Peace, Walk, Now: Chapter 8, A dream about a dream, about a dream

Last week I promised to share my dream with you.

Okay, here it is:

At some point during the summer of 2017, I started having a recurring dream…

In the dream, I was at a bookstore looking for a book.

This was unusual because the recurring dreams I used to have growing up were about tidal waves or trying to fly away from being chased and not being able to get high enough. (As I’m writing this, I’m finding a lot of humor in the bookstore dream—ironically, Anchorage, Alaska has a locally owned bookstore called Title Wave Books. I didn’t think to go there. I went to Barnes & Noble.)

Each time after waking from the dream, I sensed that I needed to go find the book my subconscious mind was leading me to. I didn’t know what book it was, but felt a sense of anticipation and assurance that I would recognize it when I found it.

I went to multiple Barnes & Nobles in multiple towns; I searched for months.

Eventually I saw a book that paused me. Not just intellectually. It sort of made my blood pause its flow for what felt like a quantum second.

The book wasn’t anything I would have thought to look for on my own. I flipped through the first few pages, then put it back. Part of me didn’t want to take it home. There was something eerie about it.

I went back a second time and read some more, and put it back again.

By the third time I visited Barnes & Noble and picked up the same book, I noticed that I was already 50 pages into it.

I looked up the author on my smartphone.

Gary Renard.

He had a book signing coming up near me. What a strange coincidence.

I decided to take it home and go see the author.

At his book signing, I told Gary Renard that his book “scared the shit out of me.”

Gary looked shocked and a little pained. He said he had no intention of scaring anyone.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “In a good way.”

Gary’s book, The Disappearance of the Universe (Hay House Inc. 2004), is essentially a book about a “dream” Gary had that led him to find another book—a book about the dream of awakening.

You can say I had a dream about a book about a dream about a book about… a dream.

I find this mind blowing.

They say the truth is often stranger than fiction. I agree. Like drunk people, fiction is often highly predictable. Reality, on the other hand, is miraculous.

When I discovered the name of the book that Gary Renard had a dream about, I looked it up on Amazon. The listing said it contained precisely 1,333 pages.

This is precisely the time that my son was born at; 1333 military time.

And there was that feeling again—my blood pausing its flow for that one, quantum second.

Immediately, I ordered a print copy and started listening to a free download online.

This gave me something to focus on while I was waiting to hear back from the dozens of corporate job applications I had sent out. And I desperately needed something to do with my mind so that it wouldn’t get stuck in the inner self-talk landscape that had me feeling like a loser.

The book Gary’s book refers to is titled A Course In Miracles (H. Schucman, Foundation for Inner Peace, 1976). It talks about how to reprogram inner self-talk and free the mind from its own shortcomings; how to do something else. Namely, to ask for miracles. I found this helpful.

I didn’t know about miracles yet. Apparently, a miracle isn’t what I thought it was. I didn’t know I needed to ask for and expect them.

Prior to this point in life, I didn’t think I needed miracles. I figured I would figure things out on my own. (You’ve been reading how all that worked out for me so far, ya? LOL)

By this point in time, I realized that all the things I had figured out on my own before this point in time had led me precisely here:

Having dreams about books about dreams… about miracles.

I couldn’t figure this one out. And aptly, the first thing A Course In Miracles encourages is to stop trying to figure everything out.

The human mind is scientifically incapable of this. The human mind is limited by the very thing that it does best—thinking.

REFLECTION MOMENT:

Do you believe that there is an intelligence outside of your own that is capable of orchestrating events in your life and in the lives of billions of people and across the millions (billions?) of galaxies?

Scientifically, let’s say? If in a scientific experiment we determine that intelligence is part of the galaxy we live in, and that it feeds into the universe we are a part of…

Then this “intelligence” would surely be capable of orchestrating a miracle or two, ya? Like, if it was as “intelligent” as it thinks/says it is, and all?

(Like, ya. That’s what I was thinking. LOL)

For me it has become clear that there are things/forces/occurrences more intelligent than I and more intelligent than the human mind because humans didn’t invent a whole interplanetary ecosystem capable of sustaining humans.

I’ll leave it at this.

But I need to backtrack for a moment...

Earlier in this story, I used the phrase “save my own life.” I used this phrase when I talked about leaving Alaska, and also when I talked about leaving California to move to Alaska. When I say this, I mean a variety of things. I mean saving my physical vitality, as well as my emotional self.

I’m also referring to my voice.

There is a spark of Creative Intelligence—a Voice—inside each of us that has a purpose and a beautiful function of being present here, on this planet, right now.

This Voice doesn’t have to yell to be heard, because this Voice is speaking to just one person—to you/me. This isn’t our human voice, though it can speak through our human voice if we discover it and allow it to come through. A Course In Miracles calls this Voice the Holy Spirit.

If you are unfamiliar with the Holy Spirit, yes, it is a Christian term.

But here’s a Fun Fact:

I’ll say it again: The Holy Spirit belongs to everyone.

Since discovering this book about a dream about a book about a dream, I have learned to dream again. I have learned to ask for miraculous dreams.

I have seen that miracles work and miracles are real.

Miracles are the language of the Holy Spirit.

In hindsight, I understand that I left the places I left because I needed to remember this Voice.

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