Eyes of Elisha

by Brandilyn Collins

Book Review
By Ann Baldwin


Throughout Brandilyn Collins’ suspenseful, murder mystery, Eyes of Elisha (Zondervan 2006), she weaves a very powerful message about visions from God (psychic visions) and relays the importance of asking for guidance, being patient for the answers, and paying attention by listening and looking for the signs.

The main character, Chelsea Adams, is given the gift of visions from God as she calls them; also known as psychic visions. When she receives a vision of a woman who’s been murdered, she struggles with knowing what she’s supposed to do with the information. This is a common issue that many people, who experience psychic dreams and visions, have to deal with. The questions most frequently asked are “why am I receiving this information?” and “what am I supposed to do with it?” Naturally, most people would want to help in finding the victim and get the killer off the street; but, it’s never easy for a psychic to share that information with law-enforcement. For a Police Detective to have their own psychic dreams or visions about the cases he or she is working on would be the ultimate crime solving tool; however, for those of us not in law-enforcement, it’s always a challenge to know exactly what we’re supposed to do with them.

For many years, I struggled with the same thing that the character, Chelsea Adams, did. I went in search for the purpose of my psychic dreams, especially those that involved crimes, killers and the locations of missing evidence and bodies. I asked myself and others the same hard questions “why am I receiving this information?” and “what am I supposed to do with it?” I knew my psychic dreams were there for a reason and it took me a long time before I finally understood their purpose in my life. I believe the purpose is different for each individual. I wrote a quote many years ago about that: “Stop, look, and listen; wait, be patient, and the answer will come.” I also wrote a screenplay and book, The Power of Dreams, a mystery and an inspirational story, where I share what that experience was like.

I highly recommend Brandilyn Collins’ book, Eyes of Elisha, because she’s written an incredibly realistic account of what psychics and police detectives go through in working together solving a crime. She tells the story with intense suspense and gives you food for thought along the way that keeps you flipping the pages wanting more. This is the second book by Brandilyn Collins that I’ve read and I never want the stories to end, because I grow so attached to her characters. To learn more about Brandilyn you can visit her website at http://www.brandilyncollins.com and purchase a copy of Eyes of Elisha at Amazon


********

Dream Interpretation

This is my belief, based on my 34 years of researching, studying, and working with my own dreams; you are the only person who can truly interpret your own dreams. While I won’t interpret your dreams for you, I will help you to learn how to interpret and understand your own.

I say that you’re the only person who can interpret them for basically two reasons. One, everyone has a different definition for words; for example, if I put 10 people in a room and asked them to define the word love, I’d get 10 different answers. Two, your experiences in life with different subjects will change through time; for example, you could fear water for many years, because you didn’t know how to swim. However, once you learned to swim, you would no longer be afraid of water. So, if you dreamt of water during those earlier years, it’s going to have a whole different meaning, than it will in the latter years. In turn, being aware of how you currently feel about the subjects that you’re dreaming about is a major key to helping you to understand the dreams better.

Here is an exercise to help you begin:

Write down all of the key subjects like people, places, and things that are in the dream and then write out all the words you associate with those subjects; for example, lets say you had a dream about horses, now, ask yourself “how do I feel about horses?” and write out all the words that come to you.

Working with your dreams involves working with what is currently going on in your waking life. The spirit world, which we connect to through our dreams, works with the earthly world that we live in everyday. This can be a tough one to explain, but I’ll try.
I live in 3 different worlds; the earthly world, while awake, the spirit world, while asleep and the creative world, while awake and connected to the spirit world. And for those of you with a sense of humor the answer is yes, I’m awake with my head in the clouds a lot!!!! Ha Ha Ha & I thank God everyday.

I hope this gets you started on your own path, which will be a journey filled with incredible enlightenment and giving you more purpose and direction in your life.

Now that I’ve been up for 24 hours straight ……I’m going to sleep & hopefully have sweet, peaceful dreams.

Thank you for entering
The Land of Make Believe
Where Your Dream is What You Achieve.

Dreamboat Annie
Giving Those Without A Voice A Way To Be Heard.

Fear Blurs The Vision of Our Dreams

Learn to face your fear and overcome it, so you can focus on your dream.
by Ann Baldwin

Fear is one of the most powerful roadblocks to fulfilling our daytime dreams. Fear is what we experience, when we take our focus off our dreams. We experience fear in the same way, whether awake or asleep dreaming: your heart races and beats so hard you can hear it, pulse quickens, muscles tighten, freeze-up and you shake, body temperature rises, a cold sweat breaks-out, shortness of breath, light-headed, nauseous and blurred vision. We have three reactions to fear; either take flight (run), freeze (do nothing), or fight (face and conquer it.)

Here are ten common fears that prevent us from fulfilling our dreams: failing, success, being judged, emotional pain, embarrassment, being alone/abandoned, rejection, expressing our true feelings, intimacy and the unknown. There are many other fears, these are just a few. We must first face our fear, so we know exactly what it is. Then, we can take steps (action) to overcome it. Too often, we take fear at face value and run, never knowing what it is we’re running from. In-turn, we end-up running away from the very thing we really want (our dream.) Fear has then blocked us from moving forward. The other common reaction to fear is to remain frozen and do nothing; therefore, going nowhere.

The purpose of fear in our night-time dreams is to GET OUR ATTENTION! It represents an obstacle, a challenge and roadblock. Our night-time dreams are giving us the opportunity to see and overcome our fears in a safe environment. I’ve learned a lot about dreams through my study of Native American beliefs. They told their children that whenever they’re afraid of and/or running from something in their dreams, to turn and face whatever it is and one of two things will always happen. It will either disappear or become their friend. I’ve practiced this for many years now and know it’s true. So, observe, listen to and follow your dreams. They will show you your fears and teach you how to overcome them in a safe environment (next week I’ll talk about dream interpretation to further help you with this.)

Our dreams (both waking and sleeping) are here to teach us to have the courage and self-confidence to walk towards them and make them real. Learning to overcome our fears helps to build our confidence, so we can take action towards fulfilling our dreams. The first thing we do, when we want to accomplish something, is to mentally visualize ourselves doing it. Many years ago, I took a ropes course called, Tree-Top Challenges, which taught us to confront and over-come our fears through action.

On one particular event, we were asked to climb 70 feet up a redwood tree and then walk across a 1 foot in diameter log to another tree. Now, if we were on the ground, no big deal, we can walk with confidence across that log. However, the element of fear has now come into play and the psychological effect it has on us will determine whether or not we accomplish our task and fulfill our goal. Keep in mind we were wearing helmets and a safety harness (belay.)

We had two visions to choose from; what we wanted (dream-goal) or what we didn’t want (fear of something.). We already knew we could walk across that log. But our fear of falling 70 feet down was now weighing heavily on our mind and preventing us from moving towards our goal. The key was to STAY FOCUSED on our goal of reaching the other tree and take the first step towards it, which gave us the confidence we needed.

Our waking and sleeping dreams can look like a double exposure photo; where the images are mixed and overlapping each other (like the photo above.) They can appear translucent, fuzzy and blurry. This is what happens, when our fears go unchecked. The image of our fear blends or overlaps with our dream (goal) and we never get a clear picture. Knowing what we don’t want (fear of something) is just as important as know what we want (dream-goal). Once we recognize both, we can move forward with more confidence in fulfilling our dreams, by staying focused on what we want.

Thank you for entering
The Land of Make Believe
Where your Dream is What You Achieve.

Annie
Giving Those Without A Voice A Way To Be Heard.

Do You Deja Vu?

By Ann Baldwin

It’s usually a strange and eerie feeling to go somewhere or do something for the first time and experience it as if you’ve been there before. You have a compelling sense of familiarity, when déjà vu occurs. I experienced déjà vu often, when I was younger. I just figured I was a very old soul that had been around the block and back again one too many times. Then, one night while watching a movie in the theater, I had a new kind of experience with déjà vu.

My brothers had invited me at the last minute to go to the movies with them; they were going to see Ghost Busters. Because I wasn’t watching much T.V. or reading the newspaper at the time, I hadn’t seen, heard or read what the movie was about. As we were sitting in the theater watching Ghost Busters, I began to experience déjà vu. I not only had the sense of familiarity of having been there before, I actually knew where and when. I’d been there the night before in my night-time dream and had written it out in detail that morning. Many of the unusual scenes from the movie were in my dream the night before.

You can imagine how you’d react, if you had a similar experience. At first, it startled me and I gasped for air and jolted as if someone had scared me. Both of my brothers looked at me and whispered “are you ok?” and “what’s wrong?” I took in a deep breath, slowly exhaled, said I was fine and I’d explain after the movie. I was awe-struck through the rest of the film. It was the first time I was aware that I’d had a precognitive dream. Since then, when I start to experience déjà vu, I’m usually able to recall the dream.

While everyone dreams several times each night, most people don’t remember them and even fewer will write them out. Most dreams last from 5 to 20 minutes. We will spend about 6 years of our lives dreaming, during a typical lifetime.

I began recording my night-time dreams every morning, when I was a sophomore in high school. I was so intrigued by this new world of dreams that I started researching the subject. I got my hands on and read as many books as I could, along with attending seminars and lectures. We didn’t have computers or the internet back then. Kind of makes me feel like a dinosaur now. My dreams became more vivid and long like a movie. I’d gotten to the point where one morning I remembered over ten dreams; some were over fifteen pages long and filled with incredible details.

There are many people who believe that déjà vu is the memory of dreams. Because I remember my dreams and write them out, my experience of déjà vu is no longer strange and eerie; I feel comfort in knowing where and when I had been there before.

Thank you for entering
The Land of Make Believe
Where Your Dream is What You Achieve

Annie
Giving Those Without A Voice A Way To Be Heard

Keys To Remembering Your Dreams

By Ann Baldwin

• The first thing is to get a notepad and pencil or pen and keep them next to your bed (in reaching distance.)

• Set your mental clock and regular alarm to about an hour before you need to get up. In regards to alarms, avoid music and/or radio stations, because you need to reduce (preferably eliminate) all voices, influences and outside stimulation. The goal is to wake slowly and stay in a half-awake, half-asleep state.

• Upon waking every morning, begin writing out everything you do remember no matter what it is; I call these dream highlights. It could be objects, sounds, feelings or whole scenes. Don’t worry or think about whether they make sense or not. The important thing is to get as many impressions down on paper that you do remember.

• If you wake and have absolutely no memory of any part of your dreams, try this exercise. I created this many years ago to help trigger the memory of my dreams, because even after 34 years of working with them, I still have mornings where I don’t recall them right away.

Exercise:
Write down all the letters in the alphabet on the left side of the page; A on line one, B on line two and so forth. Then, write down the first words that come to mind after each letter. If four words pop into your mind for the letter A go with it, then move on to the next letter. If a word comes to mind that begins with the letter T and you’re looking at B words, then jump down and fill in the word after the T. The key is to follow the natural flow of thoughts. The second stage in this exercise is to write out common everyday things that we see and dream about like cars, food, animals, water, mountains etc. The more you remember your dreams, the more familiar you will get with what kinds of things you tend to dream about more often. All it takes sometimes is one word that will trigger the memory of your dreams.

The more you practice remembering your dreams, the more vivid they will become. Most of my dreams are like movies and I’ve trained myself to be able to fast forward, rewind, pause, and play them again. You can learn to do the same thing.

Thank you for entering
The Land of Make-Believe Where Your Dream is What You Achieve,

Annie
Giving those without a voice a way to be heard.