Dreams
Messages from Within
Dreams speak in symbols, images, and emotions—quietly weaving meaning beneath the surface of sleep. For centuries, they have been explored, interpreted, and revered as gateways into the deeper layers of the human mind and soul.
Philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual seekers alike have turned to dreams in search of insight, truth, and understanding.
Within the dream state, we step beyond ordinary awareness. Here, imagination blends with intuition, the subconscious begins to speak, and hidden wisdom reveals itself in subtle and powerful ways.
A Few Glimpses into My Dreams
As a child, I often had vivid dreams. My mother called them my “colour dreams.” I could sometimes sense when one was coming.
They were always full of vibrant colours.
One recurring dream stayed in my memory for many years.
In the dream, I was the mother of three children, trying to cross a border from one country to another. Someone was always trying to stop two of my children from crossing, whilst someone else was helping push them across the border.
At the time, the dream felt strange and confusing.
The last time I had it, I was around twelve years old.
Twenty-four years later, I remembered that dream from my childhood because I was living it. I had become the mother of three children, and bringing them home to Scotland came with very real difficulties.
One detail always stayed with me. In the dream, it was two of my children who were being prevented from crossing the border, not all three.
As a child, I could not possibly have understood the significance of that.
Years later, I did.
My son's father had died in an accident when he was young. The difficulties surrounding our move involved my daughters. Their father was trying to prevent us from returning to Scotland.
At that point in my life, I was trying to leave behind a difficult and unhealthy situation in order to provide my children with a safe, nurturing, and secure home environment.
In the dream, someone was pulling me back, whilst someone else was always pushing me forward.
At a time when I felt frightened and unsure what to do, I met a solicitor through voluntary work I was doing with young people. I spoke to him about my fears. He listened, reassured me, and told me he would help us.
And he did.
Without his support, our lives may have unfolded very differently.
Looking back, I still find it remarkable that the dream reflected not only the situation itself, but details within it that I could never have understood as a child.
Was it a vision? A case of precognition? I do not know for certain.
What I do know is that my dream manifested as lived reality.
The House Beneath the Earth
In my late forties, I went through a traumatic experience after being attacked. The consequences affected my wellbeing for a long time and left me struggling with fear, pain, and a sense of being trapped within what had happened.
It was during this difficult period that a vivid dream came to me.
I dreamt I was in a house that suddenly fell like an elevator, plunging deep into the earth.
I knew I was underground, but all of a sudden sunbeams began to break through the soil. They grew stronger and brighter until I was filled with an overwhelming sense of peace and calm.
When I woke, I knew—without doubt—that everything would work out. That dream showed me that something would change, and it did. It gave me the reassurance I needed to accept what had happened and move forward.
From this dream, I was able to move past the hurt and pain. I let go in so many ways.
Over time, I reached a place where I could forgive. Not because I forgot what had happened, but because I accepted that it had happened and could no longer allow it to hold me.
I would never forget, but I no longer needed to carry it in the same way.
In letting go, I recognised my own strength and determination. I had lifted myself out of a very dark place and found a way to move forward.
The sunlight in my dream grew stronger as it filtered through the soil. When I awoke, I knew I wasn't trapped underground. I could rise above it, and I literally did.
Untying the Knots
Recently, whilst undergoing chemotherapy, one of the side effects was described as steroid-induced delirium.
Through both the delirium and my dreams, it felt as though I travelled back through different stages of my life. At times I was a child again. At other times, I revisited experiences and people from long ago. Mostly it all felt negative, unsettling.
In one dream, I was told I had been untying knots.
I saw famous people from the era in which I was born and others I had known throughout my life. On the last round of chemotherapy, I repeatedly saw the person who had attacked me many years earlier. It happened three times.
The fear felt real, but throughout it I kept reminding myself that what I was seeing was not real—it was the medication.
In the dreams, however, I continued untying the knots until there were none left.
Where I had been feeling negatives, something began to shift. I dreamt about having cancer, about trying to heal, and about people showing me kindness and compassion.
Looking back, I do not think I would have got through that final round of chemotherapy without those more positive dreams.
The side effects of the chemotherapy on me were overwhelming. I knew I could not endure another round, and it was sheer will and determination that carried me through.
It was following these experiences that discussions with the oncology team took place and it was agreed that treatment was no longer benefiting me. In fact, it was making me ill.
Dr Rosie Harrand said to me: "Making you ill, Jean, is not what we want to do."
Together, we agreed there would be no further chemotherapy.
Walking in Your Dream
Many years ago, in another dream, the detail was so vivid that I remembered every part of it upon waking. I never even had to write it down; it simply did not fade. I shared it with friends because of the strong impression it left on me.
Several months later, I was helping one of those friends who was going through a troubled time. I suggested a trip to Scotland, believing a break away might give her greater clarity.
We decided to hire a larger car, and that was the first detail from my dream—travelling to Scotland with friends in a red car, although at that point I was not yet aware of the connection.
With both my daughters and three friends, we started our journey.
We stopped at a relative’s house on the way—and that was when a strange familiarity began to surface. The dream I had shared started to unfold in real life. It was one of my friends who first recognised it. The details were uncanny—names, places, people, and even timing.
The parallels continued after we left my relative’s house.
In the dream, blue lights had guided me.
That evening, while trying to find our hotel in thick fog, two blue lights approached—it was a police car. The officer asked if we needed help and then guided us directly to our destination.
The friends who I had told about the dream were with me as we watched it play out.
To this day, they like to say,
"We walked in your dream, Jean.”
Dreams as Guidance
Dreams have become a guiding influence in my life.
While science often explains dreams as brain activity during sleep, many cultures view them as sacred.
Across traditions, dreams are believed to thin the veil between physical reality and the spiritual realm.
Indigenous peoples, mystics, and spiritual teachers have used dreams for healing, guidance, and inner exploration for centuries.
Through my experiences, I came to believe that dreams can help us gain a deeper understanding of our true feelings.
They can point us toward growth, expression, integration, and healthier relationships—with others, with places, and with ourselves.
A pleasant dream may fade quickly from memory, but a troubling dream often lingers. I found that nightmares encouraged me to reflect on urgent inner messages, often drawing my attention to unresolved emotions.
One of the most common dreams I had involved trying to get home. I later recognised that being unable to find my way home reflected my longing to reconnect with my true self.
I came to understand that symbols form the language of the subconscious, communicating through imagery and metaphor. These symbols can be deeply personal, shaped by individual experience, culture, memory, and emotion.
For one person, water may symbolise emotional flow; for another, it may represent cleansing or renewal.
By paying attention to recurring symbols and the feelings attached to them, I gained valuable insight into fears and unresolved experiences.
I also recognised they could come in the form of a warning of change that I had no control over. One dream from last year, was something I could not stop and could not get away from, my dream was of a tidal wave. This was my dream just before I was diagnosed with cancer.
I learned to trust my personal connection to the symbols. My own dream dictionary became far more accurate than any generic interpretation.
I came to recognise that in dreams, we may encounter a version of ourselves that feels wiser, steadier, and more deeply attuned—often described as the higher self.
This was a part of me that existed beyond fear, expectation, or ego.
It carried compassion, clarity, and a natural sense of direction. When this presence appeared in my dreams, it always brought moments of healing, affirmation, or insight.
As time went on, I experienced lucid dreaming. For me, it was the awareness that I was dreaming whilst still in the dream itself.
In this state, it became possible to engage consciously with the dream environment and, at times, influence its direction. I remember the dream of the tidal wave. I felt awake but knew I was still asleep. I remember trying to run and climb higher on a hill, but I knew the wave was going to hit. I woke before I knew whether it would engulf me completely.
I may live with the shadow of cancer, but I know it will never overpower me. My dream state warned and prepared me for something that was coming, something that could have engulfed me and pulled me under. Yet in my waking life, it did not. Instead, it revealed strengths within me that I might never otherwise have known.
One way I lift myself higher is through reflection. When I do, fear, sadness, and uncertainty cannot hold me down.
The impact of my dreams, both vivid and unsettling, have always left a strong impression on me.
Many years ago I started keeping a dream journal. It helped to strengthen my dream recall and develop a deeper connection to my inner world.
I wrote down everything I could remember, even if it was only fragments. I did not need to understand every dream in order to be guided by it. Often, the feeling it left me with was enough.
I would write down the dominant emotion and identify people, patterns, repeating images, numbers, names, or places.
I never rushed trying to understand my dreams. I always let their meaning unfold gradually in its own time.
Looking back over my life, dreams have accompanied me through some of my most difficult, challenging, and important experiences.
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Sometimes they brought comfort.
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Sometimes they reflected fears I had not yet fully acknowledged.
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Sometimes they seemed to offer guidance, reassurance, or insight when I needed it most.
I am also curious and often in awe of the dreams that have felt like premonitions, offering glimpses of events before I was consciously aware of their significance.
On more than one occasion, I believed I was dreaming and found myself observing people and situations as though I were walking beside them. In one particular instance, I awoke to discover that what I had just witnessed had actually taken place, right down to the smallest details.
Was I dreaming? Can a part of us leave the body as we sleep and walk alongside others? I do not know. What I do know is that experiences like these have influenced my life and, on more than one occasion, changed its direction for the better.
I know I am not the only person to have vivid dreams.
Just before I left Scotland many years ago, I was standing in my mother's garden when I noticed an elderly man walking towards me. He stopped at the gate and said, "Oh, it's you. I've been walking around the houses looking for someone, and I know it's you."
He then told me he knew I would be moving away soon. I was leaving the very next day.
"You are going to get your girls," he said. "I dreamt it last night and I had to find you and tell you."
He went on to say that he wasn't sure whether they would be twins or born close together, but that having the girls would bring changes to my life that would eventually lead me back to Scotland.
I smiled and listened. At that point, I had no intention of ever moving back to Scotland. I thanked him for sharing his dream and we continued chatting until he said he had to head home.
I'm not sure I fully understood what he was trying to tell me at the time, but he was a lovely soul and I enjoyed our conversation.
Two years later, I gave birth to my first daughter, followed eighteen months later by my second.
At the time of our conversation, I had no intention of ever returning to Scotland. Yet eleven years later, it was my children who became one of the main reasons I chose to move home.
Looking back, I often think about that conversation and the dream he felt compelled to share with me.
I cannot explain every dream I have had, nor do I feel the need to.
What I do know is that dreams have helped me understand myself more clearly, trust my intuition more deeply, and reflect upon experiences that shaped my life.
Whether they arise from the subconscious mind, the soul, imagination, memory, or something we do not yet fully understand, I remain grateful for the wisdom, comfort, and guidance they have brought me throughout my journey.
Dreams have never simply been stories that played out whilst I slept.
They have been companions, teachers, messengers, and mirrors—quietly walking beside me throughout my life, bringing awareness, guidance, and at times a deeper sense of protection.