Positive dreams of the future

Alan Vaughan

Venture Inward, May/Jun, 1994

Alan Vaughan, a parapsychologist and intuitive from Los Angeles, is speaking on "Gifts of the Spirit" at A.R.E. Headquarters, June 2-5. He has written on dreams in six books including, The Power of Positive Prophecy, Dream Telepathy, Patterns of Prophecy, and soon, Doorway to Higher Consciousness.


My introduction to prophetic dreams came in 1966 from Hugh Lynn Cayce's Dreams: The Language of the Unconscious. Reading the book triggered a symbolic dream of entering the field of parapsychology: "I was awarded a trip in a rocket ship but I would not go until I first discovered how the propulsion system worked. A rough toboggan ride over a bridge ended when the sled crashed into a bookcase, from which fell a book explaining the propulsion system. I was elated." The dream promised that if I undertook the financially difficult study (rough ride) of psychic phenomena (inner space instead of outer space) I would discover how it works (the propulsion system), and write books about it. I followed my dream.

In spring 1968 when I began my formal research into precognitive dreaming, it was strictly a theoretical study. Studying in Freiburg, Germany, at the Institute for Border Areas of Psychology and Mental Health, I wanted to find out if it was truly possible to dream through time and, if so, how far into the future.

But my project became deeply personal when some of my dreams predicted the assassination of Robert Kennedy. I registered my dream premonition with several scientists, and asked Dr. Stanley Krippner at the Maimonides Dream Laboratory in Brooklyn to pass on a warning. He received my letter the day before Robert Kennedy was shot. I was horrified at the news. My foreknowledge made me feel like a co-conspirator in the assassination - and I resolved to program my subconscious to receive only positive dreams about the future.

In 1969 Krippner invited me to become a subject in dream-telepathy experiments. Later we co-authored a book, Dream Telepathy, with Dr. Montague Ulllman, director of the dream lab. Some of these dreams turned out to be precognitive of events in my own life. My subconscious did as requested and gave me positive dreams. The fulfillment of one intriguing dream took place at the lab in an experiment filmed for Canadian television. Here is that dream.

The Monkey on the Floor

"I was lying in bed and Chuck Honorton was there and he was marking a transcript and he was using the letter F as a symbol for something ... He said, 'Oh, F is for failure...' Then I looked at the television set there and this television set actually seemed to be part of the experiment as well ... as I looked at it, the whole thing began to move and come to life, and there was a man holding a knife ... and behind him was a monkey lying on the floor and there may have been someone else there as well ... I wonder if there might be sometime an experimental thing like this."

Nine months later the Canadian television personality Norman Perry arrived at the lab to film an experiment. Perry was to be the dream subject, and I was to be a back-up subject in case he couldn't get to sleep or remember dreams. A target pool of pictures had been made up the day before and that night the agent Don Rice was in another building looking at the randomly selected target pictures. Charles Honorton was the experimenter.

In the mornin after Perry's and my dreams were recorded, the target pool of pictures was brought in and we made our judgings from the experimenter's notes. I judged a miss. It turned out that my dreams were only about the agent's associations with the target, and not about the target itself. Perry, however, scored a direct hit. And since I was there only as a back-up subject, it was decided to film Perry's judgings alone.

As the TV cameras went into action, I and several others watched. Perry put the oversized target pictures on the floor and pointed out his first choice: a photo of an albino monkey. This corresponded with his dream image of a white animal and the strikingly correct detail of a blue broadloom rug. Perry then pointed out his second choice: a man holding an axe.
The correspondences between my dream and the actual events are: I was lying in bed (as a subject for a dream experiment). Charles Honorton was there. A transcript from a previous experiment (that of April 3,1969) was pertinent. My judging was a failure. I watched the scene. Instead of a television set, there were cameras for television. There was a monkey lying on the floor. Instead of a man holding a knife, there was a man holding an ax. There were other people present. It was "an experimental thing."

The unusual excitement of a television filming singled out in my subconscious that particular experiment to dream about, nine months before it took place. Moreover, I had been attempting to document precognition in an irrefutable way. So a unique opportunity was offered. One reason for singling out that dream as precognitive of a future experiment was, of course, that the setting was the dream lab. Another was the appearance of a television set. At that time I did not even own a TV, so it seemed an odd thing to dream about. The dream focused on a positive event, for Perry invited me to appear on his TV show to discuss precognitive dreams.

I dreamed I was on TV again on December 12,1968. The dream:

A TV Interview

"I was working in an office with two women. We were working late. I was called away for a television interview, with another woman. Together, we discussed the behavior of another woman TV personality, with me defending her. I didn't see any cameras but somehow I knew that I was on TV. I was surprised to feel so relaxed and self-assured, and I thought I put my case very well. Then I returned to my office."

Nearly nine years later, on April 26, 1977, I was working in San Francisco at Psychic magazine, sharing an office with two women. A dream-psychologist, Gayle Delaney, arranged for me to appear with her on a TV show to be taped that day. Delaney drove me to the taping. The interviewer, Julie Yip, was both charming and intelligent in her questions about Delaney's technique for incubating dreams" - asking the unconscious for a dream to solve a specific problem. I defended Delaney's technique with my own examples of dream incubation - asking for dreams about the future. I told them about my 1968 dream of being on television with them. I thought that Delaney made an excellent TV personality with or without my defending her. She went on to do many TV shows. As in the dream, I didn't see any cameras for I was turned to face the interviewer. As in my dream, I felt relaxed and self-assured, and, as in my dream, I returned to the office.

By now I have been on television over 70 times, but this was one of the few shows devoted entirely to dreamshence, perhaps, my prophetic dream about it.

Still another TV show was predicted in a dream of June 10, 1977: "... people said they had been watching me on television and wondered where I had taped an appearance. It was in San Rafael," I said. I commented, "Perhaps a TV series will be shaping up ... and have something to do with someone living in San Rafael."

On July 19,1987, I was invited to visit Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove in San Rafael to tape a show for his PBS series titled "Thinking Allowed." Mishlove lived in San Francisco at the time of the dream over 10 years before.

My record for dreaming about being on TV shows in the future is nearly 17 years. I recorded this dream on September 30, 1973:

The Haunted Hotel

"I went to work in a haunted hotel ... Sure enough the ghost is there - a woman ghost. Then I was on some sort of TV entertainment show. The emcee, a man, gives me his credit card to use at the bar. At the bar I am speaking, in French, to a very attractive woman. She wants me to appear on a TV show (she is apparently a producer)."

On February 15, 1990, I went to Long Beach for a videotaped interview at the bar of the Queen Mary promoted then as a haunted hotel. We discussed the woman ghost who had been seen The show was the nationally syndicated "After Hours." The emcee brought me a glass of wine and we sipped our drinks as he interviewed me. The attractive woman producer who asked me to be on the show has a French name (Renee). At the time of my dream, she was only 11 years old. My dream had been triggered 17 years before by meeting another attractive woman producer whose last name was French.

Another positive dream about the future occurred on March 18,1970:

Tiny Tim

"I was answering an ad for editorial work. A young woman answered the door and showed me a newsletter connected with astrology or occult things - that she needed help with. She invited me in and there I met several other young women. I started chatting with one, when a large black dog came up to us and appeared to be eating an address someone had written out. The dog's name was Tiny Tim."

In October 1982, while living in Los Angeles, I answered a newspaper ad for editorial work. I got the job as editor of Reincarnation Report - which ran articles on astrology and other "occult" things

When I arrived at my new office in Malibu, I was introduced to several young women working there. An office mate, Christine Conrad, was sitting on the floor assembling catalog mailouts. A powerful sense of deja vu came over me. "I've seen you before," I said. "It must have been in a dream a long time ago. In the dream you had a large black dog named Tiny Tim."

"I do have a large black dog," replied Christine, "but I'm the one who is Tiny Tim. That was my first and only stage role."
That evening I went through my dream diary to find the Tiny Tim dream. The publisher of Reincarnation Report, Dick Sutphen, told me that in 1970 he had no plans to move from Arizona to Malibu to start a magazine. An elaborate series of events had led to Christine's employment. The dog wasn't even born then. Were our lives already set up in blueprint form 12 years before?

The question extended to 16 years when I recently reviewed transcripts of psychic dream experiments done at Maimonides Dream Lab in 1969. For several years after those 1969 experiments I puzzled over what this dream could possibly mean. It was triggered by a friend who mentioned beforehand that she had read Philip Roth's novel Good-bye, Columbus.

Good-bye Columbus

"I was walking back from a mess hall and music was playing - something to do with Columbus ... It seemed to be after the experiment, or even before the experiment was quite over and I talked there with some people whom I had known before. I talked in particular to this one chap I seemed to have known before. He said he was going to go to Erin on the weekend ... he spoke of flying to Erin ... it's Ireland ... He had to carry some sort of equipment along with him so he could function all right ...

"I remember now the reason I left this mess hall was because the food was so bad that I decided that I'd have to go
out and find something to eat. The person about whom I was giving this reading may have been Negro.

"And I was walking up steps and they were very peculiar steps because the water was coursing down them and each step was like a little pool ... And coming down from this were a group of children. I had to stop along the side in order to let them pass by, and it was at this point that I was hearing the song about Columbus."

The name of Columbus came up during an ESP experiment I did for the Mobius Society. In March, 1985, marine archaeologist Roger C. Smith asked Mobius Society director Stephan Schwartz to help locate two ships of Columbus lost in St. Ann's Bay in Jamaica. The caravels had been missing for nearly five centuries. In August Schwartz and two other Mobius consultants, Rand de Mattei, and I flew to Jamaica. We stayed in a small hotel next to the archaeologists' residence, which also served as a mess hall.

The "chap I seemed to have known before" was Schwartz. Earlier he had to fly to Ireland to work on a case of a kidnapped horse. The equipment that my dream saw him wearing "so he could function all right" turned out to be oxygen tanks for functioning under water.

The mess hall with the bad food was only too real. It was not the fault of our cook but of the budget: $35 a week to feed a dozen people. We went out to eat several times.

The most unusual event in our Columbus mission was a visit to Dunn's Falls, which cascades down dozens of natural stone steps, each forming a pool. It took more than an hour for our group to climb the steps. At one point we had to stop along the side to let a group of children come down the steps. I was helped up the slippery steps by our cook's assistant, a young black man for whom I had given a psychic reading. This experience came at the end of our visit. We were saying, "Good-bye, Columbus."
The experiment was successful insofar as Smith judged 73 percent of the intuitive statements as hits. My score came in at 86. Now a skeptic might say that just by chance I should eventually over the years experience a combination of these - Columbus, an ESP experiment, a mess hall with bad food, a friend who flew to Ireland and who wore strange equipment, climbing up the steps of an unusual waterfall, and a black man for whom I did a reading. Yet such a highly specific combination of unusual life events seems to rule out chance correspondence. Were we all participating in a joint life plan?

A later Mobius project of searching for a sunken treasure ship also seemed forecast by dreams. The first voyage of the Mobius research vessel Seaview in September 1987, from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, seemed to be forecast in a dream I recorded on March 21, 1986:

Visiting in Florida

"I was about to leave from a visit. I as walking toward an old brick building on the water. I passed a group of people I seemed to know and waved to them. I told them I would be back in a little bit to say good-bye. Among them was Fran, who lives in Florida..."

I commented: "I wonder if the dream could be symbolic of my working with a group in Florida?"

In 1987 Mobius flew me to Ft. Lauderdale to go aboard the Seaview. The ship was docked near an old red brick building. We stayed in dock for a few days and then went to the Bahamas in search of sunken ships. When we sailed back to Ft. Lauderdale, I was one of the first people off the boat - to catch a plane home. I said good-bye to the group and promised to return soon. I earned that Fran had in fact been invited but was unable to join us.

The second voyage of Seaview seemed to turn up in a dream I had recorded nearly 11 years before (June 1, 1977):

The Ocean Voyage

"I was coming back on an ocean liner. We were soon to dock so I cleaned out my locker. I had not yet paid for my return ticket so I tried to find the office ... Meanwhile I talked with others. We ere learning Portuguese. I think we ere headed for South America."

On May 2,1988, coming back from a week's voyage on the Seaview, I cleaned out my locker and packed. I talked with the cook, Gabrielle Silva, who said that she was learning Portuguese in preparation for going to South America (Brazil) to work on an educational project. I had to get additional funds from Mobius for my return ticket from Miami, since canceled flights from the Bahamas had made me miss my scheduled flight, and I did not have a reservation. Luckily, I talked my way out of paying more.

The return from an ocean voyage with someone learning Portuguese and going to South America, coupled with a need to pay for the return trip, seemed unlikely to have occurred by chance.

Many of my prophetic dreams forecast times of major career events. Of 222 dreams during 1968 -1977, I count 63 as precognitive (28 percent). Seven more, recorded in the dream lab, make 70 precognitive dreams from that period.

The dream-event correspondences tend to show a clustering around major transition points in my life. I noticed such a clustering in 1988 when seven precognitive dreams described events associated with the major career commitment of starting a computer software company. The dreams dated from 1969-1977.

My dream odyssey through time continues. It was a great surprise to find that events many years in the future could be accurately dreamt about. When I began my research, I supposed that events near in time would be easier to dream about than events far in time. Yet the detailed correspondences of the "Haunted Hotel" and "Good-bye, Columbus" dreams - fulfilled over 16 years later - shattered that concept.

I do not feel that these prophetic dreams predict the only future. Many other dreams, unfulfilled, may well describe alternate futures that did not happen because of my choices of free will. We'll never know for sure. But certainly the precognitive dreams recorded here strongly suggest that major events of one's life are created in blueprint form many years before they happen. It was up to me, and many others, to make those positive blueprints a reality.

Two interesting footnotes on my intuitive dreams:

(1) Psychologist Marcia Emery found a highly significant (odds of 2,000 to 1) correlation of my dreams occurring on days when astrology says I should be intuitive. Emery's work also provides some of the strongest evidence (70 percent accuracy) ever found for the validity of an astrological hypothesis.

(2) Physicist James Spottiswoode found a very significant (odds of 1,000 to 1) correlation of my dreams occurring on days of low geomagnetic activity which reflects the sun's activity.

Their research suggests that our prophetic dreams come most readily when bidden by cosmic forces.
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How to Dream About Your Positive Future

1. Before going to bed, tell yourself that you will have a positive dream about your future. You may have a question about a particular situation in your life. Tell your subconscious to keep it simple - no elaborate symbolism. Promise your subconscious you will remember the dream in the morning and write it down.
2. When you awake, lie in bed a few minutes and recollect the dream. You will probably remember the last part of the dream first. Keep asking yourself: Now what came before that?
3. Write down the dream and give it a title. Below it write down any recent event that seems related to it and might have triggered it. Ask yourself: Does the dream remind me of anything going on in my life? Now list any associations you have with the major theme and objects in the dream. Ask yourself-. How would I define this for somebody who never heard of it?
4. Tell a friend your dream without referring to your notes. Phrases you use to describe dream events may be puns that give a direct meaning to your symbols. Your friend's questions may help you look at the dream from a different angle.
5. Look for references to time or the future in your dream. They may indicate that the dream is about the future. If your dream refers only to a past event, you know that it is not about the future. If the dream is about some situation that has never happened, it may be about the future.
6. Once you have grasped the meaning of the dream, ask yourself: Is there anything I should do now to make this positive future come true?
7. Make this dream the first one in a dream diary. Periodically review your dreams to compare with recent events and note any correspondences. You may be surprised to find that you have completely forgotten dreams you wrote down earlier, so a review can lead to self-discoveries - about who you are now and who you will be in the future.