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February 11, 2019:

Sometimes dreams seem to exist to teach us things. Last night there was a very long dream sequence in which a deceased relative was a raging alcoholic. At one point I had to help him off the floor, and when I touched him I instantly saw many of the things he had seen, and felt what he was feeling. It was like 100% empathy, if that’s the right word for it. I immediately felt, “Wow, if I had been through these things I might be in the same shape myself,” so rather than feeling pity for him I felt empathy. I got him up into a chair and said, “Talk to me.” He tried to brush me off, but when I told him what I had seen and felt he began weeping and I hugged him for a while.

As the dream went on it was filled with people I like, people I don’t like, and others that I just don’t understand. So I touched them all and went through the same thing with each person, knowing everything about their lives to this point, always with the result of feeling empathy for them rather than other emotions like anger or pity or sorrow. There were concerns about cheating spouses/partners, issues with adoptions, parents, friends, body image, and much more.

Ram Dass FAQ: What is the best Ram Dass book to start with?

Unlike other websites that give you A.I.-generated answers, here’s my answer, and as you can see from the images below, I truly have read all of the Ram Dass books I mention.

My answer: The best Ram Dass book to start with is ...

I wrote this in my earlier blog post, What Are The Best Books By Ram Dass, but I believe the best Ram Dass book to start with is Polishing The Mirror.

I think this book is the best summary of all his work. It’s a relatively short book, it’s clearly written, and summarizes much of what you’ll read in his other books. I started reading this when I was in the hospital, and as bad as I was feeling at the time, it just blew me away. I like to underline and highlight text, and I felt like I could highlight most of the book.

With the usual caveat that you should always check with your doctor before trying different medical things, the following article describes a solution that seems to help me be more awake in the mornings.

I’m old, I was born with a rare blood disease, and I also have sleep apnea, so waking up in the morning is a hard, hard thing to do. Even after I manage to get out of bed and my eyes are open, it feels like it’s several hours every morning before I’m truly awake.

This morning I had a long dream where I was a policeman who lived maybe 70-100 years ago or so. (I’m not very good with times.) I need to mention that I was a white policeman, because this becomes important as the dream/story goes on.

At first there were mundane crimes to work on, but then there was a murder case, and the person who committed the murder was a non-white person. I noticed in myself (my character in the dream) and in others that there was prejudice in us, because we all thought to some extent, “This never happened when we were all white.” Of course it did happen, because there have been murders forever, but it was the first one we were exposed to.

When we caught the person, I told everyone, “We need to handle this properly. Remember to read him his Miranda Rights.”

When I said that, everyone looked at me like, “What are you talking about?”