Many discussions on dreams and visions during meditations have focused on recurring symbols.  The experienced dreamer (one who analyzes their dreams, writes things down, etc.) will note recurring symbols, often assoicated with certain experiences.  Communication with the afterlife has, in one of our recent threads been likened to trying to speak to someone through an incredibly dense piece of frosted glass, which sound and light have difficulty penetrating.

During meditation, often random images pop up in our mind's eye.  For no particular reason.  Yet how random are these images?  Various sources describe these pictures as "mental chatter."  Is it just chatter though, or are some of these images a deliberate subconscious pathyway from the afterlife to us (that we don't consciously recognize)?  What if, we deliberately created our own individual language of symbols, mental pictures to communicate with, and by setting intent with a loved one now deceased, we could have "conversations" this way.  Bruce's imagination method has us creating the two way conversation, and then looking for tell tale signs of real communication amidst our imaginings.  

What if we could be disciplined enough to set intent and agree on certain basic symbols to signify phrases or sentences.  What if then, we arranged to transmit questions in, say 4-6 symbols, and then awaited waiting to receive a reply?

Some may see trouble with this method in terms of the vagueries and in terms of negative spirits giving us answers, but without knowing it was our loved one (sort of like the ouija board).  In my experience, if intent is placed with a prayer for the highest good of all involved and a prayer of protection, it is usualy sufficient to stop this unwanted sort of communication.  

I am going to make some forrays with creating a symbolic alphabet, if i can be organized enough, and then see what results I get.  

Matthew

Matthew:

I've found that over a period of time my guidance and I have devoloped a symbolic language. Especially since we communicate mostly through visual symbology and experiences. There is much symbology that I doubt other people would understand. Not unless they developed a similar language.

I believe that part of the reason we developed this language, is because more noise makes it way through when thoughts are used as a basis for communication. I don't assume that every spirit message I receive comes from spirit guidance. Sometimes messages don't seem right, or I don't like the feeling of the presence who communicates. This later factor can be hard to discern, when guidance communicates with me in order to help me get over a heart chakra block. Sometimes my own reticence to doing so, causes the uncomfortable feeling. Plus, when negative aspects of mind are dealt with, the negative aspect can create the unpleasant feeling.

I've noticed that messages from unfriendly spirits tend to come in a verbal/thought way. For example, I've heard spirits tell me, "I'm going to kill you." Obviously, they didn't follow up with their threat. When they appear in this manner, I sometimes dispense with regular retrievel talk, and begin with: "Pray to God and Christ, and ask for forgiveness and help," and then continue with other retrievel statements. I do this because I figure some spirits aren't interested in going to the light. They just want to "try" to give me a hard time.  Sometimes it is good to not stand all alone, and to reach out to those who can help us. I figure I am always connected to such help; nevertheless, it doesn't hurt to reach out. Negative messages don't come often.

Regarding imagery that seems random and doesn't have any messages connected to it, I've found that sometimes imagery does appear in such a way.

Greetings Doc M and all--

That's very exciting to hear that someone would take on such a project!
Such a symbology is certainly needed ! If you get any ideas for new words or new definitions of old words, I hope you'll jot those down too. Full communication in such a 'new'  field is so very important!

Recoverer, do you think that such symbols would be specific to the one person/Interpretor and not universal? Due to our Interpretors having differing ways of presenting ideas? Or would it only deal with broader concepts? I'll never forget how flabbergasted I was when I saw a bushy little dog instead of a bushy little cat (or viceversa) but that was for a specific event and was not symbollic.

Many best wishes for your project, Matthew !

Betson

I propose to create a pictoral alphabet of sorts.  Something one can easily transmit or receive in meditation.  Transmitting may not be a factor; it is said that our thoughts may be heard by our loved ones, but the reverse seems much more rare.  So, I believe that if images may be transmitted more easily, then we can let them know a simple set of images, what they mean, pose a question, and then see what we "pick up."  

Admittedly, one can engage in a conversation with the imagination, and if one gets communication that way, it may be more direct.  

As I make the vocabulary and attempt the meditations, I will write of any progress.

I recall when the cold reader, John Edwards was interviewed, he mentioned symbols such as a pink rose, having specific meaning to him from his guides and or the deceased.  That image had meaning to him - we each may have our own visuals that will communicate more easily, if we discover them.

Albert, a prayer of protection is actually used by TMI for most advanced meditations.  While they do no direct it to Christ, the request for the communications to be protected and for the highest good is usually there.

M

Here are some symbols that might be universal. They don't always represent the same thing. Sometimes you have to figure it out.

-A car that gets in your way = a block
-Various people = what that person means to you.
-Dogs = a fear you don't need to have
-Green = love
-Running water = cleansing
-A display of white of gold light = the light
-Orange or yellow = willpower
-a kitchen, refrigerator or stove = an energetic system (think about it ;))
-people riding on bicycles = energy cycling at a high level
-difficulty operating a computer = difficulty with making a mental connection of some kind
-empty shopping carts = hungry ghosts, earth bound spirits who are hungry for energy
-a bunch of grapes = soul group
-assortments of sweets = what is available in a higher realm
-items of clothing = aspects of self
-cars, houses, boats, planes =can equal one's self
-The people who are found within a car, house, building, boat, plane = aspects of self
-If you drive while sitting in the back seat of a car while somebody else sits in the driver's seat, this person = an aspect you are giving too much control too.
-children = childish aspect of self
-immediate family members = aspects of self
-distant family members = disk members
-a twin you know= aspect of self is being addressed
-Showing up to school on the last day in order to take a test = something you haven't taken care of
-bumping your head= you're doing it to yourself, rather than something from outside
-clothes or other items neatly stored away = you're in balance
-items stored in a messy way = you're not in balance
-an image of recyclables being neatly packed within the containers you place recycled items (plastic bottles etc) in = things within your being are being put into order
-Magazine or newpapper pages flipped through = events in the world

Another thing that will happen is that things that don't seem to be related are placed together, so you can see how they are related. For example, two different parts of a limiting belief system.

There are many more, I can't remember them all now.

Hi Doc-
I trust that you've read Upton Sinclair's book Mental Radio in which he and his wife did a lot of transferrence.

My thought was that heiroglyphs in tombs were precisely the kind of language to which you refer. The earliest examples were totally pictorial in nature, expressing the scene to be understood. Only later did the sounds of the symbols dominate and become a syllabry that had vocal value. Whether or not computer icons qualify, they're of the same ultimate nature.

While I like the basic idea of a common symbolic language, we might have trouble making it fit everyone. For example, in Africa, one might dream of an impala, symbolic of feating perhaps, while in the US it would infer a car made by Chevrolet.

When doing regressions I notice that people come up with rather widely different ways to symbolize their abstract thoughts. The best I can do is to make a guess and ask if I'm correct - often not - which leads to more symbols.

Still - C G Jung seemed to feel that there is an archetypal basis for everyone, and that through this we might find a commonality of expression, just as the common basis projects us as similar beings. I'm not a Jungian, so I won't try to justify this. However, Jung seemed to feel that mandalas were one common mode.

dave

I know of Jung's work, and I think it bears looking into (he was talking of the psychology of individuals incarnate in general, however); the question is whether we can pick symbols, meditate on a question and receive an answer more easily in symbolic form.  Would this aid in communication?


M

Hi matthew dave recoverer and bets My symbols mostly is that i'm sitting on a stone in the middle of stone henge and there are spirits surounding me dressed in red cloaks especially when i have healing with this man called peter and he is always in there with me as peter was told by spirit as i'm shown by spirit that we were together in the time of stonehenge.

Symbols from spirit

Gold keys   open the doors to enlightment of the soul
Gold stars representing   other spirit forms on other planet
Red Doors   Towards the coming  of christ
Blue Shimmers  Healing of the soul
Yellow Sun  Light of the spirit world
Lime Trees   The word is given
Bread     The body of christ
Avacado   The opening of the life source
Trees    Shadows around the world
Time   Eons in space
Mast    Ship of forgiveness
Eagle   Flight of the spirit
Red moon   The time of much change
Red Sun    The leaving of the earth

This is what i got from spirit.

Love and God bless    love juditha

Matthew,

Freud considered Jung his best student, but Jung sometimes alienated Freud, an atheist, by invoking paranormal events in Freud's presence that shocked and disturbed his worldview.  In my view, the Jungian study of archetypes and their function in dreams and other experiences holds the most promise for your project.  Jung is one of my favorite thinkers despite the fact that his mystical side seems to have alienated mainstream psychologists.  The multiple structural pattern of NDEs may itself need to be explained in terms of archetypes.  

Psychologist William James used nitrous oxide as a tool for exploring altered states.  He concluded, "Consciousness is subdivided into thin layers, each of which needs to be explored."  He suspected that each thin layer has its own function and potential.  Astral explorers often encounter ineffable symbols and even a whole plane full of symbols during their travels.  I suspect that the problem of mapping out astral territories definitively is exacerbated by frequent unwitting shifts from one subtle "layer of consciousness" to another.  Every researcher knows that communication is normally telepathic in the astral realm, but we don't yet understand why telepathy often needs symbols to make its point.  I am struck by the frequency of symbolic or poetic paranormal events during ADCs from recently deceased loved ones.  

Don

We can pick symbols to a certain extent. Usually what happens is that guidance will make use of what is currently going on in your life. Sometimes such symbology will hang around. Sometimes it will go away.

Here's what often happens for me. I'll be meditating, I get stuck and don't expand anymore, and suddenly I'll find myself standing in front of an elevator, and something prevents me from getting on the elevator. The elevator is a symbol for going to a higher level. The thing that blocks me is what prevents me from expanding further.

The same thing can happen with escalators. Sometimes I'll go up an escalator, and what blocked me before passes by me without any problem. This is a way of telling me that something that used to limit me, no longer does.

Regarding cars, sometimes lots of cars will block me if I'm dealing with numerous issues. Sometimes cars will drive by me with no problem, in order to signify that things are going well.

Different things enable me to understand what kind of block a car represents. The kind of car, the color of the car, who drives the car, the scenery in which the car is located. A truck represents a really big block.

Sometimes I'll be riding in my car (not physically), look in my back seat, and see something that doesn't belong there. This something symbolizes something that is blocking me in a lower chakra area.

When something such as a car or house is used to symbolize me, this is sort of an inside joke. It is a way of spirit guidance saying, "We don't consider you to be a physical body, anymore than we consider you to be a car or house.

Sometimes me and my guidance will play what I think of as first letter pictionary. This takes place because sometimes the thoughts they send me aren't any louder than my own thoughts.  If there answer is to "B"e "L"ove," they'll show me a "B"lue "L"ake, and this connects me to what they are thinking completely enough, so I'll know that they mean "be love." Sometimes they'll connect several images together in one scene, and if I decode each object according to the first letter code, I'll understand what they are saying. This might seem like an odd way to communicate, but once a person has worked out this method of communication, it can work. This method of communication tells me how my guidance needs no time to think, because I'll ask them a question, and they'll immediately respond with this type of pictionary image, in a manner where somebody is shown taking part in an activity, and if I follow the activity in a sequential way, each activity will provide me with first letter code letters.  

Juditha:

You receive different symbols than me. I'm shown doors at times. They usually represent making the decision to open myself up to the light. Sometimes they'll represent taking a look at a fear I have.

Sometimes obstructed windows will be shown. If I remove what obstructs a window, I'll see light or a beautiful scenery.

I have been shown keys before, as in I hold the key.

It will be interesting to see if my guidance uses some of your symbols in the future, now that you've shared them.  

DocM wrote on Feb 15^th, 2008 at 5:45pm:

I know of Jung's work, and I think it bears looking into (he was talking of the psychology of individuals incarnate in general, however); the question is whether we can pick symbols, meditate on a question and receive an answer more easily in symbolic form.  Would this aid in communication? M

I think it's a wonderful idea. This is done with tarot cards all the time, and with many other methods of divination. Why not use mental symbols in an orderly and structured way? It makes sense, and we, no doubt, do this anyway all the time without being conscious of doing it. I assume that spirits communicate much better with us through pictures than words, and I see no reason why the mind could not learn how to train itself to communicate this way.

Hi Recoverer  I have been shown the colour green many times by spirit especially when i'm sitting in circle and also i have often felt God being as white and gold,i actually wrote a poem about meeting face to face with God and had him dressed in white and gold representing the beautiful light.

Love and God bless    love juditha

I don't know Jung's symbology, bu I'd doubt spirits would allow themselves to be limited by the symbology he came up with. It seems so much like an individual thing. You have to learn to feel what a symbol means.

OK - I'm in agreement with the house in particular, as not only I, but my wife aso, views our life-state as a house. Mine is usually a hotel, but close. - The escalator too, I see stairs and elevators.

Occasionally I find myself clambering along the roof or barely clinging to the sides of the hotel, about umpteen hundred stories above the ground, and usually terrified (so one day I let go, just out of pique, and made a big splash on the pavement below) or I find that I'm going floor to floor through unusual passages and hallways, and once in a while trying to avoid the hotel Security people. Generally this is a transform of the experiences of the moment.

I think that if we were to work on it, we could actually do a rough and ready kind of language. The idea fascinates me, as this is the kind of thinking that we seem to carry with us into the afterlife. As an example, a person with severe dementia has no "thinking ability" in the usual sense, yet they are most certainly aware and able to organize data on a primary level. My father in law had a multiple bypass that liberated numerous embolii that lodged in his brain and uiltimately did him in by blocking cerebral circulation. While in a semi-coma he was still able to recognize my wife - just not able to express more than motion of his eyes and one or two single words. But he was evidently wholly aware.

My basic question is how much abstraction, and how much literal concreteness is to be involved here.

d

Hello All,

Yes, the “House” to me is a symbol of the state of my earthly life, sometimes in goodly repair and at other times run down in my dreams

But a list giving the real meaning of the multiple symbols in human dreaming, has this not been attempted over and over again with each compiler coming up with very different takes?.

Anyway, go for it Doc I an very interested

Alan