The following provides an excellent example of how your inner compass does not discriminate between night time dreams and waking life the way that you do. It is a dream of drowning based on a real life near drowning by Ingrid, a six year old girl at the beginning of World War II in Germany. In this case, the dream of being submerged in the water merges with the waking dream of almost drowning. From the perspective of Ingrid’s inner compass, both realms are equally opportunities to stimulate growth through wake-up calls. Both dreaming and waking life are equally opportunities for us to grow into a greater identity through listening to and growing into a broader sense of who we are.

There is also considerable help in this interview for understanding dreams of water, how threat is often misperceived, the impact of enculturation, and how needless, avoidable fears can be carried around for decades because of a mistaken perception of life and dream events.

As a child Ingrid thought almost drowning was punishment for disobeying her mother and sneaking out and going swimming. She has been afraid of water ever since, although she loved it before this accident, and although during the experience of drowning itself she was not afraid.

Here is an interpretive summarization of the interview for Ingrid. Read it over as if it was meant for you, too. Then, if you want to understand the interview in more detail, you will find it below. Of course, an interview with your own water will have its own unique perspective and generate different recommendations, created especially for you.

There is a liquid, flowing part of yourself that you are separated from, that only experiences itself. It puts you in touch with infinity, nature, and a wider view of life. It is fluid and is constantly moving, and clear. Nothing disturbs this part of you. This is a neutral part of yourself.  It wants to stay clear and pure. Its power is to separate. It is abundant. It is very confident because it cannot die; it only transforms. All life comes out of this part of yourself.

This is a part of yourself that is not very compassionate. Perhaps you have to become less “socially” compassionate before you can recognize and create real compassion. To find life happiness and contentment it recommends that you care more about yourself and becoming one with yourself. For health, it encourages you to drink at least two liters of water a day.  It is a part of you that does not think about needing a lot of money but just having enough.  It recommends you focus on stopping doing things that pollute your body or mind. Consider the possibility of polluting thoughts, feelings, and relationships not just actions, like what you eat. Avoid putting conflictual things into yourself, such as you do when you argue with yourself or waste energy feeling angry. Don’t disturb your inner peace with  activities that take advantage of it!

This is a part of yourself that usually respects natural limits and boundaries and doesn’t waste much energy in feelings of separation. It recommends that you become it when you want to increase your confidence, because it scores higher in confidence than you do. Doing so will allow you to be more neutral and to have less compassion, which will allow you to focus on yourself and find your own inner peace. It considers itself worth your trust. It can, will, and does support you, but to know that you have to take the first step toward trusting it. Trust your daughter Claudia to help you grow in confidence to trust this part of yourself. (Claudia has years of experience in teaching people to be comfortable in the ocean snorkeling. She leads dolphin excursions to Bimini, in the Bahamas.)

It is telling you that as a child you did not feel seen, acknowledged, or loved by your mother or your sister. You weren’t looking for them to rescue you from this part of yourself, but simply to be recognized for who you were. You were as clear about that as you could be.

From the perspective of the water, almost drowning had nothing to do with punishment or disobedience. It also becomes clear that the water was not attempting to scare you or kill you either. It was simply being itself.

Every time you read over this interview you will strengthen your contact with your own sense of who you are. You will internalize its confidence and move toward a healthier balance between compassion for others and love of yourself.  Practice becoming the water whenever you want to feel more confident and trust yourself more.

The Interview, from which the above remarks are derived:

How can that long ago life event and repetitive dream help Ingrid heal her fear of the water today? We start, as always, by making the questioning process as practical and useful as possible by asking Ingrid to share three life issues that affect her today.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

Life happiness – contentment; to stay that way

Health for me and my family

Money – enough to take care of needs; not necessarily to be rich

Tell me a dream you remember.  It can be an old one, a repetitive dream, a nightmare, or one that you’re sure you understand.

When I was six years old I had started school. It was at the beginning of WW II in Germany. I liked to go swimming at a public swimming pool. My mother didn’t allow me to go that afternoon. I don’t know why. But I took my swimming suit and a little money and went alone. I always went there alone. We played tag in the water and I was moving very fast. My feet slipped on the ground and I fell over on my back. I couldn’t get my feet under me to stand up.  I swallowed a lot of water. The girl that was after me in the game was the only one that saw that I was in trouble. She took me out of the water and put me under a warm shower. At home, during the night I couldn’t sleep because I hadn’t obeyed. I wanted to tell my mother what had happened; I told her I almost drowned that afternoon. After that I often had the dream that I was lying on the floor of the swimming pool with clear water above me. I saw  my mother and sister walking past. I tried to stretch my arm out so that they could see me but the water was just too deep to reach out of the water. They never saw me. I repetitively had that dream. I forgot all about that story and that dream for years.

Why do you think that you had this dream?

There was a feeling of being separated from my mother and my sister. I didn’t have fear when I was drowning. At that moment I knew that everything was over, that it was the end. It wasn’t fear but I was conscious of the end of life.

That’s interesting, because whenever you tell of your fear of water you tell that story!

I think I may have felt that I was punished for disobeying my mother. But I loved to go into the water before that. I was called “Water Rat!” After that, I thought everyone in the world knew how to swim but me. Before a holiday to Italy when I was a young adult I was wondering whether to get an inflatable swimming suit, so no one would notice I could not swim. But instead I decided to take swimming lessons before the holiday. I went there every day for several weeks. My teacher had me jump off a one meter board, which was very scary. All the men at the pool were watching me, so I forced myself to jump and swim to the edge. I thought I was the only one in the world that couldn’t swim! When I went to Italy I was not scared of the water and actually even went in when there were waves.

If one character had something especially important to tell you, what would it be?

Water!

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your dream and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Water, are you a character in Ingrid’s dream and life, yes?

Yes!

Water, look out at the world from your perspective and tell us what you see…

I only experience myself – liquid!

Water, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I move to and fro. Sometimes there is wind and I’ll be a little higher and not like a mirror. I’m used to all these different states. Nothing disturbs that. My movement is very important to me.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

That I can jump and move! I can take things away! I can make things like wood move. It’s like being in neutral. I’m not aware that fish need me to live. I haven’t thought about that until now.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

That I’m getting polluted!

Water, you are in Ingrid’s life experience, correct?  She created you, right?  Water, what aspect of Ingrid do you represent or most closely personify?

Danger, but not really…I have the power to separate.

Water, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I would like to stay as I am. I have power. My power is to separate. I am deep enough. There’s plenty of me.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

(Character), how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 8 Because I’m everywhere! When I evaporate I come down as water again! I don’t vanish!

Compassion: 3 My compassion is not very developed…

Wisdom: 7 I have a lot of experience; I’m very old. All life comes out of me. That makes me proud but also powerful. I don’t care whether people get drowned…

Acceptance: 6

Inner Peace: 8 Nothing upsets me. I am as I am!

Witnessing: 6

Water, if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different?  If so, how?

I don’t think I’d be much different.

How would Ingrid’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

I don’t think she would be much different.

If you could live Ingrid’s life for her, how would you live it differently?

Maybe I would concentrate more on my compassion for life around me. Ingrid’s compassion is higher than mine.

If you could live Ingrid’s waking life for her today, would you handle her three life issues differently?  If so, how?

Life happiness – contentment; to stay that way.

You can only be happy if you’re one with yourself. That she will care more about herself. It could be more!

Health for me and my family

With the help of drinking at least two liters of water a day! Her body is mostly made out of me!

Money – enough to take care of needs; not necessarily to be rich

As water I don’t have to think about money. Just having enough!

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of her life?

1. Pollution of myself! Ending it!

2. It’s important to me that the circle of life remains undisturbed and that humans stop stirring me up by putting all sorts of weapons and military systems inside of me.

3. I don’t like people treasure hunting in me. I want my peace, please!

Do you feel separated from anything, Water?

I feel separated from land. Sometimes I go and try to catch some. So people build dams.

If you were Ingrid, how would you handle this issue of separation. Like she does, or differently?

I wouldn’t do anything! I did everything I could towards it.

Ingrid has had a fear of you in her life, Water. How would you handle that fear if you were her?

I could offer to have her try to be in me to gain confidence.

Why should she trust you? You’re imaginary!

I support her! I could show her that I am able to carry her. She has to try it first to gain that confidence.

Do you think Ingrid could or should trust her daughter, who has taught many people to be confident in water?

Definitely, yes.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Ingrid to imagine that she is you and act as you would?

Not to care so much; to be more neutral.  It would help Ingrid to not have too much compassion.

Why do you think that Ingrid had those dreams when she was a child?

She wanted to be seen, to be acknowledged! It wasn’t about needing to be rescued!

Why do you think that you are in Ingrid’s life?

She likes me. She likes the sea. It has no limits! The infinity to the horizon. I can show her or give her that. Reflections of the sky and the clouds. I can show her a wider view.

I think her mother and daughter did not acknowledge her in her dream because…

She did not feel loved by her mother and her sister.

What have you heard yourself say?

I remember that I don’t care that much what’s happening around me as water.  I don’t care about anything, really.  Water said I want to have a relationship with it. I feel like water is trying to make for a relationship with me. It’s a difficult relationship, it seems…

Water, do you think it is a difficult relationship with Ingrid?

Not for me. It’s because Ingrid doesn’t trust me.

Water, were you punishing Ingrid because she disobeyed her mother?

Definitely not! I’m neutral! I witness!

Water, why do you think Ingrid had a strong urge to tell her mother she ha disobeyed her, gone swimming, and almost drowned?

Because she experienced fear and wanted to be comforted.

Water, how do you feel about Ingrid not trusting you?

It’s a pity! All I can do is wait, be patient! You can’t force anything! Try and find out for yourself! If she comes to me I can show her I can carry her and support her. That’s the first step!

If this experience were a wake-up call from your inner compass, what do you think it would be saying to you?

I’ve always lacked confidence. Maybe the waking call is, “Go and try it!” The water is very clear. The water tried everything it could to support me and be clear. Those two couldn’t see me. Maybe there is something wrong with them.

When everyone in the dream is a part of you it means that there are two parts of yourself (mother and sister) that don’t see you. The issue is that you are not recognizing or acknowledging a part or parts of yourself that want and need to be seen, accepted, and made part of your life.

“Samsara” is the Sanskrit word for “illusion.” It refers to the suffering associated with the incessant rounds of rebirth created by karma, or the law of cause and effect.  This is the basic predicament behind Hinduism, Buddhism, the Bon religion of Tibet, Jainism, and Sikhism.

Such grand religious formulations are out-picturings of very personal human dilemmas that everyone struggles with, regardless of their religious preferences.  From time to time all of us feel trapped in the drama of life, victims not only of our own poor decisions and delusions, but of our social, cultural, and biological worlds. How to get out? What to do? Each Indian religion has its own answer. For Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism it is to take up a yoga and seek moksha, or liberation (mukti in Sikhism). Buddhists follow the Eight-Fold Noble Path and seek nirvana, the cessation of all cravings.

In the following interview Gloria, a lovely, talented professional singer, is feeling overwhelmed by the drama of her life. She feels that her life options are closing off and that she will stagnate and stop growing. The more she looks for solutions with her stuck waking mind the more anxious, stressed, and panicked she becomes.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1 Should I leave Michigan where I live with my boyfriend and move to Canada?

2 Will I have enough self-confidence and energy to continue my life work as a free-lance singer and also continue organizing the work for Abraxas?

3 What keeps me from actually saying “yes” to a job as a steady member of a choir where I will have less financial pressure or insecurity? Why does it give me the creeps to think of staying in one steady place? What is my life path? Security and no more challenge? To be one more singer in a choir, without control over my material? I couldn’t be myself so much.  It would mean stagnation and no challenge to grow. But on the other hand I would have time to read and paint and do other things. How long will I have the energy and power to lead the life I am living? I am thirty-two.  Abraxas is forty-eight. Is this about having children and settling down?

Which issue brings up the strongest feelings for you?

Stagnation and having no challenge to grow. It brings on a sense of panic. (Tears.)

If those feelings had a color (or colors), what would it be?

Pink-violet

Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness.

Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What?

A metal trash bin!

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Metal Trash bin, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

Gloria is not here. I am in a vacuum. I’m making noise with my lid!

I’m an old fashioned light blue colored trash bin with a wooden handle.  There are places in me where the paint is gone and you can see the rust underneath.

What’s it like in a vacuum, Metal Trash Bin?

It’s not grey or unpleasant. It’s like me – it’s light blue.  I’m comfortable here but I can’t turn around.  There are no other trash cans that I can see. It’s definitely darker behind me.  I quite like Gloria, but she’s not here.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I like myself.  I’m good at making nice noises! Rattling! I am kind of an antique; I have some style.  I have character!  I may be rusty, but I don’t have any trash inside me!  I’m not interested in trash! I’m not interested in my function as a collector or holder of trash.

If you could be filled with anything, what would you want?

I want to remain empty!

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

Not really. I don’t like not knowing what may be behind me.  I think it’s pretty good that there’s no one around.

Antique Trash Bin, what aspect of Gloria do you represent or most closely personify?

Loneliness and sadness.  But I’m not a stupid Trash Bin. Maybe I’m a bit in resistance. My rattling is rebellion.

Antique Trash Bin, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I would like to stay a Trash Bin but I wouldn’t rattle so much. I might like to keep my lid shut. I would like to have flowers like lavender in me.

How long do you want to stop rattling, Trash Bin? For three years?

That would be good!

How about twenty three years?

No, I would get rusty!

I am realizing that I don’t need this lid!  I want to be filled with lavender.  I already have dirt inside me to grow flowers in, but the problem is that over the course time everything dies.

But not necessarily in imaginary Antique Trash Bins…

After my lavender dies I don’t want anything. (Looks sad…) I will be sad; the dirt is inside me. That’s how it is.  In the course of time I too will dissolve… I want something to remain.  I wonder if I should?

Let’s say the lavendar dies and you rust out and are gone. What is there now?

Nothing!

I’d like to ask the Vacuum some questions, Trash Bin. Vacuum, is there anything in you after you rust out and are gone?

There are shining stars in me!  But I don’t exist!  There will be no vacuum either when the Bucket stops existing.

Vacuum, how does it feel to no longer exist?

It’s good!

What’s good about it?

It’s the aim! Because it’s good if one can really cease to exist. The lavender is part of a circle of life, samsara. Everything starts all over again. But if everything really ends, that’s good…Everything is good!

If Gloria felt like you do all the time, non-existent Vacuum, would her life be different? If so, how?

That’s actually Gloria’s aim!  To be like me is her goal!

I thought it was to decide whether to stay and join the choir or move to Switzerland.

It’s all not important! I think it’s important to look for answers in how to dissolve!

Stars, are you still existing?  What do you think of what the non-existant Vacuum is saying?

It’s not the question of existing or not existing.  That’s not important for us!

What is?

Nothing!

What’s that like to have no important, pressing issues, Stars?

I can’t take the role of role of a star! I’m a vacuum! It’s my hope that I can stop existing like that – to become one with something that is above all the hassle and human troubles.

Have you managed to do that, non-existent Vacuum?

When I dissolve, that’s what I will be. I will be detached and no longer transform.  I think it’s good.  It’s not time yet to dissolve and completely detach.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Non-existent Vacuum, how would you score yourself 0-10, in each of the following six qualities:  confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: I cannot do that!  I have no idea what this could be like!  I know it will be good when I dissolve! But how exactly?  It’s also not my own doing. It’s not in my hands…

Compassion: I don’t know…

Wisdom: I think there would be a lot of wisdom even though I wouldn’t exist.

Acceptance: A great amount!  And a lot of love!

Inner Peace: Oh yes! Definitely! Beyond my imagination – extraordinary!

Witnessing: I definitely won’t be entangled in any drama! I won’t have an emotional quality or any feeling – it will just be wonderful!

How would Gloria’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

It would be wonderful!  First she has to reach my level! She has no idea how to be me!

If you could live Gloria’s life for her, how would you live it differently?

I think it’s all not so important!  Then she could also dissolve and not exist one day!

So if she did that today, how would her life be different?

If she continues life like she is she’ll become like the bucket! That’s not so good because she will remain part of the circle of life and not dissolve…

What do you think she needs to do to dissolve?

She needs to calm down! To have peace! Nothing will happen to her career! Things that seem so important now wouldn’t be so much anymore if she does!

If you could live Gloria’s waking life for him/her today, would you handle her three life issues differently?  If so, how?

1 Should I leave Michigan where I live with my boyfriend and move to Canada:

It’s not important!  She needs to focus on breathing! That’s much more important! Then she’ll be able to make better decisions!

2 Will I have enough self-confidence and enough energy to carry on a free-lance life.  Also to organize the work for Abraxas?

It’s all not important! I even get out of breath saying the life issues!  This is about concentrating on herself!

3 What keeps me from actually saying yes to a job as a steady member of a choir with less financial pressure or insecurty. Why does it give me the creeps to think of staying in one steady place? What is my life path? Security and no more challenge? One more person in a choir? I couldn’t be myself so much.  It would mean stagnation and no challenge to grow. But on the other hand I would have time to read and paint and do other things…How long will have the energy and power to lead the life I am living? I am thirty-two.  Abraxas is forty-eight. Is this about having children and settling down.

If she doesn’t calm down and breathe her life will go to the dogs. It’s not about the choir, if she doesn’t remember to breathe and calm down she will stagnate and not grow.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of Gloria’s life?

Nothing is so important! I enjoy looking at lavender! I concentrate on being…All those issues would be burden I don’t want to load onto myself! I would focus on being! Like flying!

Wouldn’t that be selfish?

Who cares whether it’s selfish or not?

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Gloria to imagine that she is you and act as you would?

Always!

Why do you think that you are in Gloria’s life?

I am actually worried about her. If she doesn’t remember to breathe then it will all be over!   I came into her life today because she really needs me. She’s really been looking for me!

Has she found you now?

Yes!

How long will it take her to lose you again?

To find me she can breathe, sleep, be quiet, calm down…And to have confidence!  I am always there!

Gloria, what have you heard yourself say?

Breathe! Despite the fact that I’m a singer!

If this experience were a wake-up call from your inner compass, what do you think it would be saying to you?

There is no vacuum!

What Gloria seems to be saying is that when you become one with annhilation, death, and nothingness you find that it is overflowing with beingness. What you feared you would experience and what one actually experiences are almost complete opposites.

Notice that from the perspective of Vacuum there either is no selfishness or concerns about selfishness are of no importance. Notice how different a perspective that is from how most of us were raised and how we use some measure of selfishness/altruism to determine the worth of what we do and who we are. How would our lives be different if we thought about selfishness the way Vacuum does?

An irony of this interview is that Gloria is being told to use her breath to center, find, and maintain inner peace, yet she is a singer who uses her breath in a disciplined, controlled way more than just about any occupation, except perhaps freedivers and pranayama yogins. Clearly there is a great difference between becoming an expert at controlling your breath and becoming one with it.

We also find that escape from the cycle of samsara is not about meditation, mystical states, yogic trainings, various purifications, or taking up this or that religious practice. We find that it is about becoming present with what already is, embedded in every breath.

The information that I got on the six core qualities is what today’s focus is!  What is the most remarkable thing for me is what I realize about myself. Because I was the Flower, things came through that I just wasn’t aware of.  That’s just great!

How have you been using your interview and your Flower?

A big thing has just been stepping back. My personality is in some ways starting to come unglued from drama. I am recognizing it quickly so I can just step out of it and into what’s actually going on. That recognition time is much quicker!

Could you give me an example?

My husband and I were home together Sunday. He was working on his computer and I went over help him – I thought – do something with his pictures.  I was thinking it would be faster for him. We started getting into a quarrel about him being on the computer on our day off instead of spending it together. We started to get in a quarrel that I picked with him. Then I realized, “Oh! What I really am wanting, because my back is hurting, is for Norman to rub my back!  Oh! I wasn’t recognizing what I wanted and didn’t ask for it!  I apologized to my husband and said, “What I really wanted was to have my back rubbed and when would you be available for that?”  It was so brief – that drama!

What do you think is the relationship, if any, between your previous NDE interview with your flower and remembering to get out of drama?

I stay with myself rather than distancing from myself.  My needs are closer to my awareness.  The NDE interview helped me to realize, “Oh! This is drama! I don’t want it! I want to have what’s real for me!

May I ask Flower some questions?

Yes!

Flower, how are you today?

I’m excited!

Do you have any idea why Cheryl is catching herself quicker when she gets into drama?

Cheryl: I feel like I just got busted! I can’t get into the Flower right now.

Cheryl, is unable to get into you right now, Flower?

All of a sudden Cheryl got scared and got blank.

Cheryl: The focus on was me…All of a sudden I needed to be accountable?

Staying present! It’s missing for Cheryl! When I stay present it’s glorious!

Is there any reason why Cheryl should be afraid of staying present, Flower?

She’s being on guard of awful things. She has her life confused with “awful is about to happen” But awful doesn’t happen in her life!  She needs to get a chance to experience without that kind of guard, that fear of harm.  She really deserves a chance to live without that!

Do you live without that Flower?

Yes!

What’s that like for you?

As a flower I don’t wait for hurricanes to come. Sometimes they do, but it’s not a fearful thing.

What would you like to see Cheryl get out of our time together today, Flower?

Being less likely to lose me!  To be less likely to lose her natural self! Cheryl doesn’t know that she is losing touch with her natural self until after the fact.   There is some kind of gap in Cheryl that when there is emotion and need she kind of goes blank. She doesn’t recognize the emotion. She doesn’t go into her need. She is off on something else.

Flower, would it help if Cheryl named her feelings several times a day?

She thinks her feelings are awful!

So Cheryl, What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

There is a force or energy against me. When I am walking or exercising I feel an energy against me. When I am in pain or constipated, it’s there.  It’s a distraction going on.

There is something I feel I am not letting go of or holding back on but I don’t know what it is.

There is a slight lack of unity with self and others.

Which issue brings up the strongest feelings for you?

The Force that’s against me.

If those feelings had a color (or colors), what would it be?

Purple

Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness.

Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What?

A square or box – three dimensional.

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Square, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I am right in front of Cheryl’s torso.  I’m made of steel.

Why are you there?

I am not wanting to let her go forward.  I thought that was the best thing for her. It’s better to keep quiet. You’re not supposed to say the things you have to say. You are not supposed to feel the pain and sadness that you feel.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I’m solid, sturdy, shiny.  I can do anything!  There aren’t any limits!

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

The lack of movement. I’m stuck!

What does that feel like for you to be stuck, Square?

Awful, like I’ll never get beyond being stuck.

She created you, right? What aspect of Cheryl do you represent or most closely personify?

Strength!

Square, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I would be an owl.

Square, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I’m sitting, I’m patient, I’m wise. Silence is best. I’m hard to see. Not many people see me.

What do you think of that Square you were before, Owl?

Heavy! It weighs me down! I can’t fly with it!  I couldn’t even try!

Do you think Cheryl needs that Square, Owl?

She thinks it protects her, but it doesn’t. It holds her back. She stays behind it, like a wall, staying separate from herself and what she’s here for.

How would her life be different without that Square, Owl?

Freedom! She would be doing what she’s here to do instead of other stuff! To help people with the light she saw when she was a baby!  She knows how to transform what is in other people’s way of their life and health and well-being!

How did you manage to transform that Square into you, Owl?

I wasn’t afraid!  I just did it!

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Owl, how would you score yourself 0-10, in each of the following six qualities:  confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 I can do anything! I don’t have to be held back. I go with the flow. I am one with my nature.

Compassion: 10 Because I’m loving and patient! I love to observe.

Wisdom: 10 I am bright! I know stuff but not the mind stuff. I go by my nature. It’s already built in. I know how to get my needs met, I know how to fly and get food. Acceptance: 10 What else is there? (Smiling…) It’s just the way it is!  I’m laughing at people that think it’s any different!

Inner Peace: 10 I feel very peaceful as owl! There’s nothing to not be peaceful about! Life is what life is!

Witnessing: 10 That’s exactly what I do! I just sit on my branch and witness!

How would Cheryl’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

She would be soaring with ease, going with the flow, pain free.

Where would that Square be?

History! She just wouldn’t need it because there is nothing to be afraid of! She kind of makes that up as a way to connect with people.  That’s what she learned after she died and her brother grabbed her arm: connected to her brother and fear. It’s as if she doesn’t know how to live in the people world with others without that fear.  It’s as if being with people and connecting with them requires that old fear. But it’s not a requirement!

If you could live Cheryl’s life for him, how would you live it differently?

I would stop pretending that emotion is required to connect with people. That leads her to drama.  She thinks she doesn’t know how to connect without it.  She doesn’t need to pretend that she needs the fear, anger, and pain to connect to people.  It’s sneaky!  She pretends that she doesn’t know the emotion is there but yet she’s acting on it!

If you could live Cheryl’s waking life for him/her today, would you handle Cheryl’s three life issues differently?  If so, how?

There is a force or energy against me. When I am walking or exercising I feel an energy against me. When I am in pain or constipated.  A distraction going on.

I would join the energy! She feels like it is against her but it is really the light energy inviting her to join it! It reminds her of when she is not one with it!

When she feels it blocking her, what do you recommend she do, Owl?

Join the light! Join the peace! Stop thinking she can have too much of a good thing!

There is something I feel I am not letting go of or holding back on but I don’t know what it is.

Cheryl is engaged in things that are petty when she really wants to be engaged in what really turns her on, what her passion is.  She continues to still sit on her passion. Cheryl is holding back on her passion! Her life would be warm and worry-free with it. She would not have to be so organized!  Not have to worry so much about the physical details – is the house clean? Are the dishes done?

There is a slight lack of unity with self and others.

She thinks that’s there. It’s not, really!  She makes up things that are a problem but they really aren’t a problem.  It’s just part of how it is, part of life!

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of Cheryl’s life?

1. Love

2. Peace

3. Joy!

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Cheryl to imagine that she is you and think, feel, and act as you would?

When she starts to get worked up! When negativity comes in – that this should be this way; when it’s not, she gets worried and afraid.  If she became me at those times she would know when to just be and not to cultivate a mountain out of a molehill. She needs to just sit on the branch, like I do!

Owl, do you do drama?  If not, why not?

I don’t do drama! Drama’s ridiculous!  It doesn’t solve anything!  It’s a waste of time!  It’s so contrary to spirit!

What is your secret for staying out of drama?

Presence! Just being! Observing!

Why do you think that you are in Cheryl’s life?

To know she has a choice! She can at any moment she can pick presence instead of drama!  At any moment she can be true to herself or abandon herself and get involved with drama!

How is Cheryl most likely to ignore what you are saying to her?

Be a brat!  “I’m going to do it my way no matter what!” Her way is not always aligned with her own spirit!

What would you recommend that she do about that?

Stop self-destructing in that way!  She just needs to know that going with the flow is OK! That she deserves to have this peace and freedom!  She’s come this far…she might as well go all the way!

Cheryl, what have you heard yourself say?

Be yourself! Being something else or someone else is awful!  It’s self destructive whether it lasts for a minute or five!  It doesn’t serve me! I am seeing drops into water and how each ripples out.  Even if it is for a second it still effects me afterward. I have a choice in what I want to reside in me. Instead of this stuff I get worked up in me I want the peace to reside in me, the peace, the fun, the happy-go-lucky in life!

If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of yourself, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Freedom! Freedom is mine!  I am not locked behind that Square, that wall!  That I’m already me and it’s a cinch to live accordingly!

Is there anything you want to take away from this interview to apply in your everyday life between now and the next time we talk?

Being the Owl and recognizing the difference between the owl and the square!

I could write that intention on a sticky note and carry it around!

I can name what I am feeling several times a day. Ask myself what I am feeling and name it periodically throughout the day.  Am I happy, sad, scared, confused, angry, impatient, relaxed…what?  Then to not have any judgement about the feeling – just naming it and moving on.

Read over this interview before going to sleep!

Notice that Cheryl’s steel Square, the energy that blocks her is actually a wake-up call from the same light that she had in her NDE.  She is misperceiving it as a barrier when Owl says that “it is really the light energy inviting her to join it! It reminds her of when she is not one with it!”

Notice that Cheryl is making huge strides at recognizing when she is drama and choosing to get out of it.  There can be no inner peace with drama; to eliminate drama it must be dealt with in the three realms: interpersonally and externally, in our thoughts and feelings, and in our night time dreams.

Will Cheryl follow these recommendations? If so, what will be the result? Stay tuned!

Almost all of us have had traumatic experiences in our childhood. They have left scars that echo through our lives, affecting how we see ourselves and others and subtly structuring how we feel, think, and act. While these experiences can never be undone, their negative influence can be minimized and they can be reframed in ways that allows them to become assets, strengths, and doorways to unrecognized or unrealized potentials. The beauty, peace, and love of a near-death experience can overwhelm and neutralize karmas of all types, even years later, if we can find and use the tools that bring them alive in our particular present life circumstances. Integral Deep Listening interviews provide one such doorway, and it is my privilege to have been able to share with Cheryl through the following interview an awakening and integration of a very beautiful, central expression of the light she is.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1 Emotion – fear, anger, and hurt are out of whack

2 My body is out of whack – particularly my right side.

3 Embracing myself – there’s a timidness and fear there.

Tell me about your NDE…

Both NDE’s were in infancy, I feel certain before six months. I am guessing they occurred around 2 months of age. I did not start to recall them until fifteen years later. Then I recalled that on one occasion my mother put her hands around my neck and held me in mid air. This one feels like I went to a dark place; there was dark energy. My mother feels very gone. Seems like my Dad stopped her. He focused on her, I was ignored or abandoned. I feel gone, way out there. It seemed unimaginable how I could do this journey, to live my life.

On another occasion in my infancy my mother held my head under water. (I feel a pain spot that I am very familiar with on the back right lower side of my head as I write these words.) I die. I am within the most incredible experience ever. I am in nirvana! I still have a sense of myself, with a translucent ball like LOVE energy. (My favorite toy as a child was a ball.) I am not sure if the form of a ball or sphere was really there. It seems formless and the sphere shape helped me notice it was there, or a way for me to bring it back, and a way to describe? There aren’t words to describe how incredible it was.

My father takes my mother off me. Four of my five siblings are in the bathroom crying; they are super afraid. One of them, seems like the oldest, my brother Earl, grabs my arm, which seems to dislocate my shoulder, and pulls me up out of the water. Now my entire being has taken on all of my siblings’ fear. I feel very angry, that I am taken from where I was and from the feeling of nirvana. I know this light energy now. Hard to call it light energy because it seems way more powerful than light and it has a translucent nature to it.

Later, when I was in a post-graduate program, I had experiences that seemed to verify these memories. My teacher was doing therapy with me in a group of thirty. Suddenly the woman sitting next to me said, “I can see the hand prints on her neck!” Red hand prints were visible on my neck. She was freaked! Also at around that same time, during a diad exercise, in the group, my hand went up to my nose (as a drowning person may do). My teacher said, “you can trust your body.”  I had no idea of either infant NDE at the time. It was about 15 years after the experiences that the NDE memories started to come.

Why do you think that you had these NDEs?

To save my life. To be one with love not earthly, human, object love, but the love of all, universal or cosmic or godly, spirit love.

These are the characters in the NDEs, beside yourself…

Mother, water, darkness, father, siblings, bathtub

If one character had something especially important to tell you, what would it be?

My Mother

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your NDEs and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Mother, how shall we refer to you?

I feel anger, but call me “Mother,”

Mother, are you a character in Cheryl’s NDE, yes?

Yes

Mother, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I’m going blank. I’m feeling afraid. I don’t know what to do. I’m killing Cheryl. I feel like I’m going crazy. I can’t stop myself.  I don’t know what is happening….

Mother, what do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

Patience, calm, good cook…

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

Anger, getting things right, especially others, trying to get the outside right. I lost my mother to death right after my birth.

Mother ,what aspect of Cheryl do you represent or most closely personify?

The light! I couldn’t face the light; I couldn’t face my light. I didn’t know how to live without my mother…it seems that I went psychotic…Six children was too much…

Mother, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

A flower! I’m bright, cheery, natural, colorful, alive, vibrant, loved! I’m yellow and I have petals that look like a daisy or a sunflower.  I move with the breeze.  I have a center, a nucleus that all the petals come out of. Perhaps it is brown.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Flower, how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 I initially had no fear at all; I just felt my naturalness with no fear of decay or death.

Compassion:   8 I’m weeping; I don’t know how to embrace myself fully…I’m afraid of myself…I have a beautiful spirit that I’m afraid to show it. I’d rather be off alone

Wisdom: 10 Brilliance! I know stuff; I don’t know how I know it, though. It’s fun to have this wisdom; it’s playful and exhilarating, and just plain useful!

Acceptance:   5 I’m afraid of harm.

Inner Peace: 7 I feel disturbed about these things I can’t get resolved….I stand alone; I’m out in left field…I can’t be myself…

Witnessing:   9 I get stuck; I lose touch with my nature; I forget my nature and before I know it I’m involved in wanting things to be a certain way…I want things to be peaceful, balanced, going with the flow, being natural.

Flower, if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different?  If so, how?

I would be in community – I would be with other flowers – I would be blowing in the wind; I would be living nature, however that is, IS! I could be raining on me one day, it could be sunny, I could be cut and taken to a vase!

How would Cheryl’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

The struggle would be gone…purpose, drive and purpose would be very different. Instead of focusing on getting everything all right it would just be living life as it comes in a natural flow. Present comes…to be present. Checking out wouldn’t happen.  Emotion would be resolved.

If you could live Cheryl’s life for her, how would you live it differently?

Lovingly, to love what you are.  You are always trying to make yourself better when you’re OK now! To live without the fear, anger, and pain that feels very, very old!

If you could live Cheryl’s waking life for her today, would you handle her three life issues differently?  If so, how?

1 Emotion – fear, anger, and hurt are out of whack:

I would grieve; I would wash the emotion away.  There’s no need to carry this old emotion. I would let it go…The sunlight allows the emotions to be released. As a flower I am embraced by the sunlight. It MAKES me! It’s not emotion, it’s sunlight! (When my husband is observing transformation for me he regularly sees the sun!)

2 My body is out of whack – particularly my right side.

Increase, enliven the left side; let go of holding on to physical pain…There’s a lot of fear stuck in the body; I’d let that fear go.  Cheryl is natural like me!

3 Embracing myself – there’s a timidness and fear there.

It’s already done! Stop thinking about it! Embracing yourself is to stop losing yourself to the body personality “you.” Stop limiting yourself! Embrace is already there!  Accept the embrace!

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of her life?

1. Nature!

2. Fun!

3. Living!

If she focused on those three live issues instead of her own, what difference would that make in her life, Flower?

Free, set free, being no longer bogged down; accepting the beautiful life that she has and the beautiful person she is. Control would be gone and unnecessary. She makes up all kinds of stuff that is so unnecessary!

In what daily life situations would it be most beneficial for Cheryl to imagine that she is you and act as you would?

With others in day-to-day life. Then she would be free, relaxed, competent, with time for her to share her truth, stop hiding, smile!

Why do you think that you are in Cheryl’s life?

For beaming! For presence, love, and adoration! For a reminder to be the way she is when she looks and experiences ME! When she looks at me she is so full  of love and presence and peace, adoration, stillness; she really cares for me well.

How is Cheryl most likely to ignore what you are saying to her?

By getting angry.

What would you recommend that she do about that?

Remember that the anger is over and that anger is so not her! It is pulling the plug on the anger; it is so not her; it is such interference. When Cheryl gets angry it is pulling the plug on her real self. Anger it is not her natural spirit. Letting Cheryl get back to her real, cheerful, beautiful self.  She thinks she’s still angry, but she’s not; that’s just the interference.

I think Cheryl had these NDEs because

to get back to her true nature. The circumstances she was born into was difficult. By having the NDEs she remembered the light that as a child she called love. This got her through her childhood and kept her on track with the essence, the spirit of life, with the clear light that can transform anything back to nature, back to the way of the clear light, the way of spirit!

I think the ball of love was in the NDE because…

It saves her, it is a reflection of her…so she wouldn’t forget herself. Brilliance is not ego; it’s not mind. It’s just nature!!!

Can Cheryl tune into you and ask you questions any time she wants to, Flower?

Yes! I’m always here for her!

Can she become you anytime she wants?

Yes! That will help her take the confusion out; sometimes she thinks she’s different from her true nature.

What have you heard yourself say?

That I am just like a flower! That is the way I was born and the way I am and always will be. I don’t have to get involved in anything else that takes away from my true nature.  That the old anger and pain and fear are OVER! Stay present, not just in the here and now, but not disassociating or going into shock (My body will go into a shock like state…) What will prevent mind and body from going into shock or into disassociational states is more intentional meditation every day.   Knowing the difference between meditation and disassociation or shock. I need that stillness, the quiet or peace. To get myself used to that instead of go, go go…

If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of who you are, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Love what already is! There is nothing more to get! The spirit door will just naturally expand in life.  I don’t have to force it!  Live here and now You.

Do you have any questions or comments about the interviewing process?

Your way of interviewing makes it flow with such ease!  I noticed myself staying present the whole time, which is not always easy to do!

( I love flowers & have them in our home most of the time& surrounding it. Like on your desk. Funny those ‘coincidences’ happen with me often!)

Notice that Cheryl could, in the future, go back and interview any other character in her experience.  All will reveal for her how, when, and where she is stuck and what she needs to get unstuck today, regardless of when she does the interview. Every aspect of our lives is a wake-up call; as we listen to them we see through the unnecessary and the complicated to the simple essence of who we are and what we are here to do.

Do you think your IDL interview helped you to “wake up” in some way to the usefulness or relevance of your NDE for you in your current life circumstances?

Yes. Holding back is counter productive & counter intuitive.

Was becoming an aspect (mother) of your NDE useful? If so, in what way?

Yes. This part I am really looking at and sorting out. More becomes clearer each night I read the transcript. This aspect is me. And it has given me the opportunity not only to identify how I am that aspect, also to transform the parts of this aspect that don’t serve me. Also reaffirms, everything is of light. Light does not exist in people according to behaviors, ‘good’ or ‘bad’. To live spiritually instead of personality based is much lovelier.

Did you feel like you were in touch with the divine in any way or at any time during your interview? If so, in what way(s)?

Yes. I know divine was there b/c I stayed present the whole interview. This is new to me to be “public” with the NDE’s. And the interview came to me from divine intervention.

Have you experimented since the interview at becoming your interviewed character (flower) and attempting to live your life from its perspective and out of its energy?  If so, have you noticed any results? If so, what?

Yes. And I want to do it more at any time not just in my meditation time. When I become the flower I remember I am nature just like a flower. If I get wrapped up in what isn’t my nature ‘I’ disappear.

Now that some time has passed, do you think that the recommendations your character had for your waking life were appropriate, relevant, and useful? If so, how?

All the above. I have kidded for decades, ” I wish God made me a grocery bagger!” God made me a light worker & that’s that! I love helping myself & others transform, using divine energy.

Sometimes we can get swamped with recommendations during interviews and sometimes the press of daily events swamps our ability to apply the recommendations we do receive.  Has either been the case for you?

I am integrating & transforming every day. This I have done daily for many a year. A priority that is necessary for my health & well being. The interview gave me lots of territory of self to transform. I’m happy with my pace.

Did you learn anything new about your NDE from your interview? Did it change your attitude about it in any way?

(It) forced me to write the NDE down & put it in public, which I had not before. Helped me separate how I ended up in a NDE (mother) & working with the NDE itself. With the trauma out of it, it’s a phenomenal experience. Amazing what the human psyche & body are capable of.

How about NDEs in general? Did your interview change your attitude about NDEs in any way? If so, how?

I feel fortunate I had one. I’ve been in touch with on some level, since an infant, what many people spend a life time hoping to experience.

Has your character (mother) continued to be present? Have you had any success at becoming it?  Or has its significance faded with time?

The characteristics of the character have been present. Haven’t tried to become it. This question stimulates me to work with mother character.

Do you think reading over your IDL interview would help someone who has not had an NDE to benefit from them all the same?

Yes.

Do you think an IDL interview could help people who have not had an NDE to get in touch with the divine?

Very possible.

Do you think this interviewing process could help NDEers avoid doing a “spiritual bypass?” (thinking they were totally healed and not addressing their psychological issues.)

Definitely. One of the most productive parts of the interview for me was becoming the aspect (flower) and the character (mother). Because I got information about myself that I wasn’t intentionally holding back but was. Excellent, gentle way to get into the subconscious. Even stuff I knew was a problem i.e. acceptance, I didn’t know the afraid of harm aspect of it.

Do you think that sharing your interview with family and friends could help them come to grips with the transformation that is still occurring in your life as a result of your NDE?

Definitely. My husband was delighted. Have only shared with him & my best friend so far.

Do you think that an IDL interview on a NDE theme could help terminally ill patients and their families?

Yes, especially those who are afraid of death, or family members who may be ‘holding on’ to a loved one who is going to pass.

(I am) so amazed how much I have gained by the interview & working with it day & night.

Do you ever feel like a victim?  Do you ever feel like you are being unfairly attacked?  All of us are victimized; all of us do get unfairly attacked.  So how can we stay out of drama? How can we keep happy, joyous, at peace in the face of injustice?

Could the solution be as simple as becoming like a heron, standing on one foot, gazing into the water?  For Claudia, that’s an important part of the answer. Try it!  Perhaps Claudia’s heron can help you too!

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1. How can I eat more chocolate without becoming fat?

2. How can I smoke more without developing lung cancer?

3. How can I become less critical sounding?  Not so pessimistic?

Tell me a dream you remember.  It can be an old one, a repetitive dream, a nightmare, or one that you’re sure you understand.

Shadie and Dayo were attacked by a mafia-type guy.  The man came with a shovel and Dayo ran.  Shadie laid there and is cut by the shovel.  I cry for help…An old lady takes me in her house and gives me tea. She is having a little tea-party-blether. The phone rings.  It’s for me.  The message is that my mother is in the hospital dying.  I feel that I am in the dramas of the dog, the superficiality of this old ladie’s circle, and my mother.

Dayo and Shadie:

Why do you think that you had this dream?

It’s like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder!  I kept losing things in my nightmares that I love.  This is a repetitive theme in my dreams.  I think I have them because my dogs have been ill.  I’ve been very worried about them.

If this dream were playing at a theater, what name would be on the marquee?

Drama!

These are the characters in the dream, beside yourself…

Two dogs, the shovel, a man that knows that he can hurt me when he hurts what I love, the old lady, mother in the hospital, street, house

If one character had something especially important to tell you, what would it be?

Shadie.  I have the strongest feelings for him….

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your dream and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Shadie, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I have had my head bashed in by the shovel.  There is blood all over.  I am dead and I am not dead because I am a dream dog.  I’m just alive.  I don’t feel good.  This is Claudia’s dream, that something bad always happens to me, and I don’t like it!

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I stay in a good mood.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

I am so passive when the man came and attacked me.

Shadie, you are in Claudia’s life experience, correct?  She created you, right?  Shadie, what aspect of Claudia do you represent or most closely personify?

The part that always gets hit over the head!

Shadie, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

No! Claudia would change it, but I don’t!  It’s equal.  It doesn’t matter.  It’s aggression.  Either I get my head bashed in or someone has my teeth in his throat.  But I can’t be bothered to attack.  Claudia would love me to kill him, but I can’t be bothered.

What would happen next if the dream were to go on?

I am dead, Claudia brings me away from the street, and Claudia is very sad. I would become a white Heron because I can stand passively and look at the water. If you can wait for half a day, I might say something.  I’m just standing here.

Shall I continue to speak to Shadie or the Heron?

I have had enough of this blood!  I will be the heron!

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Heron, you are in Claudia’s life experience, correct?  She created you, right?  Shadie, what aspect of Claudia do you represent or most closely personify?

It’s a part that can stand on one foot all day and look at the water and only move when it sees a fish~! I represent her equanimity.

Heron, how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 A fish always comes by!

Compassion: 10  5  for me, 5 for the fish!

Wisdom: 10  I know where the best fish are.

Acceptance:      Sure!

Inner Peace:  9 Also on one foot!

Witnessing:  8 I stay very calm and see everything.

Heron, if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different?  If so, how?

When I have a ten in compassion I become a vegetarian!  Or I will have to say a prayer before and after meals! In the other things, it doesn’t matter…

How would Claudia’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

Her problem is that she has a compassion of ten!

Do you think it would be good if she had less compassion??

During the dramas, drink a tea!  She is suffering with so many things all the time!

Do you think that the suffering of others makes her become like Shadie?

No, she is suffering with Shadie.  It’s best for her to go to the sea and look at the water and not suffer with others.  If she was a ten in all things she wouldn’t look at dolphins and other things getting killed on the TV after days with already enough drama.

If you could live Claudia life for her, how would you live it differently?

I would meditate more on one foot and look on the water!  After half a day, change feet!

If you could live Claudia’s waking life for her today, would you handle her three life issues differently?  If so, how?

1. How can I eat more chocolate without becoming fat? I eat only fish and don’t get fat!  Ask a nutritional expert!

2. How can I smoke more without developing lung cancer? There is a man in a boat that always smokes who doesn’t feel well because he is always coughing.  I’m not the expert for this because I don’t smoke.  The Heron says, “STOP IT!”  How do you go about stopping? You start!   The inner pathologist can tell you about lungs and smoking…

What would help to stop it?

To BEGIN!

3. How can I become less critical sounding?  Not so pessimistic?

Are you critical, Heron?  Are you pessimistic?

Why should I be?

Is Claudia so critical?

No, she is self-critical. She criticizes herself for not saving enough lives and not doing enough to protect others from getting hurt or dying.  She suffers and is empathetic.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of her life?

1. To stand on one foot and look at the water – that’s all!

2. Not to forget to get on the other foot when the one becomes cold!

3. Always look in the water.  Always remember that I am here….

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Claudia to imagine that she is you and act as you would?

Always at the right time. Whenever the drama is too much and her balance is threatened.

Heron, do you do drama?  If not, why not?

No!  Too boring!

I thought drama was exciting?

Oh yeah?

What is your secret for staying out of drama?

It’s always the same, isn’t it?  If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.  You look in the other direction!  Don’t place yourself in the middle of drama! No TV!  But she doesn’t need to follow all my advice.

Why do you think that you are in Claudia’s life?

To show her that there are other things in life besides drama.

How is Claudia most likely to ignore what you are saying to her?

By saying I’m just fantasy?

Aren’t you?

What’s reality?  Who knows?

What would you recommend that she do about that?

Realizing that SHE just might be fantasy!

Why would she want to do that?

To put things into proper relationship.

I think Claudia had this dream because…

Because she only sees one side of reality and that’s suffering and death.

Why does she does that?

That’s what she’s learned.  You lose what you love.  What you love gets killed, gets run over, dies.

What do you think about what she’s learned, Heron?

That’s part of the truth.  The other part is life.  Being alive, standing on one foot, waiting for a fish.  You don’t know what I think and where I go in my mind when I’m standing here, gazing in the water.  Other people can’t stand on TWO legs, let alone one!

I think this dream event happened or (some character) was in the dream because…

To scare herself, to hurt herself.

Why would she want to do that?

Because that’s what she’s used to…

What have you heard yourself say?

To be in absolute balance is the most important thing.  There is a part inside of me that is very calm, in balance, and doesn’t get in drama.

If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of who you are, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Stand often on one foot!  Maintain balance!  Self-confidence.  Concentration.

“You have a part of yourself that can stand on one foot and it is good for maintaining your inner sense of balance in your life.  You have a part that can choose not to suffer but to be in balance.  There are always enough dramas in the world; it’s important to be in balance.”

It’s important to find a part of myself that can stand still, balance, and look into the water. Perhaps it is important to take this yoga position before the water!  It’s important to feel myself as a heron in my normal life when people are into drama.

What would be the subject for the next interview regarding this dream?

Nobody.  It’s only important to get out of the drama.  The best thing would be to get out while Claudia is dreaming….

What did you hear Heron say?

That he’s getting tired of being asked all these questions.  He wants to get back to the water!

Practically: Don’t waste much time with dreaming dreams of victimization.  Look for a way out of the drama!  The Shadie part of myself was bored by the same thing happening.  I’m victimizing myself in the dream, Shadie in the dream, my mother in the dream because she also dies, I victimize the man because I want to kill him.  I victimize the Dayo part of myself because he gets scared.  It’s almost like these other parts of oneself are bored by it all and only get into the drama because we want them to in our dreams…

Notice that Claudia is slowly waking up. She is seeing her life dramas of suffering and victimization as self-created repetitive boredom that persecutes the other parts of herself that have to show up to play these tired, melodramatic roles.  Ideally, she will learn to wake up in dreams, to realize what she is doing, and stop it.

Some IDL dream interviews emphasize healing.  Others emphasize balance. Others emphasize transformation.  This one emphasizes all three.

This lovely lady came with us on a trip to swim with wild dolphins in Bimini, because she had experiences in which dolphins connected her to the divine, spoke to her, and through her.  This lady was not psychotic, delusional, or in any way appearing to be emotionally unbalanced. She is friendly, conscientious, helpful, empathetic, and generous.  Her intuitive connection to the divine is very important to her and dolphins have somehow become a central path or bridge.

This very interesting interview reveals the interface between out of control world events: a world perishing due to human greed and ignorance, and the worried, caring, individual conscience that holds itself somehow responsible.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1 Intuition: With all the life issues we have today we don’t have time for intuition.  I have some, but I want more!  If I did, my life would be totally different.  There were moments in my life when I was very intuitive.  Those were very happy moments.  Everything fits together harmonically. Harmony is missing now.

2 Harmony in my life.

3 Love!  Love for myself.  I miss that a lot.

Which issue brings up the strongest feelings for you?

Intuition

I would like to do an interview about an event I had when I was mixing a homeopathic medication five years ago with a group of people that was led by an instructor in homeopathy, I was doing a very special mystery grinding of the “the milk of a dolphin” in a mortar with a pestal.  There was a mother dolphin in a zoo in Switzerland.  Our teacher asked the zoo to give him a little of the dolphin milk because he was making a homeopathic medication with it.  In the homeopathic preparation, you take one little drop of the dolphin milk and put it into 100 drops of sugar and grind it.  When we did that, very strange things happened.  All our senses became very active while this was happening.  We heard voices and saw pictures – not all the same ones – different people heard different voices and saw different things.  All our senses became very intense.  This is like wishful thinking, but you still see reality also.

The first step of the process was a dilution of one drop dolphin’s milk to 100 grams of sugar.  Then you do the same again, diluting it a second time in another 100 grams of sugar.  You take that dilution and repeat two more times for a total of four times.   The grinding only takes twenty minutes for each dilution, however, every step produces different visions and different illusions for the people in the group.  There were forty-five people in our group and everyone got different pictures and stories, so it took altogether two and a half days to do the four dilutions.  When we started to do this grinding I was tasting fresh fish in my mouth.  Normally, I hate fish.  I saw myself coming up from the very dark to the light above.  It was the sea and I was a dolphin.  For those two days I was a dolphin.

There are special themes that we discuss when we do the grinding for each dilution.  The first theme is home country.  Where is your home, where do you feel at home? The second is communication.  It was a very strong theme for me.  I and two others in the group were dolphins, the rest were humans.  I tried to say something to the humans but they didn’t understand.  Other members of the group were telling me I looked like a dolphin, with the nose and eyes of a dolphin.

During this time as a dolphin I saw that human civilization was destroyed.  It was like the end of the world.  Big earthquakes destroyed human civilization.  Everything was destroyed. I knew that we humans were responsible for it.  During the fourth grinding I was standing near to God and I felt very guilty for the destruction of the planet. I wanted to come back down back to Earth and tell humans not to do it, to somehow prevent it.   I was begging to be sent down to Earth because there was still time to change things.  It didn’t matter what shape I came back in, as a dolphin or as a bird, for example, to give this message to humans.  I was standing with my head down and feeling very guilty.  The Divine said, “Humans can’t understand each other.  Why should they understand you as a dolphin or some other animal?”  I said, “I will find a way to tell them so that they will not lose their contact with the divine.”  Then I was a dolphin for several lives.

The back fin connects dolphins to the divine.  As a dolphin, I was feeling that connection.  In my vision, all the dolphins killed themselves because they couldn’t communicate with the humans about the disaster in a way that humans would hear.  So the dolphins turned themselves on their backs to break their contact with the divine and drove themselves onto the land because they couldn’t contact humans.  They are still trying to be heard by humans today.

The leader of the homeopathic grinding said that there should be a fifth dilution but not all the group could follow it.  They could all sleep on it and he would decide which members could do the fifth step.  Fifteen people were selected.  The others were dreaming different things and got signs that they shouldn’t do the fifth step.

I did the step.  I woke up knowing that I should do it.  While I was taking a shower that morning I had a feeling that someone was pushing a knife into my back.   I was feeling it and I was screaming.  My roommate got me out of the shower because I couldn’t move because I was still feeling the knife in my back.  It was a big pain.   There was also a shaman in the group.  He stopped the hurting a bit when he gave me a wooden dolphin.  He told me that he wasn’t a dolphin man and that I am more dolphin than he is.  I caressed the back fin of this wooden dolphin and the pain in my back went away!  With this fifth grinding I was losing the ability to listen to the dolphins. At the beginning of the fifth grinding I was both human and dolphin but after the fifth grinding of the dolphin milk the dolphin went away and I was only human.  Afterwards, when it was finished, I was so happy to see the people, the sun, the trees that it all was still there after seeing everything destroyed during those two days.    Five years later, I still have this pain in my back sometimes; it comes and goes.

Associations: I have been dreaming of this dolphin trip. I would like to ask this pain why I can’t hear the dolphins anymore.  When I was swimming with dolphins yesterday in the Caribbean near Bimini I heard the dolphins like a choir, but I couldn’t understand them.

Pain, why can’t Terri hear the dolphins any more? Why can’t humans hear them anymore?

The pain is there, but it doesn’t talk.

Pain, why don’t you talk?

She’s not listening.  It’s as if she was just whistling….

What would be different if she was listening to you, pain?

I am still Terri feeling the pain.

Pain, what does Terri need to do to become you right now?

Love!

Are you willing to feel love right now, Terri?

I am feeling love for everyone but not for myself.

Pain, why is Terri not feeling love for herself?

It’s the same feeling that she had when she was standing next to the divine and feeling so guilty for the loss of the world.

Pain, do you think Terri should feel guilty for the loss of the world?

No, she’s not responsible.  She just feels that she is.

Dolphins, I understand that you turned over on your backs and beached yourselves because you couldn’t communicate with humans, is that correct?

Yes, we did that because this back fin of power is like a connection to the divine or like a TV remote control.  You can’t do what you want to do; you’re like a robot.  You are helpless.  We couldn’t stand that any more.  We had to disconnect this connection.

I thought your connection was to the divine.  Why would you want to disconnect it?

It doesn’t make any sense, but it was an inner weakness because I couldn’t take it any more.   I came back many times as a dolphin.

Dolphins, are you aware that Terri feels guilty and responsible for not being able to wake the humans up who are destroying the planet?

No, that’s her problem.  She’s feeling that.  We know that she has wisdom like we do.  We don’t make her responsible; she makes herself responsible.

Dolphins, do you think it’s realistic or helpful for Terri to make herself responsible for humans destroying the planet?

No.

Why not, Dolphins?

She had this experience and she can understand it more than any other human, but every single person is responsible for that.  They do not all know what they are doing.

Dolphins, why do you think Terri has had this piercing pain in her back?

The lack of connection of the line to the divine makes this pain. When she can listen again the pain will stop.

Is she listening right now, dolphins?

No.

What would she need to be doing right now in order to listen, dolphins?

She has to find a quiet place, sit down, and listen.

If she does that, what will she hear? (Terri has a problem thinking the dolphins are talking to her in the interview; she has to listen to them outside of herself.)

Does Terri have to go to quiet places and be by physical dolphins to hear you or can she listen to you in anywhere, or in interviews like the one she is doing right now?

Terri: I can communicate with them here and now because I am back in contact with them.(Problems staying in role: “I don’t know which one wants to speak through me right now, the dolphin part of me or the external, real dolphins.”)

Dolphins, what does Terri have to do to no longer have physical pain?

The pain is so she won’t forget what she saw.  When she starts to listen then the pain will go away.

Dolphins, do you think that Terri is listening to you right now?

Yes.

What do you want to tell her, dolphins?

We don’t want to talk to her now because it is too loud.

Is she putting you off, dolphins, or is she going to talk to you tonight?

We will talk to her tonight if she will get quiet and listen to us.

Thank you dolphins.  We look forward to supporting Terri and you in any way we can in the future.

When I regain this connection to the divine through my back then I will have regained my intuition.

Dolphins, how would Terri’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

Connected with freedom and happiness all the time!  She shouldn’t ask, she should just live it!  If she wants the pain relief she will take time to listen to us.

You say, “listen to us.” So we stop and listen to you.  Then you say, “It’s not the time.”  Which way is it, dolphins?

They are bored.  They went off. They don’t want to talk…

Two days later:

They are talking all the time!  They say, no matter where she is she needs to take time to get in contact with us!

Dolphins, thank you for talking to Terri!  Has Terri had that pain in her back since she started talking to you again?

No!

How come?

She should take the contact to the divine.  The pain only returns when she is not in contact.

Can she do that through listening to you, dolphins?

We are helping.

This interview raises many interesting questions.

What is the relationship between dreams and mythology?

Can individuals dream cultural myths?

Can myths influence individual dreams?

How do cults and religions get formed?  How do world myths get created?

Notice that part of what creates cultural myths in when a person cannot easily differentiate between external voices and internal ones.  Terri assumed that the dolphins speaking to her were external.

Notice also that Terri felt personally responsible for the acts of all humanity and for the destruction of the entire world.  This is grandiose and narcissistic, although her intentions are based on genuine caring.

Notice that Terri felt not only responsible but guilty.  This added a third problem to the first two: 1) inability to distinguish internal from external guidance; 2) personalization of world responsibility; 3) guilt.

These problems were acute enough to create somatization in a way that paralleled her belief system: dolphins lost their contact with the divine through their backs; when Terri lost her intuitive contact to the divine through being a dolphin at the end of the homeopathic dilution, she developed intense and recurring back pain.

All of this was real for Terri

This interview also demonstrates how Integral Deep Listening, as a form of Dream Yoga, helps people wake up out of false awakenings, that is thinking they are awake when they are not.  Terri’s reality of pain in her back because of the guilt and responsibility she felt for the destructiveness of humanity is a type of “false awakening.”  It is a real and important insight for her, so real that it is externalized,  yet it is not true lucidity.  She is clearly asleep within the dream of her own belief system, which generates her own painful reality. This is an excellent description of and example of how karma works and how we create it out of our awareness continuously, because we think we are awake right now when we are actually in a delusional state, locked in the reality of our own delusions.

If you had terminal cancer, what would your concerns be?  How about learning to look at life and death from the perspective of spirit?  Live life as a dance! That’s what this fellow is learning to do, already making plans for his next incarnation…In this interview there are practical suggestions about how to put your life into a context that will free and awaken you.

Anvil and Hammer

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1. How do I create magic in my life and other people’s lives?

2. How do I dance with people?

3. What’s the best way or ways to serve?

Imagine you are on your deathbed, looking back over your life.  Imagine all your dreams have come true.  What do you see when you look back?  How has your life unfolded?

Oct 12, 2009, in my 62nd year, was the big wakeup call when I became alive.  Maharaji was teaching me everything.  The initial recovery took a few months, the intermediate phase took longer.  I spent some time in India at Maharaji’s ashram where I got the message of what I needed to do for the rest of my life.  It became a dance at that point, an analogy I got from my dance instructor mother.  I learned to treat everyone I meet as a dance partner.  From that point on I danced through the rest of my life.  I gave up a lot of the constrictions I had when I was married.  I became an accomplished yogi that helped others learn how to listen to and follow their own inner path.  This continued for many, many years, accomplishing the things Maharaji wanted me to accomplish.

Now imagine that you are on your deathbed, looking back over your life.  Imagine that NONE of your dreams have come true; in fact, all of your fears have come to pass.  What happened?  How do you feel?

I follow what everybody else tells me to do.  I do what doctors tell me.  I did the chemo, I went to the Prostate support meetings.  I got involved in drug trials, testing new drugs.  The more I did it the fewer people were around me because I didn’t have the energy to be in their lives.  I ended up going into nursing homes because I couldn’t take care of myself.  The money I had got drained away and I died a pauper in pain.

If those feelings had a color (or colors), what would it be?

Black and red!

Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness.

Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What?

An anvil and hammer.

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your dream and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Anvil and hammer, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I am a standard large anvil, solid steel, weighing at least 500 pounds with a point on one end.  I am almost immovable, powerfully built.  As the hammer, I am good and solid.  I work with my partner to bend things that are very hard, like steel.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

We are dependable, strong. We know what we’re doing. We can bend and shape things.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

We have crappy social lives!  No one comes because they want to hang out with us.  They are only around us because we are tools. We are not desired in and of ourselves.  People don’t quite understand us. They think that if you hit an anvil hard enough it will break. But the hammer is what breaks, not the anvil, if something is going to break.

Hammer and Anvil, you are in Felix’s life experience, correct?  He created you, right? What aspect of Felix do you represent or most closely personify?

Base chakra stuff. Things he’s used for so long.  However, it’s more than that.  It’s any of the chakras.  He knows how to bend things.  He knows how to make things move.

Hammer and Anvil, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

No, we’re happy with who we are.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Hammer and Anvil, how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10

Compassion:   5 It’s all bent to the goal, which is more important than compassion.  You just do it.

Wisdom:   5 I don’t learn from the mistakes of others.

Acceptance:   5

Inner Peace:   5

Witnessing: 10

Hammer and Anvil, if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different?  If so, how?

Compassion: He would use us much more judiciously.  If all you have is a hammer and an anvil, then every problem is a horseshoe…However, what he forgets  is that the hammer can beat out gold as well as dross, and shape it finely.

Wisdom: Look at other people! See how they are screwing up and learn from that!

Acceptance: Accept that you can be different and be wise about it!

Inner Peace: Doing the art of goldsmithing rather than working on raw iron!  It would be more gentle and effective!

How would the life of the person who created you be different if he naturally scored high in all six of these qualities all the time?

The level of subtlety he would require would be quite pronounced.  Learning the dance is so appropriate for him, dancing with his own self, with the universe, with others.

If you could live the life of the person who created you for him, how would you live it differently?

He’s doing them.  He’s changing all the time!

If you could live this person’s waking life for him today, would you handle his/her three life issues differently?  If so, how?

1. Creating magic: Keep dancing!

2. Regarding dancing with more people, keep your mouth shut, don’t think about people, feel them.  When that feeling is prominent, move with the steps that need to be taken.

3. Service:  Turn it over to Maharaji!  It’s his perogative. Be more open to that.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his life?

The same ones.  They are the key to a rich and fulfilling life.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for this person to imagine that they are you and act as you would?

All the time!  There is always a more open and loving way to do things!

Why do you think that you are in this person’s life?

We are an important part of who he is.  We are part of his soul.

What do you think about this person’s nightmare?

It gives his fears a reality that he needs to accept and then choose not to do it.  It can be a choice rather than a destiny.

What do you think about this person’s good dream?

It’s also a choice, not a destiny.

How is this person most likely to ignore what you are saying to them?

Falling asleep!

What would you recommend that they do about that?

Stay awake!!!!   Open your heart.  It provides the right answers.

I think this person created this nightmare because….

He created it.  He has to recognize that it’s a choice that he has to make.

What have you heard yourself say?

Bending and turning things; the hammer and anvil have given me a long time perspective.  The decisions I’m making now will affect a lot of people for a long time. That was a surprise to me because my time frame has been so attenuated since I got my cancer diagnosis.  It’s been hard for me to see that the decisions I’m making now have long term implications.  In a past life I was the wife of a samuri in the height of that period in Japan.  I was good with money and kept my husband financially secure.  I was a respected member of the society with money and influence.  I also had a son, who I have met this lifetime.  I spent a bunch of years toward the end of my life as a Zen nun.

If this experience were a wake-up call from your deepest, truest inner self, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Get out of thinking in terms of one lifetime.  See the big picture.  Go back to understanding that your choices are not for next week, month, or year, but how what you does can have an impact on your soul and future incarnations.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing fwith now in your life?

1. My relationship with Jesus

2. Maximizing my contributions to others

3. Waking up.

Which life issue brings up the strongest feelings for you?

Because of my dialogue with David, the first.  As I told him, I had a positive association with Jesus as a child being brought up in the Presbyterian church.  Then at twelve (1962), I had a very positive and sometimes personal association with Jesus through his portrayal in the Edgar Cayce readings (Cayce was an amazing trance medical clairvoyant) and through association with a number of remarkable people who bought into his portrayal of Jesus as someone who genuinely was loving, a miracle worker, but a soul who had incarnated again and again and came back because he had caused humanity as souls to become enmeshed in earthly incarnation and it was his responsibility to show a way out.  The Readings also claimed that the resurrection really did take place.  Following this, I read books on the Shroud of Turin and became convinced that it was not a fake and that the only way it could have been made is if the body underneath it dematerialized.  I was not convinced by the carbon datings that occurred in the 1990’s because they did not explain the existence on the Shroud of the pollen of uniquely Palestinian plants.  In about 1975 I lectured with an elder mentor, Hugh Lynn Cayce, the son of Edgar Cayce, who dedicated his life to serving Jesus through advancing public awareness of him in his father’s readings.  In addition to being told in a Reading at his birth that he had been Andrew, one of Jesus’ twelve disciples, Hugh Lynn had a number of powerful and personal encounters with Jesus throughout his life. Beginning in 1969 with a college course on comparative religion, I had to reconcile Edgar Cayce’s view of Jesus and God (which I decided was more Vedantic Hindu than anything else) with Hinduism, Buddhism, and Chinese religions.  The Buddhist world view in particular presented a world view that raised questions that were not adequately answered by either Vedanta or the Cayce readings, much less by the Western monotheisms.  Looking for a context that would hold it all, my work became informed by the Integral world view of Ken Wilber in the 1980’s.  My view of Jesus now was that people could have a powerful personal relationship with the group thought form of Jesus, created by worshippers over the centuries and perhaps even an experience with Jesus himself, say in a Near Death Experience, but that these experiences were culturally conditioned and Hindus, Moslems, etc. would have manifestations by their own avatars.  In other words, I came to view Jesus as an incarnation of subtle level I-Thou oneness with the divine through loving relationship, but hardly the only doorway (not exclusive) and not universal.  This, however, is conjecture, and the following interview is an attempt to move my understanding forward, to build on all this history and see if I cannot create a deeper, more meaningful personal relationship with Jesus through it.  My goal is to get in touch, through my own subjective mental associations with Jesus, with Jesus Himself and hear what he has to say to me.

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Jesus, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I am infinite, unconditional love of the sort people report in Near Death Experiences.  I am the sort of love that makes all hurt, all guilt, all shame go away and replaces it with an extraordinary sense of freedom in an awareness that you are loved, you are love, and you exist in a universe that is abundant and loving in ways that are far beyond your comprehension.  People can incarnate me in form.  As the Cayce readings said, the prayers and focused intentions of generations incubated my incarnation as Jesus in Palestine over two thousand years ago.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I am beyond liking or disliking, however I grow when people wake up to me and become me.  My infinite, unconditional love grows a little bit brighter and stronger through the consciousness of each individual that takes it up.  My strength is that when people act as me they are selfless and able to love regardless of what pains or injustices are done to them.  They dedicate themselves totally and selflessly to the advancement of their fellow man.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

Nothing.  It is not that I am perfect; it’s just that my love so transcends what humans experience and comprehend that by comparison I seem to be.

Jesus, you are in this person’s life experience, correct?  They created you, right?_____  (Character), what aspect of this person do you represent or most closely personify?

I personify Joseph’s oneness with the divine, particularly in selfless, unconditional love.  This is a perfect love that casts out all fear and which carries any burden.

Jesus, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I would be fully alive and present as a possessing spirit or muse within and through Joseph in particular and everyone and everything else.  That’s because I heal, balance, and transform lives by people’s experience of me.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Jesus, how would you score yourself 0-10, in each of the following six qualities:  confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 I can’t die; I have no fear.  I am perfect love.

Compassion: 10 You are an aspect of me; by loving you, I love myself.

Wisdom: 10 I know the Buddha; I am so much more than the historical Jesus was, because he was limited and conditioned by his socio-cultural context.

Acceptance: 10

Inner Peace: 10

Witnessing: 10

How would Joseph’s life be different if he naturally scored high in all six of these qualities all the time?

He and the Father would be one, as I am.  That does not mean that he would be perfect; it would simply mean that for his present level of experience of those qualities, he would be complete and whole.  But he wouldn’t stay there.  As he grows his awareness of those qualities expands, requiring a further expansion of his consciousness. This never ends.

If you could live Joseph’s life for him, how would you live it differently?

I would be fearless in pursuit of and expression of those six core qualities, because they are at the heart of my message and what I personify – spirit.

If you could live this person’s waking life for him today, would you handle his three life issues differently?  If so, how?

1. Regarding his relationship with me, if he takes me with him wherever he goes and into whatever he does he will not only be loving but very, very strong due to the quality of his dedication.

2. Regarding his desire to maximize his contribution to others, I would say to continue along his present lines but with redoubled effort.

3. Regarding waking up, serve more, meditate more, do more interviews, and work harder at applying the recommendations that you get.  Give it all away…

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his life?

The above three are good.  Living today as if he just had a Near Death Experience wouldn’t hurt.

Why do you think that you are in Joseph’s life?

To help him get out of his own way.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Joseph to imagine that he is you and act as you would?

Anytime, of course, but particularly when he feels fear or forgets that he is me.

Joseph, what have you heard yourself say?

Having more of an ongoing, personal relationship with Jesus than I have ever had before is a good thing and that I need to do it.

If this experience were a wake-up call from your soul, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Be one with universal love and act like it!

The following example, which came from a regression years ago, is not a grandiose past life memory of being Napoleon or a disciple of Jesus.  It is chosen precisely because its mundane nature gives it a degree of plausibility that more glorious and esteemed accounts can lack.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1. Building IDL

2. Deepening my awareness of life’s abundance, joyful absurdity, and luminosity.

3. Acting. thinking, feeling within the context of the six core qualities.

Tell me a past life memory.

I am an orphan who has been adopted by a hermit.  He teaches me how to live in the woods.  We live in a cave-like place behind vines in a forest.  The floor is dirt. There is a three legged stool.  I walk into a small village and find it empty.  I go to the small church; there is no one there.  I go back to the woods and my home and become weak, sick, and die.

I figure that the people in the village must have died of the plague and I caught it.

Why do you think that you had this past life experience?

Maybe to partially explain my lifelong ability to be by myself and not feel lonely.

If it were playing at a theater, what name would be on the marquee?

Forest Hermit

These are the characters in the dream…

Me, Hermit, Woods, Cave, Vines, Stool, Village, Church

If one character had something especially important to tell you, what would it be?

The stool.  It’s so inconsequential, yet almost out of place.

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your dream and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Stool, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I am just a crudely fashioned three-legged stool.  I am made out of wood from this forest.  I am in this cave.  I am made to be sat on.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I hold people up.  I am useful.  I am reliable; I do what I’m made to do.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

No.  While I may be nothing special, I have a place and a purpose, and I fulfill both.

Stool, you are in Joseph’s life experience, correct?  They created you, right? What aspect of Joseph do you represent or most closely personify?

I am the life support that comes from simplicity, from the overlooked, from the easily obtained.  One doesn’t have to have much to live well.  Not having had much, these people do not experience themselves as impoverished.

Stool, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

No.  I am content to be myself.  I like my life and I like my purpose.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Stool, how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 I have nothing to be afraid of.  I am not afraid of getting old and collapsing or being used as firewood.  Such things are my destiny.

Compassion:   ? I am not in the business of caring about anyone or anything.

Wisdom:   ? I do not need or use wisdom.

Acceptance: 10 I accept myself and life completely.

Inner Peace: 10 Definitely.

Witnessing:   8 I get to observe these people and the world from an unemotional place.  I don’t personalize anything and I don’t do drama.

(Character,) if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different?  If so, how?

I wouldn’t be a stool any more if I scored ten in compassion and wisdom.  I would prefer to stay a stool.

How would the life of Joseph be different if he naturally scored high in all six of these qualities all the time?

He would would not experience scarcity.  He would experience life as abundant, regardless of his circumstances.  He would have no concern for the future.  It would be enough for him to have a function and to take pleasure in fulfilling it.

If you could live the life of Joseph for him, how would you live it differently?

I would not base my life on thinking or caring; he already does those things anyway.  He needs to get into a deeper essence, a beingness that is not affected by other people or by the ravages of time.

If you could live Joseph’s waking life for him today, would you handle his three life issues differently?  If so, how?

1. Building his work:  Proceed with great confidence, yet serenity.

2. Luminosity, joyful absurdity, and abundance:  Be me.  I have more of those things than you do.

3. Living life from the six core qualities:  I can help with four of the six.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his life?

The same.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for this person to imagine that they are you and act as you would?

Whenever he takes life too seriously.

Why do you think that you are in this person’s life?

To help him put life in proportion.

How is this person most likely to ignore what you are saying to them?

I am just a three-legged stool.  Why should he listen to me?

What would you recommend that they do about that?

He values turning the mundane, secular, and profane into the sacred.  He could do worse than practice with me.

I think this person had this past life memory because

it points to the transitoriness of life, the value of simplicity, the abundance of nature, and how these values transcend space, time, and death.

Do you think it was a real past-life memory?

I think it is like a dream, a metaphor designed to help him wake up.

What have you heard yourself say?

That from the perspective of this self-aspect the distinction between waking experience, dreams, and past life experiences either is unimportant or non-existent.  What is important is how I understand such experiences and what I learn from them.  I can learn more and use them better if I interview other characters that appear in past life memories.

If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of yourself, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Spirit doesn’t make such distinctions.  To make your life sacred, focus on the six core qualities and their fruit, luminosity, abundance, and joyful absurdity.

Everybody has dreams for their life that they hope will come true.  Everyone also has fears that those life dreams won’t come true, that instead they will turn into a nightmare of a life.  Why not look at both that dream and the nightmare and do an interview?  There are many ways that could be done with IDL.  One way would be to create a Dream Sociomatrix of the life nightmare and interview several characters from it, write out their preferences, complete the commentaries, and create the Dream Sociogram to depict the results.  Another would be to take the feeling of the life nightmare, allow it to become a color, have it fill the room and congeal into a shape and interview that.  This is the course that we took with the following fun and powerful interview with a fellow with chronic health fears and fear of flying.  Comments follow.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1. Organization – I still don’t have a contract

2. My eye doctor is not cooperating.  I have to go to court

3. Trouble with girlfriend.  Arguing about her wanting more attention from me.  I don’t treat her like a girlfriend.

You’re on your deathbed.  You look back at your life and it’s been the fulfillment of all your needs.

The people I love and I stay healthy.  I want two kids who grow up and are happy kids.  I would love to have a job where I have fun and fulfill my dreams and the dreams of my kids.  So that if they want to go play tennis I can afford to get them a coach.  A mate who is a good friend and a great mother.  I am able to travel and go see other countries and cultures without fear of flying or being at a distance without support.  These are the basics that are really life quality.  My parents stay healthy and live a long time.

Now imagine that none of this occurs. In fact, you have terrible luck.  All your worst fears come to pass.  Youre looking back at your life, a complete failure.  Describe what happens.

I can’t laugh at the situation.  It’s too serious.  My parents die early.  My kids have disabilities!  My wife’s a nagging bitch.  I don’t have a regular job so there’s no money for my kids and I feel like I’ve been a lousy father.  I am scared of everything and stay home all the time. I feel terrible – worthless, hopeless, like I’m a failure.  It’s horrible.

What feelings come up for you when you imagine that life nightmare?

Sadness, regret, hurt, anger.

If those feelings had a color (or colors), what would it be?

Dark brown shit color!

Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness.

Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What?

A huge pile of dog shit!!!!

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teachis/her or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Huge pile of dog shit, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I have a pretty relaaxed life.  I don’t have any control but I get to see a lot of things.  I start as dog food and get to see some of the inner life of a dog.  Then the dog transforms me and I come out after having had a long warm trip.  And then I’m pretty useless!  I can’t be used for fertilizer.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

(laughing) I am pretty stupid.  I don’t think much about anything.  I live in the moment.  I don’t worry about the future.  I transform.  I change the way I am and make myself fit every situation.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

No!  I’m happy!  I’m perfect the way I am!

Dog Shit, you are in Tony’s life experience, correct?  He created you, right? What aspect of Tony do you represent or most closely personify?

Tony could learn a lot from me.  I don’t complain because I don’t have any control over my life.  Tony has a lot of fear about life.

Dog Shit, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

No!  I’m a huge pile of dog shit!  I can’t get any better!

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Dog Shit, how would you score yourself 0-10, in each of the following six qualities:  confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10

Compassion:   1

Wisdom:   1

Acceptance: 10

Inner Peace: 10

Witnessing: 10

Dog Shit, if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different?  If so, how?

I don’t know if it would change my life so much.  I think I’m not smart enough as dog shit, but I don’t need to be.  If I had a high IQ it wouldn’t improve my life quality, in fact it would reduce it.  I would worry too much. Same with compassion.  People could slip on me and get pissed, but what could I do about it?

How would Tony’s life be different if he/she naturally scored high in all six of these qualities all the time?

It would definitely change his problem with his fears.  He wouldn’t have them any more.  He would live in the moment instead of the past or the future.  I’m pretty relaxed.  I couldn’t change my life anyway.  So why worry?  I accept myself the way I am.  His life quality would be increased.

If you could live Tony’s life for him/her, how would you live it differently?

I don’t have fears and he does.  You can put me on a plane and send me to Africa and I won’t change.  If he could be more like me he could improve his biggest life issue a lot.  And with that, the other issues would take care of themselves.

If you could live this person’s waking life for him/her today, would you handle his three life issues differently?  If so, how?

1.  Organization?  What’s that?  I would be really laid back if I were him!  I don’t think I would be a good model for him because I don’t care!  If he doesn’t care about his appointments and the structure of his day…I’m very lazy!

2. Doctor: I would put a big pile of dog shit on his head!  I would take him to court!  Let’s have some fun!

3. Girlfriend:  I wouldn’t have gotten so far in this relationship if I were Tony.  She would definitely have left me!  When she wanted me to change, I would have said, “You gotta love me the way I am!  Even if I wanted to I couldn’t change.”  I couldn’t try to make promises or lie.      He is a little like me already in that he stands up for himself.  On the other hand, he often changes things to please her even though he doesn’t want to.  Why shouldn’t he if it doesn’t bother him?  But does it make sense?  It’s a never ending story.  You can change things, but it has to lead somewhere.  If the next day she’s complaining about the same old shit, then it doesn’t lead anywhere.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his life?

1. When I look at Tony’s life his biggest issue, fear, would be gone.

2. I would be very bad for his job!

I would be very bad for his present relationship.  There is probably a girl out there which is probably dog shit too as a girl, but such girls are hard to find…

If he were to live his life as me and on his deathbed he would look back, he wouldn‘t have spent his life being afraid.  He wouldn’t have spent his life with an intolerant bitch, because such a woman would not stay with me, Dog Shit!  He would be broke, but it would be OK, because I don’t need anything.  As dog shit, I would be a good father!  I am always there!  Oh shit!  Maybe his girlfriend would like him because he’d always be home!

To make his life dream come true,  he should continue to work on getting over his fears.  He should open up his eyes before he marries.  He should not marry his girlfriend because she stresses too much.  Not stressing out is not part of her character.  She will always jump around and say, “Why aren’t you dogshit????”  But I, dog shit, want to chill!

Why do you think that you are in Tony’s life?

I am in his life because I can help him deal with some of his biggest life issues.  I think I can improve his life quality a lot.  I don’t care what other people think of me.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Tony to imagine that he is you and act as you would?

It would be good to become me when he gets afraid.  When he gets on a plane he should think he’s me!  If he gets stressed, he can be me!  He shouldn’t be me all the time, but for a few minutes here and there.  If he remembered it would put a smile on his face!  He’s on his way to being a pile of dog shit toward his girlfriend.  He doesn’t change things just because she’s pissed.  He should do it more.  If he does, maybe the problem will be solved by itself, but I don’t know!  Maybe not.

Tony, what have you heard yourself say?

I heard myself say a lot of funny and interesting stuff!  I should be a pile of dog shit sometimes during the day and it will really improve my life quality!  Who would have thought that an hour ago?

Notice that the solution to Tony’s life nightmare was not scoring tens in all six qualities.  Why not?  Why wouldn’t being tens in Wisdom and Compassion bring him a happier life?  Tony and I talked about it and it made sense that he gets himself scared by thinking too much.  It’s more wise for him to not be wise – at least not in the sense of overwhelming himself with thoughts about what might happen in the future.  What has passed for compassion for him has been phony compassion, in that he has shown love in response to pressure and guilt, which is not love at all.  He thinks Dog Shit was telling him, by its low score, that he needs to not worry about making other people happy so much and do a better job at focusing on the other things: accepting himself the way he is, developing inner peace, cultivating the ability to witness, and being confident.  Not only was this interview a lot of fun for Tony; it felt very practical and authentic.

Tony reported that becomiung Dog Shit helped him to sleep when he became anxious while traveling on a business trip.  When he remembered to become Dog Shit when he started getting anxious during business appointments he would immediately relax, laugh at himself, enjoy the situation, and do much better.  He has had trouble becoming Dog Shit with his girlfriend, however.  It told him to turn off his phone during business meetings so that she couldn’t call to check up on him and find out where he was and what he was doing.  He knows that if he did that he would have a major problem when he goes home. This led to a discussion of why we need not only a number of different self-aspects, but other resources, such as a plan and good communication skills.