400- Does an incarnate spirit willingly stay in its corporeal envelope?
“That is like asking if a prisoner is happy being under lock and key. An incarnate spirit constantly aspires to freedom. The denser the envelope, the more it wants to be free of it.”
401- During sleep does the soul rest like the body?
“No, a spirit never remains inactive. During sleep, the bonds that join it to the body are loosened, and since the body does not need it while sleeping, the spirit travels through space and enters into a more direct relationship with other spirits.”
402- How can we confirm the fact that a spirit is free during sleep?
“By dreams. While the body rests, the spirit enjoys more of its faculties than in the waking state. It remembers the past and sometimes foresees the future. It acquires more power and can communicate with other spirits whether on this world or another. You frequently say, ‘I had a bizarre dream, a horrible dream, but there is no likelihood of it being true.’ You are mistaken. It is almost always a memory of places and things which you have seen, or which you will see in another existence or on another occasion. Since the body is dormant, the spirit tries to break its chains in order to probe into the past and future.
“Poor human beings! You know so little about the most ordinary phenomena of life! You believe you are very wise, yet the most ordinary things puzzle you to no end. To the question of all children, ‘What do we do when we sleep? What are dreams?’ you remain without an answer.
“Sleep partially frees the soul from the body. When humans sleep, they momentarily find themselves in the state which they will be in permanently after death. Spirits who quickly free themselves from matter upon death had intelligent dreams during earthly life. Such spirits, while their body is sleeping, rejoin the company of those who are more evolved; they travel with, converse with and learn from them. They even work on projects that they find completed upon dying. From these facts you should once more learn not to fear death, because you die daily – as a saint once stated. “This applies only to more highly evolved spirits; however, the mass of spirits, who at death must remain in a state of confusion for some time – that uncertainty of which we have already spoken to you – either go to worlds even less evolved than earth, where former affections call to them or where they seek out pleasures that are perhaps even baser than those they indulge in here. They go to take in doctrines even viler, more ignoble and more noxious than those they profess among you. What engenders sympathies on earth is nothing other than the fact that upon awakening, they feel linked to the hearts of those with whom they have just spent eight or nine hours of happiness or pleasure. Moreover, the insuperable antipathies they feel at the bottom of our heart for certain individuals may be explained by the fact that they have a consciousness that is different from their own; they recognize these individual without having ever seen them before. It is furthermore what explains people’s indifference when they do not seek to make new friends – they know that those who love and cherish them are elsewhere. In a word, sleep has more influence than you think on your life.
“During sleep, incarnate spirits are always in touch with the spirit world, and that is what leads high order spirits, without too much aversion, to consent to incarnate among you. During their contact with earthly vices, God grants them the freedom to re-strengthen themselves during sleep at the source of the good in order not to fail in their commitment to instruct others. Sleep is the door that God opens to them for contacting their friends in heaven. It is their break after work while they await the great deliverance, the final liberation that must restore them to their true environment.
“A dream is the memory of what your spirit has seen during sleep. However, notice that you do not always dream, because you do not always remember what you have seen, or everything that you have seen. This happens because your soul is still under development, so that frequently you retain nothing more than the confused memory that accompanies your departure and your return, which is mixed in with the memory of what you have done or what concerns you have had while awake. Otherwise, how do you explain those absurd dreams that both the wisest and the simplest individuals endure? Evil spirits also use dreams to torment weak and cowardly souls.
“Furthermore, you will soon see another type of dreaming develop; a type as ancient as the kind you already know about but of which you are ignorant. It is the dream of Joan of Arc, the dream of Jacob, the dream of the Jewish prophets and certain Indian seers: this sort of dream is the remembrance of the soul entirely disengaged from the body, the memory of that other life of which I have just spoken to you.
“Try hard to distinguish between these two types of dreams among those that you remember; unless you do, you will fall into contradictions and errors that could be disastrous for your faith.”
Dreams are a product of the emancipation of the soul, who becomes more independent through the suspension of active life and relationships. This results in a sort of fuzzy clairvoyance, which extends to the most distant places or to those that have never been seen, and sometimes even to other worlds. It also results in the remembrance of events that have taken place in our present existence or in previous ones. The singularity of the images referring to what is occurring or has occurred on unknown worlds, mixed together with the images of the present world, form those bizarre and confused medleys that seem to have neither meaning nor connection.
The incoherence of dreams is further explained by the gaps resulting from the incomplete memory of what has appeared to us during the dream, much like a narrative from which sentences or parts of sentences have been accidentally omitted; if the remaining fragments were joined together, they would lose all rational meaning.
403- Why don’t we always remember our dreams?
“During what you call sleep, you only experience the repose of the body because the spirit is always in motion. During sleep, it recovers a little of its freedom and communicates with those who are dear to it either on this world or on others. But since the body is composed of heavy and dense matter, it is difficult for it to retain the impressions received by the spirit because the spirit did not receive them through the body’s organs in the first place.”
404- What should we think about the various meanings attributed to dreams?
“Dreams are not true in the sense that fortune-tellers, for example, understand them, for it is absurd to believe that dreaming about one matter necessarily foretells another. They are true in the sense that they present real images to the spirit, but these images often have no relation to what occurs in its corporeal life. Furthermore, as we have stated, many times they are a memory of the past. Lastly, they may also sometimes be a presentiment of the future if God allows it, or a vision of what is occurring at the moment in another place to which the soul has gone. Don’t you have numerous examples of persons who appear in dreams to warn relatives and friends about what is happening to them? What are these apparitions if not the soul or spirit of these persons communicating with you? When you confirm that what you have seen has really occurred, isn’t it evidence that the imagination has had nothing to do with it, especially if the event was absolutely not in your thought while you were awake?”
405- Frequently, things are seen in dreams that appear to be presentiments about matters that end up not occurring. Where do these come from?
“They may occur for the spirit if not for the body, which means that the spirit sees what it desires because it goes looking for it. You must not forget that during sleep the soul is always more or less under the influence of matter, and consequently it is never completely free from terrestrial ideas. Therefore, the concerns of wakefulness may give what you see the appearance of what you desire or what you fear. This is really what can be called a trick of the imagination. When you are strongly preoccupied with an idea, you connect it to everything you see.”
406- When we see living persons perfectly known to us doing things in a dream which they would absolutely never think of doing in real life, isn’t it pure imagination?
“Which they would absolutely never think about? How do you know that? Their spirit may come to visit yours, as yours may visit theirs, without your always knowing what they are thinking about. Besides, according to your desires, you frequently apply to individuals familiar to you what occurred or is occurring in other existences.”
407- Is complete sleep necessary for the emancipation of the spirit?
“No. The spirit recovers its freedom whenever the senses become sluggish. It takes advantage of every moment of respite that the body offers it to emancipate itself. As soon as there is a prostration of the vital forces, the spirit disengages itself; the weaker the body is, the freer the spirit will be.”
Thus, a nap or a simple dulling of the senses often presents the same images as dreaming does.
408- Sometimes it seems to us that we hear within us distinctly pronounced words that have no relation to what we are preoccupied with. Where do they come from?
“Yes, and even entire sentences, especially when the senses begin to grow dull. It is sometimes the faint echo of a spirit who wishes to communicate with you.”
409- Often, while we have our eyes shut during a state that is not yet sleep, we see distinct images and figures in the minutest detail. Is this an effect of vision or of imagination?
“The body being numb, the spirit tries to break its chains – it travels and sees. If sleep were complete, this vision would be a dream.”
410- During sleep or a nap, we sometimes have ideas that seem very worthwhile, but which in spite of the efforts we make to recall them are erased from our waking memory. Where do these ideas come from?
“They are the result of the freedom of the spirit, who emancipates itself and enjoys broader faculties for the moment. Also, they are frequently counsels given by other spirits.”
– Of what use are such ideas or counsels if the memory of them is lost and they cannot be employed?
“Such ideas sometimes belong more to the spirit world than to the corporeal one. But most frequently, if the body forgets them the spirit remembers them nonetheless, and the idea returns at the appropriate time as an inspiration of the moment.”
411- During the time that the spirit is disengaged from matter and acts as a spirit, does it know the time of its death?
“It often has a presentiment. Sometimes it has a very clear awareness of it, which gives it an intuition about it while awake. That is why some individuals sometimes foresee their own death with great precision.”
412- Can the activity of the spirit during the repose or sleep of the body fatigue the body?
“Yes, because the spirit is connected to the body like a balloon tied to a post. In the same manner that the jerking movements of the balloon shake the post, the activity of the spirit reacts upon the body and may produce fatigue.”
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