Mass Dreams of the Future: An Overview from 2001

Chet B. Snow, Ph.D.

"Do we face an Apocalypse or a Global Spiritual Awakening?" is the subtitle of this remarkable book, product of the researches of psycho-therapists Drs. Helen Wambach and myself over 15 years ago as we tried to assess humanity's hidden inner-vision of our species' future. In a series of experimental seminars between 1980 and 1988, we tested thousands of volunteers, putting them into a light dream-like state that I have named a "waking trance." Then we "progressed" them forward across time and space using Helen Wambach's unique method of "Future Life Progression Hypnosis," to preview Earth's and humanity's most-likely alternative futures both 150 and 300 years from now. No one—not even the different therapists conducting the sessions—could have predicted how closely the "mass dreams" of these perfectly normal, ordinary volunteers would coincide with little-known historical prophecies from many of the world's indigenous cultures as well as those of celebrated individual prophets such as Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce.

1. Most of humanity will live in just four environment types: First: sylvan, ecologically-sound creative and spiritual communities widely scattered in temperate zones; Second: hi-tech cities dependent on domes and other artificial protections against a harsh exterior environment; Third: isolated, rustic settlements of people who have forsaken technological solutions to Earth's problems, returning to a simpler, less-complex life-style; and Fourth: space-farers who inhabit artificial space stations above the Earth, or build protected colonies on nearby planets like Mars.

2. The emergence of clans or tribes of people born with enhanced telepathic and other psychic powers.

3. A period after 2300 AD, known as the "Outward Wave," when humanity will no longer be bound either by this solar system or by present-day concepts of 3-D reality.

Moreover, our findings have had a profound impact on such authorities in the alternative health field as Dr. Raymond Moody, who wrote that Mass Dreams of the Future is "an important and significant book . . . in this time of both great crisis and great opportunity for the world." Death and dying researcher Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross has said: "I could not stop reading this fascinating book and although many aspects of it look grim, it also looks very realistic . . . It is very important we begin to realize that our minds create our future." Finally, The Aquarian Conspiracy author Marilyn Ferguson called Mass Dreams of the Future: "A compelling vista . . . Snow has tackled his subject with the thoroughness of a scholar and the spark of a storyteller."

Since the publication of our pioneering research, I have continued compiling data on the future visions of the mass consciousness from around the planet, studying indigenous cultures like Arizona's Hopi nation and Australian Aboriginal peoples, to compare their points of view with those of the subconscious minds of our Western subjects. The results, as yet unpublished, demonstrate that today's humanity, whether from Hotevilla, Johannesburg, New York or Woomera, continues to see significant cultural and environmental changes just beyond the horizon. Striking contemporary events like massive UFO sightings and the enigmatic crop circle formations bear witness to the fact that we continue to live in "interesting times." All of the four future civilization types outlined in my book are currently distinguishable, albeit still in somewhat embryonic form. Only the reason behind the massive decline in world population that both our dreamers and indigenous seers foretell for our current century has yet to be identified in a clear and unambiguous fashion. And, even there, there's no lack of potential causes, ranging from a massive outbreak of an Ebola-like virus or other plague, to a solar flare, asteroid strike (or even a near-miss), or the cumulative effects of over a century of fossil fuel burning, provoking severe global warming.

So, as we move forward beyond such celebrated dates as 1984 and 2001, we must continue to ask the question posed by Dr. Helen Wambach and myself: "Do we face an Apocalypse or a Global Spiritual Awakening?" And the ultimate response that we found in the mid-1980s still remains true because the ultimate choice between these two widely-touted future archetypes is still ours to make today. Let us choose wisely, with humility and compassion. Our children's future, and just possibly our own, depends on what we choose now.

Chet B. Snow, Ph.D.