Do you dream? Do you pay attention to your dreams? Have you ever followed your dreams? Today, I realized that forty years ago, my first husband of seventeen years died at midnight on November 30/December 1. He had just turned 40. I was 38. Before he died, I asked him to talk to Jesus and God and tell them that I wanted answers while I was still on earth. I did not want to die to get my answers about life, how this works, and more. I always dreamed but paid little attention to my dreams. Many I just forgot as I got up and immediately began my day.
Well, it was about six months when I had a dream while on the 80-mile backpack trip with my own children and eight others about their age. We formed a coed Scout troop and were at Philmont Boy Scout Ranch when I had a dream where I saw Don very clearly in a tent on a cot. He said that he was doing better, but he did not look like it to me. When I woke up, I had to shake that off and tell myself that he was fine. A few months later, I had a dream where I was talking to his mother on the phone in the early morning. I heard Don come in and recognized his laughter. She handed him the phone, and he told me how good he was and that it was time for me to move on. This was nine months. I had just met a man I might like to have a date with. Interesting, and I thought he was encouraging me. I married that man within a year. It was an important marriage, as was my first. I knew my first husband loved me, but the second one may never have loved me. He was an excellent con artist and continued to be so after our marriage of five years.
Six weeks following my marriage to my second husband, I had a very vivid dream about Don. He looked great. It was so vivid that I turned over and called my second husband, “Don.” That was not his name. For a minute, I could not figure out who he was. I knew he was not Don. Then he said, “I know why you called me “Don.” He was here. Me: “Where?” Him: “Standing right by the bed. I recognized him from pictures Dawn and John showed me.” For the rest of the day, we were amazed at what happened. Perhaps he came to warn me about this marriage?
I was in my apartment when I had a dream about the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City blowing up. I had seen a circle of friends rising, up, up into the sky. They seemed alright. Some were smiling. Then this happened. The telephone rang, and my cousin told me to turn on my television and see what was happening in Oklahoma City. I then understood why I dreamed that dream.
My next vivid dream came when John and I just began to date. By this time, I was writing down my dreams when I first awakened. I kept a notepad by the bed. I had a dream in which I was told to go stand in the center of my father’s original home in Pauls Valley. Both grandparents lived in Pauls Valley, and I was born here. They moved us to Oklahoma City at six weeks, and I did not get back permanently until age 54 when John and I married. Anyway, we had only been dating about six months when this dream came. As soon as I could get a break from work (and that took a few days), I drove to Pauls Valley. I went to my friend’s home. Terri was a schoolteacher and already home from school. She was married to Earl, who was Mayor of Pauls Valley. She asked, “What are you doing here?” I explained my dream and said that I was going to follow my dream to see what happened. I asked if she would like o go with me. She agreed. We drove to where my grandmother’s home used to be. Now a nursing home sits on their property. After circling the entire block that Pop and Lizzie used to have, we decided the house’s center would be within the nursing home. I turned to Terri, “Want to go in with me?” Her response was, “No way. I live in this town, and Earl is the Mayor right now.”
So I entered the home alone. The best I could tell after walking around was that the center was right by the nursing station. I stood right beside the nursing station. A nurse asked, “Can I help you?” Me: “No, I just came to make a prayer.” She looked concerned but allowed me to do so while she worked. I made a silent prayer and looked around as I asked God and Spirit, “Now, why am I supposed to do this?” I took Terri home and went to see John at his office. He asked what I was doing in Pauls Valley. I explained that I was doing what I was told to do in my dream. He just shook his head. I said, “We agreed that dreams are important, right? So let’s see what the result of this dream might be.”
In four days, John telephoned and said, “Susanne, you need to come to have dinner with me tonight. I have a surprise for you.” I did so. As soon as I arrived, he handed me The Pauls Valley Advocate. There was a 5 x 7 picture of the house on the front page plus a huge story about the history of my grandparents’ home. The title said, “Old Home Long Remembered.” This was fascinating enough to me, but what was also exciting about this article was my aunts and uncles had no pictures of their homestead. I went home, slept, and returned the following day to get fifty copies for everyone attending my Aunt and Uncle’s fiftieth wedding anniversary the following Sunday. John and going with me, and we could pass these out to the delight of everyone. There was happiness all around. So it was the fourth day following my coming to the nursing home. That was important to note. I had been learning through the Native American teachings were receiving to wait four days for a change of energy to take place, for answers to come, or for gifts to be received from actions taken. We were even taught that prayer ties stay alive for four days.
It was 1990. I planned to slow down on my nutrition business and begin going into businesses to consult and speak. But where should I begin? I had another dream where an airline stewardess told me that I needed to go to the Waterford Hotel in Oklahoma City to begin. As soon as possible after this dream, I drove from Norman to the Waterford Hotel, a beautiful facility. I smiled and said hello to the two people behind the desk and then chose my spot to make my prayer. asking to help me learn why I was to come here?” My chosen spot was in the foyer’s center, about twelve feet in front of the check-in desk. Perhaps this dream had to do with beginning to speak to businesses in Oklahoma.
Before leaving the Waterford completely, I found a list on a glassed-in board showing what businesses were housed in the Waterford facilities surrounding the hotel. I wrote the names of every business down. Then I went home to cold call, asking questions of each business that might give me a clue about where I might be of help and able to set up an appointment. After two phone calls, I stopped as I realized that I needed to wait four days to see what happened. Sure enough, a letter did come. Within the letter, four names of businesses were named. I called the first one listed. No interest. I then telephoned the second one and had great success. As a result of that phone call and a follow-up appointment, I presented my first seminar for a business in Oklahoma on the Waterford Ballroom stage, presented a three-hour seminar for over fifty people, and was rescheduled for more! I was being guided on how and where to begin my seminars in Oklahoma.
Other major dreams were about my son marrying the wrong person (I received a call the next day that they eloped.). Then two nights before the Twin Towers were hit, I had a horrible dream about walking down a long flight of stairs. It was awful. I was shown as I went down the stairs, people with body parts missing and blood everywhere. (I rarely have a bad dream. My daughter telephoned from California, saying, “Mom, I had a horrible, horrible dream last night about a plane hitting a building.” I replied, “I had a horrible dream also, but I do not want to put it into the universe, so I am not going to share it right now. I again would not talk about my dream when John asked me, “Did you dream last night?” We share dreams most mornings.
However, the next night I dreamed that I climbed a ladder and had to hoist myself over the ledge. I found myself in a blue room. A bench against the wall held a young boy. We visited until we heard voices coming. They were in a line and were ready to cross a plank that had been set up for them. I took each person’s hand and helped them as they crossed over. I actually had the opportunity to hold their hand as they began their journey. Many were visiting with each other while waiting to go. After each person, I went to the next one until all were helped. Next, a picture came into the dream. There was what looked like part of the building at an angle across the scene with one end going into the ground so deep; the whole piece was steady in its spot. A huge eagle sat in the space under the angled piece of structure that was there. What was that huge eagle doing there? I later found out. There was so much peace in that long dream. Like I said, some were happy and sharing, some were quiet but peaceful, and others looked contemplative but fine and accepting. A few days later, the twin towers went down! When I saw the picture on the front page of the newspaper afterward with the angle of iron across the picture going into the ground (no eagle) I realized my dream and my daughter’s dream had been showing what would happen.
The next dream took place about four days before that barge ran into the bridge going across the Arkansas River, I had a major dream about people on a barge in the water. John was in front of me in a boat. They each were given a boat and were rowing beside and behind me. We were all paddling. I was standing up paddling and could feel the breeze. It felt wonderful. We went through an arch. On the other side of the arch, many were waiting to greet those coming. Again, I had no idea what this dream was about until I realized my lights had initially shown me a pig for “razorback hogs.” Then a barge hit the bridge. It all became clear.
I could go on with more dreams. One dream told me exactly what to move to Pauls Valley when I married John. (My computer, my telephone (before cell phones), clothes, and pictures I had taken). In
More fast snippets of dreams took place when I saw a bedroom in my daughters’ home in great detail a few nights before seeing her in San Francisco. I then saw a bedroom in Taos, NM. Sure enough, several of us went to Taos and stayed in “The Laughing Horse Inn.” We shared a suite in Taos with friends. I opened the door to a bedroom, and it was identical to the room I saw in my dream. Obviously, John and I got dibs on that room. For some readers, I perhaps told some of this in an earlier blog. However, I do believe it is of utmost importance to pay attention to dreams.
LESSON: Pay attention. Write them down as soon as you can. If you do not dream, put a pad by your bed. If you can write one word to help you remember, it helps. Yes, there are many books on dreams, but take note of symbols in your own dreams that reoccur. They will bring you answers!
GIFTS: I learned to pay attention to my dreams even if I did not know what they were about. Before the Native American path opened to me, I knew the woman that came during a nap and laid a large multi-color wing across the bottom of my bed had a big meaning. I knew this dream was important.
I began to understand that when a car I was in backed up in a dream, even when I was not driving, it warned me to look back in my life and understand what I needed to heal before going forward. Or perhaps I was being warned not to fall into an old pattern I was attempting to remove from my life completely.
I learned that dreams are also a window to our souls. They show the extraordinary at work in the ordinary because spiritual overtones of meaning are inherent in the most simple dreams of the most “ordinary” people.
John and I talk about dreams and attempt to analyze dreams every morning. It is a gift. If you do not have a partner to do this with, write out the dream and look at every part of the dream. In one dream, I picked up a pen from a table. If I were that pen, how did it feel to be chosen from the others? If I were the others, how did that feel? Before John, I had a friend that loved to interpret dreams, and we helped each other interpret our dreams.