Of all the possible uses for money, beyond the simple need for physical security, enhancing our ability to be of service to others is perhaps the most important. The following dream was life-changing for Felix, a lucid dreamer who had it shortly after taking my class on Dream Yoga and meditation. At that time he had, over a period of some twenty years, turned a million dollars that he had inherited and his wife’s income into five million dollars. He had made some poor investment decisions and was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with his ability to handle the money. The problem was that he didn’t trust others to handle it either. He had interviewed a number of people and found one fellow who he respected and trusted, but still wasn’t sure whether he was the right one. That night, he had the following dream:
I am in a garden looking at three large white stones. I am lucid, meaning that I know that I am dreaming. I watch as the stones stand up on “legs” and sing, to the tune of “Shine on, Harvest Moon,” “Sign on, Sign on the bottom line…”
I knew they were encouraging me to go with the fellow that I had interviewed the day before, but I didn’t want to be misled and have my financial life built around say, a bit of undigested tofu. So I did something I never realized was possible before I took Dr. Dillard’s course: I asked the stones questions. I asked the first stone, “Who are you?” It answered, “I represent your parents.” I then asked the same question of the second stone. It said, “I represent your grandparents.” Then I asked the third stone the same question. It said, “I am your friends and mentors.” In the dream I thought, “If the three cornerstones of my life are telling me I have to do this, then I need to do it.”
“In the following days I handed my money over to this fellow, feeling a strange sense of ease and acceptance about it, something that is unusual for me around letting go of money and control over it.
Four months later I was starting to get a divorce. It would have been a disaster for me to have been trying to manage my money and to also go through the emotional turmoil of that time.
That year ended up being the second best financial year I had. This fellow turned my five million into six.”
This dreamer did not simply go lucid. He used his lucidity not to change the dream but to have the presence of mind to ask characters in the dream about issues of concern to him. The results were transformative for him. Not only did he know the “meaning” of the dream, but it resulted in a course of action that had huge repercussions for his financial security for the rest of his life.
