Rosicrucian Society ™

Then the process of restoration commences and lasts for a longer or a shorter time according to circumstances.

At times however, the grip of the desire body upon our denser vehicles is so strong that it refuses to let go. When it has become so interested in the proceedings of the day, it continues to ruminate over them after the collapse of the physical body, and is perhaps only half extracted from that vehicle. Then it may transmit sights and sounds of the desire world to the brain. But as the connections are necessarily askew under such conditions, the most confused dreams result. Furthermore, as the desire body compels motion, the body is very apt to toss about when[pg 140]the desire body is not fully extracted, hence the restless sleep which usually accompanies dreams of a confused nature.

There are times of course when dreams are prophetic and come true, but such dreams result only after complete extraction of the desire body, under circumstances where the spirit has seen some danger perhaps, which may befall, and then impresses the fact upon the brain at the moment of awakening.

It also happens that the spirit goes upon a soul flight and omits to perform its part of the work of restoration, then the body will not be fit to re-enter in the morning, so it sleeps on. The spirit may thus roam afield for a number of days, or even weeks, before it again enters its physical body and assumes the normal routine of alternating waking and sleep. This condition is called trance, and the spirit may remember upon its return what it has seen and heard in the super-physical realm, or it may have forgotten, according to the stage of its development and the depth of the trance condition. When the trance is very light, the spirit is usually present in the room where its body lies all the time, and upon its return to the body it will be able to recount to relatives all they[pg 141]said and did while its body lay unconscious. Where the trance is deeper, the returning spirit will usually be unconscious of what happened around its body, but may recount experiences from the invisible world.