When we’re awake, numerous distractions — such as gadgets, health concerns, work issues, or family worries — gobble up our attention and could prevent us from recognizing a sign that’s right in front of us. But when we sleep, those distractions tend to slip away as we enter our unconscious world, making it an ideal time for spirits to communicate with us. Yes, some dreams can be downright weird and have no meaning to us, but many of them contain significant messages from the other side.
Mike and Phyllis were high school sweethearts in the early 1980s and lived a fairy-tale romance for three years. They were best friends, loved each other with every ounce of energy that two teenagers could, and talked openly and extensively about their future together. There was no question in their minds, or in the minds of their friends and families, that they were going to be together forever. If there were ever a perfect love story, this was it.
“We were going to graduate from high school, continue dating through college, and get married in our midtwenties,” Phyllis said. “We had it all planned out.”
But those plans shockingly unraveled during their senior year of high school.
“Mike got heavily involved in drinking and drugs, to the point of addiction,” Phyllis said. “I kept giving him chances to change, but he wouldn’t. He was no longer the same wonderful guy I’d fallen in love with. I knew he still loved me, but he had a serious problem that he couldn’t overcome. I finally had to break up with him.”
Mike continually begged Phyllis for another chance, and, after a year apart, she finally gave in. The two reconciled when he convinced her he was a changed man. “Things will be different,” he assured her. They lasted four more months together.
“He tried in the beginning, but the addiction consumed him,” Phyllis said. “We were just nineteen years old, and the path he was on was really bad. I mean, really bad. I could see he was not going to live a long life. It broke my heart, but I just couldn’t do it anymore.”
While Phyllis was certain she was done with Mike, he still wasn’t convinced that it was over. Again and again he begged her to take him back. He called her. He showed up unexpectedly at her home. He appeared unannounced at her work.
“I had to keep pushing him away, figuratively and literally,” she said.
Six months after their second breakup, with Mike still hounding her, Phyllis started dating a wonderful man who brought her much happiness, a police officer named Fred.
“I knew then that I couldn’t have Mike in my life in any way, not even as a friend,” she said. “He didn’t like that, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He continued to haunt me for another year or two.”
Phyllis stayed true to Fred, and Mike finally backed off as he got deeper into drugs and his life continued in a downward spiral. After those couple of years, he would never contact Phyllis again.
Well, just not while he was alive.
Jump ahead more than a decade to one early morning in 1996. Phyllis and Fred had been happily married for several years. Fred was the love of her life. Mike was nothing more than a piece of her past. She hadn’t seen him or heard anything about him for years. But on this particular day at about 6 AM, at the tail end of what had been a very peaceful night’s sleep, Phyllis awoke gasping for air. Her body was trembling. She was in a severe panic. It was all enough to wake a startled Fred, who tried to calm her down as he asked her what was wrong.
“I’d had a dream about Mike. He wasn’t doing or saying anything. He was . . . he was just there. The dream didn’t last more than ten seconds, but I was left with a very powerful feeling that he was gone, that he had died. I hadn’t seen him in so long and didn’t know what he was doing with his life, but I knew in my heart he had passed. What really blew my mind was that I instantly recalled having a vision when I was nineteen years old that Mike would die from drug abuse when he was thirty-two. I realized he was thirty-two now. I couldn’t believe any of this.”
She shared the dream with Fred, who did exactly what she needed him to do: he listened. “I knew I had told Fred years earlier about the vision I’d had when I was nineteen. Fred remembered that conversation, and he was shaken that I was so certain Mike was dead.”
Phyllis calmed herself enough to get out of bed to get ready for work. “But I couldn’t stop thinking about the dream,” she said. “I got to work and told all my coworkers about it. I also called and told my mother about it. She had always been my greatest teacher in life and had taught me to trust my instincts. I then called Fred to ask him if he would be okay with me calling Mike’s parents after work. Having witnessed what an impact this dream had had on me, he had no problem with it. He knew how much Mike’s parents loved me when Mike and I were dating, and I loved them. Mike’s father even helped me through some difficult times when I was dealing with my own alcoholic father. I hadn’t talked to them in five years, but they had been like parents to me during my teens. I needed to know if something happened. I needed to know if the feeling I had was real.”
The dream was just the beginning of a string of profound events that would lead Phyllis to her answer.
“I had gone out for lunch to my mother’s home and was on my way back to work when I came to a stoplight. A man who looked very familiar was crossing the street right in front of me. It took me a second . . . I just couldn’t believe it.”
The man was Mike’s father.
“My nerves kicked in like they had when I woke up from that dream. I didn’t know what was happening. How in the world was I seeing his dad for the first time in so many years just hours after having that dream?”
When the light turned green, Phyllis slammed her foot on the gas pedal and rushed back to work to tell her coworkers what had happened. She was frazzled, and she didn’t know how she was going to be able to wait until after work to call Mike’s parents, as she had planned. But she had no choice. Phyllis worked in a very fast-paced dermatology office, and there was no way she was going to make this call from work, knowing how emotional it would be if the dream were true.
Considering what would happen just minutes later, maybe Mike knew her predicament.
“The private work line rang and I answered it. The voice on the other end said, ‘May I please speak to Felicea?’ That was the nickname Mike’s parents had given me, since they were French Canadian. I knew it was Mike’s mother. I knew the voice. My heart was racing, and so was my mouth. ‘Janet?’ I said. ‘This is Phyllis! Are you okay? Is Mike okay? I had this dream and was going to call you later. I just saw George crossing the street. What’s wrong?’ ”
Phyllis’s gut instinct about the dream was accurate. “Janet’s voice became choked with tears,” Phyllis said. “Not only was he dead, but she said she’d also had a dream that morning in which Mike told her not to forget to tell me he had died. The parallel was truly divine intervention. He had visited both of us that morning.”
Janet told Phyllis they had buried him a week and a half earlier. “She said she was so sorry that she didn’t call me sooner, but she hadn’t wanted to interrupt my life.”
With that, Phyllis told Janet that she would very much like to see her that week. A few days later, the two most important women in Mike’s life greeted each other at Janet’s door with a long and warm embrace, and a lot of tears.
“Mike orchestrated that meeting,” Phyllis said. “I have a dream that he’s dead, and Janet has a dream that she’s supposed to call me to tell me that he just died, all after thirteen years? There is nothing coincidental about that.”
Janet showed Phyllis Mike’s bedroom, the same room he’d had when they were dating.
“I didn’t even recognize it,” she said. “There were a lot of religious artifacts and some really odd things. It had a gothic feel to it. His mom said he died in the house from an overdose. Because of the drugs, he’d had schizophrenia, AIDS, and hepatitis. What really hit me was that I knew when we were nineteen that his life was going to end like this when he was thirty-two. My inner voice then was so strong. I loved him so much, but he couldn’t escape his addiction. His dad had even told me I should leave him because he knew Mike wasn’t going to change. That’s how clear this was to all of us.”
Why does Phyllis believe Mike triggered these events she experienced, from the dream to the meeting with his mom?
“I was still his girl in his mind. Janet said he never had another girlfriend after me. I think he wanted me to know that he was in a better place, and I did sense that after going to his house and talking to his mom. He was at peace, no longer tormented by the drugs.”
Phyllis said her dream and everything else that happened that day had a significant impact on her life going forward.
“My vision at nineteen years old, my dream, Janet’s dream, Mike’s father crossing the street in front of me, Janet calling me at work — it was one unbelievable event after another. I have never been religious or gone to church, but I have always had an inner voice I’ve listened to, which is the voice that told me to leave Mike when I did, and which I also know had something to do with my dream. I don’t know what’s out there, whether it’s some sort of force or universal energy or God. But do I believe, after what I experienced that day, that we go somewhere after this life? I absolutely do.”
Pay close attention to your dreams. Sometimes they will be as vivid and memorable as the ones Phyllis and Janet had, but other times you might forget them moments after you wake up. Write them down immediately so that you can recall them and analyze them later, and maybe even connect them to other dreams you’ve had or will have in the future. A dream can often be more than just a dream, especially when you are looking for a sign.