Recognising people in the astral world

[Gandalf]

I was wondering how many other people have experienced this phenomenon, where you bump into someone or a group whom you instinctively feel you recognise like some long lost friend, yet at the same time you can't for the life of you remember who they are!

This happens to me quite often.

In fact a few nights ago I had an experience where I woke up from a dream state and into a high state of lucidity. I was in some kind of urban, concrete environment. I walked down a side street but stopped when I heard the approach of footsteps coming from around the corner towards me. There were two sets of footsteps, both of which made the familiar 'clunk' sound of high heals.

Before they even came around the corner I felt I would know these two women and sure enough, when they came into sight I recognised them instantly although I don't know from where.

They greeted me and seemed keen to find out what I was doing and how I was finding life 'back there'. They also seemed amused by my clothing, which I guess must have been subconsciously copied from my everyday clothes.

Once again I was struck by the distinctive F3 characteristic of these kinds of experiences where these people act in ways you don't expect them to, and act in a fashion which sets them apart from F2 dream characters. This is something that soon becomes obvious once you have been through a few of these encounters.

Anyway, I spent the next few minutes or so trying to explain to them what I was doing and I also asked them to forgive me if I sounded a bit dumb as this is a common problem when trying to converse from a lucid state when you are not quite 100%. They thought my apologies and my efforts to communicate to be quite amusing, and after a few more seconds I felt myself slip off into dream mode once more, whereupon the experience ended.

Again last night, I became lucid and found myself at some kind of dinner party with some other women I recognised but didn't know! They seemed surprised to see me appear there but knew who I was and were curious to know how I was getting on. And once again, when I apologised for my slightly groggy state due to lucidity they thought this was pretty funny!

These two latest experiences are typical of something I have come across many times. I wonder who these people are and how do I know them? Thanks to lucidity problems, I always tend to forget to ask the obvious questions like  'HOW do I know you?', or 'where do I know you from?'.
All I know is that when you tell these people you recognise them, most likely with a rather confused look on your face, this seems to generate a certain amount of hilarity on their part!

I aim to find out in the near future!

Doug

[malganis]

my first thought is from somewhere you were before you incarnated here.

[kiwibonga]

Well, very often in dreams you'll see people that you instantly recognize even if you don't see their face or hear their voice... It seems you are experiencing the opposite!

The fact that you can't recognize them instantly seems unusual.

I don't know how you are in real life, but perhaps these people are people you have talked to in the past and wish you had gotten to know better.

Are you a shy person by nature? Perhaps the dream is showing you that you should not be afraid of meeting new people, or something to that effect.

Surely, there must be a message for you, hidden in that symbolism.

[Gandalf]

hmm, well imv this level of experience is beyond the symbolic.
the symbolic level of dreams is imv all part of what we call F2 or 'dreamland', but with practice it is possible to break out beyond that into a far more solid and 'objective' reality that is quite different from the symbolic dream realm, athough just to make things confusing, sometimes these two realms can be mixed up in your perception.

That is my take on it anyway.

Doug

[Froglet]

I've had one or two like that... except I knew exactly who the person was (usually I knew they were close friends) in the dream ( usually very lucid dreams) it was only after waking up that I had no clue who the person was  and yet I still felt as if I had known them for a long time.

[Gandalf]

Yes MT and Froglet_

I do think these kinds of experiences hint at a much larger world which we seem to interact with yet have no waking knowledge of.

I think this is related to certain things stated by Robert Bruce in his earlier works where he had the distinct impression that parts of our minds are indeed VERY busy during sleep, but we never remember upon waking.

[Beth]

Hey all,

Great topic Doug!!  I have spent countless hours contemplating such things myself.

I must agree as well that we are probably living mulitple lives at this very moment.  

I too have had such experiences, where either I:

1) easily recognized and conversed with a person--although upon awakening and recall, they did not look much like the way that I know/knew them--(my mother for example after she passed on...)

2) knowing very well, some people, that I have no recollection of knowing in this (the one we are sharing) version of reality.  

3) and there is also the case where I spent quite a bit of time in the astral with one particular person who I certainly recognized from this version of reality, but they had no recollection of it all that we were spending time together in another reality.  

So, I think it is a mixture of all of these.  

If the soul/astral body/mind (whatever we want to call it) is a free moving multi-dimensional entity, then I see no reason why we can't be multiple people simultaneously.  

When one of the physical bodies that I inhabit is at rest, then it stands to my reasoning that in a 'lucid dream' state I can become aware of myself functioning in other realities.  Granted, it is definately very puzzling to awake after such an experience, and I oftentimes wrack by brain to try to figure it out!!  But I think that this too is also quite 'normal' !!!  It is a part of becoming aware of our multi-dimensional selves.

As to the response of laughter Doug, this may be because you seem quite 'normal' to them at the time...thus, the apology is a non sequitur...or...it could be that upon lucidity, you are have a feeling of being intimidated by your own ability to be somewhere that is not familiar, or intentional, and that you are apologizing for something that they know is quite extraordinary.  Thus they 'giggle' at your humble apology...does that make sense?

Anyway, great topic, and these are just a few of my own ideas on the subject...

~Beth

[Novice]

Great description Gandalf. I have experienced this same thing many times. And I always find it somewhat frustrating. In one instance the being I was speaking with told me his 'current' name but added that I knew him as "Andrew" and that we had gone fishing together one time. I remember smiling broadly as he explained that because I knew he was right and while I couldn't remember the fishing trip I knew there was such a trip and was smiling as if I was remembering. Wow, that made absolutely no sense!  

I'm not sure how else to explain it. But its like when these things happen, I can remember that I have memories about these people, but I can't seem to remember the memories.........hmmm, not sure that's any clearer.

Oh well, suffice to say that yes, I've experienced this same thing. During the experience you know you know someone, often times its someone you seemed to have known for a very long time. Yet, upon waking you remember the experience of talking with the person and the fact that you knew them, but you have no idea how you know them or why.

[maddutchman]

I somehow have a feeling that we tend to meet people in the Astral or dreamworld before we actually meet them in this dimensional reality.
Somewhat like a preparatory introduction or energy transference between souls before the actual meeting takes place.
The only way I can explain it without maybe sounding a little weird, is that our overself makes arrangements with other overselves to put our selves in positions with other people that will best create the lessons or situations needed to deal with karma.

I've had quite a few lucid dream meetings with people, that when meeting up with them in this reality,brings about the intense sense of deja vu'.
One reason I probably don't seem to recognize these people straight away is because their physical bodies are in different guises, but once you bond a little with these people you can sort of tell from there auric energy that they have the same presence about them.

I've often read that our overselves have arranged to have multiple selves in existence at the same time, to be able to increase overall awareness, live out our karmic patterns quicker so that we can evolve at a quicker rate, and deal with our karma before the end of the current planetary cycle.
Sort of makes sense when you consider how many APer's talk about having a consciousness transference into what seems to be an alternate reality/life.

[CFTraveler]

I too have had the same experience, mainly in dreams, but recently something different has developed.  About 6 years ago I had a highly emotional dream where there was a man who I didn't recognize but he looked at me as if he knew me, and looking at me made me cry with so much emotion I was still crying when I woke up (such grief).  The grief stayed with me for hours afterwards but I still didn't know who he was.   Well, last week after a failed projection attempt (I think) I dreamed (non-lucid but projection related) that I was at the man's house (the one he had years ago) and it was very dilapidated.  In the dream (which I won't go into here because it's a whole other theme, IMO) I knew it was his house, and I could visualize him in my 'dream memory'.  Maybe I will relate it in the dream forum.  Any theories?