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Reflections on the Butterfly Dream

In the hushed chambers of slumber, I once found myself entranced within a reverie where I, a butterfly, danced upon the zephyrs, knowing nothing but the pure ecstasy of my fluttering existence. Wrapped in the ephemeral cloak of the butterfly, I knew naught of my human self. But then, as dawn's gentle fingers stirred me from my nocturnal odyssey, I awoke to the stark reality of my human form. Now, ensconced in wakefulness, I ponder: was I truly a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or am I now, in this waking life, but a butterfly dreaming of humanity?

Zhuangzi

CAN DREAMS COME TRUE?

In 1953, in order to test the possibility of ESP through dreaming—that is, dreams that predict the future or contact others telepathically—a New York psychiatrist named Montague Ulman designed an experiment that involved using a “sender” and a “receiver.”

In this experiment, Ulman attached electrodes of an electroencephalograph (a machine that records brain waves) to the person acting as the receiver. This person would then go to sleep in one room. The “sender” was placed in a different room. When the machine indicated the brain wave pattern that showed the receiver had fallen asleep, the sender opened a sealed envelope that contained a “target” image and concentrated fully on the picture in an attempt to influence the receiver’s dream.

Once, when Ulman himself was acting as the sender, his thoughts strayed from the target image and he began to think about the book Spartacus, which had been made into a movie. The person acting as the receiver dreamed about the movie! Although his results were not all this successful, experiences such as this convinced Ulman that dream ESP was deserving of more research. So in 1962, with Stanley Krippner, he opened a dream laboratory in Brooklyn at Maimonides Medical Center. Although the two men’s experiments continued to produce mixed results, Ulman felt the experiments proved at least the existence of dream telepathy, though not its reliability.

Having experienced instances of ESP in my own dreams, I must concur with the doctors about its reality. Here is an example of a precognitive dream from my own files:

• The Dream: I am taken to a place where seminars are being held. Someone tells me that this is the same place that B. (a psychic healer friend of mine) studied. I peek around the corner and hear a man say, “Abadie is doing rocks.”
• I woke up feeling there was significance for me in “rocks,” but at the time I couldn’t figure out what it might be. Still, the word hung in my mind. A year later, I began working with crystals both for healing and telepathy.