The (un)importance of dreams

[Ron Ecker]

Has anyone ever dreamed anything of significance about the JFK assassination?

Last night I dreamed that there was new evidence of a shooter in front, firing from behind a pine tree. I thought that this was an exciting lead, till I was fully awake and realized that there were no pine trees in Dealey Plaza. (Unless of course Chauncey Holt or Jimmy Files saw one.)

Unless there is some hidden meaning, just another dead end.

[John Dolva]

Has anyone ever dreamed anything of significance about the JFK assassination?

Last night I dreamed that there was new evidence of a shooter in front, firing from behind a pine tree. I thought that this was an exciting lead, till I was fully awake and realized that there were no pine trees in Dealey Plaza. (Unless of course Chauncey Holt or Jimmy Files saw one.)

Unless there is some hidden meaning, just another dead end.

Ron, my take on dreams is that they occur entirely within and of the person having the dream.

They are 'sensations' rising from the subconscious up to the interface with the conscious which is particularly blurry during sleep. At this interface they are dealt with by dressing them in concepts that are comprehensible to the conscious. In this way they are a defence mechanism against their true meaning which generally have a reason for residing in the sub conscious.

It's possible to expand the conscious into the subconscious by adopting a similar kind of acceptance or drop of defence as occurs during sleep but with the awareness of wakefulness. The key is maintaining an equanimous awareness* for a longer and longer time which is difficult because of the minds habit of drifting off into the past and future. Practice is the key there.

Dr Arthur Janov was able to say based on his research that there is a roughly 3 day period between the first 'rise into dream' to the time when connections are made.

Often some of the inspiring thoughts or ideas that come to me is during that time just on waking. Often it's just another small step towards some larger picture. I think it's a good idea to be aware of dreams and to see them as clues to the deeper inner.

So I guess I mean to say dreams are important. Interpreting them within the context of self is also important IMO.

*(Buddha taught a useful technique for doing this which he called 'ana apana' or awareness of in and out breath, usually focuessed on a small area above the upper lip and below the nose. Just that, nothing more, nature then takes its course. Of course the awareness has to be nonjudgemental and non anticipatory so it is just what it is and nothing more. What I mean is; sometimes it's fast sometimes slow. sometimes cold, sometimes warm, sometimes in, sometimes out and so on. When the mind is thus focused on a simple indisputable truth, it then is open to deeper truths and they come commensurate with ones acceptance or equanimity. Generally this is not very long at all. Usully a few of seconds is spent wholly in the present before wandering off into the futuere or past or into image-I-nations. But looking at things like dreams at least makes it possible to find out what they are.)

[Frank Agbat]

Hi Ron,

I wish that I had a dollar for every time I went to sleep trying to will my subconscious to "sort all this out while I'm sleeping." (I should mention that I usually wind down with an hour or two of reading before sleeping -- and the usual subject is JFK).

Well, it hasn't happened yet, but I always hold out hope!

That said -- it is my belief that during the hours of sleep, the brain runs through various "processes". It sorts, stores, processes, categorizes information, commits things to memory, discards others, etc, etc. While it is processing, sometimes it enlists the "help" of some "additional resources" -- specifically in the form of brain areas usually used by the conscious mind. These end up as what we perceive as dreams. (This explains why things are often disjointed, out of sync, etc...) Just my theory...

Nevertheless, while I'm not sure dreams themselves may necessarily reveal any information (nor am I certain they will not), but the process that leads to them (data processing) might.

[Tim Gratz]

Ron, the unimportance of dreams?

Martin Luther King, Jr. would be ashamed of you. ("I have a dream . . .")

And Robert F. Kennedy as well: "Some people see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not?"

-- Robert F. Kennedy

Ron, I am teasing, of course. I know that the "dreams" of which King and Kennedy spoke so elegantly were different than the sleepy drerams to which you were refering.

More dream quotes:

James Dean: Dream as if you'll live forever... live as if you'll die today.

Norman D. Vaughan:

Dream big and dare to fail.

James Allen: Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.

H. F. Hedge: Dreaming is an act of pure imagination, attesting in all men a creative power, which, if it were available in waking, would make every man a Dante or a Shakespeare.

Henry David Thoreau: Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.

Edited January 9, 2006 by Tim Gratz

[Lee Forman]

Has anyone ever dreamed anything of significance about the JFK assassination?

Last night I dreamed that there was new evidence of a shooter in front, firing from behind a pine tree. I thought that this was an exciting lead, till I was fully awake and realized that there were no pine trees in Dealey Plaza. (Unless of course Chauncey Holt or Jimmy Files saw one.)

Unless there is some hidden meaning, just another dead end.

Ron,

I have had quite a few - very real dreams. In one particular dream - which was one of those rare dreams which closely mirrors reality, the doorbell rang, and I was provided a small case of unpublished films by some older man I didn't know, and asked to make them public. In reality I have an 8mm projector - before the dream ended I was able to watch one of the films [you can imagine the excitement - the films were labled - 'Behind Retaining Wall' - stuff like that]. I don't know how to describe it - since it seemed so real. it was like a combination of Nix and Muchmore - but much clearer and closer, and I was able to see a lot more of the area towards the Elm St extension and the crowd - between the Stemmons Sign and Thornton Expressway. I saw the shooter actually running and stopping to fire a second shot - as opposed to remaining in a fixed position. I was able to see the Lincoln stop, the reaction by Kennedy, etc.

I'm sure this was simply a combination of things I was studying - like Steve Osborne's AARB testimony, the guys I still claim to see at the north peristyle filming in Zapruder, the email or forum [not this one - can't find the reference - may be McAdams or Clint Bradford's] reference by someone claiming to have seen such a film, etc. etc. It was very real. I woke up wondering whether I had really seen something that actually existed - renewed efforts to find and acquire this film - checked into ways of transferring 8mm to high res single frames, and how to then convert these into DVD, etc should I get such a film - and then gave up. The dream did keep me going for awhile. It was my 2005 resolution to secure it - I failed.

Maybe there is a film like that - but no one has rang my doorbell...and even though I have made offers several times here to allow anyone to use me as an anonymous cut-out to publish such a film - never had a taker.

Closest I came was to buying some 8mm home films from a resident of Dallas that lived within a mile of the plaza [which prompted me to get the projector]. They were on vacation that weekend, but the film was entitled 'JFK Assassination Weekend.' It consisted of shots of cows and horses out in a field. I will say, that aside from the extreme disappointment I felt - films from 1963 don't 'break down' so that they are not viewable - so long as they are kept in the proper environment. These films from November of 1963 were in PERFECT condition.

So much for the dream.

- lee

[Mark Stapleton]

Fascinating stuff. I've never dreamt of the assassination but always thought that the entire tableau--from the turn into Elm until the final headshot--had an unreal, illusory, dreamlike feel to it. The limo then suddenly speeding towards the underpass represented a rude awakening to the nightmare of lies which followed.

I'll eat lots of camembert (I like it runny) and throw in a few radishes and see how I go.

[Ron Ecker]

My dream of a shooter behind a pine tree could mean that one of the shooters was named Pino or Pina. Or that he came from the Isle of Pines. More likely, I may have been thinking about pina coladas before going to sleep.