This dream serial is also an interesting topic, in 2002 I went to India for the 3rd time, but with a psychosis, it got worse there, due to bad people and bad karma.

Now I found a few dreams in my dreamjournals, which are telling me to never go back to India again......as a matter of fact, to never take an airplane again, here we go :

April 24th 2005, 9am :

"I was on a journey to India with a guy who had almost nothing with him. He had the intention to travel like this and asked me to go with him, to go with the baba's there.
Finally I ended up with only a garbage sack full of stuff and we ended up together in the Ved Niketan Ashram in Rishikesh, where we both rented a room, one for him and one for me.
I rented a room near Swami Dharmananda (my first yoga teacher) and he was very surprised to see me there.
I put my stuff on the ground and walked through the ashram. Swamiji had become the boss there.
Not much later he came walking into my direction wearing army boots who were worn out. He said that he needed new shoes and I thought by myself that I would buy those for him.
Then the guy I was with asked me if I would join him, but I refused, I stayed in the ashram. He gave me a few pictures as a sign of goodbye and was dissapointed that he had to go alone."

Well, the shoes......that reminds me of a past life in where I stole the shoes of the guard of the prison camp and from where I escaped, the guard got falsely accused for it, because of me.....okay, I understand this and I could make it up in this way. The other guy symbolizes me, maybe I will lose all my possessions here and that will leave me no other option than to go to Rishikesh.

But the next dream tells me that my efforts to make up will be a faillure :

July 25th 2006, 8am :

"I was in India and came there with a Hindu boy from Holland. We went to the Omkarananda ashram in Rishikesh and the boy had a culture shock. He didn't like it at all, but still I showed him the environment, there was a lot of water in the streets. In the Omkarananda we had a room and he decided to take a shower outside the room.
He didn't like the cold, I went for a shower too but found a nice little and warm swimming pool. I walked to an ashram and I saw Swami Dharmananda sitting in a corner, it was a beautiful quiet ashram and a lot of Western tourists were there. To my big surprise the Swami had no hair on his head and he was wearing some beard (muslim style). He was dressed in orange and greeted me very friendly.
I said that I wanted to buy his DVD series and his new book and he gave that to me.
He didn't have the DVD's there but that would come later.
He had assembled a lot of people around him who worked for him and everything looked very professional.
When I went to his ashram for the second time, I noticed that a guy called Dirk was with me. He was sweating all over and wanted to go away as soon as possible.
The Swami would see me with Dirk and I don't think he would like that."

Well, this dream is telling me that whenever I would go to Rishikesh to make up for old times and mistakes, it's not gonna work out, because Dirk symbolizes me, Dirk was a boy who I met in the Belgium Ardennes in a castle and he was on drugs and many times paranoid because of it.
So this is foretelling me that I will get paranoid again in India, some people would not forget. This can take many months !

Then another dream what I can expect if I would ever go back to Rishikesh.

April 30st 2005 at 2.30am :

"I was in a not existing hall next to the yoga hall in the Ved Niketan ashram in Rishikesh.
I was totally outraged and angry and walked through an open wooden door to the yoga hall.
I walked to an altar where a big framed picture of the pope was.
There was a priest, Vandana Mataji and a few people. I got myself a rock and threw this exactly on the framed picture of the pope.
The glass shattered and with a lot of noise the picture fell from the altar on the ground and it was lying there upside down.
It caused a terrible dust cloud and the people there were not happy.
I saw that the priest became very angry and he began to stand on the back of the picture, it had a blue cotton kinda list with a cross.
The priest crushed out of anger on that back side, he couldn't take that the picture was on the floor.
I went away and came back later to see how everything would be, the picture stood on it's place again, there was no more dust and everything was in order.
When I wanted to go away from the yoga hall, I saw Swami Dharmananda walking through the door, he was having a conversation with somebody and didn't notice that I was passing him by.
So outside I saw Vishwaguruji on a few steps, he was also having a conversation with somebody and didn't notice me passing by."

So I would like to avoid this behaviour, therefore I made up my mind a while ago not to go to India again.

But I have a few more dreams telling me that the psychosis will really come back, the dreams were telling me this in a more exact way.

The following dream is quite long.

April 19th 2009 at 2.30 :

"I was in Rishikesh and a demon was chasing me there. I was sitting in a restaurant and the demon stood before me, he wanted to attack me.
But there was one condition and that was that he had to answer a question asked by Swami Dharmananda.
Dharmananda stood before a table, my table and the demon looked at me like he was hungry or so.
Dharmananda asked the question while the window behind me closed out of itself and bumped against another small window.
The question was :

"Can you see Kundalini Yoga ?"

The demon was so sure about himself and smilingly he said :

"No !"

Suddenly I saw a situation, there was a woman before me sitting on a table and she was beated very harshly by her man, who sat next to her, the situation was rewinded like in a movie without the punches, I didn't see them.
Her swollen, blue and unhappy face changed in a normal face step by step and she became totally happy !
The demon witnessed all this with terror, because before his very own eyes Kundalimi Yoga had happened and he saw all of it ! He was terribly annoyed because now he couldn't attack me anymore.
He sank down into an abyss, which was suddenly there.

I was happy and walked to the table of Swamiji and we hugged each other, because we saw each other again after a time. We were talking a bit and it appeared that he had succes with his yoga teachings.
But he was busy and walked to his students to talk with them. I stayed behind with a girl on my table.
So I decided to walk around in Rishikesh and saw that the water level of the Holy river the Ganga had risen.
I saw that the Swami had build a second ashram where pure yoga was taught. The ashram was one minute away from the ashram which I already knew.
I saw all kinds of Western tourists, young people who were addicted to yoga. I walked back to the main ashram and the water came to my knees, but it was nice water, pure and not muddy, non threatening and no curents were to be detected.
I don't know if I walked to the main ashram, but I saw Dharmananda sitting on a platform, being busy answering questions from a group of students in front of a microphone, The students, 10-12 man, were following his yoga course.
I realized that he had no time for me and walked outside.
I saw that water in front of the small ashram and walked through the water to the main ashram. I saw an orange bal drifting, I picked it up, hit it away and saw a bigger ball drifting there.
I walked to the corner of the main ashram, there where I always tok the road to go jogging.
But it was under water and fromout the hills of the beginning Himalaya streamed a very strong current of water, the water was until my chest and I saw young people standing.
I knew I had to go through the stream of water and saw that a few guys were cxhallenging the strong current and were swimming right through the water to the other side.
I had to be there too and I did like them.
When I came to the other side, around 5 meters further, I suddenly saw Terry, a friend of mine who died due to a motor crash with Richard van Woerden, an old friend of mine, well, friend....I knew him from my youth.
I greeted them friendly and asked Terry from which period I knew him, 1998 or 2002.
He said smilingly 2002 and we walked back to the small ashram, he told me :

"C'mon, let's take a look if some clothes or so were left behind from 2002"

The water had dissapeared and we walked through the busy street.
Suddenly I realized that I could become yoga teacher in Rishikesh with all the Atma Yoga sessions I had learned from Atmananda and that Dharmananda could arrange for a visa for 5 years for me so I could teach yoga."

Well, I asked Terry from which period I knew him, 1998 (the first time I went to India, psychosis free and having a good time) or 2002 (a miserable period of intense suffering with a psychosis).
He said 2002 and that means to me that, if I would go again to Rishikesh, the period of 2002 will come back to me, so this is telling me that I will get another psychosis !!!

So I will never go back to India again, now, you can say, don't go to Rishikesh, but you can go to another place.

And my answer is simple, again from a dream :

July 11th 2008 at 8am :

"I was somewhere and suddenly there appeared in the sky an incredible appearance of Walt Disney characters, the sky was dark blue.
I saw Mickey Mouse, for instance.
I made a picture and next to me there were a bunch of party people in orange (like on Queensday in Holland) and they were throwing balloons to the other Orange fans, and on the balloons were printed scenes from things happening in the sky.
I also had one of those balloons with a scene from the Walt Disney sky.
I went to my own spot, some devotee was there with a girl and I cut the balloon open so that in this way I could see what was on it.
I unfolded the balloon and saw Donald Duck in the cockpit of an airplane, it had just flew into a building, I saw a terrible explosion."

The night before this dream I thought very deeply about me, going to India, to Mayapur by airplane and this was the answer.

Now, my psychosis in that time was that I was afraid that I would be falsely accused (see my thread : Cursed in a past life to become famous in this life), of being a muslim spy or a muslim terrorist. Donald Duck symbolizes me and he plays the role of a muslim terrorist !

This dream is telling me that indeed the same psychosis is coming back to me whenever I would go to India again.

So I made the vow never to go back to India again and I will never take an airplane again, to wherever !!!!

Actually it must be a blessing, because now I can only be falsely accused if I become famous by recording a CD with my band, but.......they might have stolen and are using our best songs !!!
So it might be so that I will never be falsely accused and that I will escape my bad karma, ain't this cool !!!

Although I will record a CD, but with our old songs from 1991....

Anyway, nice story again, ain't it ?

I just remembered that I had more dreams about it and by searching my dreambooks I found these two dreams, which are connected with the warnings given "

Februari 10th 2010 at 11am :

"I was in India, Rishikesh and was walking to the ashram of Dharmananda. I saw that they were busy doing yoga and got myself the strong desire to do this also again.
I walked away and somewhat later I saw Dharmananda in his orange outfit and long beard, he was sitting somewhere.
I approached him with the folloing words :

"Hey Swamiji, I would love to follow a yoga course again with you as soon as possible !"

He looked surprised, angry, thoughtful and his last facial expression was that he didn't want to do this with me and said :

"No, don't do it, it's not the season, it's much too hot"

I knew he didn't want me in the yoga course and said :

"Okay, thankx !"

and walked further."

So this is a clearcut warning that I shouldn't come to Rishikesh, even my dream figure representing Swamiji warns me not to go there ever again !

Then not too long ago I had another dream about Rishikesh and I will post the part of the dream which is warning me too for misery.

March 11th 2010 at 9.15am :

"I was in Rishikesh in the Omkarananda ashram and had a room in which I slept on the floor, it was a dirty and dark room.........next scene was that I was in the ashram of Swami Dharmananda and was asking myself if it wouldn't be a good idea to follow a yoga course there.
I was fantasizing about doing pranayama and meditation and that Swamiji had put me in front to watch over me a bit.
Then I walked back to the Omkarananda ashram along the little streets of Ram Jhula and saw in a typical Indian little open house on the side of the street to my right side an Indian who was burned and fried beyond recognition and was crawling over the floor there.
You could detect on his red burned body the open burning wounds.
He crawled upon a matrass and I saw next to him some kind of baba who appeared to me as his boss or Guru and he laid himself down on a matrass with his fat body and his dreadlocks.
A few Indians were pouring out of some baskets some kind of milk like fluid over him.
The man was very relaxed and it appeared like the Indians were worshipping him like this."

Now.....I guess that the burned and fried man is symbolizing me and this is another warning never to go back to India again !!!

I'm a tourleader for Joker, a Belgian adventure travel company. Traveling adventurous with backpack, on local busses, experiencing local cultures, eating local food (including from street stands) can be very enriching, but it is also confrontational. People can grow a lot because of it, but only if they are standing strong in their "shoes". People might have issues, but they must be able to deal with several unfamiliarities all at once. It so happens that sometimes therapists get it into their heads to advize their patients to go on a trip with us for their self-development. Not only does it always ends with us having to put the person back on a plane after they totally broke down after a couple of days, but tourleaders aren't therapists, and the visited country often lacks appropriate back up.

I will explain the reason why a break-down or psychosis tends to develop with people prone to it, especially on trips in foreign countries, especially ones that involve a culture shock, such as India. People have three "zones" in relation to what they experience physically, emotionally and mentally: a comfort zone, a learning zone and a panic zone. A comfort zone is when you are in a situation where everythign for you is familiar: people, environment, acts you have to perform. Once you alter one of those elements into an unknown you enter a learning zone. But when everything becomes unfamiliar you overshoot and end up in the panic zone. The only way to deal with someone in a panic zone is by bringing them back into a comfort zone.

I once had half the group panicking after a rafting flip in the jungle in Chiapas in Mexico. I gave them short directions to carry the material back to the camp, guided them along the path, and the first thing they were ordered to do was to take a hot shower. The panic settled after that. The people in the group by then were friends with eahc other (so known element), the campground was familiar to them and less threatening to them than the jungle (even though it was but a 15 min walk), but most of all "taking a shower" was a familiar utterly ordinary task to perform.

When you travel you end up meeting new people, in an unfamiliar environment and end up doing things that are different from what you are used to at home. This automatically will be a big risk for you in retrospect of your mental history, and yes you would be prone to end up back in a panic zone, for you in the form of a psychosis. It is too much all at once.

You don't always need to remain in a comfort zone, but with regards to traveling, it's better to remain close to your comfort zone. If you wish to expand your horizons, then meeting new people in a familiar area and culture, or doing something adventurous and new with friends might be sufficient learning which you truly might enjoy without ending up in a panic zone.

I think you made a healthy decision for yourself Good on you   Traveling should be a pleasant experience, not an unpleasant one  

Thank you for your detailed reply, yeah, I am sure I made the right decision, I made it a while ago but was always too lazy to look up the dreams in my dreamjournals.

I just have to take the dreams serious, wish I done it in this way when I went to India in 2002, then I had a  dream about that Swami Dharmananda appeared in a dream telling me that yoga and meditation was not for me, if I had listened to that dream, I wouldn't have gone to India, then nothing bad would have happened.

But you get wiser along the way, I guess.....