My dream journal begins in 1979 when I lived in the Los Angeles Hare Krishna temple. The group is formally known as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). My job was to work in the ISKCON public affairs office, promoting ISKCON, and also defending ISKCON to the media.
The Hare Krishnas started out in the 1960s as a sect of the Hindu religion, but by the 1980s it functioned as a criminal cult. I was indoctrinated into this group and all the people around me shared rationalizations that made it easier for us to trust the dishonest leaders. This is an example of peer pressure, an element of brainwashing. A more sophisticated name for brainwashing is psychological kidnapping. I identify with these words because they describe what I went through.
For the first seven years the authority figures restricted what I could write in my journal, but starting in 1985 I recorded all my dreams and wrote about whatever I wanted. I use my journal as a diary, dream diary, sketch book, and writer's notebook.
My Nightmares
From 1985 to 2024 I recorded 70 nightmares. In 30 of those years, I had 0, 1, or 2 nightmares. The other 10 years I had three or more nightmares, peaking in 2021 with 8 nightmares. This is an average of 1.75 nightmares per year. At this writing, my journal has 13,410 dream records, so nightmares make up 0.52% of my dreams.
Figure 1. Number of nightmares per year, 1985-2024
In 1986, the gurus conspired to murder a critic, and that's what ultimately made me leave the organization.
Out of my 70 nightmares, 54 (77.14%) include violence. And out of those 54 nightmares, 27 (38.57% of all nightmares) include criminal violence. The most common characters in these nightmares are kidnappers, murderers, intruders, and torturers. Here are two examples of criminal violence themed nightmares. Both of these took place after the murder, but before I left the group.
November 8, 1987 - Captured by some men and tied up. I was being tortured in their house. They also captured some other friends and were torturing them. It was slow death as they tightened the screws. Finally, I got my hands loose and ran out screaming. I ran to a neighbor's and a girl let me in. We locked all the doors and called the police. The police came and my friends escaped too.
May 16, 1988 - I was made to stay within a big cage. With me were my husband (also a prisoner) and Mahendra. Mahendra (and sometimes Danavir) were the guards. I would always try to escape and Mahendra would stop me. After a while I become violent and began beating Mahendra. Finally, one time I beat him severely, screaming wildly until he fell. Then I ran for the door and slipped out to freedom and began to run away.
Continuity of Daytime Concerns and Nightmares
The murder took place May 22, 1986 and recorded my concerns:
May 23 diary note: "Strange murder - I hope it doesn't get a lot of press coverage
May 26 diary note: "I feel sad that bad things are happening in L.A., and to ISKCON. People are even killing each other."
May 27 diary note: "I was depressed all day because of ISKCON."
May 28 DREAM: "Trying to get out of a murder"
June 1 DREAM: "Lived in a big house with hippies - there was a murder."
June 5 diary note: "Reporter calling about a murder."
June 6 diary note: "We were in 6 newspapers including P. 1 of the L.A. Times - for a "Krishna murder." Looks pretty bad - I feel sick - my stomach has been upset and my heart is pounding.
June 7 diary note: "I feel really shaky on the subject of ISKCON right now. Maybe I'll feel better later. I want to see ISKCON as being pure"
June 9 first DREAM: "I felt scars on my neck where doctors had done some kind of psychological brain surgery on me without telling me. They removed part of my brains so I wouldn't be depressed."
June 9 second DREAM (nap): "dreamed I couldn't see anymore."
June 9 diary note: "I feel mad because I am unhappy living here."
June 10 diary note: "I got really depressed. I want to quit and go somewhere else."
July 26 diary note: "Been thinking a lot about ISKCON - what's happening. It seems pretty bad.
August 2 diary note: "I am somewhat disturbed, because we are dealing with this -It is very touchy."
August 18 diary note: "A bad article appeared in the OC Register today about the murder case.
August 21 diary note: "Srila Bhaktipada [one of the gurus] says he will resign if indicted in murder case."
August 25 diary note: "depressed all day - hardly got anything done. Just worried all day about ISKCON"
August 27 NIGHTMARE - "walking on beach looking for a place to live. My mother also on beach - we go for a walk together. News broadcast tells of three gory murders."
In the first dream (six days after the murder) I see myself connected to the crime: "Trying to get out of a murder." The next dream places the murder in a house of hippies. Many ISKCON followers came from the hippy culture. The first June 9 dream describes a lobotomy, removing parts of my brain so I would not feel depressed. This could be a reference to brainwashing. In the second June 9 dream I dreamt I was blind. This could be a metaphor because brainwashed people are often said to have "blinders" on. Finally, the first criminal violence nightmare came on August 27, 1986.
Frequency of Criminal Nightmares
The series of 27 nightmares started August 27, 1986 and continue into the 2020s. However, I found eight gaps of twelve months or longer between the nightmares. The longest gap started soon after I stopped visiting ISKCON temples. I went for eight years with no criminal nightmares.
1998 - stopped visiting ISKCON temples
1999 - August 29 - stalker nightmare
GAP - 97 months (eight years)
2007 - October 19 - killer nightmare
The next longest gap was 2017 to 2021. For nearly four years I had no criminal nightmares. Then in 2021, I had 8 nightmares including five criminal violence nightmares.
2017 - March 13 - intruder
GAP - 47 months (close to four years)
2021 - February 18 - 2nd dream - intruder
2021 - February 18 - 3rd dream - intruder
2021 - February 28 - intruder
2021 - May 13 - intruder
2021 - December 28 - kidnapper
Further Inquiry into the Keyword "Kidnap"
"Kidnap" is a keyword in this study that turns up in my nightmares, dreams, and daytime notations. I found 59 entries total:
30 dreams, including 5 nightmares
29 daytime notes; 18 diary notes and 11 drafts for writing projects.
In nearly all the daytime notations, the word "kidnap" refers to cultic psychological kidnapping. For example, two entries are drafts for an introduction to a book about cults. An example of a less relevant entry would be when I was traveling in Northern Ireland in 1994 and noted there had been a kidnapping while I was there.
Conclusions
My diary notes prove I had daytime concerns about criminal violence in ISKCON, and the journal shows how quickly these concerns entered my dream world. Between the time of the murder and the time they announced a federal investigation, I recorded four dreams and the first nightmare.
Even though I left ISKCON 37 years ago, my experiences, especially the criminal violence, remains a concern to me. I continue to have criminal violence nightmares that grew out of my cult experience. This evidence confirms the continuity of one person's nightmares over time.
I believe the gaps between criminal nightmares show times when I felt more secure. ISKCON is still a waking life concern for me and that may account for why I still have criminal violence dreams and nightmares.
The last continuity is the commonality of all people's dreams. While my traumatic experience may seem rare, many people experience traumatic events early in life. It would be interesting for people who have kept a long-term dream journal to find out if they have a nightmare series that relates to trauma earlier in their lives.
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Nori Muster is a writer-researcher based in Arizona. She has kept a dream journal since 1979 and studies it for statistics. Her dream journals are held in the American Religions Collection (ARC) at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Special Collections Research Library. Her dream studies website is surrealist.org.
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Originally published in DreamTime, International Association for the Study of Dreams, Winter 2025, pp. 23-25
