Dream Guides --by Linda Reneau

Seth tells us that dream guides, speakers, and teachers often meet with us in the dream state to heal, communicate knowledge, and offer advice. He also states that we, as dreamers, sometimes engage in these activities. However, just as in our daily world, some people specialize in teaching or healing, so in the dream world, dream world, dream guides have these activities as their main work.

I describe dream guide "specialists" or "professionals" as "those dream people or beings who seem to be aware of what's going on. They don't get caught up in the dreamer's hallucinations. They are very purposeful. They may make a statement or ask the dreamer a question; often, they show the dreamer something or communicate important concepts nonverbally, mind-to-mind. Sometimes they simply observe the action and stay in the background. Even so, they are memorable; they stand out as being different from other dream characters in terms of lucidity and action.

In August 1986, I started Project Dream Guide to find out more about these beings, and I made a list of questions for them to answer. One of these questions was: "What is your biggest job in helping people? What do you do the most?"

My dream gave the answer: "I'm flying through layers of energy. No visual images, but I do have sensation of a human body form. I fly to where the guides are--their home territory--and meet three of them.

"They communicate instantaneously to me:

'Reassurance. This is the main work we do. We spend much energy reassuring people that they are not alone. Next, we reassure them that they are capable, that they have everything it takes to fulfill their lives. Loneliness--a sense of being separate--and lack of belief in their abilities are two of the major problems humans have.'"

My first dramatic encounter with a dream guide (that I remember) occurred in 1969 in New Orleans. I dreamed of a great "inner sun" that was a being. It's hard to describe the love and intelligence of this being, and how it imparted instructions in meditation to me, but when I woke up, I knew much about the subject. The first thing I did was buy a book of meditation to learn more, and when I returned home, a roommate showed me an ad in the paper: "Meditation at the Temple of Silence." I became a student there for several years.

In 1971, in the early morning hours, I woke up in an "energy field" (colorless, crackling energy) without any sensation of form, but with no loss of identity. I was like a point in infinity. A dream guide was with me, and he asked: "Why didn't you visit Jeanne yesterday?"

I performed the mental equivalents of shrugging, wrinkling my nose, and frowning, and replied in a whiny voice: "Well, she just says the same things over and over. She complains, and ... I just didn't feel it would be worthwhile ..."

Although my guide was totally non-judgmental, I was appalled at the whine in my voice, and at my pettiness. The next day, at the first opportunity, I went to see Jeanne, thinking that maybe I was overlooking something. Sure enough, it wasn't long before I'd made a friend I could talk to about things like dreams.

Here is another example of a dream-guide encounter which exposes one of their ploys: disguise. Tucson, 1973: "I'm standing by my motorcycle and feeling adventurous when a handsome, well-dressed man comes up and offers to pay me for my company. No sex involved; he's just lonely. I look at him and contemplate his offer. Obviously, he has a lot of money, and I could use some; and he doesn't seem to be a bad sort. But I really don't want to spend time with him. Moreover, if I took him up on his offer, I would in the long run only increase his loneliness and sense of powerlessness.

"So I shake my head gently, feeling real sympathy for him. "No thank you,' I respond. As soon as I say this, he smiles and begins to glow with golden light. He looks very pleased. Before long, there is nothing but golden light, and I wake up."

This dream was the beginning of the end of my saying "yes" when I wanted to say "no". I had often given in to other people's wishes because I'd felt sorry for them, or because I thought that I'd lose their friendship if I didn't comply. For example, two nights before this experience, I'd gotten the inspiration to make some personal "Tarot" cards from some my major dream images, and was happily drawing away with some new colored pencils when friends dropped by and pressured me into going to the movies with them. I'd gone, hated it, and felt resentful all the next day.

Now, for a female guide. She's a regular in my drams, and I call her "dream mother." Alaska, 1975: I'm walking through a marketplace with colorful shops. I stop to admire many items--a weaving, some pottery, embroidered clothes. Next, I'm in a hall where my artwork is exhibited. I look at it with excitement. I think my abstract of a ballerina is beautiful, but no one else even notices it. Why is it that I can appreciate other people's creativity, but they don't recognize mine? I crumple up beside it and begin to sob. Dream mother comes in, and I realize she's been following me. She says. "There you go again, feeding your own failures!"

In this dream, I was finally beginning to understand that all I could do was be what I was, and fulfill my life in my own way, and that it didn't matter whether other people understood or not. If they did understand, and sharing happened, so much the better; but I couldn't demand understanding.

Dream mother has assisted dream doctors in operating on my left eye. "This will help you remember your dreams." she said. She once showed me a fantastic computer and told me that I'd been hired to teach people how to use it. The keyboard had symbols instead of letters, and by pressing certain keys, I could explore different times and possibilities. The wall-sized monitor projected living scenes. It was a computer that was alive and intelligent; it could even dream!

Recently an elderly couple, with all the traits of guides, took me into my grandmother's back room and showed me some fine embroidery I'd done as a child. At first, I didn't recognize it; then I remembered doing it. My guides told me, "There are some talents you were born with and began to develop but you've forgotten about them.

It isn't beneath the dignity of a dream guide to clean the dreamer's dream toilet, or to break into tears when the dreamer doesn't get the message, and take the dreamer's face in her hands and say, "I really care about you."

Sometimes a guide will rub the dreamer's nose in his shortcomings, and seem downright mean. Yet this must be with the subconscious consent of the dreamer, because I've never felt forced or pressured by any of my guides. Even when they use tricks, such as disguises, and seem to test me, I've always been grateful for the insights I am led by these tactics.

I also believe that dream guides respond to the insights we are specifically seeking. For example, when I decided that I wanted to go out-of-body from the pre-dream state, a woman came to help me lift out.

In many dram-guide encounters, I experience a high degree of lucidity-except in "test situations." In these, it seems that low lucidity is almost a necessity; otherwise I wouldn't take the show seriously and reveal my true colors. It's likely that I've failed some of these "tests" and regarded the dream guide as an imaginative dream character.

Many dream guides remain invisible, and simply impart information: "Practice sending healing energy every day. This is the only way you'll be able to do it in an emergency, when the need for healing is acute. Such information is often communicated with instantaneously and nonverbally, and the dreamer has to put it into words later.

These instantaneous communications involve much more that just information; intense experience and emotion are part of the package. Even when the guide speaks in words, the real idea-experience seems to have been sent inwardly. The words are either for summary or for emphasis.

Imaginative dream people (whom Seth calls secondary constructions or thought-forms) do some of the things dream guides do; they ask questions, cause trouble, etc. Yet, except for possible "test situations," dream guides stand out because of their unique qualities of lucidity and action, and because of the guidance they provide. They are also different form other out-of-body dream people in their energies and presence, and their inner communications are not like those sent by "real" people.

However, I do have trouble distinguishing dream guides from personifications of my inner self. Is this because they dwell in the same "country" (birds-of-a-feather type of thing), or because where they come from "all are one?" If we're all part of the whole, then where do dream guides end and the inner self begin? For that matter, where do I end, and my neighbor begin?

The dream state is an open door to communication with our teachers, with our guides, and with our personal "Seth level." By being aware of and open to these encounters, we can recognize them for what they are. As Seth says "There are walks in space and time through which you can travel, and in dreams you have been where I am." (The Seth Material, Chap. 1)

Ed: This article first appeared in Reality Change Vol 6, No.3 and is reprinted by permission of Linda Reneau and the Austin Seth Center. Linda Reneau is a resident of Peterborough, N.H.