A Surprise Romance

Dreams can change your life if you jump in and consider the possibilities, even when you don’t really know that’s what you're doing. Here's an inspiring dream story.

A friend dreamed several recurring nightmares in which a man she knew fell asleep at the wheel while on a long road trip and had a terrifying accident. The person in the dream was a healing practitioner she regularly saw, and was not a close friend. Even so, the dreams were so intense and insistent she was truly concerned for his wellbeing. She learned he was going to drive over 500 miles to attend a conference, and she volunteered to drive him. She made arrangements to spend the weekend to do this, and all went well. On the drive home, he was so tired he slept much of the way, and our dreamer feels she may have prevented an actual accident by following up on the dreams in this way. 

We’ll never know for sure. But I suspect it’s true. She may very well have saved him from that event. The happy second outcome of this dream is that they deepened their friendship at that time, and they eventually married…happily so for many years now! Two dream bonuses in one!

Help Your Children Bring Dreams Into the Light

I’m reminded this week about the gift of sharing dreams with the beloved children in our lives. Children live so close to their dreaming selves, and it doesn’t take much to create a spontaneous dreaming moment, one that can bring closeness and understanding in beautifully unexpected ways.

I was once at a friend’s house and met a young girl, about seven years old, visiting with her family from far away. I asked her about her dreams, and she shyly shared that she had a reeeeeeally scary dream that week.

“Really scary."  Oh? Tell me more!  “I was home and the wall in my bedroom was full of eyes looking at me!”  Oh, how scary! Was it day or night?  “Night.”  Oh! Scary!  “Yes.”  What would you like to see happen with those eyes if you could do anything?  “I want them to close!”  Oooof. Me, too.  What could make that happen?  “I’d shine a big light at them.”  Great idea! What kind of light?  “A big flashlight!”  Perfect! Would you like to do something about those eyes right now?  “OK.”  All right…see that wall…let’s imagine that wall is the wall in your bedroom.  “OK.”  And now…I’m here with you, so you’re safe…can you image that wall is full of those eyes, just like in your dream?  “Ooooo Yes!”  OK, we need a flashlight, right? How about if I be the flashlight, and you shine me on all of those eyes and make them not only close, but also disappear?  “Yeah. OK!!!”​

We did a little dream theater right on the spot. This beautiful little girl, empowered and happy, shone her imaginary flashlight all over the wall, guiding me as the flashlight to shine right where she felt the light was needed. It was just right and the dream was no longer scary. No interpretations, no lessons, just a moment of dreaming together.

Meanwhile, the adults were deep in conversation and didn’t realize the beauty of the moment. My new friend skipped off to another room and I rejoined the conversation.

About twenty minutes later, she came up to me with a big sheet of drawing paper…she wanted to share more dreams with me, and had drawn sketches of about a half dozen dreams…and was brimming with excitement at telling me about her dreams. A gate had opened simply because she found someone who was genuinely interested in her amazing inner life. We can do this for others, children and adults alike, and if we open to dreaming with adults, the child within will come out to play. 

Father's Day Dream Story

This weekend is Father’s Day, and I want to celebrate the love of fathers, and all the complexities, challenges, and joys of our relationships with our fathers. Dreaming was the final healing piece for me to transform the father/daughter wound, later in life, when I was 45, during a 5 day Esalen workshop with my now friend, Robert Moss. I came away from that week, after doing a menu of Active Dreaming processes facilitated by Robert, completely healed of the anger and sadness I had carried for a lifetime. This was truly a miracle for me, and I saw and felt my long-passed father in a brilliant new light, one of understanding and forgiveness.

My father was hardworking, creative and adventurous…he went to night school to earn his bachelor’s degree and then his master’s degree, while raising his family. He wrote a science fiction novel, was a skilled photographer and reporter, an amateur astrologer, and he loved to dance to Santana in his Bermuda shorts and black socks in our living room.... Every Friday he left a little bag of pistachio nuts in my dresser drawer, and when it was time for dessert in my family, my father would ceremoniously unlock the bedroom closet that held bags of all kinds of cookies and chocolates for my brothers and me to excitedly select from. He died in 1989, and never knew all the things in my life I wish I could have shared with him. A few years ago, I thought of him as I was driving my car one day, and I played the oracle game...I asked for a message from the universe…was my dad watching over me from the other side?  I turned on the radio to see what the message might be, and there was his favorite Santana song playing. He was dancing in my imaginal world in that moment.

He was also tough, very tough, as a retired military man, who served in the navy during WWII as a teen, then went on to explore the army, eventually retired as a Master Sergeant from the Air Force, then worked for the Civil Service, for the Defense Department, a true believer in fighting for his country. We had different world views, and he was hard on me, very. But he loved and protected me the best he could in his way.

Seeing my father with love instead of anger changed so much for me! The weight I had carried my whole life was gone, miraculously replaced by   a freedom to live differently, without anger. This was huge, and was a pivotal moment in my life, eventually inspiring my decision to study with Robert and to eventually return to school to earn my graduate degrees in Dreams, and Consciousness Studies…the healing power of dreamwork is real, and I wanted to learn more. 

Now, when I think of my father, I laugh at the goofy things he did, and I’m delighted by the creative parts of me that I seem to have inherited from him, and I send love to the challenging memories of our time together. Sometimes he visits me in my dreams, and that is always a gift.