Which I recognise. Some of the monks are now seated and are reciting mantra whilst thumbing through their prayer beads.

I have a very strong visual image of two yellow-hat Tibetan monks in full colour sat on a rock up in the mountains playing their long Tibetan alpine horns. That image and the sound persists even now. I can “hear” the horns inside my mind. They are precursors to a ritual, setting the scene.

 I get up and greet the cat. I take my medication and put the coffee on. I sit down and start typing.

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Two Mysterious Letters Dream 29-8-23.

I had this dream full of portent around 5 AM this morning.

I go into a brightly lit bedroom which is empty. At the far side of the room there is something on the wall. The walls are off white in colour and have a French feel. I can see just below head height, two small envelopes pinned to the wall by a long fine pin with a small black plastic spherical head. The envelopes are old school letter envelopes about the size of my hand. One envelope is mostly behind the other. They are white and of high quality.

On the front envelope is written is a very curly and fine light blue italic ink the words “Happy Families”. I know instantly that this is ironic. The calligraphy is exquisite and I know that these letters contain secrets in the act of being revealed to me. I leave the letters attached to the wall until the time is right.

I instantly have a knowing that my mother was in contact with my ex-wife unbeknownst to me and deliberately behind my back, in secret.

There is a sense of time in that these revelations of two different types will unfold henceforth.

I awake for a loo break and then go back to the dream.

I wonder if they are anything to do with Mrs Taraud {Tarot} from whom we bought the house. I energetically check the bedroom we are currently in and the one which used to be her bedroom. There is no trace of envelope in either room.

I am now outside and in a sandstone wall I can see something red on the wall. I approach and it is two small keys on a keyring with a small plastic tag on a nail in the wall. The tag is about two inches long and one inch wide, it is bright red. The tag has a handwritten piece of white card. The writing is again in a light blue ink, is smudged and cannot be deciphered. I know that the keys are meant for me. They will help me unlock the secrets. I pick up the keys and put my finger through the small key ring and give the keys a twirl. They are light. I put the keys in my pocket.

As I leave that part of the dream, I note the double appearance of the number two and know that it pertains to something now destined to happen.

 A little later I am in a courtyard by an outdoor swimming pool. There is a puppy there of a very luxurious black colour. It comes over to me and bites my right hand in a firm manner which does not hurt. It will not let go. I place the fingers and thumb of my left hand around its jaw pressure point and squeeze. The puppy opens its mouth and lets go. It is having great fun and bounces about in the courtyard.

The dream ends.

Crazy Loony – Wrong end of the Stick Dream 13-09-2024

Here is the second of this morning’s dreams.

I am now talking with an unknown middle aged woman who tells me that everyone thinks that I am a crazy loony and an alcoholic.

I comment that this is so typical. People conclude without knowing anything about the situation. They don’t ask me. They don’t talk to me. They do not research or look into things. They jump to conclusions based upon their interpretation of how the world should be. Because of their prejudice they get entirely the wrong end of the stick. This has happened to me time and again. They have entirely the wrong end of the stick, again.

Dream ends

  • I have had other dreams along similar themes. Some people cannot accept that there are ways of living outside the norm and assimilations of world which differ significantly from theirs. In my experience the more intelligent a person is the more difficult they find accepting non-standard views and behaviours. They tend to be more critical and judgemental. They are unaware that they have the wrong end of the stick because in their omniscience that cannot be possible.

Shamballa – White Room – Buddhist Robes Dream 10-09-2024

This dream is at the “border” between dreaming and visualization and comes completely out of the blue. Yesterday morning I was talking with an investment manager of a venture fund whom I knew over thirty years ago at university. From high tech to Buddhism.

In the dream I arrive at the outer courtyard of a massive temple complex. It is situated in a commanding elevated position compared to the settlement in the valley below. To the South glistening in the sun, I can see a snow-covered mountain range. I assume these are Himalaya. I enter the temple complex which I know to be Shamballa. I am taken along a corridor to a room which I have never been to before. The room in contrast to the others is of a dazzling sparkling white and full of sunshine. There is a dais to one side also painted in brilliant white.

I am standing there in my black briefs. I say, “how come I have never seen this room before?” They say that I am now ready for it.

I am being dressed in the magenta and saffron-yellow vestments of a Tibetan style. The sense is that these robes are ceremonial. There are multiple layers, and I can feel the weight of them on my body. I can also feel the places on my forearms where I had the waking visions of “om mane padme hum” tattoos in Sanskrit around twenty years ago. I know somehow that it is winter. There is a sense that I am being prepared.

The chakras in my feet and hands are very energized.

I breakthrough into waking room consciousness and hear the wife breathing in bed next to me.

Can Dreams Comment on Waking “Realities”?

Of late I have had a number of dreams concerning people who are named and who could, with a little bit of on line detective work, be found and identified from the dream. I have a LinkedIn page with a CV. It would not be rocket science.

I have not published these dreams nor will I. I haven’t met these individuals in well over a decade and am not chuntering about them in my waking consciousness.  It feels were I to publish them I would be in an odd way infringing privacy.

Quite why they are tipping up in dreams I do not know for sure.

I have a pet theory / notion that these dreams refer to some kind of karma which has not been worked off or even worked on by the individuals concerned.

I am sitting here miles away just doing my hermit-garden thing and ta-da they crop up in my dreams. One could go all Germanic and say that my sub-conscious is leaking these through into my dreaming consciousness.

The feeling associated with these dreams is that something is kicking off for the subjects and in some bizarre way it pertains however weakly to their interactions with me, past and/or present.

I get no pleasure from seeing dark tendrils above the heads of people I once knew. It causes some concern.

People believe in karma as a figure of speech, some as a principle but few take it seriously enough not to do stuff which they want yet know to be off or wrong. They pay lip service to karma and when the karmic boomerang comes, they write it off as coincidence.

I have had numerous ginormous mess dreams pertaining largely to two groups of people. I interpret this as there being a huge karmic mess with unresolved challenges and unresolved situations. In these dreams it is clear that these messes are not of my making nor is it for me to clean them up.

I’ll wager if I told any of these individuals of this interpretation, they would deny there is a mess and not believe my interpretation of a karmic shit pile.

If karma is real and you don’t believe in it, then that is your karma and you will bear the karmic consequences. This is one version of a waking “reality”.

If there is no such thing as cause and effect, karma, then no worries. You can do whatever it is you want without consequence, pretty much.

I have had a number of dreams which corelate with subsequent life events. I am not saying they herald live events. They corelate. I am aware that the dream could cause a confirmation bias. I interpret events in the light of the dream; therefore, no correlation exists I am just wish fulfilling.

I am not a complete wanker nor space cadet. With a fair confidence on my part dreams, at least my dreams and those of the wife, can comment on contemporary and subsequent physical plane events.

This is in part because we share an Easterly predilection, primary for her and secondary for me. In one context we are stalkers of time.

I have a feeling that something is approaching, a big pivot point and that the pivot is timing with / to the equinox. That feeling is not to the day accurate in time. I made a prediction based on no physical plane evidence, simply intuition and dreams.

We shall see. If it does, I can refer back to this dated post.