A Story of Two Cancer Warning Dreams

Remember to have fun, even when life is challenging!

Here’s a story of a couple of health warning dreams that came true in my life. They’re a reminder of the value of catching your dreams, logging them, and of reviewing your dream journal for good advice from your quite magical dreaming self.

November 1st was my six month anniversary of successful surgery for thyroid cancer. I was diagnosed in March, and I discovered a dream of my surgeon warning me about cancer 3 1/2 years before my surgery, and a dream voice two years later that calmly said “You have cancer”.

In April I gave a talk on Inner Voice Experiences at an International Association for the Study of Dreams regional conference in Santa Cruz. I agreed to give my presentation before I had my diagnosis and already had some great stories to tell, but I felt there was another story waiting to be found in my journals. So I reviewed several journals and found a doozy. I’ve counted at least ten things in this dream that came true years later.

In my dream I’m facilitating a Robert Moss workshop, and I have to leave with a friend from Seattle for a doctor’s appointment before it is finished. After an examination with the doctor I’m in a second doctor’s office with a woman medical clinician wearing a white coat. She is petite, with short brown hair and a very strong and direct personality, very confident and highly capable. She tells me, “If you don’t find a way to reduce your stress, get more rest, and find more balance in your life you’re at risk for developing cancer. It’s not there now, but cancer cells like nooks and crannies and folds in the body and the way you’re living is a formula for developing cancer.”

I tell her she is a great teacher, and has she ever thought of teaching about health? She ignores this, and looks at me closely and says. “You need to take me seriously. Reduce your stress, get more rest, and have more fun!”

My friend and I leave the clinic and now I’m alone in a little motorized tricycle trying to get back to the workshop by driving over a bridge across the Bay. I try to cross the bridge alone in the tricycle, and I’m buffeted about by heavy winds blowing me across lanes. There is no way I can cross this bridge in high winds in this little bike.

Now I’m with my friend again in a little electronic car, very low to the ground, crossing the bridge. It’s very difficult and I feel angry and frustrated, and in a fit of road rage I ram into a big car driven by a rude man who has cut me off. It’s all just so difficult! Finally we get back to the workshop and a woman I know whom I’ve never dreamt about before or since wants to talk to me. Oddly, she has a sunburn and I don’t really want to talk to her. I wake feeling very uncomfortable.

So what came true in the dream?

Yippee for friends in times of need!

I attended a Robert Moss workshop in Seattle late last year and had a reunion with my close friend, a physician. She noticed a lump on my neck and told me to have it looked at. I probably would not have noticed it for a very long time. We had a sense at the time there was a reason we were supposed to meet in Seattle, but didn’t know why. Now we do. Thank you, Veronique!

The medical warning came true. After meeting with my primary care physician and being diagnosed with thyroid cancer I scheduled my appointment with a surgeon. When she walked into the room wearing her white coat I recognized her from the dream. She was strong, direct, petite with short brown hair just as I had dreamed, a top surgeon and professor at UCSF medical center. I was thrilled to learn later the crew talked about dreams during my surgery because I had shared my dream with them.

I had the dream when I was in the process of starting a new business and was also teaching a graduate course on dreaming. I worked long days and nights, living out of balance. The dream advice was good but I didn't heed it, nor did I remember the dream.

Two days after my surgery I unexpectedly had to ask a friend to drive me to the clinic across the Bay Bridge, in her old car that sits very low to the ground, similar in feeling to the vehicle in my dream. We were buffeted about by the stress of driving to and from San Francisco in heavy Friday traffic, with unavoidable jerky movements from driving a manual transmission. I'm embarrassed to say I had a moment of road rage when a rude man swerved around us, honking.

The presence of thyroid problems is present in the dream by the friend with the sunburn. This friend has had very challenging problems with her thyroid, and with getting her thyroid medication properly balanced. In waking life I was reluctant to talk with her after my diagnosis because I didn't want to think about the challenges of losing my thyroid and of balancing my hormones afterwards. I've chosen to decline the radioactive iodine treatment recommended by my doctor. Radiation burns cells and the sunburn seems to reflect this, too.

Finally, this was a long dream where much of my time was spent trying to get back to the magic of the workshop, and in the dream I was afraid of letting Robert down, similar to how I have felt about not being able to be as fully present with my writing, and my dreamwork, as I wish to be. The dream reflects how illness has interrupted the dreamy life I love.

I'm happy to say I'm well on my way to vibrant good health again, and it's very likely the surgery removed all of the cancer. 

It’s fascinating to see how many elements in one dream may be predictive in both literal and symbolic ways. The challenge is to remember to review your dreams and to pay attention to good advice when you find it. I use this dream now as a tangible reminder to take better care of myself.

All better now! Photo from the movie ”The Girl in White”, 1952

Dream Telepathy

Once upon a time I wrote my newsletters and blogs more frequently. Two years ago I opened my fine jewelry appraisal business, and (imagine!) it's thriving. Which means I have less time to write. It's a mixed blessing because I love to write these blogs, but the beauty is, with commitment to take action what we dream up will come to pass. 

The busyness of my life and work left me feeling hungry for some fresh dream magic. I was ready for a little effervescence, and in June I attended the International Association for the Study of Dreams Annual Conference, where dream scientists, psychologists, artists, philosophers, and dreamers of all kinds come to gather and share.

A highlight every year is the Dream Telepathy Contest. During one night of the conference, the person chosen as the  "Sender" randomly selected a sealed envelope with an image from four that were previously prepared. During the night she set her alarm to wake every two hours and looked at the image with the intention of telepathically broadcasting it to the sleeping conference attendees, including dancing and singing and embodying the image. (Thank you, Maureen!) And during the night or in the morning the contestants filled out out a form with their dream reports. The next morning the reports were submitted and the one that came closest to the actual image wins first place. There were many “hits” by attendees during the night, including dreaming into the three images that weren’t the selected one.

That night I dreamed a long dream that included two children, a boy and a girl, which I observed at the end of the dream standing with their backs to me, slightly turned to each other, engaged in looking at something. I was watching them from above. As I woke I remembered the contest and kept my eyes closed as I asked to see the image. I then had a vivid image of a large round red sun on the left side with horizontal lines of colors in oranges, yellows and reds, warm sunset colors. 

I was surprised when I saw the selected image the next morning and won the contest! 

Dream a Little Dream: The Dream Telepathy Contest Image

I missed the Santa Claus, the toys, and the window. What I find interesting is how the two dreams blended into one. The two children in my dream were modern children but were positioned in the same way, and the sun on the left became a fire in the fireplace, with the round form present in the wreath. The warm colors and the horizontal lines were similar. In my dream the children seemed to be looking at an object, perhaps a toy. Not a perfect, exact dream of this image, but enough is present to make it fun.

My predictive dreams are usually like this. They are not typically an exact representation of a waking life experience, but carry elements/symbols and feelings that manifest later, usually within a two week time span. And sometimes they're a blend of more than one waking life experience. I've learned this by reviewing my dream journal, where I find surprises like this. It's one of the fun features of keeping a dream journal and reviewing it periodically, and I'm convinced you'll find similar surprises in yours. 

All dressed up for the dream ball, where we come dressed as a character from a dream. I was Fire.

The International Association for the Study of dreams is a marvelous resource to connect with other deep dreamers. Attending their annual conference is a great way to learn about recent dream research, and to be inspired by participating in lectures, dream groups, art events, and other fun experiences like the Dream Ball and the Dream Telepathy Contest. https://www.asdreams.org

Your Dreams May Scout the Future in Funny Ways

Dreams really do come true, in odd little ways sometimes. Funny little predictive dream elements pop up unexpectedly and, I have found, regularly if you watch for them. When this happens, it glimmers like the feeling of being in on a happy secret, and it’s a reminder there’s a lot we don’t know about the many ways we’re conscious beyond our usual waking mind. Dreams don’t always require a lot of interpretation; just noticing them brings a little more energy to the day. 

This week I had a dream I was at a big convention, and as I moved through the gathering, I sampled food in several locations. It was not tasty nor nourishing, and I decided to leave. I went outside the building and helped a woman who had a booth, selling something. Then I saw an expansive slightly slanted wooden floor surrounding the entire complex where the parking lot should have been, like the kind of shiny brown hardwood floor you’d find at a roller skating rink. I ran and dove sideways and happily zipped around sliding on this surface like a child. It was fun! In the dream I vowed to return here with my skates and remembered how I loved the free feeling of skating the streets of Santa Monica in the early 80’s. This dream has plenty of symbolism ripe for interpretation, but I chose to focus on the joy of zipping around, free of worries. 

The next evening I chanced upon a delightful program on TV of an enthusiastic chef sampling food at several wonderful little restaurants in Paris. The final segment shows him surprised by a long cavalcade of people joyously riding past on roller blades. One person was even lit up like a Christmas tree; it was a very dreamy waking moment.

This can be considered a form of predictive dreaming. Somehow my dreaming self picked up elements of life I would perceive the next day: the sampling of food, building community by interacting with venders, roller blading (skating is my version of that), and the feeling of happy freedom. 

There are clear differences in the two dreams (and a waking experience is a form of dreaming), but the similarities are enough to make me smile and give me that sparkle of recognition that we move through the world in mysterious ways. There are personal messages for me to consider while looking at these meaningful coincidences, like the need to a look at how I’m nourishing myself. And that leads me to consider dusting off my old skates.

Dreaming My Way to My Family

Dreams really do come true!

I've just returned from a heart-full week in Washington state where I visited, for the first time ever, my long-lost brother and his family. Two dreams led me to my family and I wrote about this in the newly published Chicken Soup for the Soul: Dreams and Premonitions. Sometimes the healing trajectory of a dream can span decades.

The first dream arrived in 2001, in the form of a waking inner voice experience that literally told me to go to ancestry.com. There, I met my fathers's first wife, Helen, and she was doing genealogy research for her family, including my brother Mark. I didn't know about Mark until I was well into adulthood, and we had never met. Helen shared interesting information about my family, and I was happy to meet her. Life went on.

Then, in 2007, dream number two came. I dreamed I was discussing how to have a healthy relationship with a dream character who was supposed to be one of the brothers I grew up with. But it wasn't his face. In the morning the inner voice nudged me to Google my grandfather's name. A photo of a high school football team from 1913 appeared, and I burst into tears as I recognized the face I had just dreamed. Remarkable...my father had been a foster child during the depression and I had no exposure to his family, and no idea of what my grandfather looked like. The ancestors were calling, and I picked up the trail.

Which led me to my first brief meeting with my brother just a few years ago. And to our wonderful extended visit this week, where I experienced the love of family that I didn't know my Soul was seeking.

Really, if you get an inner nudge from a dream or a hunch, follow it. It may be just the thing. And try not to wait. I realized today...if I hadn't poked around ancestry.com when I did, the small window of opportunity to answer Helen's call may have been lost. And if so, I would never have found my family.

Family Dreaming Across Time and Space

We know we're connected to each other in the great web of life, and it's one of many gifts of dreaming when those deep and mysterious connections are revealed. Here's a wonderful dream story.

A dreamer at one of my workshops shared a dream image that came to her when I drummed a short conscious dream journey. She perceived serpents weaving in and out of her body, and frankly, she was a little concerned.  But after playing with the serpent energy through movement, and talking about the archetypal symbolism of the snake, she felt the incredible vitality and transformative nature of the serpent and was no longer uncomfortable with the dream. In fact, the dream brought her to a new awareness of the vital kundalini energy that fuels and births life, and of her loving relationship with her husband and child. 

To paraphrase a brilliant observation mythologist Michael Meade made...when we meet the sacred we're having a meeting with power and this requires a sacrifice of some kind. Our dreamer's offering was to dance in the workshop with the scary power of the helper that came to her in the form of the snake. She had to have courage to do this. The allies are not always cute and cuddly. They are meetings with big medicine, and they lead us to our deeper self.

The next morning, our dreamer shared a photo of a drawing her little daughter, around 5 years old, had drawn that evening, at a great distance from her location at the retreat. The drawing was so interesting her husband had sent it to her. It appears her little girl is witnessing the sacred loving dance of her mother and father, complete with hearts, the drawing reflecting the energy of the dreamwork that unfolded that same day. And what is that on the ground near her father's feet? It appears to be a serpent. This drawing is a snapshot of the beautiful connection of love in this family, and of the mysterious presence of the serpent archetype and energy of creation we explored that very day.