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dreams often present a visualization of these affairs, telling me: (1) how I feel
about them or how I experience them emotionally, and (2)
aspects of the actual events that are going to happen. I use such
information as guidance, to call my attention to preparations I
might otherwise ignore or overlook, to prevent me from being
taken by surprise and to let me anticipate my response to
possible events.
Of course, I cannot always fathom what some of the dream meanings refer to until the event itself, and I never commit myself to expecting that something will happen as the dream portrays it. Rather, I use the dream as a way of expanding my awareness of the possibilities of a situation and of responding to that potential. I do not think it is important to separate precognitions from inferences or present-time facts in these dreams. Certainly the information about band music in the lecture seems available only through precognition, but seeing company presidents as sheiks may be representative of my own emotional feelings, or a portrayal of their self-image, or a precognitive view of how the situation will be. After I recognized that my dreams did pick up factual information from the future, and after I realized how dreams sometimes gave me perspectives on future events, I simply assumed that such dreams would draw on all sources of information necessary to provide me with a picture of the coming situation. In effect, I accepted that these dreams would present whatever might be helpful to me—drawing on my present knowledge, inferences, important aspects from the future, and my own feelings, plans, and objectives regarding the activity. So I accept the information and perspective as likely to be useful to me, and I try to understand the meanings as best I can. Perspective Dreams in Groups
When I realized that my dreams often provided useful perspectives in advance of my important activities, I wondered if this might be true of other people's dreams. I first had occasion to inquire about this when I taught a class in dream work for the California Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. I introduced the students to the idea that dreams often reflected a person's attitude toward coming events, and asked for dreams that the students recalled that might relate to the class. The following dreams were reported: A dream of a party with many persons drinking champagne and celebrating their graduation. A dream of going somewhere on a shoddy, decrepit train with a 171
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