Meg Evans

I had a curious dream last night in which I was traveling. I stayed at a house that was supposed to have a magical Fountain of Youth nearby. Although I heard water splashing and birds chirping, I couldn’t seem to find my way out of the house to discover the fountain.

The house was big and untidy, with pet food spilled on a tile floor. After I saw that mess, I felt that I needed to take a bath; but when I found the bathtub it was dirty, with random junk all around it. I started cleaning the tub and was still scrubbing busily away when I woke up.

Perhaps not by coincidence, I’d had plenty of sleep for the past three nights. When I got out of bed and saw my face in the mirror, I looked young and refreshed. The physical function of sleep is, of course, to clean up the “junk” that accumulates in the brain and body while awake.

So I believe it would be fair to interpret the dream as a gentle reminder from my subconscious about the importance of getting enough sleep. Being well rested may not literally be a magical Fountain of Youth, but it does go a long way toward feeling healthier!

When I went to bed on Sunday night, I was feeling very drained of energy after having had a cold for a week; and no matter what I did, it seemed like I just couldn’t break out of that run-down feeling. I decided to give my subconscious mind a little prod to shift gears by way of dreaming, so I asked myself what needed to happen for me to feel healthier and happier in general.

Asking myself a question just before falling asleep has resulted in some interesting dream-answers on occasion. I wasn’t expecting the weirdness that showed up this time, though. I dreamed that my husband (who, in real life, is a software developer in Ohio) was a real estate mogul in New York making a deal that involved a penthouse party, a hot tub, and several women in very skimpy bikinis. I felt uneasy, but my husband told me not to worry because negotiating was the easiest money to make.

When I woke up, all I could do was shake my head and say “Seriously?” to my subconscious mind. That was also how I felt when I looked out the window at the backyard and saw that there had been snow overnight—again.

As wacky as that dream was, though, it did feel like there was something it wanted to tell me. The scenario, while it was ridiculously exaggerated in soap-opera fashion, clearly had to do with cultural notions of being successful and confident. So I decided that the message was pretty close to what I was actually told in the dream—there’s no reason to worry, life is easy.

I’ve been slowly getting back my energy since then, while looking forward to warm weather finally showing up. And if I start feeling blah again, I’ll just imagine myself in a hot tub at a New York penthouse party and have a good laugh!

I recently had a dream with some interesting symbols that practically begged for interpretation. My husband and I were staying in a hotel room that had a tiny door—it looked like a doggie door—connecting our room to the next room. A baby kept coming through the door into our room, and each time we had to take the baby back to the parents in the next room.

Babies in dreams generally represent something new coming into one’s life. Staying in a hotel also has to do with new experiences. Having a baby show up in an unexpected place and then returning the baby—well, that probably means having mixed feelings about the change, whatever it is.

Because our daughter’s upcoming wedding has been on my mind, I’m guessing that it is the source of the mixed feelings. Not quite ready to think about future grandbabies showing up!

I had a weird dream where my husband and I were driving home after a road trip, and we noticed that a broom somehow had gotten in the car. It was just an ordinary, well-used utility broom, like the sort that might be found in the garage next to the rakes and shovels.

My husband wanted to turn around and take the broom back to its owners. I said that instead of wasting time and gas, we should just send them some money to buy another broom or return it the next time we were there. In real life, my husband is sensible enough that I am sure he would agree.

But in the dream, he didn’t see it that way; and suddenly I felt overwhelmed by sadness like it was a horrible tragedy and the end of the world. Then I started to wake up. As the dream faded, something urged me not to forget the details—that I needed to remember.

I dutifully committed this odd dream to memory, although I had no clue what profound message my subconscious mind might have wanted to communicate by way of a misplaced broom. After pondering it for a while, I decided that it had something to do with sweeping away unnecessary drama. Maybe what I need to remember is that small disruptions shouldn’t feel like the end of the world!

This curious title (which isn’t really a word, of course) showed up in a dream I had on Monday morning, as the title of a book. I was the author, and somehow I also had a magical superpower of flying. A tiny lucid corner of my mind looked out, complete with a judgmental frown, and decided to play the party-pooper by informing me that I’d better not get too happy because it was nothing but a silly dream.

My dreaming self came up with a snappy comeback—so what, it’s real enough now, dream or no dream, who cares? Then the alarm clock settled the argument by beeping to wake me up for work. I had to be at the office bright and early for a Six Sigma training class, so I didn’t have the option of trying to snooze for a few more minutes and perhaps go on with the conversation.

Looking at this dream as a message from my subconscious (as dreams often are), the main points seemed simple enough: Fun and imagination are good, my inner critic needs to shut up, and being present in the moment is what really matters.

But what might the book title have meant? I pondered that for a while, and only just now realized that it was a title because it accurately sums up the entire dream. When I freely enjoy fun and imagination in the moment, then I am not at a distance from myself; I am undistanced. As for the word’s appearance on a book, I would interpret it as a symbol of success. Take THAT, all you nagging judgmental voices, it’s not just silly stuff but a real, published, bestselling book, what do you have to say for yourself NOW?

Yes, it’s always satisfying to tell off the inner critic, even in a dream!

Last night I dreamed that I attended an event where someone was selling tickets for a charity raffle before the event got underway. Each ticket was 25 dollars. I opened my wallet to see if I had that amount and discovered that I had a lot of small bills, some in odd denominations that don’t exist in real life. It all seemed perfectly normal, though. I was looking at a 12-dollar bill and a 15-dollar bill, while trying to work out how to put one of them together with smaller bills to add up to the correct amount.

Before I went to sleep I’d been thinking about how much our perspective on life changes as the years go by and we gain more insight. I suppose the dream must have been a variation on that theme, illustrating how many different things can add up to a prosperous life—even things that might never have existed in the past, but now are simply part of what we see every day.

While I don’t expect that the U.S. Treasury will literally start printing 12-dollar bills any time soon, I do believe that the future will hold many new and interesting discoveries, and that sometimes it will be a challenge to sort out how best to put them together!