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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Dream Itself Was Not Prophetic

Nancy Huseby Bloom

Dear Nancy: When I was a child my mother dreamed I would die before I reached adulthood. She told me about her dream and since then I have not been able to imagine myself in the future. I try to imagine what the future will look like and I just come up with a complete blank. I can’t even picture myself with a child, even though my husband and I are trying to have one. Do you have any ideas about this dream? Cheryl

I am in a barren field. I am hovering high above my body which is lying dead below. An angel flies toward me and I realize it must be the “angel” of death. I look at the angel for confirmation and he nods. Then I look across the field and see my husband and unborn son standing side by side. I realize I really want to stay. As the angel is taking me up I beg him to let me live by yelling, “NO!” over and over. He lets me stay. I go back to my body and then wake up.

Dear Cheryl: This is a dream that can shift your entire approach to life if you let yourself believe it. Your mother should have kept her dream of long ago from you. As a child, you obviously took it as truth. Few children would doubt their parent. Some would grow out of that belief in time. Some, like you, would not.

This is a healing dream, Cheryl. Your psyche takes you through the death you’ve always expected and then gives you back your life. Your desire to live and be with your family is strong enough to break through and destroy that old belief system. The dream also shows a future child, and that is a most precious gift.

This dream is a healing gift from God. You may now dream of the future. May you make many plans, create goals, and have children and grandchildren.

Tips for readers: Working with your dreams can be a valuable and satisfying spiritual practice. As with any daily discipline, such as prayer or meditation, the path of dream work as spiritual practice requires attentiveness, devotion and courage.

To be attentive to our inner voice, we need to be observant and conscientious. Observation invites us to recognize and value every feeling and image that flows out of our psyche. These emotions and images then become the focus and heart of the journey.

Devotion is another requirement of this path. Through devotion to the inner journey of the psyche, we develop commitment, dedication and sincerity toward the self. We learn to regard ourselves with reverence.

Courage is the requirement that will test us all. It is required when we are confronted with our “issues,” when our psyche demands that we examine our behaviors, beliefs and assumptions. It is no easy task to allow a crack and then an opening up of our closely guarded beliefs about ourselves and our lives. When we approach the dream with the attitude of surrender and vulnerability, we open ourselves to explore our living connection to our own inner being.

There is another world within us, one that is constantly evolving and expanding. There we find the dragons, the abysses, the pearls of wisdom and the treasures of the heart. There is our mortality and our immortality. It is in this landscape, this dreamscape, that we find not only the connection to ourselves, but also to all of creation.

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.

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