Dreams and Creativity, Sharing Dreamtime, Communing with the Dead,
Evolving Dreams, Healing Dreams, Repeating Dreams

Click here to read "The Cause to Dream" by Tricia Ann Dunn-Abramson

Diana wrote her M.A. on "Dreams and Creativity"and has analyzed her dreams all her life.  Dreams foster creativity in visual art, writing and in scientific invention - i.e. Croatian genius Tesla 's idea for the AC (Alternating Current) Motor evolved from his image of the sun.

Sharing Dreamtime:  When her daughter was born 23 years ago, Diana discovered they shared dreams.  When Kathreen was 2 years old, her mother was reading Stephen King's "It" at 4:00 a.m.  Little Kathreen woke up crying from a terrible nightmare, then recounted to her mother verbatim what Diana had been reading.   This happened 3 times before Diana decided to stop reading "It".   When Diana and Kathreen were physically separated in 1995, Kathreen could not recall her dreams.  During a visit in 2001, Kathreen once again recalled her dreams.  And this is when I continued the repetive dream spanning a decade.

Dreams can be shared with someone you're physically and emotionally close to, i.e. share a bed with, share a life with.

Healing Dreams:  Dreams are healing with any trauma if we remember our dreams and especially if we take the time to discuss our dreams with someone who knows us.  Yes, I've had dreams about my being naked and breastless.  Emotional healing is occurring because I am no longer  embarrassed in my dreams. 

Communing with the "Dead":  The death of a loved one is as traumatic as the death of a breast.

John Edward (Medium of "Crossing Over") John Edward - Crossing Over and my hypnotherapist friend Lorna Turnier agree that you can open yourself to talking with your loved ones who have crossed over by deep relaxation just before sleep.  Me? My dreams just come.  I think about them immediately upon awakening - and often discuss them with my brother.

Evolving Dreams:   The following is a remembrance of the evolving dreams I’ve had about Mom and Dad since their death.

My Mother passed from this life in 1995 in San Luis Obispo, California while visiting my brother Scott and me.  Dad held Mom’s hand and prayed with her as she died.  The night before was a special memory to me because Mom and I sat outside and played our favorite card game on an ironing board, "Sticks and Stones".  Mom won.

The morning of Mom’s death I dreamed that she and I walked out on a long pier into the ocean. First she jumped off the pier, then I jumped after. The water grew darker and darker. Oddly, I did not gasp for breath and the water was not cold. Mom told me to return to the surface.  I did.  I felt calm and peaceful.   Shortly after my dream, Scott phoned to say Mom had just died.

After Mom’s Memorial Service in Phoenix, Scott and I returned to San Luis Obispo. I dreamed that Mom visited me in my place. Mom was so happy!   So unburdened by her former polio-disabled physical body. At last she could move!   In my dream, Mom joyfully twisted through the open spaces of a rectangular metal sculpture as if she were a rubber pretzel.  Mom laughed and laughed.  She was so happy to be able to move, to dance through that sculpture. (I did not know the name of the sculpture until I later went to Phoenix in real life and made a point of asking the title of the piece – "Eternal Life".)

The second dream occurred in the same setting as the dream I had of my Grandmother Dolly after she died in 1976. As Dolly prepared to ascend the stairs, she showed me a pattern (like a sewing pattern). Dolly was always a lady and never raised her voice, but in my dream she became most perturbed with me because I could not understand the pattern, The Pattern of Life.  In 1995 I dreamed of my Mother in the same setting, except this time the stairs were preceded by a pool of water with plants in the middle of the patio. Mom crossed the small wooden bridge and I followed her. At the bottom of the stairs she showed me the most extraordinarily beautiful material I’ve ever seen – like white satin covered with exquisite gold threaded patterns.  She smiled.  And ascended those same white stairs.

Shortly after Dad died in October, 1999 I dreamed of him in a featureless white enclosed space. He kept crying in fear, "I don’t know how to get out of here."

The second dream was of Mom and Dad. Mom again assumed the misshapen physical form she had in life. She pretended to fall so Dad could help her up. He seemed more at ease in this pastoral setting of grass and trees and being able to help Mom as he did throughout their life together here.

The next dream of Dad was of him as the old shuffling man with Parkinson’s I last saw in this life.  He and I walked along a city street like the old neighborhoods of Brooklyn. We came to a little red brick grocery store.  He walked up the 3 cement steps and entered the grocery store.  I heard someone announce over the loud speaker, "Has anyone seen Mr. Douglas, that old man?"

In the next dream I met Dad at our apartment in Phoenix. He looked his former spiffy self – dressed in a 3 piece gray suit.  As often happens in dreams, we started walking (he was not shuffling) and poof! – we were at a long, long street-like sidewalk in a foreign land.   The "sidewalk" was very wide and stretched for blocks towards a Parthenon-looking building out in a huge body of water with no ending. The building was domed with columns – very ancient looking.  Dad turned to me, gently touched my arm and smiled, "You cannot go further with me, Diana.  I am going to the House of Learning."  I watched my Father walk away straight and tall.

The last dream I had of Mom was this year. Mom was stunningly dressed in a rich brown fur coat with matching hat.  Her hair was short, suave and dark.   But her eyes were the most compelling.  My Mother was gorgeous!   Her eyes were luminous dark brown with thick lashes.  I said, "You’re not dead, Mom!" She smiled softly and replied, "Yes, Diana. I am dead."  I woke up crying. And have never had a dream again about my Mother.

In October of this year I dreamed about Dad.  I couldn’t see him, but I could feel his absolutely happy and delighted persona.  He showed me a large postage stamp of the head of a Chinese Tiger in profile turned to the left.   There was Chinese calligraphy on the right side of the postage stamp.  It was a happy message being sent to me.  The significance?  I don’t know.

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Repeating Dreams:  When my mother was alive and I was going through personal problems, I repeatedly had the dream that Mom was driving a car (with me as passenger) up impossibly steep and rocky mountains.   Mom passed in 1995.  Then I began having dreams that I drove alone up an impossibly steep highway - very frightening.  I thought I was going to tip over backwards in the car. 

After my daughter visited me in 2001, I dreamed that I was driving my daughter.  We were in a rocky mountain pass when there was a sudden fork in the road.  "Which road?" I yelled.  "The right one!" said Kathreen.  The road she chose was bordered by bolders and heavy equipment operators - and this small road was impossibly steep.  As the car tipped up and up, my foot lost strength and I begged Kathreen to step on the gas.

With me, dreams/nightmares eventually revealed my inner struggles after I visually reproduced them in my art.  Not until I worked on "Chrysalis" for weeks did I begin to understand the tremendous metamorphosis I was going through at age 52. 

The image of a woman struggling out of a binding cocoon scared me.  Eventually this nightmare became  Chrysalis .

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Tricia Ann Dunn-Abramson (TADA) wrote the following poem "The Cause to Dream".  It helped her express and understand why we all dream and why it is so critical to our overall well-being; physical, mental, and spiritual. It also hints at the greatness we all bring into this realm with us from the other side of the veil.

Art Doorway

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