{"id":171,"date":"2010-12-08T10:53:19","date_gmt":"2010-12-08T10:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/2010\/12\/how-dreams-might-have-saved-john-lennon.html"},"modified":"2010-12-08T10:53:19","modified_gmt":"2010-12-08T10:53:19","slug":"how-dreams-might-have-saved-john-lennon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2010\/12\/how-dreams-might-have-saved-john-lennon.html","title":{"rendered":"How dreams might have saved John Lennon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Strawberry_Fields_Memorial.JPG\"<\/a><\/span>Today, on the thirtieth anniversary of John Lennon’s murder, I am thinking about how his dreams might have saved his life, had he been able to do more with them.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

Late in 1979, Lennon was troubled
\nby a dream in which he was dining out with his wife Yoko Ono, and they were
\napproached by a chubby, bespectacled stranger. Lennon asked the man to prove he
\nwas not “some nutcase” and the stranger became agitated. The police appeared
\nand told Lennon the chubby man had come to the restaurant armed with a handgun.
\nLennon was distressed that he could not recall more details of this dream.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, early in 1980, Lennon had a
\nterrifying dream in which he read his own obituary. It stated that he had been
\ncharged with his own homicide, which occurred near the Dakota on Central Park. John – both perpetrator and victim in the
\ndream – kept insisting that he was not guilty.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lennon was killed
\nnear the Dakota by a “chubby, bespectacled” man on December 8, 1980. Lennon’s agitation over his
\ninability to recall more details of the restaurant dream suggests that he
\nintuited that it may have contained vitally important information. <\/p>\n

The Lennon
\nobituary dream flags our need to study our dreams carefully for early warning
\nmessages. This may involve learning to read the language of our dreams. Lennon
\nsaw the murderer as himself. Many analysts, given that information, would be
\ntempted to come up with a psychological interpretation of the dream, focused
\n(for example) on a possible conflict within the dreamer’s own psyche, or the
\narchetypal theme of the doppelganger.<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/i>
\nBut John Lennon’s second self – we can now see – was the deranged fan who
\nwanted to be <\/i>John Lennon. Lennon’s
\nmurderer identified with his victim to the point that he married a Japanese
\nwoman, collected art like Lennon and signed out at work (the night before the
\nmurder) as “John Lennon”. <\/p>\n

John Lennon’s intuition told him that his dreams of death needed to be heeded. Tragically, he did not have available the active dreaming techniques that might have helped him to clarify the dream information and avoid his appointment with death. Foremost among those techniques – as we practice them today as active dreamers – are dream reentry, <\/i>which involves going back consciously inside a dream to get the information clear; tracking, <\/i>which means <\/i>getting an experienced partner to scout inside your own dreamscape to get an objective perspective; and taking right action<\/i> to apply the dream guidance.<\/p>\n

for more on dreams of the Beatles, see my book <\/i>The Secret History of Dreaming (New World Library). On the techniques of active dreaming, see <\/i>The Three “Only” Things: Tapping the Power of Dreams, Coincidence and Imagination (New World Library).<\/i><\/p>\n

Strawberry Fields memorial photo by Michael S. Koren<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, on the thirtieth anniversary of John Lennon’s murder, I am thinking about how his dreams might have saved his life, had he been able to do more with them. Late in 1979, Lennon was troubled by a dream in which he was dining out with his wife Yoko Ono, and they were approached by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,20,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-active-dreaming","category-history-of-dreaming","category-precognition"],"yoast_head":"\nHow dreams might have saved John Lennon - Dream Gates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2010\/12\/how-dreams-might-have-saved-john-lennon.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How dreams might have saved John Lennon - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today, on the thirtieth anniversary of John Lennon’s murder, I am thinking about how his dreams might have saved his life, had he been able to do more with them. 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He is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His nine books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, The Three \"\"Only\"\" Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates, Active Dreaming and Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole. His most recent book is The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse. Over the past 20 years, he has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Brazil and Austria and leads a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. He hosts the \"\"Way of the Dreamer\"\" radio show at www.healthylife.net. He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast and the Diane Rehm show on NPR. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman's Drum.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.mossdreams.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/author\/rmoss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}