President Abraham Lincoln's Prophetic Dream That Foretold His Own Death In The White House

By: Ron Masa, Ph.D.
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:26:59
Print this article | Tell a friend | For publisher | Social Bookmarking
Rating:
 

Western culture has little understanding of the profound origin of dreams and the invaluable guidance they offer. As a result, few people benefit from the most direct source of growth and healing that nature provides. Popular opinions--and even many otherwise capable scientists--suggest that dreams are trivial side-effects of the sleeping mind with nothing whatsoever to convey.

Everyone knows that no one can know what is going to happen before it happens. And, everyone is wrong. Dead wrong. Dreams come from the timeless side of our psyche, where past, present and future coexist, and they regularly foreshadow the future in two ways.

Predictive Dreams anticipate the trajectory of current events and picture the likely outcome; if we keep drinking, eventually we will deteriorate and a dream might depict us in that sad state. Such dreams portend a "probable future" precisely in order to prevent it from coming true.

Less frequent--but far more challenging to our view of reality--is the Prophetic Dream. While they do not seem aimed at prevention or correction, they certainly do imply an origin in greater knowledge than is available to the human mind. Some offer a strikingly precise and detailed account of things to come.

I have written of a prophetic dream which anticipated, to the minute, the death of Princess Diana and which changed the world-view of the young woman who dreamed it (Prophetic Dream of Actual Princess: Dreaming of Princess Diana).

There is a far more famous dream that foretold the shocking death of a national leader more than a century earlier. President Abraham Lincoln dreamed of his own death not long before he was going to be assassinated. He reported to a friend that the dream had troubled him for days and he could not shake the melancholy it induced. It is as if he were allowed to grieve his own tragic demise in advance.

The extraordinary details are recorded in "Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 1847-1885" (Ward Hill Lamon, 1911):

About ten days ago, I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs.

There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along. It was light in all the rooms; every object was familiar to me; but where were all the people who were grieving as if their hearts would break?

I was puzzled and alarmed. What could be the meaning of all this? Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered.

There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. 'Who is dead in the White House?' I demanded of one of the soldiers 'The President' was his answer; 'he was killed by an assassin!' Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which awoke me from my dream.

Dreams are far from meaningless fantasy or random neurological discharge. They are direct communications from the source of being which guide us, grow us, enrich us, and on sad occasion, forewarn us of events destined to change the world.

Sign up for the free 8 part email class "Discover Your Dreams: A Beginners Guide to Dream Interpretation" and newsletter: http://www.UniversityofYourself.com/DiscoverYourDreams_a.html

DreamTalk is a low-cost dreamwork email group which Dr Masa, Debbie Hart and Dr Marjorie Miles co-moderate that allows you to submit dreams for analysis and to help others understand their dreams. Info at: http://www.UniversityofYourself.com/DreamTalk_a.html

Ron Masa, Ph.D. wrote columns on dreams while in private practice for 25 years. Dr Masa has taught psychic development, Jungian psychotherapy, shamanism, and (for Naropa University) the I Ching and Dream Work. He and Debbie Hart co-lead the University of Yourself: "Helping You Hear the Guide Inside." http://www.UniversityofYourself.com

Article source: Expert Articles

Most Recent Articles in Psychology category

  • Serious Problems in Psychotherapy Require Serious Medicine - By: Steven A. Frankel
    As a psychotherapy patient, do you wonder whether the work you and your therapist are doing will succeed and produce lasting results? Patients frequently remain in the dark about whether treatment is actually succeeding. The solution to this dilemma is a treatment considerably broader in scope than conventional psychological and psychiatric therapy. In conducting this innovative method of treatment, the therapist assumes the kind of clinical responsibility that is typical of a physician. He or she takes responsibility for addressing the full range of the patient's presenting and underlying problems, and coordinating all aspects of the patient's treatment.
  • Help With Psychology Dissertation Available Here! - By: Maki Kopper
    When thinking how to write a psychology dissertation, you to analyze, to understand, to evaluate and contrast, to reveal cause and effect...
  • Getting the Most Out of Therapy: How to Collaborate With Your Therapist - By: Steven Frankel, M.D.
    If you are in therapy, you and your therapist have already invested a significant amount of time and energy into your work, and you both have the same goal in mind: helping you achieve your own objectives for emotional growth and healing. If and when a difference of opinion over the treatment does occur, rather than walking away from your therapist, it is usually well worth the effort try to find a collaborative way to again go forward.
  • Colors in Dreams and Their Meaning - By: Daniel Zoleta
    Dream interpretation is the process of assigning meaning to dreams. In many of the ancient societies, including Egypt and Greece, dreaming was considered a supernatural communication or a means of divine intervention, whose message could be unravelled by those with certain powers. In modern times, various schools of psychology have offered theories about the meaning of dreams.
  • Boost Your IQ: Techniques to Increase Your Intelligence Quotient Today - By: Evgheny Stivenson
    It is possible to enhance your intelligence quotient in a matter of 10 minutes. Some techniques to do so are discussed below. Don't you want to enhance your IQ? Of course, you can use the brain power exercises and techniques. But these are long term and you would need to regularly practice them. What if you want to boost your IQ now, when you don't have more than 10 minutes.
  • Online Psychology Programs - By: Mary Jackson
    Students pursuing psychology online degrees learn about the human mind and behavior and its biological, social and cognitive bases, as well how to apply this knowledge to practical problems. Student enrolled in online psychology programs can choose to specialize in areas of psychology such as educational, child, clinical, sport, forensic, industrial, organizational, social and marriage and family therapy.
  • Toronto Psychologist and Psychoanalyst - By: Sandra Palef
    If you want to get an idea of what psychotherapy is all about, watch an episode of the television series The Sopranos. Tony Soprano is a mafia don in New Jersey who is in talk therapy with Dr. Jennifer Melfi. He has panic attacks, loses consciousness, and has slipped into a depression. All of this seems irrational to him, but he can’t help it. He has some hidden agenda lying just outside his awareness that is controlling his feelings and behavior. He doesn’t believe in therapy at the start, convinced he cannot talk about himself and that it won’t help anyway. He resists, evading Dr. Melfi’s questions, withdrawing, and even walking out. But eventually he is intrigued.
  • Magic Happens When Eternity Meets Linear Time in Dream Work - By: Ron Masa, Ph.D.
    Even if you're speeding around town, frantically running late, your dog in the back seat is perfectly on time; centered in the Now.I once thought "eternity" meant: Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. forever.
  • One Dream Interprets Another to Predict the U.S. Mid-Term Election Results - By: Ron Masa, Ph.D.
    Dreams come from wherever we do. They regularly predict the future and they link people together in the world of dreams. In the following case one dream even arrived to interpret another dream!
  • Dream Telepathy: Some Dream Workers Make Late Night House Calls - By: Ron Masa, Ph.D.
    "Not until a person dissolves, can he or she know what union is." -RumiNothing seems more obvious than that every human being is a distinct and separate entity. America champions the rights of the individual and self-determination.