I've been in a safe, secure marriage for ten years. I have two wonderful daughters, and my life is blessed with good health and a great family. Here's the problem: I have the most vivid, intense, passionate dreams. Often in these dreams, I'll reunite with ex-boyfriends, and when I wake up, I can't shake the feeling that I am deeply in love with them. It leaves me feeling like I took the wrong path in life. Sometimes I want to just dream my life away, and sometimes I'm actually afraid to fall asleep, because my dreams seem more real than my waking life, and I'm afraid sometimes that I may never wake up. It can take days for me to shake just one dream. Please help me. I feel like I'm losing touch with reality, and am afraid to talk to anyone about this because they might think I'm crazy.
- Dreamer
Dreamchaser:
I think you already know what is going on here, but you don't really want to face it. You said you were in a safe, secure marriage with two wonderful daughters, good health and a great family, but you did NOT mention that you were in love, felt loved, or were in any way satisfied.
I believe your gut told you when you were making this choice that you were choosing safety and security over being IN love. You were content with that choice when you made it because of what was going on in your life at the time.
Now, however, you are bored out of your mind. You are too honest and upright to go out and have affairs, however, so you dream. You dream of past boyfriends, of men you lust after that you would never dare proposition, and of men you have never and will never meet.
In those dreams you carry on in all kinds of ways. You do and say and think whatever you want. You are wanton and you are fulfilled. You are brazen and satisfied. When you wake up, it's very hard for you to leave behind the unbridled passion of your dreams for your "cookie cutter" existence.
As I often explain here, many people lead two very different lives. One is the life they lead while they are awake, and the other is the life they lead while they are sleeping and dreaming. I have actually heard of this "phenomenon" that you are experiencing many times. People who are bored, critically ill, shut in, etc., tend to live more in the astral world than they do in the physical world.
Now I must remind you that there are four equal dimensions of experience: spiritual, mental, emotional and physical. The physical is what people tend to view as either the only reality or at least the most important one. You lead different lives on all those levels. Your "safe and secure" life is just your experience on the physical plane.
Throughout the ages, many types of people have believed in the power of dreaming. Australian aborigines, for example, believed that in Dreamtime, beings with great powers would either arise from the ground, come down from the sky, or appear on the horizon and lend their powers to the dreamer.
I think you wake up with feelings of love that you bring back from your own personal Dreamtime. Since you can't love with abandon in your physical world, you do it in your dreams. Then you come back to the physical plane with a "love hangover." If you want greater fulfillment, I encourage you to explore what these dream experiences may reveal about your repressed needs.
I wish you fulfillment in every dimension.
*****
Astrea:
Though it seems you have a perfect life, something must be bothering you to cause you to want to stay in that dream world. Perhaps things are on SUCH an even keel in your waking life that your subconscious is looking for a way to keep you alert and entertained.
This sort of experience is not as unusual as you might think. After being happily married for as long as you have, many people end up not getting enough stimulation while they're awake - at least, not enough to be completely happy. You shouldn't be afraid of your dreams. Dreams are just dreams! Nothing is going to happen in your waking life that you don't want to happen. From what you wrote in your question, you seem in complete control of yourself.
What you are experiencing is a need to search within yourself for some new sense of purpose. Everything you're doing now, you can handle, but your mind yearns for more challenge. Just because it picked the old boyfriends doesn't mean that's what you're seeking. You ARE looking for something to shake up your life, something to excite you, something that YOU can be excited about doing.
What are your interests outside of taking care of yourself and your family? It's time to expand your world to include something for which you can feel real PASSION. If you like to volunteer, now would be a great time to be certified by the Red Cross or to join a group devoted to hurricane relief.
There are all kinds of activities that would be worthy of your time and energy, but you should try to find something that fulfills you in a DIFFERENT way than your family does. Once you become passionate about doing something outside of all that seems to be good and perfect but ORDINARY for you, those crazy dreams will stop.
Feeling that you are "losing touch with reality" is NOT a good thing, Kiddo. The good news is that you are not crazy - you are just bored. Many times deep desires and issues will manifest so clearly in our dreams that we KEEP the dream feeling going when we wake up. Everyone experiences this at times of stress, and if you're having dreams that seem so much more real to you than your waking life, it's time to examine what is stressing you beneath the perfect surface of your waking life, and then make some appropriate changes.
You have to be able to enjoy being awake just as much as you enjoy dreaming, one way or another. Find and make a passionate choice to do something very DIFFERENT from what you're used to doing. It will really clear your mind of all that foggy stuff!
Astrea:
Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.
Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!
While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!
I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!
As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.
I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.
You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!
Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.
A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.
You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.