Ever Dream of This Man?

In January 2006 in New York, the patient of a well-known psychiatrist draws the face of a man that has been repeatedly appearing in her dreams. In more than one occasion that man has given her advice on her private life. The woman swears she has never met the man in her life.

That portrait lies forgotten on the psychiatrist’s desk for a few days until one day another patient recognizes that face and says that the man has often visited him in his dreams. He also claims he has never seen that man in his waking life.

The psychiatrist decides to send the portrait to some of his colleagues that have patients with recurrent dreams. Within a few months, four patients recognize the man as a frequent presence in their own dreams. All the patients refer to him as THIS MAN.

From January 2006 until today, at least 2000 people have claimed they have seen this man in their dreams, in many cities all over the world: Los Angeles, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Tehran, Beijing, Rome, Barcelona, Stockholm, Paris, New Dehli, Moscow etc.

At the moment there is no ascertained relation or common trait among the people that have dreamed of seeing this man. Moreover, no living man has ever been recognized as resembling the man of the portrait by the people who have seen this man in their dreams.


THEORIES

Several theories have been developed to explain the mysteriously recurring presence of this man in the dreams of different people who are not related in any way. The following theories are the ones that elicit the greatest interest among the dreamers themselves.

ARCHETYPE THEORY
According to Jung's psychoanalytic theory, this man is an archetypal image belonging to the collective unconscious that can surface in times of hardship (emotional development, dramatic changes in our lives, stressful circumstances etc.) in particularly sensitive subjects.

RELIGIOUS THEORY
According to this theory this man is the image of the Creator, that is to say one of the forms in which God manifests himself today. This is the reason why his indications and the words he utters during the dreams should be decidedly followed by the dreamers.

DREAM SURFER THEORY
It is the most interesting theory and the one that has the greatest implications, but it has also the lowest scientific credibility. According to this theory this man is a real person, who can enter people's dreams by means of specific psychological skills. Some believe that in real life this man looks like the man in the dreams. Others think that the man in the dreams looks completely different from his real life counterpart. Some people seem to believe that behind this man there is a mental conditioning plan developed by a major corporation.

DREAM IMITATION THEORY
This is a scientific psycho-sociological theory which claims that this phenomenon has arisen casually and has progressively developed by imitation. Basically when people are exposed to this phenomenon they become so deeply impressed that they start seeing this man in their dreams.

DAYTIME RECOGNITION THEORY
This theory states that the apparitions of this man are purely casual. Normally we do not remember precisely the faces we see in our dreams. The image of this man would thus be an instrument which, in the subject's waking life, facilitates recognition of an undefined oneirical image.

The Shaman

Many many years ago, there lived a very powerful shaman. Many people went to see him for he was able to summon the spirits of their dead relations from beyond the grave. These spirits would then possess him and converse with their living relations through him.

At the same time, there was a very eminent doctor in the region who had great ambitions not only in the medical field but also in politics. He sought to be a community leader and he wanted to lead the people through the knowledge and wisdom he had obtained from his overseas Western education.

The doctor was appalled when he discovered his own wife was visiting this shaman in order to talk to the spirit of her dead grandmother. When he scolded his wife and forbade her to visit the shaman again, he found that friends and relations of her inner circle would take her side and warn him against doubling the power of the shaman.

Furious, he vowed to prove them all wrong. That night, he drove over the shaman's house together with his wife and some friends and relatives He instructed his wife and the others to remain in the car while he and his brother went to "test" the shaman's power. In order to prove the hoax, he lied that his wife was dead and he wanted to speak with her spirit.

The shaman, not knowing that this was the husband of one of his regular customers, went into the ritual of the trance.

It was an elaborate ceremony for this invoked the very guardian of the gate between the world of shadows and the land of the living. After half an hour or so, the shaman collapsed in exhaustion having tried without success to summon the spirit. There were many others present in the house of the shaman beside the doctor and his brother. The doctor gloated over the shaman's failure and denounced him as a charlatan to the others. He said people must never believe such superstitious nonsense again.

At this point, the whole room was stunned by the sudden movements of the shaman. he sat bolt upright in a rigid lotus position and began to weep in a woman's voice. The cry was so eerie, even the doctor was afraid.

"What... what kind of trickery is this?" the doctor stammered.

"What have you done?" said the wailing voice.

"O, what have you done? Because of the summoning, they have brought me into the shadow lands just for you!"

The doctor couldn't believe what he was hearing. It was his wife's voice! Coming from the shaman's lips.

Reeling in horror, the doctor rushed out to the car, fearing the worst. He found his wife slumped in the car, dead.

Those who were with her said she shrieked suddenly and died in an instant, just about the same time as he had heard the weeping voice.