Author: Denise

(Wednesday, August 9, 2023) third quarter moon Taurus / tarot Wheel of Fortune

I could not sleep last night. My brother called me on Tuesday afternoon to tell me about the death of his oldest daughter’s spouse Johnny. He shot himself late last week, near the time I had my ghost dream.

In the middle of the night, around two a.m., I had a (waking) flash memory of two dreams from decades ago. I was able to see, for just a second or so, views of old house dreams. One was a cottage-style house sitting on a beautiful green hill. Chris, Cullan and I lived in that dream house in multiple incarnations. The other house dream is less clear to me now, but both felt like meteors whizzing past my mind’s eye.

(Thursday, August 3, 2023) waning gibbous moon Pisces / tarot eight of cups

I dream of entering a huge, old, multi-story house. A mansion. It is communal, but I am the one in charge of making the spaces pleasant for all the residents. It’s quite a mess. Furniture and items of decor are strewn about. I worry there won’t be enough funds to “make a house a home.” In fact I have that conversation early in the dream with a group of residents who are driving a car that they say also needs expensive repairs.

My work in the dream moves from room to room. I start in a giant dining area that is at least two stories tall, like a castle. I organize large, velvet sofas and a long dining table that has enough chairs for dozens, maybe hundreds, of people. Many are already using the space. I see one of my dark-haired, female spirit guides.

I move on to other rooms, on various floors, and speak with my community once each room is ready. I get a message that the vehicle is fine and needs nothing, which is a relief. I am very, very surprised that I am able to use all of the existing elements to spruce up the mansion, including a large children’s room next to the dining area. Everything turns out to be what it needs to be. This feels like a calming gift for me.

At one point in the dream I head up to the attic and fall asleep in a bedroom that matches my actual, waking life bedroom. The attic is full of ghosts, and my cat Snowball. I wonder if the castle/mansion is full of ghosts. I wake up, turn off the air conditioner and head back downstairs to do more work. But, it might be a dream-within-a-dream, because later I wake up again inside my haunted bedroom and the air conditioner is on, not off. A ghost laughs at me and my curiousness about whether I really turned off the air conditioner. There are ending dream elements that feel like sleep paralysis or even lucid interactions with the spirits.

Day notes:

I did wake up at 3 am, turned off the air conditioner and headed downstairs to feed Snowball. This dream happened after I went back to bed.

I visited my parents yesterday and had long conversations about the health issues affecting their lives. They are still caring for their huge house, but asked that I come up as often as I can to Cambridge.

Thoughts:

Perhaps one message of the dream is that I have what I need. Retirement income and my current environment will provide enough, even though that still feels like a surprise. Something about my “home,” my personal element, also has a benefit for the community. I don’t know what that is. I’m no teacher like Bonnie and I don’t yet spend any time volunteering like Jeanne. Am I somehow contributing to ancestral or community healing?

The ghosts, I wonder. A combination of lucidity and actual spirit presence in the house? I do see orbs in the alarm camera sometimes. Ghosts are common in sleep paralysis.

Another vehicle in a dream, unusual.

(Monday, July 24, 2023) first quarter moon Libra / tarot Emperor

The dream takes place in my large new property. Like a party or an event, the outdoors and indoors are being visited by a friendly community, most of whom I do not know.

The many-acre yard feels like New Mexico, but it may be a Minnesota landscape that has been altered by climate change: draught and heat. Most of the soil is desert sand, but there are plenty of draught-tolerant trees, bushes and flowers. There are lots of wooden and stone fences, and courtyards, as in downtown Santa Fe.

I stand outdoors and observe a shallow, circular ditch in the sand. It reminds me of the sacred kivas at Chaco Canyon and Bandelier, especially the ones at Bandelier National Monument. Two middle-aged women are meeting in the kiva. One dark-haired woman is the guide (as I often see in my dreams). She is teaching the other woman, verbally. I move far enough away so that I no longer gaze at them but can hear the guide’s wise, calm, informative voice.

I listen for a while, then turn to my house and enter the seemingly unlimited building. The house is more like a royal castle than a noble mansion. I walk into a huge kitchen that is visibly connected to many of the other spaces. The rooms have wide thresholds instead of narrow, closed doors. It is full of active, yet relaxed, people. Busy.

I meet with my dark-haired childhood friend Nicki. I express my anxiety about working on such a giant, historical castle/house and she tells me not to worry. She has examples of other old structures in the neighborhood that have turned out just fine. In real life Nicki was a county attorney: informed and very logical.

I walk out of the kitchen and notice a remodeling project to my left. The kind workers have done such a beautiful job I immediately feel overjoyed. I love it. The walls are covered floor-to-ceiling with white satin-glazed ceramic tiles. One of the workers (maybe my sister Jo?) has found a pristine, antique, carved-wooden cabinet, tall and narrow, for books or china. She has also installed a lovely old chandelier. The room is the perfect combination of old and new, a white room with mahogany furniture plus brass-and-glass light fixtures.

Day notes:

I am trying to think more like Wise Bonnie: I interpret Nicki in the dream as Yvonne, a writer and former coworker who explained to me this week how her unemployment insurance experience unfolded. She calmed me down tremendously. Her process followed my instincts. Having my “home” full of friendly people that are willing to assist me is a wonderful sign in the dream. A supported life, without limits.

I love having a kiva in the dream occupied by one of my recurrent spirit guides. Perhaps it is New Mexico, and I should pay attention to “new.” My new life. From Nigel Hamilton: Someone standing in the middle of a circle indicates that the dreamer has integrated the archetypal theme that has been emerging through the dream sequence.

When dreaming, I felt that the “castle” was the same structure I had in my 2013 Big Dream with Sabina Lucas and Carl Jung. In real life, I visited both Sabina and Victoria in Santa Fe. Maybe this is a message to visit Victoria (dark-haired dream teacher) and Santa Fe again some day.