Recently, I posted how a dream brought the Tarot into my life. That post was in response the frequent question, “Just how did you get into Tarot?”

Another frequently asked question, in connection to that response, is, “How did you get into doing dream work?”

Another great question, with another story to go along with it.

Prior to having precognitive dreams, I experienced sporadic dream recall. I would remember a dream here and there—and those that I did remember were quite revealing, when I look back on them now—but, at the time, I didn’t give them much thought—or credence, for that matter.

I reached a point, in my early twenties, when life got to be too much for me to handle. There was a lot of existential angst going on, with a very strained relationship with my mother thrown into the mix.

I learned, from her example, that when life got hard, you opted for suicide. I remember coming home from school on two distinct occasions and finding a DSS (social) worker waiting for me. This social worker would inform me that my mother was in the hospital and she was there to take me to her.

We would arrive at the hospital. I would come into my mother’s hospital room and find her lying in bed with her wrists bandaged and taped—evidence that she had slit her wrists.

Those incidents left quite an indelible impression on me. As a psychologist, I now know that this was what we call learned behavior, or modeling, for short. I unconsciously got the message that when life got too tough to handle, you take matters into your hands and “check out” (which became my euphemism for suicide).

So, there I was, in the space and time of choosing to “check out” as my only option.

I hadn’t fully decided and committed myself to the idea, having attempted to “check out” once before and that attempt had been thwarted by a well-intentioned friend.

And so, in this space of “whether or not,” I had this dream:

I have taken my own life. I am in spirit-form, above my body, in my bedroom. My mother comes into the room, and finds my body. She is hysterical, crying wildly. I smile, as seeing her like this pleases me.

The scene changes. I am now at my funeral, again in spirit-form. I look about the room, and see so many people there expressing their condolences, and honoring my memory. My mother is by my casket, still emotionally distraught. And I am still smiling and taking pleasure in her pain.

The scene changes again. Some time has passed after my funeral, and my body laid to rest. I am in spirit-form once again, in a room with my mother. But instead of being in pain and grief, she is happy. And I become angry.

And I awoke, with a start.

The dream was so apparently obvious in its message. I so clearly saw that my desire to “check out” was really an unconscious attempt to exact revenge on my mother for making me so miserable. I wanted her to feel pain for causing me so much pain.

The dream also made me realize that I was considering a permanent solution to a temporary problem. The dream was saying, “If you choose this, yes, your mother will be sad and upset for a period of time. But life will go on, and, at some point, she will experience being happy again.

“And you will still be dead.”

Talk about a wake-up call! Since that day—the day when a dream not only saved—but changed my life—I have never considered “checking out” an option.

That dream also set the stage for me to start taking dreams—and dream interpretation—more seriously. I started keeping a dream journal, an exercise I still engage in to this day, some twenty plus years later.

That practice led to increased recall, and as I mentioned above, opened the door for me to experience precognitive dreams (which may be the topic of another post).

Maybe you’re reading this and thinking that there’s nothing to your dreams. Your dreams are weird, strange, nonsensical, and meaningless. That they’re just dreams.

I used to think like that too. Until I had the dream that literally saved my life—and changed it too. In my twenty plus years of working as a Dream Decoder, many clients and students have shared a dream with me with the preface of thinking it strange, weird, or stupid. I would ask them to humor me and work thorough it anyway. And by the end of working with the dream, I usually get the same response: “I didn’t know the dream was really about that!” (“That” being some serious situation the dreamer was going through in waking life.)

So, I urge you to reconsider the validity of dreams, and yours in particular. It very well could be that the dream that will save—and change—your life is just waiting for you to welcome it.

Your Dream Decoder,

 

 

 

If you think you’ve experienced your life-altering dream, and need some help understanding its messages, consider scheduling a Dream Decoding session with me, which you can learn more about by clicking here.