Dreams, premonitions and chills

Many of my dreams have been premonitions that come true. They are not very direct. No talking or words, just images that seem significant enough for me to piece together when I wake up. They typically do not make sense until the event has happened. However, I've gotten better at interpreting dream symbols and have been able to anticipate events. It seems at this point that these images and ideas can only freely flow through my mind when relaxed in sleep. I wonder if there's a way to become relaxed enough while awake to have similar experiences?

I also have a question about chills... sometimes while contemplating these dreams I have a sensation of energy driving through my body in the form of chills. It often happens when I am praying... Anyone else ever experienced chills? What's your take on this? For me, they seem to affirm that I am on a positive path in life or sometimes that I need to seriously change.

LAC

Dear LAC,

Yes, I have experienced these chills, I think they are quite common. I think they can be something physical at times, but when the coincide with strong psychic impressions that says to me a strong spiritual power, a guide or angel, may be behind their origin.

The best way to be relaxed while awake to trigger psychic impressions is through meditation. There are all kinds of different teachers of meditation available online - go to YouTube and type in "meditation", there are loads of guided visualizations available free of charge. I particularly recommend Ross Quinn's "Centering" CD. His Centering process is very similar to the Rainbow Meditation that is in Living With Your Psychic Gifts. One day I will get around to offering my own CD (laugh), but for now, give Ross's CD a try.

As for the dreams and premonitions, I know I sound like a broken record here (or a Napster Fart for you young whippersnappers), but journaling is the best way to to really nail down your progress with both dream interpretation and getting more accurate premonitions. I also highly recommend you join the Dream Catcher discussion group. I'm one of the moderators there.

Brandi

I really don't what to do

Dear Brandi,

I'm 15, and I'm not sure what going on with me. I think I may be psychic but I'm not sure. I started noticing this bizarre change 2 years ago, when I was working in my Mom's store. I would sometimes fall asleep and then when I'd wake up the lights were off, the door was locked, and the sign was turned around. Then sometimes I would see thing out of the corner my eye, like a person, but then I'd would turn to look and it or she or he was gone. Other time I would hear something, a voice, someone fiddling through merchandise, but every time I'd to see what was up or answer no one was there.

One day when I was working with a friend of mine, I was able to pin point where they were. I was able to see the building we were in before I was working in there and I saw 3 or four boys standing against the back wall. She heard them as well, and we also were able to feel them. One of the tables actually moved or shock. Also we kept placing things on the table and going back to get them only to find that somebody or thing moved them.

She asked me if anyone else in my family could do and I know my mom has had experience with demons and ghost, as well she can tell just by looking at an animal if something wrong and 9 times out of 10 she's right. Then was another time around the same time I was working at the store, and something bad happened to me at school, but before it happen I got this really bad feeling in my stomach and I just felt like I want to leave, to lay down, and I got really nervous and anxious, before it happened. Also I still get that feeling every now and then only every time it seems to get worse and I really would like to know how to maybe stop, not completely but to where I can function, and not feel so I don't know sick.

I don't dream and when I do it's very rare, and lately I've been looking for something and then I would go to bed I'd wake up from a dream in that dream I would find it was I was looking for, and then I would go look for and it wasn't in the exact spot it was in my dream but was within a foot of where I found it in the dream. I really don't what to do, I just don't how to process this and really just kinda want it to stop, or not feel so weird, and maybe feel more normal if at all possible?

N

Dear N,

It sounds to me like the gift runs in your family. What does your Mom say about it? Can you talk to her about your experiences? Sometimes being able to talk to others is all the comfort we need to realize that we're not crazy or really all that different. "Normal" is really just a cycle on the washing machine - it's not a real state of being human. Everyone is someone else's weirdo. What makes you different is what makes you wonderful, in my opinion. If other people won't accept you for who you truly are, then there is something wrong with them not with you. I know none of that is much comfort right now, but one day you'll wake up like I did and realize the truth in this: you can't be anyone but who you are.

As for stopping the psychic stuff, you can slow it down somewhat sure. You might be able to stop it altogether in some cases, but that may have the side effect of damaging you emotionally and physically. It may cut off your creativity. What you really need to do is accept it. Your dream abilities are helpful to you ... why would you not want to have that advantage?

It also sounds to me like there is a ghost in your Mom's store. My advice would be to befriend the spirit. When you are alone there, or together with your Mom, if she is open to the idea, sit down and have a chat with your spectral friend. Tell him or her (or them, there may be more than one) that they are dead, and the dead don't go shopping.

Seriously! ... I really mean that. As silly as it may sound, most ghosts simply don't realize that they are dead. Most of them don't want to cause a disturbance. They just don't know how to move on. Tell them they are dead and to move on into the light. Picture a vortex of light outside the shop where they can go to contact their loved ones and angelic guides. Wish them well on their way. The more comfortable you get with this stuff, the less this sort of thing will bother you.

Brandi

Turning Psychic Abilities Back On?

I need help. I have been told through all my life that I block my gifts and that this is the reason for all of my problems. I sometimes feel like I am going crazy! I pray hard on it and I had a dream that said this last night "he is a fool who has gifts and ignores them for he will never be where he should be in life." My problem is, I have NO IDEA how to turn them back on! Can you help me?

P

Dear P,

Wow, that is awesome! That is some of the wisest and deepest advice I have heard come out of a dream. You are so blessed! I love when I have an answer come that clearly in a dream. I would start with an expression of gratitude for your guide, angel or higher self, whomever sent you this amazing gift of love. The Law of Attraction says that gratitude is a huge factor in getting more of what you want, and I want more wisdom like that, don’t you?

The greatness of that gift is also evidence that you haven’t turned off your spiritual gifts altogether. The truth is that nobody ever really does, even those of my readers who most desperately want to. The best we can truly achieve is to stop fearing it, to accept it … or to ignore it. Even when we can do that, it’s like putting a kink in a garden hose … eventually that energy starts leaking out, and sooner or later something will burst into a watery, emotional mess.

I have done the same thing you did. And for a while, I really felt like I had shut it off, but the ironic thing was once I got to that spot, I felt lost without it. After attending The QuinnTessential Experience though, I reconnected with my intuition, and my spiritual and creative gifts have been stronger than ever. The people I normally connect with, I seem connected to in deeper, more intimate ways. Those I did not connect with before, or who were harmful in my psychic space, no longer have much effect on me. The QuinnTessential Experience class isn’t aimed at psychics, it is a personal growth seminar, but what I learned there was more helpful to my psychic growth than any of the psychic lessons or mentors I have had. If you can’t get to that class, one of their facilitators James Roswell Quinn has written a book (first edition edited by yours truly - don't be thrown by the title ), and any of the teachers of "The Secret" and might offer some value (though their classes are pricey). What I know now was that the trouble wasn’t that my psychic gift was out of whack … my attitude was. Once I discovered I had a choice how I react to things, so many other things fell into place on their own, including my relationship to my psychic abilities.

My book is called "Living With Your Psychic Gifts" and not "Turning Off Your Psychic Gifts" for a reason. Really what I have been advising people to do is not to block their gifts entirely, because, as you have learned, that isn’t healthy either, but to bring themselves into balance and acceptance with it. Still, the focus has been on "turning things down". That’s why I am working on a follow-up book. I finally have a new title, thanks to my friend Chris Cuciurean, called "Listening to Your Intuition". I hope you will subscribe to the blog or my mailing list, so you will learn of it when it comes out. In the meantime, the key is to start listening. Start paying attention. Don't set any immediate goals - just watch what happens. And ironically, for the most part, my advice for you is not all that different from the advice I give to people who are trying to block their gifts. The two most important are: Meditate daily, and keep a journal of your experiences – especially of your dreams.

Praying for Deliverance

I was listening to parts of last night's Coast to Coast, my favorite radio show. It was a strange repeat show featuring Kathleen Keating, a writer who mixes Biblical and contemporary prophecy into a fearful message that apparently is extremely popular. I could not bear to listen to it all, it was all so negative and toxic. But at one point, I was struck by yet another pundit making the assertion that if one wants to be delivered from spiritual tribulations or visions that all one needs to do is "Pray in the name of Jesus". Yet another Christian pundit making the incredible assertion that this "always" works ... "immediately".

Umn, no. It doesn't.

I am always shocked by this assertion. I am a child of a fundamentalist Pentecostal/Baptist family, "born again" since the age of six. As someone who suffered greatly from sleep paralysis and terrifying visions and dreams for two years after my initial psychic awakening, I prayed with great fervor and sincerity for Jesus to deliver me, night after night. Not once were these desperate prayers answered "immediately". Many times I would be frozen, beset by terrible visions, vibrating and paralyzed, literally mentally screaming for help in Jesus' name, only to eventually awaken, exhausted and terrified, certain only that the next night I'd be stuck in the same spot once again.

I am not the only (now former) Christian who has deeply and sincerely prayed for Deliverance without success over a period of years. My readers' emails regularly feature terrified pleas for help from people of any number of faiths who have prayed and prayed for deliverance without relief. Most are convinced they must be possessed or worse, and they feel so alone. Some have gone to their Church begging for help only to be turned away. I was profoundly insulted at the repeated suggestion by others at the time that I was possessed, not sincere, or worthy of God's compassion, or that I somehow had "asked' for this by listening to rock music or reading the wrong books. I finally got scared enough to confide these visions and dreams to my mother, who dragged me off to her Church the next day. I am sure she had no idea what the sermon would be ... it was "Visions and Dreams, God's Way of Communicating". It was only after this that I finally discovered someone at a "new age" book store, who took me seriously and offered guidance, that I was able to finally get these "Experiences" under control. I now teach some of those techniques through my book and web site.

It's irresponsible to tell people that any method of spiritual protection or deliverance will "always" work. Certainly the prayer method works a great deal of the time, perhaps even most of the time. My prayers were answered after all - just not as I expected, and not immediately. I think my methods are successful most of the time, but how am I to judge? Those who fail aren't likely to respond to someone who speaks with the authority of the Bible. If you admit your prayers in such desperate spiritual circumstances are not answered, the knee-jerk reaction is to blame the victim. You must be possessed. You must be praying wrong. Are you living a "Godly" enough life? Nobody wants to simply question the automatic efficacy of such prayers.

I recall as a child being told that "demon-possessed" people could "never" resist the power of prayer in the name of Jesus. We were told often if we only had the stones to go pray over the "heathens" (especially psychics, and "witches") that they would immediately be struck dumb. Many years later, as I worked in psychic expos and other public places (and had thus become the worst kind of heathen an apostate psychic), I frequently encountered people who believed this. There was more than one occasion where some preacher or wannabee came to pray over me in the name of Jesus in some rather spectacular and usually attention-grabbing manner. It never managed to shut me up. In fact the only thing I noticed was the additional attention seemed to be good for business. One time, one poor fellow commanded the imaginary demons to "I command you to be silent and leave in the name of Jesus". I had noticed the local rent-a-cops coming up silently behind him (security at that place liked me, I think). I responded "I command you to be silent ... and leave in the name of Security." I think he turned white when he turned around to see the two hulking giants behind him, their arms crossed over their broad chests, handsome faces drawn in scowls. He'd drawn a small crowd, who burst into applause as he was escorted off the property. It turned into the best day I had for business all winter.

I just find it impossible to accept that God has some weird cosmic game that He's playing with us. If we don't all pony up to the collection plate and say the "right" prayers to the right deity, if we doubt, if we use our God-given intuition, we're all going to be hell roasted in a terrible apocalypse ... all for God's benefit? How does any of this abominable collection of ideas glorify God? How does fear glorify God? Why does God need to fulfill these abominable prophecies to prove His worth for worship? Isn't creating the entire, glorious Universe enough?

It seems blasphemous to me to suggest that God is glorified by fear. It sells books, puts bums in pews, and makes for great radio ratings, but God is glorified by love, not fear. Simply stepping outside of my fear was the most important thing that I did to stop my terrifying visions and dreams. Twenty years later, I almost never have sleep paralysis. When it happens it is rare, and only occasionally fearful, and I can almost always trace those moments to times of stress and change. Sometimes I still have visions and dreams, but they are never as terrifying as they were. Faith can be a wonderful and life-affirming thing. By all means, pray to Jesus for deliverance from unwanted psychic experiences if you are a Christian (heck, even if you are not). It can't hurt anything, and it may help. It probably will help. But don't bang on yourself, don't let fear take your heart if it does not help right away.