| Dreams: Your Window to Heaven The EDGE Interview with author Debbie Johnson by Tim Miejan Debbie Johnson, author of Think Yourself Loved and Think Yourself Thin: The Visualization Technique That Will Make You Lose Weight Without Diet, has long been helping others refocus their imaginations and more firmly connect with God's love within. Now, with her new book, Dreams: Your Window to Heaven, she is offering practical ways to fully realize God's bountiful gifts. Dreams, she explains, are gifts from God and with some intention, each of us can awaken to the breadth and depth of the messages and conversations we are having with the Divine. Dreams: Your Window to Heaven (2002, Eckankar) also is a valuable first introduction to Johnson's longtime spiritual path, Eckankar, which has much to say about the power within dreams and the fact that we don't just have a soul, but that we are "soul." Debbie Johnson will present one of nine workshops at Eckankar's Dream Fair, from 1-4 p.m. Saturday, June 15, at the Temple of ECK, 7450 Powers Blvd. Chanhassen, Minn., one-third mile north of Highway 5 on Highway 17. Please pre-register by calling (952) 380-2300, ext. DF. For more on Eckankar, go to www.eckankar.org The author spoke with The EDGE from her home in the Twin Cities, revealing not only Eckankar's understanding of dreams but dozens of practical techniques to assist you in gaining more insight into yourself. How do you define a dream? Debbie Johnson: A dream is the experience that I have from the viewpoint of soul, from a higher viewpoint in a higher level of heaven than this earth plane. It's just that simple to me, and I would also define it as a gift from God that helps me have more clarity in my daily life, that helps me know the next step to take or helps me heal. What does Eckankar say about dreams? Johnson: Dreams are a real experience in the heavenly worlds and in different levels of the heavenly worlds, because there are different levels of heaven. Even the Bible refers to a man who ascended into the "third heaven." So what does this mean? In Eckankar, we like to delve into it a little bit more and study these levels of heaven. With dreams, we can do this while we're sleeping. We are all so busy, so we might want to start using our dream state to do a little more exploring spiritually -- and it's a fantastic way to do it. There are also ways to solve daily problems in our dreams, to discover spiritual truths, to explore the future and the past, including our past lives. When we learn to control our dreams through what's called lucid dreams, we actually feel less fear in our day-to-day lives. We can also lose the fear of death by exploring the heavenly worlds, because we don't have to nearly die to have a near-death experience. We can have the types of experiences where people see the light of God and are greeted by a spiritual guide and explore heavenly worlds in our dreams and in our waking lives, too. This book will tell people how to do that. How does your new book, Dreams: Your Windows to Heaven, differ from other books by Eckankar on the topic of dreams? Johnson: There are a couple of books with the title "dreams" in them, and I do recommend The Art Of Spiritual Dreaming. However, this book gives people more of a step-by-step approach, beginning with how to remember your dreams and techniques for interpreting dreams. It offers techniques for finding out what your own dream symbols mean, because symbols are unique and different for everyone. This book also speaks to someone who doesn't know anything about Eckankar. Was one of your ideas of writing this book to introduce what Eckankar says about dreams? Johnson: Yes, because what Eckankar says about dreams is different from the other books about dreams. Everything I learned about dreams that I feel I can really utilize in my life was learned through the Eckankar dream teachings. What's so exciting about these studies is that we can study our dreams from a spiritual perspective, not just psychological. I have a minor in psychology and I've studied psychology for years -- and I really love psychology -- yet psychology is limited in its viewpoint of dreams, and I share that in my book. For example, the native people not just in this country but around the world believe their dreams are real experiences. And, that's how we look at dreams in Eckankar, that they are real experiences. By "real" experiences, you mean just as relevant as our waking day-to-day life? Johnson: You've got it. I include a chapter at the end of this book that talks about waking dreams, or interpreting your life as a dream. People who don't remember their dreams can observe their waking dreams as a sign from God. Here's one story that's not in the book: I was talking with a friend who had just interviewed for a job and she was really not too sure if she had done a very good job in the interview. She was a little concerned, because she had come all the way here from another state for this interview. It was a big thing for her! And, she said, "Oh, I think I might have blown it!" I said to her, "You can't blow it. If it's right for you, it's going to be yours." At that moment she looked up and she looked over and saw a little sign on a church, I think, or on a billboard that said, "God is still in charge." I just loved that! I think these kinds of things are so exciting. I think waking dreams are the most exciting part of the dream teachings of Eckankar, because sometimes I'm just too tired to write down my dreams and I might forget everything about a dream except for a snippet, but then I can carry it into my waking life and ask for a waking dream. One time I was wondering whether or not I should advertise for a workshop I was going to do for one of my other books. I thought, "You know, that's just a lot of money, like $2,000, and is it time to do something this big? Is it time to do something this big?" I pulled into the post office and the back license plate of the car in front of me, it was a vanity plate, said "BIGTIME" and I knew, yeah, it was time to do something that big and it really was a good thing to do. It worked well. Some people not familiar with Eckankar may compare what you're talking about to James Redfield, who wrote about everyday synchronicities that give you messages, or even Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God about how God speaks to you through every possible way, through nature, through any experience you might have in your daily life. Johnson: Eckankar, as I see it, is a common thread that runs through every religion, every teaching, every philosophy, every science, every person who writes a book with something from a viewpoint of God's love speaking to us. I say "God's love speaking to us" because I feel like it's really God giving us love, sending us postcards if you will, saying "I still love you. I'm here. And, here's the next step." When we doubt ourselves, dreams can help us. Often, I find, that if we can't resolve it from this life, it stems from a past life. There's a whole chapter in my book on how to work with your dreams to explore past lives and heal something in this life. There are stories throughout the book about people who have done these things, too. As people do these things in their dreams, they get more of a feeling of how to do it for themselves in this life, too, as well as a past life. In the dream state, it's less threatening. We can be afraid of what we're going to find in a past life, because it can be absolutely anything. The past lives we heal are not the ones where we were heroes. We'd love to remember the past lives where we were kings or queens or we were something very special. The healing, I find, comes when we were either victims or villains, or both. We just put on the clothing and the makeup and we go out in the world and we play a role as soul so we can learn and grow spiritually. Like Shakespeare said, "The world is a stage and we're all its players." And we play different roles. That's how I see the past-life experience, and the healing can be absolutely incredible by exploring it. I can tell you something I talked about when this book came out. I felt I had been abandoned in this life. When I was 3 months old, my mother was taken away and put in what they called a mental institution and diagnosed with schizophrenia. She was depressed and she couldn't take care of the kids. I was the baby, so I probably cried and screamed and probably didn't get what I needed -- and it's amazing I lived through it. Well, later things happened with my father. He was really not well either and had to put us in foster homes. He said he would get married and bring us all back together. That was his promise. By this time I was 7 years old, and I had been with my grandparents. I just really worshipped my father and I thought he would bring us all back together. He actually ended up marrying someone who didn't want children. That was this lifetime. Then I had some waking dreams that showed I had a fear of survival that may have stemmed from a past life. Then I did an active spiritual exercise where you use your imagination to actually step into the heavenly worlds and look for the experience you want and have it. So, I wanted the experience of finding this past life. I did have a dream that showed me I had problems stemming from a lifetime with my mother, so in this spiritual exercise I found out was that I was a woman who was married to a drunk, whom I had married to escape my father who was a drunk. And I kicked my husband out or killed him, I can't remember which, and I was yelling at my son and holding my baby, to whom I was not giving any attention because I was so worried about survival. I told my son he had to go out and get to work, because we needed the money. I was so concerned about survival that I wanted to marry someone rich. That was my whole focus. Well, I found someone rich by worming my way into high society, yet he didn't want children. What did I do? I made the choice like my father did in this lifetime. I left my children to fend for themselves and sent home money -- but that wasn't what they eeded. They needed my love. They needed me there. We've all played villain roles, because if we were all victims, who were the villains? So, that's where a lot of the healing is. In your dreams, you can explore past lives and get some healing from any situation. Why did you write this book? Johnson: Because my inner guidance told me to write it and because I actually work with the dream state. I had asked to get some answers in the dream state and I woke up in the middle of the night. I mean, I just bolted upright in bed and just started writing. Sometimes you don't even remember the dream. You just do it. You just know you're supposed to do it. You have such a strong feeling. I wrote the outline and, I think, almost a whole chapter just in the middle of the night. We can access things consciously as soul that are direct knowledge, direct universal intelligence, without even having to remember the dream just by the fact that our conscious minds are sleeping, because they do sleep when we go to sleep. A lot of people report that they don't remember their dreams. What suggestions do you have for them? Johnson: There is quite a bit in the book and I will tell you some now. One of the most important things is to absolutely, all the time, to have paper and pen handy, or a tape recorder handy, so you can record your dreams immediately upon awakening. Also, don't move. Don't move when you first awaken. Go over in your mind what you dreamed, even if you just can remember one word, like "tiger," "man," "train." One word. Write it down and just keep writing and just say "I do remember," "I do remember," "I do remember." And write "I do remember," "I do remember," as many times as you want. Pretty soon you'll remember. And if you do this for 30 days, you definitely will start remembering. I guarantee it, unless there's some other major reason for you to not remember, such as past-life karma, for example. I've had a number of dreams myself that even right now I can tell you exactly what happened in them because they were that vivid and strong. I'm guessing that probably means there's a very important message there that needs to stay with you. Johnson: I would agree with that. I believe there are dreams we're supposed to remember for some reason. I think these are the easiest to interpret sometimes. And, sometimes it's just having the experience in the dream. It's not a dream that needs interpreting. When it's that powerful of an experience, it's simply a spiritual experience that moves us to a higher level of consciousness, or reveals to us that we are moving into a higher level of consciousness. It's validation for us for all the hard work we're doing here. In the book you make numerous connections between dreams and our soul. Why is the soul so important in discussing dreams? Johnson: When we have an experience anywhere, be it in the physical world here, in the dream world or in a higher heavenly world, there is always one constant: Soul. Soul is viewing it. I can prove to people in a sense that they are soul simply by trying this experiment. Close your eyes for a moment and imagine a dog of any kind. If you don't like dogs, try a horse or some other animal, and look for the color that you see, the breed and what the animal is doing. Now make the animal do something. Imagine the animal doing something, maybe something very unusual that the animal could never possibly do, like a horse riding on the back of an elephant, or a cat flying through the air with wings -- something you would never see, but you can imagine. Some people are going to say, "Yes, well, that's your mind. That's your imagination." But imagination is our Divine gift. Somebody actually had to be creating that picture. We can access it in our minds, but there are some things we imagine that we've never seen before in this lifetime or maybe in any other life. People who write shows like "Star Trek" are imaging something in the future perhaps, perhaps on another plane or another planet, but they have to be viewing it back here. Your eyes are closed and you're not looking at it with your physical eyes, so there's something else watching. The observer who is watching all this is who we are as soul. It's an important part of dreams, because it's the viewpoint in the dream. Have you ever noticed when you're dreaming that you're watching yourself? Soul can be everywhere, so you can be in the dual consciousness of experiencing it and watching it or observing it at the same time, and we know we can't do that with our physical bodies. What did you learn in the process of writing this book? Johnson: Much of what I learned cannot be put into words, because it was the experience of working more with my dreams, testing all the exercises that I've included in the book. I've studied my dreams for many, many years and I know how well it works, but interviewing other people for the book validated it even more. People from any faith can study their dreams and have it work for them in their daily lives to get answers to questions, to solve things, to resolve things, to heal and that anyone can. What is your sense in our culture of how much emphasis people place on their dreams? It's probably pretty low. Johnson: I'm getting the sense it's not much. What happens is that people who want to study their dreams will read a dream book that will give them the meaning of universal symbols -- which I blow apart in my book -- like if you dream about a snake, it means this, or if you see a glass of water, it means that. These books imply that the symbols mean the same thing to everyone. To me, that's not really true. My viewpoint and Eckankar's viewpoint is that dream symbols are individual and they can change over time. I had a dream symbol of a glass of water breaking in my mouth. I'd immediately stop the dream and wake up, because it was so scary. And, finally I recognized that the glass, to me, meant something fragile, whereas to someone else it might be a container, a container's breaking or something else. Some people say that water is a universal symbol for life force, which it may be for a lot of people, however, for someone who drowned in a past life or almost drowned in this life, water would be something dangerous, very fearful. So this book and these teachings help people to understand that their symbols are very unique to them. You include a chapter that you describe as a "preparation for prophetic dreams." Why do you call it that? Johnson: Because I believe we can have dreams that may not necessarily be prophetic but they may be preparing us for things. For example, when I got a new job selling appliances at a department store, they said, "It's going to take two weeks to train." And I though, "Gosh, I've got to make money starting pretty soon, so I better get this down." So, I asked before I went to sleep if, in the dream state, I could prepare for this job. And in my dreams I, I was selling appliances and I was learning. I certainly didn't remember all the dreams, just a couple of them, but I found I was prepared when I started studying for this new job. I was able to complete a two-week course in one week. The woman who trained me was amazed. It was because I'd prepared in the dream state. You include well-known examples of people who dreamed things before they occurred. Do you think that happens more often than we give it credit for? Johnson: Absolutely! There are so many people in business and politics who are not going to come out and say in an interview, "I had a dream about this," but I'm sure many of them do. I know many of them are tuned in spiritually. They may not say so, but people who are in those high positions, particularly successful people in business, didn't get there by accident. You hear them say things like, "I need to sleep on it." That's why. Is the process the same, as far as getting a prophetic dream, in terms of preparation? Johnson: It's similar. We ask. It's really that simple. Whoever you look to spiritually, you ask. Anyone can ask the Dream master, or in Eckankar we call him the Mahanta. Just say, "I would like to ask the Dream Master to help me in my dream." What about nightmares? A lot of people have them and they experience insomnia because they don't want to go to sleep. Johnson: There are some wonderful ways to handle nightmares in my book, and I'll give you a couple of ideas. One thing is to look at them from the viewpoint of being a spiritual experience to help us grow. We're the adversaries. So, we can use them to strengthen us. People often have recurring nightmares. Sometimes it's a past life, past-life karma being worked out, and it's a blessing because we don't have to do it in our waking state, where it would be much more painful, much more scary. We can actually do things like turn everything around and face our fears in our dreams, if we can be conscious enough in our dreams to do that. A young woman I know decided to take the monster in her dream and hire him as her bodyguard. So, she turned him from an enemy into an ally. She said, "Hey, you're a great monster. Why don't you be my bodyguard." Work for me, rather than against me. Johnson: Exactly! What are your suggestions to parents who have children who can't get to sleep because of nightmares? Johnson: Two things. One is to hire a bodyguard to go with them into their dreams. That would be their guardian angel, someone God sends, or they can certainly ask the Dream Master. If parents are comfortable with that, they can tell the child, "You can ask the Dream master to come in your dreams, or anybody you think would help you." And then, as they're falling asleep, sing this ancient love song to God that really is very calming and uplifting. People who experience this feel like it puts them in a higher state of consciousness within soul, as soul, so they can view things from that higher awareness. Children are so good at this. They have very good imaginations and also they're so open to the heavenly worlds, much more open than some adults. The song is HU (pronounced "hue"), which is sung on a drawn out breath. They can just sing this as many times as they want or as few times, once or twice even and they'll feel some comfort and some love and just ask for God's love to surround them. Sometimes children come into this life really working hard on their past lives in the dream state, so the HU will help comfort them when they go to sleep, even though they might have some bad dreams. Or, if they wake up with a bad dream, they can sing HU and it will help to comfort them. Children are very open about past lives. They might even understand that if it were explained, especially at 3 or 4 years old. If you ask them what they did when they were big, they will often tell you what they did before this life. What do you hope readers hang on to when they read your book? Johnson: I think the main thing is that God's love comes to us through many different avenues, and that we can use our dreams to experience more love in our lives. We have this constant help, every single night, and it helps to look at it, to view it, as a gift from God, a gift of God's love to us letting us know that we are never alone, that we are always loved, always taken care of and always being spoken to by God. Tim Miejan is editor of The EDGE. Contact him at (651) 578-8969 or toll-free 1 (888) 776-5687. E-mail editor@edgenews.com Copyright (c) 2002 Tim Miejan |
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June 2002 |
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