What follows now is a dream of mine which is an example of the synchronistic and miraculous manner in which such experiences can provide us with guidance into a fuller existence. As a result of this dream, I was alert to and, therefore, capitalized on an opportunity when it came, to participate in The African Americans and the Bible Research Project. As a part of my involvement in the project, I initiated discourse on whether or not, and how African Americans engage synchronicity and the miraculous in the context of psychotherapy, especially in relation to biblical themes.
A sequence of significant synchronicities had been initiated for me about three years earlier, when, before I knew anything about The African Americans and the Bible Research Project and Professor Wimbush’s leadership of it, I had had a dream in which a wisdom figure I clearly recognized at the time as Professor Wimbush , was seated opposite me in a small room. As we conversed, he promised to open up the wisdom of Africa, the motherland, to me in a nurturing healing way. This dream provided me with powerful intuitive-affective knowledge on the trans level in relation to synchronicity and the ego-Self framework, as well as in relation to the miraculous and the soul-God framework.
This is a dream I had about what would later prove to be Professor Wimbush's deep African and African American-inflected influence on me through my eventual involvement in the actual project itself. One of the amazing and miraculous aspects of this synchronistic experience is that I had the dream three years before I really began to get to know Professor Wimbush that well, and three years before I knew about or became involved in The African Americans and the Bible Research Project.
There are several additional facts which amplify the amazing miraculous and synchronistic elements of this dream for me. First, a year after the dream I started working as a psychotherapist in the Riverside Church counseling department. The 17th floor tower office in which I started to see clients was clearly the room featured in my dream with Professor Wimbush a year earlier. Second, in the dream, Professor Wimbush was seated in a rocking chair. The room at Riverside in which I started seeing clients subsequent to the dream also has a rocking chair in it which I sat in when in sessions with clients. Third, prior to my joining the Riverside staff, I had never been on the 17th floor of the church, or in any of the offices on that floor.
Additionally, it is worth noting that the wisdom figure in my dream displayed enormous powers, such as being able to read my mind, to materialize and dematerialize at will, to be in several different places at once, and to be completely unbound by the ordinary laws of physics. In spite of this, there was nothing distorted about the rest of the reality we shared in the dream space. In other words, I functioned as a normal person while this wisdom figure offered to bestow on me, and teach me about whatever supernatural gifts I had the presence of mind to ask for, and was interested in learning about.
While the unusual connections between my dream and the office I had a year later, (e.g., both having to do with small rooms containing a rocking chair), caught my attention, I did not remain significantly aware of the wisdom figure from the dream who had promised to open up the wisdom of Africa and the miraculous to me. However, I did not have to wait long to encounter the synchronistic manifestation of the wisdom figure from my dream in waking reality.
Subsequent to starting my work at Riverside Church, I heard about The African Americans and the Bible Research Project, and was encouraged to participate in it by a friend who was aware that the psychology division of the project was under-represented, and who therefore believed I would be a valuable contributor to that particular division and to the project as a whole.