The dream opens at the confluence of two rivers in mountainous terrain. The river beds are strewn with dark grey-black rock. The river levels are low as is the resultant river. It is clear that from time to time and in rainy season torrents flow. Around the rivers are dense rainforest like trees. I am on a “beach” to the side of one of the rivers. There is a sense of antiquity and of “ago”. I know that I am near a village which is on a major trade route into / across the mountains. It has been the scene of major battles.
I look down and can see that I am wearing only some saffron-yellow trousers. They are held up with a drawstring at the waist and the ankles are similarly tied. They are loose fitting. My head is freshly shaved and without hair. My body is Asian and early twenties. It has no body hair. I am of a slight yet muscular build. I have a tattoo of my left forearm which I cannot see. I am with an old man with white hair and wispy beard. He is dressed in cotton trousers and jackets. He is an elder.
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I am not of the village but have been assigned to it. There is an upcoming festival and I have been chosen to represent the village. Tribes will be coming down from the mountains for the festivities, which will be extensive over a number of days.
I point at a red rock on the shore. I say to the man that this could be ground up for face paint. {My mind interjects it is iron oxide}. He says yes and notes it. He will send one of the women back for it.
He has in his hand a cane upon which is a small pad. I am now supposed to kick the pad as he moves it. The type of kick is a roundhouse. He encourages me to swing the whole leg and not flex it at the knee. {My mind interjects that this not like a Japanese roundhouse mawashi-geri but more like a Muay Thai kick}. He moves the pad around getting me to kick low and high. He says that I must focus on the thigh kicks as these will deaden the legs of my opponents. He says that this is a key part of Muay Thai. He encourages me to kick low very hard and fast as we move around the beach. This “way” goes a long way back. He then gets me to work on a front stop kick which prevents the opponent from getting close. He says that I should tap into the warriors of old from this part of the mountains. The tribes coming down are savage and ruthless so I will have to be on my guard and at my best.
He says that although I am not of the village as the Buddhist priest, I should know its ways.
I have worked up a sweat. He suggests that I dunk myself in the river. Which I do.
The dream ends as we walk towards the village and I am amazed at how this body feels in comparison to the one in which I am sleeping.
Dream ends
* I note than in my waking dreams of me as a Buddhist priest I had a Sanskrit tattoo of “om mane padme hum” on forearms.
This is perhaps my Thai Buddhist lifetime, one of three putative Buddhist incarnations.
It feels like the 12th or 13th century. We are both on horseback, my companion and I. He is something like a batman to me. We are not wearing our usual uniform with the rose cross. We are simply adorned in chain mail and are carrying battle axes. Our swords are in scabbards around our belts. Under my mail I have a vestment which is a sacred relic. I explain to my companion that the best way to attack with a battle-axe is from slightly behind, one needs to manoeuvre the opposition to be in front by pulling back on the reigns of the horse.
We have to get the vestment over the border and into the protection of the bishopric. We are being pursued and our pursuers are gaining on us, but we are close to the border and the pursuers will not dare breech it. I decide that my companion needs to make a loud diversion whilst I slope off into the forest, there is a path known to me there which leads to a wall in which I can hide the vestment. My companion giddies up the horse and heads off into the distance making a lot of noise. I slip off the trail and into the wood quietly. Soon I pick up the path I know. I arrive at the clearing and by the wall I dismount. I am over the border and at the edge of the bishopric. I remove my mail and secrete the vestment in the wall. It is yellow and red and highly ornate. It is by way of a waistcoat to be worn over a priest’s robes. It is not mine, but it has been OK for me to carry it because I have been ordained.
As agreed, I rendezvous with my companion in the local town, and we go off to see the bishop there to acquire a guard of men and with which we will retrieve the garment. The setting feels like England, but it could well be Breton. It is green, verdant and pleasant.
When I awake this dream is very reminiscent of a lifetime two lifetimes ago.
Before I begin, I swear I had no magic mushrooms or any other hallucinogen before bedtime!
Here is last night’s dreaming sequence.
I am with a woman in some kind of chamber or cave. She is heavily pregnant. I lay her down on a fourfold mandala on the floor. The design is very similar to this Kālacakra or wheel of time mandala. I know that this is of the deepest and most profound tantra. I align the woman North South on the mandala. I know that I will recognise the mandala if I ever see it again. It is imprinted in my consciousness.
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A white European baby is born. It is pink-white and is surrounded by a glowing aura. There is no umbilical cord and yet it is called an umbilicus. The baby is pristine clean and radiant. It is naked and male.
Next a shiny obsidian black baby is born also with European features. It has an umbilical cord which I remove by hand. In neither birth are there any amniotic fluids or blood. The black obsidian baby is born wearing a nappy. It is also male. It is very shiny.
I know that the white baby does not need to be reborn. I know that the black umbilicus is tied to the wheel of rebirth because it has an umbilical cord.
One is good and the other is pure undistilled evil.
In the dream I know that I am a creature of the light and no longer bound to the wheelof rebirth.
I know that at first evil is always strongly attracted to good, this attraction fades. I know that good is not attracted to evil it is simply not that interested, not bothered or enticed.
The scene changes and I am walking in a park with the black and white babies in a side by side push chair. They make an odd couple. One radiant auric white and the other deepest obsidian.
I come too and then drift back off.
I see an ethereal white figure. It has a quasi-human form yet it has wing like structures. It is floating suspended in the air. On its back between the shoulder blades is a tiny insignia like this.
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In the dream I know that the figure is an angel and that it is an angel of light and not of dark.
The scene changes and I am in a tropical forest underneath truly giant leaves. The sounds of rainforest are all around. There are drops of water falling from the leaf and landing on my head. I can see a tiny transparent circle appear in the leaf. There is a tiny window of transparency in the deepest green through which the droplets trickle.
I walk out from under the leaf and climb a little incline. From there I can see a most exquisite bird of paradise which had been “pissing” on me. Though the piss was spring water and not urine. The bird has exquisite orange and pink plumage on its head. The body and wing feathers are of a light emerald green and the wings are tipped with turquoise blue. The bird is pleased to see me and I it. We both stand there for a long time enjoying each other’s company and the fecund sound of the tropical rainforest.
The scene changes and I can see a man sat at a desk. On the desk is some parchment like paper, an ink well and a quill for writing. There is a small pile of books to one side. The man is clean shaven with fairly long grey hair parted in the middle. I know that he wears this in a ponytail or bob when out socialising. He has a kind European face and I know that his hair was once jet black. His eyes have a sparkle. He is wearing a white collarless shirt with the top button done up. The sleeves are blouson. This is informal, at home, attire. I know that the desk is mine and the man was me in my most recent life before this one. I am feeling emotional as I write this. I know his/my face now.
I wake up and think wow, I had better write that all down… …
The first thing to say is that one cannot un-have dreams of high vividness. They make an impression on life and in a sense, they change one. The dreams collected under this category were all markedly vivid.
My dreams have pointed to a possible three Buddhist incarnations, one Indian, one Japanese and one Thai. In one case there is a named individual. An incarnation of said individual has been recognised by the Tibetan Buddhists in exile as a tulku incarnation.
What, if anything, does one do with these dreams and that “knowledge”?
I’ll speculate that if anyone sits down and reads all these dreams in one go it will have a weird effect on them, it will twist their melon so to speak. I’ll speculate that I am probably unique in having dreams about Vajrayana, quantum and patents.
In 2009 I gave a short course at “The Academy of Dreams”, a venue run by a psychotherapist. There I met a young man Charlie Morely who is interested in Lucid Dreaming. He invited me to talk at the Kagyu Samye Dzong in London, which I did. I subsequently attended two group empowerments by Chöje Akong Rinpoche in White Tara and Padmasambhava, Guru Rinpoche. To my eyes they were fairly shamanic rituals.
I had the Bakula dream before any physical plane contact with Tibetan Buddhism. I had not heard of Bakula nor the sixteen arhats. Being an ex-academic, I discussed this dream with an academic Buddhist scholar monk in Germany and a monk at the local Thai forest Buddhist centre. I sent it off to a senior Tibetan Kagyu person. The return comment was that it was a nice dream, end of.
Although the search for Tulku incarnations within the Tibetan community employs dreams and visions, they come from within the Sangha and not without. I am not in the club.
All of this is preceded by a dream with Djwhal Khul in it. He is supposedly the author behind many of the Alice Bailey books and therein he says he is an abbot of a lamasery near Shigatze Tibet, from time to time.
“Don’t worry it was just a dream…”
To me these dreams seem significant and point at something of a perhaps wider import. However, my prediction is that any outcome is extremely unlikely. A hairy arsed Welshman in Brittany is somehow wrong and not malleable.
I have had numerous other dreams which say that I will not be believed. Aside from the theme of “somebody else’s huge mess” it is right up there, near top, in the recurrence rate.
So far, I have had no dream or vision of me in a Tibetan life. But I am dreaming in senior and important figures in Tibetan Buddhism. In particular I feel affinity for the relative anarchy of Chögyam Trungpa.
I cannot rule a Tibetan life out, yet. The likelihood is low in my estimation. In ~2005 I had a series of visions of me as a Buddhist monk/priest with Om Mane Padme Hum tattooed in Sanskrit on my arm. {The Tibetan script is now more prevalent than the Sanskrit on the internet, I checked and it was Sanskrit.} I was however unable to see the colour of robe. They were a waking dream. I even gave lectures on Chemical Reactions Kinetics to around 100 students whilst having them in perceptual overlay.
To discuss this with university physical science academics at the time would have had a lead balloon effect and perhaps a recommendation for prompt psychiatry. Past-life recall is considered a tad whacko in that peer group.
My current hypothesis is that I will eke out the rest of this life here doing gardening and perhaps a bit of blogging. I am no big cheese and although I have had the phenomena of these dreams in practical terms there is little that I can do with them. Their impact remains upon me and the wife.
Any dreams incoming may change that hypothesis. I am currently working with a dream from March which suggests that I have a human puzzle to solve before anyone will listen to me…
It is 7.27 AM I have just woken up and the kettle is on for coffee. Here is this morning’s dream.
I am at some kind of personal development conference with one of the followers of a different blog. She is somehow convening the course and we are participating together. I tell her that I know where we are. We are at the Royal Signals Research Establishment, RSRE Malvern and that I have been here before. There are a number of us at this event.
There is a break for lunch. I leave the room and get into a lift. The lift takes me to a sub-basement floor by accident where I disembark. I see a men’s toilet and go into it. I stand in front of the urinal for a piss. In the toilet there are a number of young men. They are all talking about semiconductors and semiconductor growth.
I follow them out and into a mess hall where everyone is having lunch. I stand in a queue and behind a couple of youngish men. They too are talking about semiconductor growth. I interject that I know a little about the subject. They are highly sceptical. I say that I know about MBE, chemical beam epitaxy CBE and MOCVD. This surprises them. I say that I worked with Bruce Joyce whom they have probably heard of. This surprises and interests them. I ask them what they are working on. They say Bragg reflectors. I suggest that they must be using graded materials so as to accommodate the strain between layers as they grow their reflector stacks. Wherever there are two different materials with different lattice parameters there will be strain. This demonstrates some knowledge to them. I say that I have a number of papers with Prof. Jing Zhang. They ask if I would like to see their clean room. Yes, I would.
They run off up some stairs and onto a raised platform. The platform is made out of metal and one can see the floor through it. They jump from one platform to another. I am nervous that I will be unable to make the jump because of the height and my injured hip. When I get there, the gap does not look so large. I jump over and they lead me downstairs. We are now in the entrance to the clean room. They hand me over to a dark-haired man who is a Tibetan and who is dressed in Tibetan Buddhist monks’ robes. I make to enter the clean room, but he says that I must put on some overshoes first. I do this and he leads me through some doors into the clean room.
I ask him why he is here. He says that he likes to do research and enjoys science. He leads me into a room where there is a large Tibetan Buddhist monk with long grey hair and a large head. He is sat meditating. He is a big man. My “guide” sits to his right and ushers me to sit to his left. The big man is beaming and radiant. There is a sense of much fun and considerable good-natured mischief to him. I sit down. His “aura” is enjoyable and welcoming, it is full of charm. He turns to me and gently grabs hold of my chin. He says that I must open my mouth and look upwards. This I do. He carefully inspects my bottom front teeth and is happy with what he has seen. He says that I have the four signs that he has been looking for. He says meditate. I shift quickly into a deep state of meditation. He says of course you can do this I never doubted it. I come back from the state.
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He ushers me to stand up and leads me outside. We look back at the building of RSRE Malvern and to my astonishment tagged on to the research facility is a truly vast Buddhist temple in the Tibetan / Bhutanese style. We are viewing the facility from the Queen’s Lawn in South Kensington. He leads me on and into the temple.
As we enter the building there is a chamber in which many young men dressed as monks are meditating. He says that all of these will want to give me my first hug of welcome. He leads me up to his rooms, his office. I know that I am with Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and that he has been inspecting me. I recognise him from the you tube footage I have watched, way back.
I awaken and although still tired feel the need to note this dream down. As I am writing I feel the warmth of the being from the dream. He is “here” now somehow with me for the moment.
After a bit of a sleepless night, I awake to find my former university in the news and not in a good way. There are various comments on the nature of the working environment there.
Here is last night’s dreaming segment.
I am in a room with others, we are being threatened by a group of people with dogs on leashes. The dogs are straining to attack. They are like pit bulls. The owners are having trouble holding them back. I am quite relaxed. One of the pit bulls has inordinately long fangs and is angrily taking an interest in me. I offer it my right arm. It bites down hard and strong and will not let go. I am not worried about this. The owner of the dog tries to get it to let go. It will not. I place my left hand around the side of its jaws and squeeze. The dog opens its jaws and backs off happy.
I look down and it has left a mark reminiscent of a double vajra in oranges and red. There is no blood simply what looks like a tattoo on the inside of my forearm. I show everyone in the room my new tattoo.
Later I am working at the checkout in a supermarket and I show each of the customers my new tattoo about which I am slightly excited.
The double vajra (Skt. vishva-vajra; Tib. རྡོ་རྗེ་རྒྱ་གྲམ་, dorje gyadram, Wyl. rdo rje rgya gram) or crossed vajra is formed from four lotus-mounted vajra-heads that emanate from a central hub towards the four cardinal directions and symbolizes the principle of absolute stability.
In the cosmographic description of Mount Meru, a vast crossed vajra supports and underlies the entire physical universe. Similarly in the representation of the mandala, a vast crossed vajra serves as the immoveable support or foundation of the mandala palace and here the central hub of the vajra is considered to be dark blue in colour with the four heads coloured to represent the four directions-white (East), yellow (South), red (West) and green (North). These also correspond to the five elements and the buddhas of the five families with blue Akshobhya in the centre.
It’s also an emblem of the green buddha of the north, Amoghasiddhi, and represents his all-accomplishing wisdom as lord of the karma family of activity.
The raised throne upon which masters are seated when teaching is traditionally decorated on the front by a hanging square of brocade displaying the image of a crossed vajra in the centre, often with four small swastikas in the corners. This emblem represents the unshakeable ground or reality of the Buddha’s enlightenment.
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 this 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.
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From the film Kundun, a portrayal of the 14th Dalai Lama
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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.
I am in a village hall here in Brittanny. There is an event going on organised by some of the British expat community. Sat at the back in monk’s robes is a man roughly my age with a small retinue. He is Tibetan. They are in monochrome. They are chatting amongst themselves. A woman turns to them and says to the man that he talks too much.
I turn to the wife and say that she has just told the Dalai Lama that he talks too much. He hears me and we lock eyes. He is grinning profusely and we both find the situation hysterically funny. He turns to his retinue and says, “The Dalai Lama talks too much!” They all giggle slightly because he is known for not saying that much at all.
In the dream I know that this is a previous incarnation of the current Dalai Lama. Because he looks different. I recognise him.
The sense of fun at being told off we share is uplifting.
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{On searching Google, it is the 13th Dalai Lama as an older man.}
The scene changes and I am now deeper in the hall with the wife. I am making an herbal tea with citrus rind, bright yellow berries and ginger in a large Pyrex bowl. I pour this through a sieve into two cups. We go outside to let it cool.
I say that we have to go back in because the meeting is starting. We find that someone has tidied up our mugs. We sit down on a couple of chairs and the meeting kicks off in English. The expats are mobilising for some cause or other. They tell us we have every right to be there.
The scene changes and I am in a mountain {possibly Tibet} monastery. I am with a young boy aged around ten. We are in a bedroom and he is standing on the bed. He is of Tibetan origin with jet black hair. We are touching foreheads and playing a gentle game of headbutts with each other. His English is impeccable and I tell him so. He seems very familiar to me. We are having a great deal of fun.
Someone comes to the door and escorts us to a room with large step like seats. The boy instructs me to go some way up the steps and I am joined by the wife.
Some men come in and put a carved wooden chair on the floor. The boy says that the Dalai Lama likes to have people higher than he because it reminds him to stay humble. The Dalai Lama comes in and sits on the chair. The boy stands next to him. It is clear that they know each other well. In the dream I know that this is yet another prior incarnation of the Dalai Lama.
The scene changes and I am outside by the shore of a mountainous lake. I am sat with a young white American. A dharma bum. In the background the Dalai Lama is organising a spectacle a ritual with white flags and huge prayer wheels. There is a horse riding display. Implicit in the dream is that the Dalai Lama will see me soon.
I am talking with the American about the nature of reality. I say to him that I know that reincarnation is real because I have recollection of my prior lives in dreams.
As the dream is fading, I get a full colour image of the current the 14th Dalai Lama and a sensation of joining Ajna centres.