By Amy Nielsen

Have you ever had that moment when something came to you in a dream so clearly, that no matter how hard you try, you just cannot think of anything else?

The whole picture is exactly as it should be and you know in your core that what you just witnessed, not saw, but witnessed, is your personal calling of destiny?

Sounds totally corny, right? But it happened to me a few nights ago and I want to tell you about it.

I was settling into bed after an especially busy day. I had been up early getting a few segments of lectures out of the way for my nutrition school. Then I had gone to an appointment with a friend.  In the afternoon I worked on a writing project, a short guided meditation for kids about the chakra associated with action and doing. It soon became later than I usually go to bed and I knew I was getting close to just staying up to see my husband when he got home from his second shift duty.

Then I realized I still had to move the freaking elves.

As I stumbled around half asleep, still working through the wording I wanted to use in the meditation, I kept thinking about how to make the program I am learning about in school, my own. What is my spin on it? Why would someone want to come see me? I set the elves into their new spot and headed back up to bed. 

I settled down again hoping for a fast sleep knowing my husband would interrupt my difficult sleep transition if I stayed up too much longer. I decided to work on the pacing of a section of the meditation I was writing earlier in the day. As intended the mantras did settle my energy down enough for me to sleep.

I am not sure what woke me enough to be lucid in my dream. I suspect it was my hearing the dogs react to my husband arriving home. Nor do I know how long I was actually having the dream for. Most scientists say dreams only last a fraction of minutes yet feel like they last hours, days, even years. In dream time, I was there for five or so days. Time is wibbly wobbly in dreams, though

When dreams come from meditatively directed sleep, interesting things can come to light. Sometimes this is intentional and can lead to – well – exactly the kind of dream I had. Most times it happens to novice practitioners who fall asleep in the middle of a guided meditation because they are so thoroughly and completely exhausted. I like meditative sleep and lucid dreams when I prepare myself for them. Except that I hadn’t set myself up for it so it was a bit shocking when it happened. If I had done my proper practice I would have done a properly delineated end to the meditation which would have allowed for less lucidity in my sleep state.

As it was, I happened upon myself in the guise of a participant in my own workshop sessions. At first I didn’t realize I was watching myself teach. I was interested in the flow of the class, the way the leader wove the science and the spiritual to create a whole cohesive structure. I saw her confidence and light as she shared this knowledge like little packages of understanding to be unwrapped by each participant in their own fashion. I saw clearly the direction the classes took and how each fit into the next with a distinct progression. It was like being in exactly the right class for me.

Then I realized that I was both participant and teacher. I started paying attention as much as I could while still allowing the dream to flow as unhindered as it was.

It was me teaching; weaving those words, shining that confidence, cradling the warmth of understanding and ushering the participants toward a deeper, clearer connection with and within themselves. Then, once taught to be grounded in self, leading the participants to be shown how to bring this understand to others about their selves.

I was able to take the time to really hear myself. I felt like I could look at this plan and poke it with a stick for a bit before I called it mine in this dream. I remember disagreeing with the teacher and she smiled and said, “That’s why we are all individuals, dear.” I thought, “Ugh, never call a participant dear.” My sleep pattern deepened and I moved into a meditation in the class in the dream, where I was able to hear the fix to some of the wording and pace I had been missing.

At the end of the sequence I remember feeling an immense sense of pride as I boarded a plane for a home I knew to be the one I currently live in with the family. That was important as it shows that this dream was a current event. 

I woke, snapped on the lamp, grabbed a tiny notebook and a barely sharp pencil, and scribbled notes about the dream for the next two hours. I wrote everything from the name of the class to what I was wearing, from what we served for meals to the exact topics for each session within the 3-day intensive seminar. I knew enough about the dream and it sparked enough in my mind to be able to “remember” that this was a 3-day intensive version of another class I dream-teach that is eight weeks long with the same progression. I wrote that all out too. I have 37 pages of hand scrawled pigeon scratch to sort through, flesh out, and develop. It’s all there. I can see it all. I just have to get it all out of my head. And soon.

It was like being handed the entirety of an existence all wrapped up in a neat bow. Thanks for the early present! Now I can get on with the Yuletide cheer.