{"id":5661,"date":"2013-07-04T00:17:53","date_gmt":"2013-07-04T04:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/?p=5661"},"modified":"2013-07-04T00:25:06","modified_gmt":"2013-07-04T04:25:06","slug":"dream-sharing-by-the-founding-fathers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2013\/07\/dream-sharing-by-the-founding-fathers.html","title":{"rendered":"Dream sharing by the Founding Fathers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"-<\/a>
John Adams<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dr<\/a>
Dr Benjamin Rush<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The founding fathers had a dream of a new society. Many of them also paid close attention to dreams of the night. On July 4, it seems appropriate to share the story of how two of them shared dreams over many years. One of those dreams warned of the folly of trying to enforce Prohibition. Another appears to have contained long-range precognition of the deaths of the second and third president of the United States, on July 4, 1826.<\/em><\/p>\n

The friendship between Dr Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia and John Adams, the second president of the United States, is a grand example of what it means to travel through life with a true companion of mind and spirit. They were together in the Continental Congress; both of them signed the Declaration of Independence; their imaginations helped to forge a new political order; they both weathered political storms and bitter adversity. This was also a great epistolary<\/i> friendship. Adams and Rush corresponded with extraordinary intimacy and liveliness; the doctor\u2019s wife said they wrote to each other \u201clike two young girls about their sweethearts\u201d<\/p>\n

As a doctor and pioneer psychiatrist, Rush recorded the dreams of his patients and used them in diagnosis. Since his first travels to Europe before the American Revolution, he had been keenly interested in precognitive dreams. He developed a lifelong habit of journaling his own dreams.<\/p>\n

During visits to the Massachusetts home of John and Abigail Adams, Rush learned that Adams also took a keen interest in dreams. Rush suggested that they should exchange dreams and Adams agreed to match Rush \u201cdream for dream.\u201d They proceeded to swap dreams in a way that was \u2013 and is \u2013 quite unusual for white men of power and influence in America.<\/p>\n

Adams shared a political dream that dramatized the difficulty of creating a civilized democratic system in France. In his dream, he was in front of the palace of Versailles, \u00a0trying to explain the requirements of democracy to an immense crowd of wild beasts. He was howled down and in danger of being ripped apart.<\/p>\n

Rush reported a dream in which he became president and used his power to bring in prohibition. This resulted in a storm of protest, and finally a visit from a wise old man who counseled him that \u201cthe empire of habit\u201d is stronger than \u201cthe empire of reason\u201d and must be respected.\u00a0This dream was another corrective to the doctor\u2019s waking assumptions. Having observed the effects of alcoholism \u2013 and having been reared in a stern Presbyterian faith \u2013 he was an early supporter or prohibition, until this dream.<\/p>\n

Adams and Rush inspected each other\u2019s dreams for guidance on many other issues, both political and personal, including the opposition to Adams\u2019 efforts to create an American navy.<\/p>\n

The most remarkable letter in the Adams-Rush correspondence was signed by Benjamin Rush on October 16, 1809. At this point, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, once close allies and friends, had been estranged because of political disagreements for eleven years. Rush described a dream in which his son read him a page from a history of the United States. \u201cI read it with great pleasure and send you a copy of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The page from the supposed dream history described \u201cthe renewal of the friendship and intercourse between Mr. John Adams and Mr. Jefferson, two ex-Presidents of the United States.\u201d This led to \u201ca correspondence of several years in which they mutually reviewed the scenes of business in which they had been engaged\u201d, producing valuable lessons for posterity. \u201cMany precious aphorisms, the result of observation, experience and profound reflection, it is said, are contained in these letters.\u201d The dream history added: \u201cThese gentlemen sunk into the grave nearly at the same time\u201d, outliving their adversaries.<\/p>\n

We may suspect that in writing this page, Dr. Rush was attempting a dream transfer <\/i>rather than simply forwarding a dream report, using that form to press for reconciliation between the two former presidents. The following week, Adams sent him a pleasant response: \u201cA dream again! I wish you would dream all day and all night, for one of your dreams puts me in spirits for a month.\u201d He then proceeded to make it brusquely clear that he was not ready for reconciliation, stating that (despite eleven years on non-communication) \u201cthere has never been the smallest interruption of the personal friendship between me and Mr. Jefferson\u201d and adding, with a haughtiness that was not his usual style, that \u201cJefferson was but a boy to me\u201d and that he \u201ctaught him everything that has been good and solid in his whole political conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rush\u2019s dream intervention did not bring Adams and Jefferson together right away. \u201cOf what use can it be for Jefferson and me to exchange letters?\u201d Adams rebuffed Rush\u2019s continued efforts to play peacemaker on Christmas Day, 1811. \u201cI have nothing to say to him, but to wish him an easy journey to heaven.\u201d Yet just one week later, on New Year\u2019s Day, 1812, John Adams penned a careful overture to Jefferson, and the two ex-presidents moved quickly and gratefully to full reconciliation. The correspondence between them over the following years is an extraordinary gift to our understanding of the birth of democracy in America. Fourteen years later, they \u201csunk into the grave\u201d, outliving most of their enemies, on the same day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the Fourth of July\u201d, Thomas Jefferson announced on his deathbed at Monticello on the evening of July 3, 1826. Informed that the day of celebration had not yet arrived, he drifted back to sleep. When he died at one o\u2019clock in the afternoon on July 4th<\/sup>, bells could be heard ringing in Charlottesville in the valley below.<\/p>\n

A few hours later, lying on his own deathbed in Quincy, Massachusetts, with a thunderstorm raging outside, John Adams whispered, \u201cThomas Jefferson survives.\u201d Then his heart stopped. Whether the page from Dr Rush\u2019s future history was dream or imagination, its prophecies were exactly fulfilled.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

\"Secret<\/a>For a full account of the dreams of the Founding Fathers, please see my book The Secret History of Dreaming<\/em><\/a>, where the sources for the facts and quotations in this article are provided.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The founding fathers had a dream of a new society. Many of them also paid close attention to dreams of the night. On July 4, it seems appropriate to share the story of how two of them shared dreams over many years. One of those dreams warned of the folly of trying to enforce Prohibition.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,20,30],"tags":[1645,1646,1647,1643,1642,1644,1649,1648],"class_list":["post-5661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dreams","category-history-of-dreaming","category-precognition","tag-benjamin-rush","tag-death-of-jefferson","tag-death-of-john-adams","tag-dreams-in-american-history","tag-founding-fathers","tag-john-adams","tag-political-dreams","tag-thomas-jefferson"],"yoast_head":"\nDream sharing by the Founding Fathers - 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\/2013\/07\/dream-sharing-by-the-founding-fathers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dream sharing by the Founding Fathers - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The founding fathers had a dream of a new society. 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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\/5661","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=5661"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5670,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5661\/revisions\/5670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}