A lifetime of dreams about climate change

Today I decided to pull together a sampling of my dreams throughout the years that seem to predict climate change (formerly known as "global warming"). I think that it's quite possible that these dreams were influenced somewhat by my reading material.... while I tried to steer away from the blatantly apocalyptic material, it insisted on seeping in. There was the famous prophesy by Edgar Cayce involving California falling into the ocean in 1998. There was also Ruth Montgomery, who popularized the concept of the "axis shift" that was due to occur at the end of the 1990s. This theme was picked up by a number of New Age writers. All of the New Age pundits seemed to agree: Our planet would experience a catastrophe at the beginning of the new millenium. I took their consensus as evidence; it never occurred to me that they were all completely wrong. Not just partially wrong, but completely wrong. The fear of a year-2000 apocalypse crossed over into the mainstream with the Y2K furor, and I spent many months installing corrective software on Windows boxes throughout the state, and on New Year's Eve, I backed up all my Novell servers and waited.

The dreams reflect my fears at the time, influenced by my reading.

Y2K (and by association, the axis shift) came and went. Eleven years later, I am still here to write about it, older and wiser. But just barely. Now, every spring brings a spate of violent storms and tornados through my state, fueled by an askew artic jet stream clashing with humid, hot air from the Gulf. The spring storms are becoming both increasingly severe, and increasingly dangerous. And we never know when or if one of them will carry us out. This is a fear that I an not accustomed to having. From the mainstream media, there is complete silence on the regional weather shifts, or bland assurances that they are all part of a "temporary pattern." I am used to petroleum industry-funded denials of global warming. What I find completely unsettling, however, is the almost universal official silence to what we individually are recognizing is an ominous, swift, and dramatic change in our weather patterns.

A short dream from 1987:

July 7, 1987. Tuesday. 4:10 a.m.
I dreamed that I was reading the Robert Monroe book, Far Journeys. Monroe was talking about the axis shift. He had been told that it would occur on a November 24, year undetermined. I was thinking that because I did not own a house, I could assemble a backpack full of essentials to use at the last moment. I was at my parents' house. I walked up the driveway. I don't think that I had a car.

Note: Far Journeys is a book worth seeking out. Contrary to my dream, Monroe makes no mention of an "axis shift" but does spend quite a bit of time discussing our current era, which he describes as one of both opportunity and extreme danger.

April 25, 1990. Wednesday. 5:55 a.m.
I dreamed that I and a group of people were walking over my parents' property, which I think I had inherited. [Note: I inherited this property in 2008.] This group seemed to be involved in an official inquiry into how I was taking care of the land, in an ecological sense. I wasn't concerned, since I am conservation-minded. We seemed to be walking over the property. When we came to the line, we discovered that for some reason all energy production had shut down. The national infrastructure had collapsed. The group was isolated and had to begin governing itself.

January 13, 1993. Wednesday
This morning I dreamed that I was on some sort of an island. I don't remember much about my circumstances but I got the impression that I was on some sort of trip. I was with other people; I don't remember who. I think I got to the island on a boat. I heard a weather report that warned of violent storms that were approaching. I knew that we had to leave; the island was in danger. I worried about my possessions that I planned to put on the boat; I was afraid the boat would sink. I worried especially about my computer, which I had brought with me.

July 8, 1994. Friday
In the next scene, I was in some sort of office room. It seemed like a central office somewhere. There were all sorts of files and machines neatly crammed into the room. I found a light switch after looking for a while and turned a light on. On a shelf, I found some weather maps with transparent overlays that I had done last fall, while I was in law school. I had colored the overlays and had apparently done them to be photocopied and used as some sort of blacking-out thing with an overhead projector. I marveled at how hard I had worked on such a trivial thing while in law school. I then went to the window and saw an extremely violent daytime rainstorm going on; it looked like a hurricane. The weather struck me as being very unusual, and I wondered if I was going to be able to drive through it in my truck. A man came in and looked out the window and I commented on the weather, but neither he nor anybody else seemed surprised at the storm.

January 31, 1999. Sunday
This morning I dreamed that I was at my computer and a violent storm came up. I knew the electricity was about to go off. I was in the middle of composing an email, and I tried to press "save" before it did. I don't think that the note got saved, however. I then unplugged the computer from the wall. I could sense that there were violent storms or tornadoes in the area, and I saw the clouds. I was becoming irritated that so many disruptive storms were coming to the area; it seems like one was hitting on a regular basis.

March 18, 2001. Sunday
This morning I had a long and elaborate dream about the so-called "axis-shift." The dream came in two segments, but I remember only the last part. In it, I had apparently projected or contacted someone, a being of some sort. The being, however, seemed like a cosmic bureaucrat. She told me quite plainly that I would receive a letter in December of this year warning me of impending disaster and urging me to join others in relocating to a safe area. The warning would come between December 2 and 8, and I would have two days to act. I asked her several times to confirm this information. I asked her if it would be better for me to stay at my house than to relocate. She didn't answer. I then saw myself at what, in the dream, was my house area. It was in a sort of ravine, a hollow. On both sides of me were large hills. I was thinking that this might shelter me against any sort of storm. The house seemed sturdy. I was walking along one side, and it appeared to be the foundation, or connected to it; it was covered by brick. There were other houses in the area, nearby; I saw them vividly on surrounding hills.

February 19, 2002. Tuesday. 5:10 a.m.
I dreamed that the earth's population had been largely wiped out. I was in a small pocket of people that I thought was the last remaining group of survivors on earth. I think we were on the east coast. For some reason, I felt impelled to move the group across the country, to the west coast. We had a long and arduous journey west, to the California area. Once there, I noticed stray groups of people. I didn't want to associate with them, however. But there seemed to be some reason for us going west, that I didn't know at the time. I was telling everyone this. I knew that we had to rebuild the population from scratch.

September 15, 2002. Sunday. 4:25 a.m.
We were outside in a parking lot area. There were some menacing guys walking around along the street. [ ] was telling me that she had had many dreams of me performing tasks in an "axis shift" type of situation, and I said that "I was born for this event." Basically I indicated that I had lived through my life for this time. I moved into the lot and sat down on the ground.

July 17, 2005. Sunday. 7:05 a.m.
Someone was watching what seemed to be a television show that I was fascinated with, for some reason. I can’t remember what drew me to the show, but part of it discussed tornados wreaking devastation in Oklahoma in the mid-90’s, and I saw scenes of it on the television. I told the people how I had visited that very spot in Oklahoma on the day after the tornado hit, and there was a sense of crisis because no one could travel, and gasoline was unavailable. I kept going up front to see if I could discover what channel it was one, but I couldn’t.

July 30, 2010. Friday
This morning dreamed that I was with a group of people; we were stranded somewhere. We were in a wooded area that seemed like my parents' property. I think that we were having to survive. I remember that we were traveling along a high bluff overlooking a creek. I think that it was winter, since there were few leaves on the trees. I had the sense that there were populations at a distance, but they were too far away to be of importance. Over time, I (and perhaps the others) came near a town. I found myself staying in a house. I was staying in a guest room, I think. My iPhone had not been turned on in a long time, and I was concerned about messages that were waiting for me.

So, make of it what you will. You have to be careful with interpreting dreams, because they frequently echo our unconscious fears, and theyn do not differentiate between "real" dangers, and imagined ones. A fear is a fear. Did I spend too much of my adolescence reading Ruth Montgomery and Edgar Cayce? Of course. Did these influence my dreams? Probably. However, while I largely ignore the "mainstream" New Age writers nowadays, there are a few that I find credible. One of these is Dr. Stephan Schwartz. Not only is he a credentialed academic, he's a very good writer. Perhaps his most important project has been the long-term "2050 Project," which he began in the 1970s. To my knowledge, he has not published anything on the data that he has collected, but he has pulled together hundreds (if not thousands) of remote viewing results in which he asks the viewer one simple question: "You are now in the year 2050. What do you see?" An excellent interview with Dr. Schwartz on this project can be found here. He makes a couple of salient points. The first is that a new source of energy has been discovered, and our current electrical grid is no longer needed. Dr. Schwartz also sees the rise of a new species of human, which he calls "homo superioris," and which he interprets as definitely a bad thing. (This "new species" of human was mentioned by Seth on the 1970s and, more recently, by John Hogue.) The remote viewers indicated that the United States no longer exists as it does today. There has been significant depopulation, to the extent that underpopulation is the concern. As for climate change, Schwartz noted (in this 2005 interview) that:

The 2050 viewers describe these communities. Some of them are domed so that they can even control the weather. The weather has become a big deal. This was before global climate change [became a news item], but they described these huge weather changes and I couldn’t figure out what they were talking about. Huge droughts that have rendered parts of the country uninhabitable.

I tend to put stock in Dr. Schwartz's remote viewing evidence (and I would encourage you to read the whole interview), as unorthodox as it is, because it simply makes sense--and the predictions are echoed by other serious paranormal researchers, legitimate seers, and futurists alike. And it does appear that dramatic climate change is inevitable, and those of us who are alive today will have to confront it, whether we want to or not.

Sinister forces

Whitley Strieber's latest journal entry ('Sinister Forces In My Life') caused me to ponder a question that has obsessed me all my life: Are there malignant forces in the world that afflict people who get too close to the UFO phenomenon? Or who delve too deeply into conspiracies? Or who dabble too much into the paranormal?

It certainly seems like it. Read any classic UFO witness account from the 1970s and earlier, and you will find a universal thread throughout the stories: those not pestered by MIB often find their lives ruined by association with the UFO phenomenon, often in ingenious ways that defy the usual random run of bad luck. 

The malevolent, morally ambivalent UFO has haunted my nightmares from when I first began recording my dreams--in the mid-70s, long before "Intruders" or "Communion." It is a force, or presence, that is as ancient as our collective history, and, like the phenomenon it guards, wears many masks.

But that does not mean that the force is conscious, deliberate, or even 'alive' by our usual standards. It is intelligent, but non-discriminatory. Most accounts of Men In Black depict robot-like beings that act almost sociopathically--they mimic human behavior, not express it, and often seem totally unaware.

My hunch is that the malevolent that surrounds the UFO phenomenon is triggered automatically when we stray too close to the fence; it might have been put in place, by whoever designed our time-space, as an automatic safeguard against extreme nonconformity.

Our reality is governed, and held in place, by very specific root assumptions. Any questioning of the ground rules that form our reality, by inexperienced questioners, will likely trigger mechanisms put in place from the beginning to 'enforce' compliance--by a force that definitely appears sinister, but may simply be doing its job.

Weather report: more climate change?

Invariably, after a weather anomaly hits the United States, there's an article in the mainstream press asking, "Was this hurricane / tornado / flood / drought the result of climate change?" And just as invariably, the answer is "no." "We don't have enough data" to show, definitively, that killer weather is not part of a short-term trend. Maybe so--I'm not a climatologist. And I haven't studied the literature enough to know whether the experts cited by the media represent the consensus, or are sock puppets of the petroleum industry. In the back of my mind, however, I've begun to worry that some experts--even government experts--believe that climate change is accelerating, and the public must be kept in the dark to an impending catastrophe. (Just as we must be kept in the dark to other things.)

On a related note, I was one of the first purchasers of Whitley Strieber's "The Key." Maybe I ought to dig it out and re-read it. I was disturbed by it in '02 and haven't gone back to it. I didn't trust the narrative, and there was some chatter on various boards at the time that Strieber had in fact met this man several times before the hotel encounter. I don't know. What it ultimately boiled down to was that I really didn't understand the book (which is how many react to the Seth writings). But I would like to find any references to climate change. Contrary to what Strieber has said, "The Key" was not the "first time" the current climate change theories have been mentioned, although it's probably the first reference to "sudden climate change." I take this topic seriously because it's been a recurring theme if my dreams since I first started recording them. In the '70s, climate change was unknown, but I was dreaming about it. I'd like to dig those dreams up to see what they say to me now.

In any case, as storms, tornados and floods wreak havoc across the nation, how many thousands will have to die before the pundits say "Oops--this really IS the result of climate change. My bad"? Probably when it's too late.

Speaking of predictions...

It's crossed mind that, come December or so (unless I've been raptured), I ought to post some of my own predictions. After all, it's not really fair of me to make light of those who do attempt to predict the future without subjecting myself to the same exposure. And I have tried to assert the credibility of the process by posting some of my own precognitive thoughts.

But is our world future knowable? If we have true forewarning of future events, might we be then able to alter that future in ways that will make the outcome even worse?  I actually do believe that the world operates according to some sort of plan, and if this is the case, precognition of mass events--sufficient to change those events--would have to be factored into that plan. Think of it as the "grandson's paradox."

The bulk of my precognition comes through dreams. Dreams are notoriously hard to analyze. They speak in a symbolic, almost mythic language that resides outside our conscious time-space framework. But it's worth a try.

So, what I may do is, when my life settles down somewhat and I can be guaranteed a few decent nights' worth of sleep, I will try to post some predictions. And then, the Psychic Twins and whoever else wants to can hold me up as a reprobate to the New Age community.

Thomas Dolby's 'Oceanea'

The word I primarily associate with Thomas Dolby' 'Oceanea' is one that an English professor once cautioned me to use carefully: sublime. But it's the word I am using.

The song has apparently created some critical buzz (and I will have to take the critics' word on this, since, as a rule, I ignore critics) which caused Dolby to rush the release of the EP. Much of the surprise has originated, I think, from listeners who stereotype Dolby as the "Blinded By Science" guy. But those of us who have dug into his albums aren't surprised one bit.

I think that part of the song's appeal is that it is highly allegorical; a listener like me, with a mystical bent, will think "transcendence."

I actually got reacquainted with the singular Mr. Dolby thru WKDF's "Velveeta Lounge" show. That show is gone, and so is KDF (as far as I'm concerned), but they included him as part of some oldy playlist; think Lawrence Welk for Generation X.

Intrigued, I immediately rushed out to buy all Dolby's albums. I found that there is some brilliant stuff there, including a potential jazz standard ('Keys To Her Ferrari') as well as foreshadowings of Oceanea.

(To be continued.)

Efforts to engage "Spirit" in recent weeks

I'm willing to try anything new, if it promises to make my life a bit easier, or if it might nudge me on a better or higher path. Through the years I've tried: Hindu chants; meditation techniques prescribed by Edgar Cayce; Church-Of-Christ-endorsed prayers; self-induced trance states; bio-rhythms (in 1977); extreme exercise; and, lately, Masonic ritual work. Has any of it worked? Yes and no.... or, more precisely, I don't know. While doubtless I would be much worse without any of this, I can't claim to have been made much better (with the exception of Masonry) because of these efforts.

So, I've been trying something new. If I understand the gist of Dr. Schwartz's premise in "The Sacred Promise" correctly, perhaps it wouldn't hurt to assume that we have spirit guides and helpers.  Perhaps the best way to attract Spirit is to live our lives as if Spirit is a real force and presence.

After all, we can't (under normal circumstances) see spirit-based entities; we do not at present have any reliable way of communicating with Spirit.  So if spiritual presences are real, the only way we can establish a line of communication with them is by first acknowledging their reality, and then inviting them to intervene at times of need.

Bit-by-bit, by building a bridge of communication, one plank at a time, we can engage Spirit in a tangible way. And, I think, we can achieve real benefits.

The past couple of weeks have been problematic for me; I'm wrestling with a couple of major life issues, with very complex challenges and choices. One is job-related; the other is interpersonal, involving someone that I've known and have been drawn to for almost twenty years. My only concern in both cases is that I make the best, and correct, decisions. And I think that I've experienced some tangible help in both cases.

More later...

Rendlesham deconstruction

Just a short note to say that Dr. David Clarke's deconstruction (I won't say debunking, because it wasn't quite that) on the Rendlesham case (Paratopia 111) was quite effective. I had just listened to the Dreamland episode with Linda Moulton-Howe re: the binary code. The Rendlesham case has always received much focus in UFOlogical circles, but something has always bothered me about it. Dr. Clarke put his finger on exactly what it was.  Now, at least, I can cease wondering why beings from 50,000 years in the future would want to communicate in Twentieth Century binary code.

Whitley Strieber on Coast To Coast April 13 ("Hybrids")

I've always enjoyed listening to Whitley Strieber far more than most of his innumerable Dreamland guests; they can't hold a candle to him intellectually, or for sheer story-telling ability. To me, Whitley Strieber's world is much like his writing: true fiction, or fictive reality. His experiences seem to exist in a nether-world that adjoins our consensus reality; seemingly physical, but not quite. Like the UFOs that he associates with his experiences, they leave nothing more substantial than traces--cigarette butts, broken twigs, footprints, and a surrealistic landscape of high strangeness.

Strieber makes a compelling case for the existence of "hybrids," or human-alien offspring. He recounted a couple of past encounters with what he considered hybrids on Coast that were quite remarkable.... and I don't think he's discussed these encounters before. I have no doubt that he witnessed what he described witnessing; and similar encounters with strange, quasi-human entities have been related by other experiencers. However, like much of lore associated with the UFO experience, there's been quite a bit of contamination and disinformation associated with the subject of "hybrids." Some UFO researchers (such as David Jacobs) have built entire careers on the threat of a hybridized human race infiltrating the planet. So, while I have no doubt that people have encountered non-human (but human-appearing) beings of some sort, and while there are credible accounts that such beings reside on this planet, I don't think that we yet know what these beings are, or where they come from--much less what agenda they might have. Despite insistent prodding by George Noory, Strieber refused to speculate on this, to his credit.

Strieber's accounts reminded me of the very strange but fascinating Ingo Swann book Penetration. This book is long out of print and $$$, but digital copies of it can be found on file sharing sites. The copy that I have suggests a book that was hastily written, carelessly edited, and privately published; it's littered with misspellings, and many of its arguments (the primary one, that Earth's moon has a substantial atmosphere) are demonstrably false and traipse too close to George Adamski territory. I'd almost regard the book as fiction, but it was published as fact. Despite the book's factual errors and improbable story, after finishing it I had the strong hunch that it was "true" in that unquantifiable way that we find many vivid dreams to be "true." And the fact that it seems carelessly compiled--rather than professionally published--adds strange credibility to it, in my opinion. It's almost as if Swann decided, "You probably aren't going to believe any of this, but I'm throwing it out to you anyway."

The book's recurring thesis--that there is an alien base on the dark side of the moon--appears too often in various texts and accounts to be ignored. And Swann's encounter with a beautiful, dark-haired, voluptuous but ultimately malignant "alien" in the supermarket (page 45 in my edition) reminds me of Strieber'a accounts on Coast. After this encounter, there's discussion of what these entities are--bio-androids? extraterrestrials?--and why they are here. Ultimately, one of Swann's characters concludes, "They're dangerous, you know, and they realize that Earth psychics are their only enemies"--because only those who are "psychic" can actually "see" them for what they are.

I have no doubt that Whitley Strieber fits the definition of a classic, intuitive "psychic," and that is why these beings appear, essentially, to him, and almost never to anyone else around him (and only to others when Strieber is present). The entities are not fully part of our consensus reality; yet they are definitely experienced by certain intuitive people, who instantly detect them as malignant, threatening, and so different from us as to be "alien." My hunch--for what it's worth--is that their primary level of existence is what metaphysicists call the near-astral level, that quasi-physical realm that blends with and mirrors our physical world, but is essentially invisible to most. Yet, they are not ghosts, but rather evidence of a tangible society of beings that have some technological achievement. Their world is quite physical, to them, but to us--when we see them--their occupants and their machinery appear as ghost images, bizarre craft, and malignant quasi-human beings that obey an inner logic alien to us.

While we pat ourselves on the back with our current technical prowess and abilities to make the invisible, visible, it may be that the broad landscape of the non-physical has not yet been scientifically discovered, but is about to be.... and the presence of the "hybrids" suggests that this discovery is coming sooner, rather than later.

Though this week's news was Osama, I've actually been reading about Phoebe Prince

Phoebe Prince was the young girl who committed suicide after some vicious bullying by a particularly brutal pack of teens in South Hadley High School.

The story resonated with me because I have had a lifelong experience with bullying, beginning at age nine, and continuing until just recently. Countless experiences, some brutal, others, more subtle, extending over most of my life.

I don't think I will be bullied again, because my most recent bullying experience taught me a valuable lesson, finally--that you cannot have predators unless you have prey. I simple won't allow anyone to bully me again. For forty years, I did not realize that I do not have to be bullied if I don't want to be; I have the abilities to stop and prevent it. Phoebe, unfortunately, did not have time to learn this, or develop the necessary defenses needed to survive a sometimes brutal world.

I am glad that in the media coverage of her plight, Americans are not playing the usual "blame-the-victim" game, and her tormentors are being called out for what they are. Still, as obsessively as I have been reading the news accounts of her plight, I can't resist wondering about the why's and how's.  Like her, I had an absentee parent. Do victimizers somehow sense that their victims are unprotected?  To what extent does institutional apathy allow, or even cause, bullying?  And the victimizers--what about them?  Are they just spoiled rich kids, or perhaps victims of abuse themselves?

While these questions have a sociological importance, maybe, in the end, I can't really care about them. My sympathy goes out to the family of Phoebe Prince, and other victims of bullying. I do my small part in my day-to-day life by remaining alert to signs of personal and institutional abuse, and doing what I can to help those that I think I can help. I do believe that Phoebe Prince would still be here if some alert person had noticed, and intervened.  Those of us who have been past victims of abuse have a special calling, I believe, to be aware, and be ready to intervene.

Premonitions of Bin Laden's capture

I visited John Hogue's website to see if he mentioned anything about Bin Laden. He did not. I don't, necessarily, count this as a strike against him, but I would have been truly impressed had he predicted it... because the event was largely unforeseeable. Most prognosticators (particularly the ones who haunt Coast To Coast) restrict themselves, for the most part, to dramatic but foreseeable future outcomes. Examples of this include, "I predict more stormy weather for 2011," or "There will be an earthquake in Asia." While not exactly a certainty, these predictions are largely foreseeable, and if you closely examine the predictions of prominent prognosticators, the bulk of their predictions fall into this category.

While there, however, I noticed that he made mention of problems relating to Pakistan's "failed state" status. The Pakistanis themselves might take some umbrage at this, for while the country has a lot of problems, it does have a feeble semblance of a democracy. I might have been more impressed if Hogue had said something like, "An event in 2011 will topple the Pakistani government, and the nation will fall into the hands of a terrorist organization bent on acquiring nuclear weapons." (While this might not have been foreseeable in 2010, it's foreseeable now.)

However, someone actually did mention three years ago that Bin Laden was holed up in a villa in Pakistan. Christiane Amanpour stated unequivocally on Real Time With Bill Maher that "somebody very knowledgeable" told her that Bin Laden is living "a nice comfortable villa in Pakistan." Either important people knew all about Bin Laden's hideaway in 2008 (Bush II was still President then), or something caused Ms. Amanpour to blurt this out. While this may not be a premonition, it's certainly intriguing.

My argument is that while precognition exists and is "real," the overwhelming majority of us can't turn it on and off at will; it originates in a part of our self that doesn't take orders from the conscious ego. So, most truly stunning and accurate predictions are made by people by sheer accident and without conscious intent. And I think it's by design; if we could truly tap into this ability at will, the world would indeed be a perilous place.

Caveat emptor again for Coast (David Elkington)?

Just now listening to the April 2 Coast To Coast with Ian Punnett, whose guests generally are fascinating on first listen, but often prove to be bogus or carrying hidden political (normally right-wing) agendas. Such *may* be the case for David Elkington, who purports to have revealed some ancient metal codices from the first century AD compiled by members the nascent Christian movement. Mr. Punnett, unlike some of Coast hosts, is actually smart enough to distinguish forged or bogus accounts from historically credible ones (refer to his excellent discussions with Bart Ehrman), so I am wondering why he is putting his credibility on the line (or is simply being gullible) to devote two shows to this individual. I can't find a lot of substantial info about Mr. Elkington online; his detractors seem to be divided into two camps; one camp says that the metal plates are forgeries, and another camp comes from a fundamentalist Christian angle which attacks the plates simply because they are inconsistent fundamentalist dogma. The consensus gaining in the mass media seems to be pointing to the lead plates as fake. If so, that would be a shame, on many levels.

On the subject of hidden political agendas and obvious frauds, I can't end this post without remarking that Coast's promotion of the odious and thoroughly disreputable Jerome Corsi should end forthwith, after allowing, of course, Mr. Corsi one final four-hour show to promote his next conspiracy.