Dynamic Dreamworld Holds Surprises

Dear Readers: Precognitive, telepathic and visitation dreams amaze and profound. Here’s an example:

Dear Nancy: Nona, my husband’s elderly mother, ill and stricken with Alzheimer’s, lay in her bed at a nursing home a month before she died. She and my mother, who also suffers with dementia, had met only once.

One day, Nona told my husband she was very tired because she had spent the previous night with my mother at her home. She said they had coffee and cookies, but because so many children were playing around, they went upstairs to visit. They’d had a wonderful time together and talked until the wee hours of the morning. My husband assumed his mother had been hallucinating because of the Alzheimer’s.

Two days later my mother told me, “Nona came to visit me a couple of days ago, and we had such a good time together! We had cookies and coffee and talked all night long, but we had to go upstairs because there were so many kids around!”

Of course, Nona had never left her bed. - Linda

What kind of dream was this? Was it a dream at all, or a true event carried out on another level of reality? Hallucinations? I don’t think so. I believe we can connect with other people and events around the world in our dreams, most likely with those who are important in our lives.

Shared dreaming is not uncommon for people who are close to one another emotionally or physically, but it’s only when we talk about our dreams with others that we discover this!

It doesn’t matter whether you share with a family, spouse, partner or a formal dream group; you will discover similarities in your dreams that, at times, can be amazing. This is one of the dreamworld’s great mysteries.

In our Western culture, we value and champion the intellect, which brings progress and comfort to our lives. But, if we view dreams purely as symbolic, as if they refer only to our own inner process of growth and change, then it becomes an abstraction, an intellectual exercise, and we miss an incredible opportunity to realize and participate in the expansive and all-embracing reality of who we are as human beings.

When we begin to open up to the dream experience as if it is real, then dreams of our deceased loved ones, message dreams, shared dreams and precognitive dreams become a part of our lively and provocative ever-growing consciousness.

We can time-travel, visit far-off places or commune with a plant or animal, just as tribal cultures have done for thousands of years. Some have viewed dreams as more real than waking life. They have used dreams to help discover the right plants to heal their ills, to find water in the desert, to warn of their enemies’ approach.

So when you dream, know that you can view it from literal and psychological approaches. Stretch yourself and your imagination. The dreamworld is a dynamic place, one that invites you to discover just how big you really are!

This column is intended as entertainment. But psychologists who work with clients’ dreams say that dreams can hold a tremendous amount of significance; a particularly disturbing or repetitive dream may indicate the need to see a therapist. , DataTimes MEMO: Nancy Huseby Bloom has studied dreams for 18 years. Dreams may be sent to her c/o The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210-1615, or fax, (509) 459-5098. Please send a short summary of the circumstances in your life and include your name, address and phone number. Nancy conducts dream groups on a regular basis. For information, call 455-3450.