I believe the ultimate goal of self-care is creating the space to hear the whispers of your higher self; often, these whispers can be heard in your dreams.
We all dream. In our dreams, we have access to the deep well of collective thought and memory. Some dreams, remembered or not, take place in the dark stillness of nighttime. Just as it can be difficult to capture in words the language and messages delivered in the unconscious space of the dream, it can prove challenging to find appropriately descriptive language for working with the unconscious. Complex and hard-to-explain theories about the nature of the universe, intuition, and how to trust in the flow of cosmic timing can begin in simple, easy-to-integrate practices. Most of these practices start with opening a space for listening to the quiet voice within.
The moments between the unconscious dream world and the conscious waking world hold great value for accessing thoughts, emotions, and messages from our higher self. Creating a practice to listen to these messages can be simple but sets the foundation for a life led by intuition. The dream world itself can be rich in imagery, so rich that an entire study has been formulated to help translate these symbolic themes. Dream interpretation seeks to draw out deeper desires, fears, longings, and blockages that might be keeping you from connecting to your mind and spirit, and from hearing the universal messages intended just for you.
There is a rich lineage throughout history of messages delivered through dreams regarding events that will occur, people the dreamer will meet, and children the dreamer will have. On my intake form I ask my clients about birth- and pregnancy-related dreams right alongside questions about their menstrual cycle. I know that dreams are just as important as vital medical information when it comes to understanding the whole picture of a person’s fertility health.
The Bible contains more than 20 stories of heavenly messages delivered through dreams. In Hindu sacred texts, multiple stories share prophecies that appeared in the unconscious space of the dream. Many ancient traditions viewed messages sent in dreams as significant information from the universe worthy of interpretation. Indeed, the richness and depth that a dream can hold, especially to those with vivid intuitive gifts, can sometimes feel indistinguishable from reality. Setting an intention with your unconscious creates a path for information to be delivered through the highway of your dreamscape. This can be beneficial when trying to relinquish strong attachments to an outcome, such as achieving pregnancy. Receiving and listening to the messages of the unconscious can provide an infrastructure of trust, allowing you to relax and be less vigilant.
Sometimes it can feel isolating and lonely when you don’t have a clear vision or connection to the spirit of your child. And while it is not necessary to have this connection to become pregnant, I believe it is possible when you are given the right tools, and space to listen. Just like the characters and personalities in our own lives, some voices are louder than others. This applies to the spirits of our children, as well.
Some spirits are quite gregarious and present, while others are more introverted and reverent. I encourage my clients not to be discouraged if they cannot connect, but to instead allow this “blockage” to set up a line of inquiry and investigation. It is not uncommon to unearth strong and clear relationships to future children once you begin to listen to the language of the unconscious. The unconscious speaks through the universal imagery of dreams, synchronicity, and symbols.
By the end of the next few chapters, you will know how to speak the basic language of the unconscious. As a reminder, the most powerful tool that transcends all languages and connects directly to your child’s spirit is that of unconditional love. Allow yourself to move without critical judgment of how good you are at dreaming, catching the magic of everyday synchronicity, or summoning up lullabies. Loving our future children without the conditions that we impose on ourselves is the most powerful of all energetic tools.
As children, we learn the great myths of our world. Fairy tales, myths, and fables all share the common journey of a single character, or hero, through adverse environments that threaten the hero’s core beliefs in self and other. These themes are related through larger-than-life monsters and symbolic creatures or whimsical landscapes. The Hero’s Journey is a common motif in cross-cultural narratives; this is a framework in which individuals embark on a quest, through which they learn a profound life lesson about their own nature and the nature of humankind.
Think of your dreams as your own mythic journey that uses the exact type of rich imagery as the stories of old. But just as you had to pay attention to story time as a child, you must also pay attention to the dream to fully grasp its ultimate message.
Several tools can help with this. I have found that sometimes the more difficult part of listening to the messages my clients receive is believing in them. Again, the power of the conscious mind to override the rich landscape of all other perceptions is a hallmark of modern life. It can be scary to listen to feelings and thoughts that don’t fit into the reality in which you are living. And painfully, many people, even those who love you the dearest, will question the validity of what you “know” from a developed conversation with the unconscious.
However, if there were ever a language through which you could communicate with the spirit of your unborn child, it exists in the tender, vulnerable space of the unconscious. Ultimately, it is your duty to yourself to stand by your individual wisdom. There is never a need to defend, rationalize, or explain your understanding to anyone who questions it, unless you choose to do so. For many, the defense of the intuitive and unconscious world becomes a call to arms and life path in and of itself. For others, some of whom you would never suspect of living by intuitive wisdom, nothing ever need be said or done to declare their findings.
Many people have spoken of the power of writing first thing in the morning in the liminal space when you are closest to sleep, halfway between the conscious and unconscious world. A dream journal is a powerful tool for connecting and communicating with the spirit of your child and your ancestors. Dreams present us with a set of symbols that we are able to decode. The dream world has direct access to the collective unconscious; therefore, you can ask a question in a dream and receive guidance from universal intelligence.
I structure my dream journal exercise a little differently from most people. I ask that you write a specific question in your dream journal before you go to sleep and meditate on this question as you drift into the night. First thing in the morning, whether you remember your dreams or not, answer the question as quickly as possible. Write it down, regardless of whether or not it makes sense. After you answer the question, you can draw, describe, or record your memories from your dreams. Look for imagery that stands out, such as ancestors, animals, buildings, or oceans and rivers. Interpret your own dream in your journal before asking others what they think. And if you do have a visitation from the spirit of your child in a dream, keep it safe and protected until your child is conceived and you are in your second trimester. A dream is a space where spirit is incubated to be born into reality, so too much attention too soon can be disrespectful to the artistic process and threaten the masterpiece.
I learned from a powerful shaman with whom I studied in my early years that the ultimate power in healing others comes down to a simple statement: “Do I act, or do I not act?” I have come to understand that in personal healing, this translates to: “Do I ask and listen, or do I not?”
One choice impacts the energies that are at work with a declarative force and vision, while the other recedes into the calm nonparticipant, who allows the situation to play out in accord with the universe. Both statements acknowledge that each of us is connected to a larger self, and when we are in need of cosmic support, we can ask for it through the landscape of our dreams. I asked for such support in my own path to motherhood.
I was ready, or at least I thought I was ready, to have a child at age 26. Having known about my daughter’s presence for over a decade, I wanted to meet her in real life. I had found a loving relationship with my husband, set up a successful private practice, and healed many injuries from my past. But the timing was not right, and the next years brought into my life a doctorate, a residency in China, relocation of home, and further deepening of my practice in healing infertility for others.
You can’t rush a masterpiece, I said to myself again and again.
By age 32, the longing to become a mother turned into anxiety and fear that it would not happen. Looking back now, 32 seems so young, but the combination of being strongly connected to my daughter’s spirit, while helping person after person to have their own healthy and happy babies, raised doubt for me in the universe, my partner, and my path. My desire and my impatience were becoming an issue in my relationship and put me into a state of fear that something was amiss with my fertility and health. I began to convince myself that it would take forever to get pregnant once I began to try. Something had to shift.
One February morning, thick in the winter blues and my sadness, I was standing on the subway platform when a whisper from my highest self directed me to a popular yoga studio in Manhattan for a 10 meditation class. As many of you know, one of the hardest things to do when you are down is drag yourself to the very activities that will help you. I hadn’t been to yoga in months, and I had never been to this particular studio. The teacher was a sage who had been a practitioner of yoga his entire 60-plus years on the planet. I sat in deep meditation as he directed us to imagine calling back into our bodies all the various energies and selves that we projected into the world. He asked us to consolidate all the energy that we expended on anxiety and worry and to seal it back inside our hearts. It was a beautiful meditation that made me capable of listening to my higher self in a clearer and more profound way.
That night, before I closed my eyes, I asked my guides and the Divine itself to offer me some clarity about my fertility through a dream. I prayed that I would listen to and receive the message, no matter the outcome. The symbols and messages I received in the following dream were so powerful that my anxiety was obliterated and my trust in cosmic timing was reinforced.
In this dream, my husband and I were swimming off the southern coast of South Africa, illuminated by a full moon. We were united and close as we noticed a small airplane with an open door circling in the sky above. Someone was trying to parachute out of the plane into the ocean below. They could not jump because there was something blocking their landing spot in the water. In the dream, we spotted two huge humpback whales circling below the plane and sky jumper, and we realized that we had to do something to help. We swam out and each wrestled a whale to the side of a huge rock that jetted up from the waves. Just as we did this, the parachuter floated to Earth, landing gently in the water, safe and sound despite the delay.
In many systems of dream interpretation, the whale is related to ancestors. This dream showed me that my partner and I were not only capable of setting aside the influences of our family origins but that, as we did so, we were creating the pathway for our daughter to be born. The literal metaphor of someone parachuting to Earth describes someone being incarnated and born. The dream healed me; the next morning, I awoke without any anxiety or worry as to when I would meet my daughter. I simply knew that as long as I was next to my husband and we were swimming together, it was going to happen.
I became pregnant four months later, and by using the tools of unconscious and conscious conception, it happened quickly. Our beautiful daughter was born under a triple water astrological sign of the fish (whale reference) in an unbroken amniotic sack, the caul, just as the dream had predicted: under the moonlight and ruled by water.
Even though this was a powerfully healing dream, I still had to make a choice to believe in it. Such is true of all our encounters in life, both positive and negative. We have to practice emotional maturity, especially when we are most triggered and challenged by our emotions. We also have to practice trusting in the infrastructure of the universe and take steps to expose our innermost hurt and shadow to something that is beyond our control. Vulnerability and softening can create the space needed for healing to occur. When we do this, when we finally allow our spiritual guides in, our higher selves and the part of our being that is infinite, we are often given a suitcase that contains the maps by which to walk through our despair and disbelief. You can find your way through without this help, but receiving help is essential to being a modern-day parent, and often one of the earliest lessons of motherhood.
Dreams link the conscious to the unconscious. Dreams have access to the well of universal wisdom that we all participate within but cannot see clearly in our day-to-day lives. There is so much wisdom and guidance in a dream. All you need do is ask and listen.
My intake form asks people if they have ever dreamed of their future child. Some people laugh, some people just skip it altogether, and some list detailed dreams stretching back for years. Kim was about 32 weeks pregnant when I asked her, “Do you have an instinct about when your baby will be born?”
“Not exactly an instinct,” she said, “but I had a dream that he would be born on January 10th.”
I was not at all surprised when, on January 9th, I received a text message that said that Kim was on the way to the hospital.
I started to study the prophetic nature of dreams years ago. I had been sitting in an integrative gynecology class that weekend, next to a brilliant woman named Uma. Uma spoke five languages, practiced Chinese medicine, was a Taoist scholar, wrote operas, and had two beautiful children, among many other accomplishments. During a break, I leaned over and said, “Uma, I had the strangest dream last night that I had a huge tattoo of a dragon on my lower abdomen. It was so beautiful.”
“Ahhhh,” she responded matter-of-factly, “well, that just means you are going to have a baby in the year of the dragon.”
And as simply as that, she helped me divine the message of the dream. My daughter was born in the year of the dragon, a sign that indicates longevity and good health.
The very first traditional Chinese medicine class that I sat in many years ago began by describing the two major forces that are at work on the planet and in our bodies. Dr. Shen described yang as active, masculine, functional, bright, warm, dominating daytime and the sun. Yin, he said, was receptive, feminine, dark, cooling, and at its strongest during the night and the light of the moon. These two principles are forever seeking balance with each other and are a part of the continued creative and destructive process of the human reproductive cycle. The uterus is classified as a yin organ, but it contains the principles of creation and destruction, yin and yang, and both masculine and feminine qualities. In a nutshell, the uterus is a universe. Its sacred and receptive space holds a space very similar to the landscape of the dream.
Each of our gestations takes place within a uterus. The time it takes to incubate is marked by developmental stages of growth that we often count through weeks and trimesters. But spiritually, many other important seeds are also taking root during this time. Within the womb, we connect to the countless ancestors who came before us. We are also able to connect to the dimensions of consciousness that we lose access to once we are born. It takes some time for this loss of access to occur. Young infants still live very much between the two worlds of the conscious and unconscious, continuing to sleep most of the day and staying disengaged from the waking world. With time and the intake of the food, air, and beauty of Earth, each of our unique spirits incarnates deeper and deeper into the flesh. Our rational minds are at the helm of what we categorize as real, while the memory of the numinous recedes into the space of the dream and the unconscious. Some children can still recount incredible details of the past lives that they lived. Others can recall in words the specifics of the nature of the universe, God, and the meaning of life.
The experiences that we have with wombs in our lifetimes—including being birthed from them and containing our children in the uterus during pregnancy—are clear examples of the womb’s capacity to merge with the other. The term other is used to describe the energies of the people, places, and phenomena that we categorize as different from us and existing outside of us. We often place people into this category when we are unsure, threatened, or afraid. This defensive and protective instinct can happen when there is trauma, or unwelcomed and insulting energy, but more fundamentally, we often seek to define the other when we are afraid. Fear creates many types of walls energetically, and sometimes those invisible walls turn into real ones.
The space of the uterus is meant to reflect the space of the unconscious. It is meant to be open and to communicate and translate the deep mirroring that it shares with the universe. The womb models the cycles of death and regeneration that we all face. Unfortunately, we often lose the wisdom of the unconscious with the development of ego and with the passing of time.
Just before I sat down to write this, I fell very hard onto a strip of ice that I did not see. I was afraid that I had hurt myself badly. The trauma of a past fall I experienced many years ago came rushing back. I cried, but because I was with my daughter, I tried to pull myself together as quickly as possible. The first fall I experienced two decades prior had been at the beginning of my sexual exploration with the world. It very literally occurred as I followed my boyfriend down a hiking path that I knew to be deteriorated from heavy rains. I fell a good 10 feet, hurting my back because I listened to him instead of to my instinct. But I was trying so hard to win his love through sexuality and physicality, and because I was so new at the game of love, I had very little knowledge of how to play. He was cruel and careless with my feelings, and that fall, away from him, was my unconscious loudly telling me to listen to the signs and take a different path.
The fear I felt while slipping on the ice reminded me of the deep lack of control that so many people experience when trying to conceive. I felt mad and angry that when I allowed my consciousness to slip for a single minute, I hurt myself. I ended up being just fine, but the real message of the ice slip was the reminder that even as I write and describe what it means to connect to the unconscious, its real power (and indeed, the reason we should respect it) comes through the symbolic events and actions of our lives. We too easily forget that—just as the uterus can open and contract to contain life—reality itself is on far more of a continuum than we acknowledge.
So much of the hypervigilance we give to the details of charting, ovulation kits, lab results, and perfectly timed sex is rooted in fear. None of us likes to slip on the ice, and none of us likes to feel vulnerable. When we see trauma approaching us, we defend against it. We make split-second decisions to protect ourselves from what we see coming.
My friend, who comes from a lineage of great explorers, once told me of a paragliding accident she had in the mountains of New Mexico. After jumping and hitting a boulder, her helmet came off, which in paragliding can mean certain death; however, in the moments before she barreled into a second rock, she threw her arm out to defend her more vulnerable organs and screamed at the top of her lungs as she impacted. She shattered her arm but survived.
“Why did this accident occur? What was its importance in the way your life unfolded?” I asked her. This wise, brave explorer of the Amazon jungle responded, “At that moment, I trusted authority more than I trusted my own instinct and knowledge. I knew it was a sketchy situation, but I listened to the authority of the instructor instead of myself. That was the ultimate lesson of that accident.”
If we respect our slips, falls, illnesses, and losses, and take into account the deeper message from our unconscious that these moments in our life present, we will learn how to lower our defensive walls and live a less guarded and less fearful life.
Trusting your unconscious can sometimes feel like trusting in God. The more disillusion, suffering, and trauma that you live through, the harder it is to feel there is anything out there paying attention to your well-being. I often hear from people that they were once optimistic, positive, and trusting, but the loss of a baby and denied motherhood had worn them down into harder, and more clinical, disbelievers.
One of my first duties to this type of broken person is to remind my patient of her primary and essential relationship to the Divine and the mystical, and to help her reengage with a trust in the universe. Once you have lost your faith in the infrastructure of the universe, you cannot rebuild that trust overnight. And the common tools that are available to those who have not walked through the shadowlands of grief just do not work.
Many people are critical and cynical of spiritual work because spiritual work has failed to provide them with the correct language and tools to excavate their souls. Most gurus thrive on light and feel-good endorphins, and easily dismiss the person in the crowd who questions their authority as an unenlightened and immature soul. In contrast, I love working with the spiritually cynical. The success I have experienced leading them through baby steps back to trusting in the universe is instrumental for many of their successful pathways to a healthy pregnancy and birth. The best way to help individuals build their trust in the Divine is by assisting them in developing their awareness of the unconscious.
Lauren had been trying to conceive for many years. She was still young at 31, and therefore had decided to give it time before using IVF and reproductive medicine. She lived in a community of New Age spiritual people to which she’d first been drawn a decade earlier. Although incredibly supportive of women’s health and empowerment, they were also, as she described, extremely judgmental in their practice of “woo-woo.” She had been through several different types of healers, psychics, and therapists, all of whom suggested they knew why she was not conceiving. But as the years passed, her original faith was degraded by her observations of the community that she lived within. She saw hypocrisy within their ethics and morals, and she began to withdraw from her friends. I sensed in Lauren a broken relationship to the universe, and via e-mail she warned me that she didn’t respond well to spiritual and energetic work. She had built a wall.
When people wish to work with me and make the claim that they don’t believe in the “spiritual stuff,” this is always a good sign to me that they actually do—and that somehow, along the way, they lost their faith. The powerful tool of disengaging and falling back into trust and receptivity cannot occur when we are defensive and critical of our potential to experience the phenomenon of spirit.
In American law, we put the burden of proof on the court, allowing the accused to defend their case until proven guilty. Once an injury to faith has occurred, as it did for Lauren, a person begins to live like everyone is guilty until proven innocent. This amount of prosecution is exhausting, and more than that, it requires a person to live in an actively vigilant fashion. When we cannot trust the universe around us, we cannot rest in the receptive and relaxed body necessary for conception. Lauren needed tools to remember not what she had once believed, but something that dwelled even deeper, beyond her lost practice. She needed a new relationship with God.
I asked Lauren to begin a synchronicity journal): a running list of details that I compared to Nancy Drew’s detective notebook. I asked her to write down connections that she saw in her environment, such as catching a glimpse of a cardinal sitting on her doorstep, and later that day sitting at a restaurant that had cardinals on the wallpaper. Another example could be hearing an old favorite song just before getting a call from the friend who had introduced her to it, or taking a different route to work and bumping into a loved one. When rebuilding faith, baby steps are essential. Lauren didn’t need anyone to tell her to believe in the universe; she needed the universe to show her that it was, in fact, all around her—and that it believed in her.
Small steps and practices can grow into significant pathways to wisdom. Had I not listened to the small voice that suggested I head to meditation, I probably would not have had the dream that cured me of anxiety about my daughter’s birth. Offerings that we make when we are at our most vulnerable can be the scariest ones. But even if you fall, you will be okay. Quite possibly, the slip will lead you to a crucial soul lesson.
When rebuilding faith, baby steps are essential. A synchronicity journal allows the universe to show you that it is all around you and that it believes in you.
Create a running list of details you observe in your environment. Envision a detective as she pulls a notebook out of her pocket to record important facts. Write down connections that you see in your environment, such as catching a glimpse of a cardinal sitting on your doorstep, and later that day sitting at a restaurant with cardinals on the wallpaper. Other examples could be hearing an old favorite song just before getting a call from the friend who introduced you to it, or taking a different route to work and bumping into a loved one. Choose any journal to record these messages. I often text myself the synchronicities I observe, or I record them in my calendar.
A synchronicity journal is powerful magic that is grounded in observational science. I have seen this exercise make even the staunchest rationalist smile with curiosity and joy. It is also a wonderful exercise for deepening your connection to your guides.
The moments between the unconscious dream world and the conscious waking world hold great value for accessing thoughts, emotions, and messages from our higher self. Creating a practice to listen to these messages can be simple but sets the foundation for a life led by intuition.
Determining the messages from your unconscious can be like decoding a mysterious map full of symbols and strange imagery that is still somehow very familiar. Your intuitive guidance knows how to navigate your unconscious far better than your analytical mind.
In this chapter, we discovered the rich history and tradition of messages about pregnancy and future children being delivered through dreams. You learned how the womb is symbolic of the unconscious and how dream interpretation theories were modeled after theories of how consciousness develops during gestation. While many experts might suggest they know what your dream’s message means, your own intuitive wisdom is ultimately the best translator of the symbols that show up for you. It is easy to lose the wisdom of the unconscious to the ego. We often miss the messages we were intended to receive because we are busy protecting ourselves from vulnerability. But the message continues to find a way to show up in our lives. When you practice observing the symbolic events and actions in your life, you gain insight into the powerful tool of trusting yourself.