Dear Julia:

I recently went for a psychic reading, as I do every three years or so, and I was told that I had several walk-ins or hitch-hikers - that's what the psychic called them. She recommended that I go and see a friend of hers to have them removed. I am a bit skeptical about this, as she came to the conclusion that I have walk-ins due to reoccurring dreams I keep having about a house that I have never seen before in real life. In the dream, the third floor is haunted, so nobody ever goes up there, but we can hear movement.

My other dream is about a house I supposedly own in a small town I once lived in. (I've never actually seen this house either). This dream is really odd, as it seems to continue every few months. In the dream, I own this house and have a lot of furniture and clothing there from when I lived there with two other friends, and I know that I now live at my parents', and never visit this house anymore, so it's unoccupied. Do these dreams suggest to you that I have walk-ins? I am very curious, as I did have an accident during which I was in and out of consciousness. The psychic told me that this is when the walk-ins came in. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
- Anita

Dear Anita:

There are a lot of interesting ideas to explore in your question. First, however, I'd like to clear something up. The term "walk-in" generally refers to a spirit that takes the place of the soul that originally incarnated in that person's body. While there can be some overlap during which time both souls are connected to that body, usually the first soul "dies" and moves on, at which point the second soul steps in.

This does usually happen during a traumatic incident in which the body dies, and when it is resuscitated, the new soul moves in. In the case of walk-ins, however, I've never heard of more than one soul taking over.

There is a great deal of information available on the internet about walk-ins that you could explore. Unless you're struggling with some key walk-in symptoms, however, I don't think this is something you have to worry about. For example, if you told me that you have suffered from total amnesia, or felt like a completely different person who is totally disconnected from family and loved ones since the accident, then I might think walk-in. As it is, I'm not picking up anything related to walk-ins from you.

It sounds to me like your psychic was using the term walk-in to describe what I would call an attached astral entity. This would be an earthbound spirit that is not trying to take your place, but rather, is trying to live through you or feed off your energy in some way. This is far more common than the walk-in scenario, which I believe is very rare.

There is also a great deal of information about earthbound spirits available in the internet. If you're interested, you might begin by searching for the term "spirit releasement." Again, however, unless you are struggling with some key symptoms, this is not something I would worry about. Some common symptoms of influence by earthbound entities include "hearing voices" in your mind telling you to do things you would not normally do; feeling very unlike yourself and wanting to do things you've never done before like drink to excess, binge eat, or engage in other addictive behavior; or having dark, disturbing or scary thoughts.

While I can sort of see why the psychic may have thought your first dream suggested the presence of an earthbound entity in your aura, I would interpret your dreams in a very different way.

Regarding the dream about the house that is supposedly haunted, I feel this simply reflects your awareness (on some level) that the spirit world is all around you, all the time. You may not be able to see spirits with your physical eyes because they don't exist in this dimension, (thus, no one actually goes up to the third floor) but you can nevertheless sense their presence (you can hear them moving around).

Regarding your dream about the house you used to live in, but have never encountered in this life, I feel this reflects your subconscious memory of having lived in another time and place. While this could represent your awareness of having lived past lives, in this case, I feel it represents your awareness of having had a life in another dimension before you incarnated here on Earth. This is why the house there has been vacant since (in the dream) you went to live in your parents' house.

If this were a dream about a past life, you would feel like someone else in it. You would have a different perspective on life, and would probably recognize the environment of the dream as being of a different time and place here on Earth. By contrast, dreams of other dimensions are more abstract - more like the fluid fantasy realms of what we call "regular dreams." Here our own minds come up with images (such as this house you describe) to represent "places" in other dimensions, and those images may or may not actually resemble those places. (This is a pretty deep subject - who can say for sure if places in other dimensions seem as real and tangible as places in the physical do?)

To complicate things further, we all have ongoing, parallel lives in other dimensions. This is why we can meet up with someone in our dreams and think, "Hey, I know you!" even if we have actually never seen them before in our waking lives. In this case, however, those dreams are usually full of action, because we are remembering real adventures in other dimensions.

To me, dreams like this are like following a television drama week by week. We know that the imaginary lives of TV characters involve far more than what we get to see on the show, as we only have an hour a week in which to view what's happening with them. Similarly, the dreams we remember about our lives in other dimensions are like watching a bit of those lives. Hence once we begin to watch (dream), we may experience a flood of memories about those lives, and say to ourselves, "Hey, I know this place! I know these people!"

In summary, I don't think you have anything to worry about in terms of attached entities or walk-ins. In fact, I think you're having some really amazing spiritual dreams here. To me, they suggest that you're in the midst of awakening to greater conscious awareness and understanding of metaphysical realms of experience.

- Julia