Hi Reader

Ever had a dream that changed the way you see the world? A dream that refuses to be rationally debunked, put on a shelf and forgotten?

A few years ago, I dreamed that I was in the attic of my house, and a pipe burst in the wall. The water was flowing out like a faucet. In the dream, I went downstairs to look for help, and on my way down, ran into my brother-in-law.

That same morning, my brother-in-law (who at that time shared a house with my wife and I) told me over coffee he had just had a dream about me coming down the stairs carrying buckets full of water.

Huh, that’s interesting.

But more to the point, I knew instantly what had to be done.

You see, a week prior, I had discovered moisture seeping in through the basement floor. I hadn’t told my brother-in-law about it, as he had been out of town all week. With my pipe dream (ha) and his synchronous dream of me and the buckets, I knew we had better spend some time in the basement prepping for a possible flood.

So we spent several hours that same day getting all our boxed belongings off the basement floor, and onto shelves and pallets.

Six days later, during a heavy rainstorm, the basement flooded. Water poured through a crack in the wall like a spigot was turned on full-force. The image was shockingly similar to my dream. Yet the cause was clearly rainwater seeping out of the ground and coming through a crack in the foundation. I remember joking about how my dream of the broken pipe in the attic got the details wrong about the roof being involved.

However, when the plumber came, he diagnosed the situation as a rusty pipe from the roof. Huh?

Turns out, our row house—which was built in the 1910s—has a typical feature for homes of that era: the gutter collects water from the roof, and then the pipe enters the house again, connecting the rain gutter with an outgoing water pipe in the wall that then goes out to the city sewer. The pipe probably had never been replaced and had eventually corroded, causing first seepage and then the flood.

So my dream wasn’t that wrong after all: a water pipe in the wall burst, with water originating from above the living space.

I’m not particularly convinced this dream was precognition on my part, as I already knew about the moisture problem in the basement. A reasonable explanation is that I was unconsciously working out the potential flood.

Dreams, after all, showcase past, present, and future possibilities.

But when you add my brother-in-law’s dream to the mix, I have to give up my “rational” defenses. We both dreamed we saw each other on the stairs: In my dream, I was seeking help to deal with the flood above; in his dream, I was carrying buckets of water. Is that telepathy on his part? Mutual dreaming? I don’t know, but it’s pretty uncanny. Again, he had been out of town for a week, and so we hadn’t been discussing this issue together.

I don’t know how one could, rationally speaking, disregard these dreams. I

From a doggedly pragmatic perspective, the most important aspect to this story is that my brother-in-law and I honored our dreams, and quickly focused our waking energy on preparing for a potential disaster.

And because we did, we didn’t ruin all of our stored possessions, which included clothes, hundreds of books, and an irreplaceable archive of letters, notes, and photographs.

If I had let my skepticism (which is important) prevent further inquiry and action (which is ultimately more important), I’d would have had a lot of wet stuff down in the basement.

This example really hits on the practicality of facing extraordinary dreams. Rather than simply labeling them and pondering their implications for the structure of the cosmos, the most important thing we can do is honoring these experiences.

Save 25% on Extraordinary Dreams by Enrolling by November 11th

​Extraordinary Dreams is my annual training on working with the insights of big dreams, including precognitive dreams, mystical lucid dreams and visitations.

This course is for you if you are struggling to connect with your sense of purpose or a more authentic relationship to the cosmos. Or perhaps you are looking for broader perspectives about how your dreams can connect to your spiritual practice and worldview.

This workshop is designed to help you remember the old ways.

To remember that the dark is nourishing.

Our evenings asleep send us through profound altered states of consciousness –most of which we forget.

And then, every so often a powerful dream or vision rips through and leaves us shaken or in awe.

We will take a tour of extraordinary dreaming and the visions that come in night: from visitation dreams to seemingly prophetic encounters. Non dual visions. Aliens, angels and ancestors. Ultimately, this is a course about the Wyrd, an ancient word that our own “weird” comes from. The Wyrd conveys a cosmos that has a hidden life, and is composed of invisible threads that connects us all.

Save 25% on enrollment by signing up by next Tuesday November 11th.

​Learn more and enroll here​

Participate: New OBE Entity Study

If you have had an out of body experience and then came into contact with some kind of entity (seen or unseen), researchers Samantha Treasure and Ben Gandy are looking to hear from your first hand experiences!

They have created a questionnaire to catalogue these sorts of events. Here’s what they say:

“If you’ve ever had an out-of-body experience in which you encountered an entity (whether seen, heard or felt, human or other-than-human, positive or negative), please consider contributing to the science of this experience by taking the survey.”

You’re in good hands with this research: Samantha and Sam Gandy teamed up with Dr Marina Weiler (University of Virginia), Dr Alex de Foe (Monash University), Dr David Luke (University of Greenwich) and Dr Julie Exline (University of Virginia) to co-develop this new Entity Encounter Survey and begin mapping these phenomena across disciplines.

​Here’s the link to the survey. It can be anonymous too.

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Listen: Befriending the Dark

I was a guest Melissa Johnson's podcast the Dream Hub two weeks ago and forgot to tell you about it!

We talked about sleep paralysis, lucid nightmares, and the remarkable healing power that comes through these misunderstood states of consciousness.

In her words of our time together:

Listen on Spotify

Watch: LUCID

and also, if you haven't already, check out LUCID, Melissa's incredible lucid dreaming documentary, hosted by New Reality TV (it's also free).

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Stay dreamy,

Ryan D. Hurd, he who doesn't store his photographs on the basement floor anymore