I guess a better question would be, “Can dreams come true?” The question to that one would be a cautious, “Yes.” I say cautious because they don’t come true BECAUSE we dreamed them. What’s more, they usually don’t play out the way we dreamed them.

I’ve told a lot of dreamers I’ve talked to lately that I’d try to explain everything to them about prophetic dreams or, simply put, when our dreams seem to come true.

Some people are, by nature, more intuitive than others. This means they are more “tuned into” or “dialed into” the world around them. Usually these people are also hyper, hyper sensitive. This doesn’t mean that they go around getting their feelings hurt all the time (though their feelings are easily hurt). It simply means that they FEEL things more strongly than other people. These are the people who cry easily when watching a sad movie or laugh uncontrollably when watching an old episode of The Andy Griffith Show. Often these people even get teary-eyed when an Olympian wins a gold medal – it’s as though they FEEL what the athlete is feeling.

These people are so intuitive to things and people around them that they can often perceive when trouble is brewing.

Here’s One Example:

A dreamer contacted me about a year ago about her sister’s car wreck. She was completely beside herself because she had dreamed that her sister was in a wreck – and three days later she WAS. The dreamer was extremely shaken, for obvious reasons. (The sister was treated in the hospital and released the next day.) I asked a few questions and learned that:

• The dreamer had always told her sister to slow down, because she drove too fast.
• The dreamer always suspected that her sister was guilty of texting when driving.

So, the dreamer worried a lot about her older sister. She was intuitive enough to know that her sister was, pretty much, a wreck waiting to happen. Her “prophetic dream” was really nothing more than her mind worrying as much while asleep as it did while awake!

I also learned that the dreamer felt guilty that she didn’t tell her sister about her dream. She told me that if her sister had died and she hadn’t told her about the dream, she would have kicked herself forever. I pointed out that as long as she’d warned her about her reckless driving, she’d more than done her part!

Intuitive people seem to “see” things coming.  So much so that not listening to them seems kind of silly, doesn’t it?

Another thing that can lead to so-called Prophetic Dreams is just pure old snake-bitten worry.

Here’s An Example:

I remember a dreamer (a mother of four little boys under the age of 12, bless her heart!) once sending me one of the most heart-felt and emotionally charged e-mails I’ve ever gotten. She’d had a dream that something happened to one of her precious little boys. The grisly details and horror of the situation had left her (understandably) shaken.  Our e-mails went back and forth a few times and it turns out that within one year:

• She had lost her job.
• An uncle had been diagnosed with cancer.
• A grandmother died.
• Her mother had a heart attack.

As I pointed out to her, her brain was pretty much taxed and wondering, “What next?!?!”  In a worst case scenario type of reenactment, her brain played out the most horrific thing that could conceivably happen next.  I think in a lot of ways our brains try to “brace” us for horrible things – especially when (like the mother of the 4 boys) we’ve been through so much. It’s as though the brain says, “Well, that, that, that, and that caught me off guard and nearly destroyed me… what horrible thing could possibly happen next?”  For protective parents, 9 times out of 10 that scenario will involve our children or grandchildren.

No dream tells the future in the sense that it has some sort of mystical power.  That simply does not exist.  Can dreams seem to be prophetic? Of course.  But it’s the situations and circumstances surrounding us that leads to the dreams and the more intuitive a person is, the more intense the dreams will be.

People who believe in mystical Prophetic Dreams almost always point to the “prophetic” dream that Abraham Lincoln had.  He dreamed that he was killed. Given the fact that he was right in the middle of a major war and given the fact that many, many, many people (ignorantly) hated him, I’d say the dream made perfect sense!  Of course he felt like people wanted to kill him… some did!  I believe President Lincoln was one of the most intuitive people to have ever lived. He FELT the pain of slavery, even though he was not a slave.  He FELT the pain of his fellow countrymen – from the North and the South.  He FELT that many foolish people wanted him dead.

His dream makes perfect sense to me.

If you seem to have prophetic dreams, remember:

1. You are, no doubt, very intuitive. This is a gift, not a curse.  Being more tuned into the world around you than the average person is is a blessing in disguise.  When you dream that a loved one has been hurt, ask yourself, “Did they do something recently that made me worry about them?” If it’s a child, this one will certainly be easy to answer – everything they do makes us worry!  Ask yourself if you read, saw, or heard about someone else experiencing the type of thing in your dream. Many people will see a fight or death scene in a movie and “act it out” in different ways in dreams – sometimes weeks later.
2. If life has been unkind to you lately, your mind is still trying to wrap itself around everything! The brain tries to process things even while we’re sleeping. It’ll act out really bizarre scenarios trying to make sense out of things that have happened.
3. If you’ve experienced tragedies in your life – whether it’s the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, or a broken relationship – know that your brain will “act out” in your dreams. It will probably involve people who had nothing to do with the tragedy or tragedies at all. Again, it’s the brain’s way of bracing for the worst.  It’s like, “You weren’t braced for that… let me brace you for the absolute worst case scenario.”

One final example:

I, myself, once had a nightmare involving one of my daughters. Being a dreamologist, the first thing I did when I woke up was try to wrap my mind around the dream. It didn’t take long for me to remember that a few weeks before the dream, I’d seen her reach across a candle so closely that the sleeve of her gown nearly touched the fire.  Being a mother, I of course, told her she could’ve caught on fire!  As I was telling her how careful she needed to be, I listed other times when she’d barely escaped harm because she didn’t “pay enough attention to what was going on around her.”

All of this was fresh in my mind, apparently, because my brain played out a little movie, “What Will Happen if She Doesn’t Start Paying Attention!”

I hear from so many people about prophetic dreams and my heart goes out to them because, more times than not, they’re trying to protect someone they love. I just want to say that your dream does not mean they will get hurt. If they do something that worries you (such as the dreamer’s sister who drove too fast AND texted while driving or my own little live wire who never seemed to see past her own little nose!), calmly tell them that they’re worrying you and make them promise to be more careful.  DO NOT tell small children or anyone who’s easily alarmed about a dream, though.  The goal isn’t to scare the wits out of someone!

Always remember that dreams are just dreams, nothing more… nothing less. It’s your brain acting out scenes and situations while you’re sleeping.  It’s not a crystal ball – there is no such thing.

Finally, some people who talk to me about these dreams and/or thoughts are often frustrated because other people don’t seem to believe them or they sort of make light of the situation.  Not everyone understands what it’s like to be as intuitive as you are.   Some people don’t understand that some people seemingly have a stronger connection to the world around them than they do. They’re more dialed in!  Also, some people seem to have powerful connections between them – very special bonds. Parents and children, couples, and even siblings often have the bond.  We are able to SEE potential for harm in someone’s life when we share a special bond with them. But the key word is potential.

Keep the sister who sped and texted in your mind. OF course there was potential for harm with her – she set the stage for it!

When disturbing dreams get you down or scare you speechless, take a deep breath.  Remember all the dreams you’ve had that didn’t seem to come true at all.  Think clearly and rationally and I know you’ll feel better right away.  The more you worry and fret over a dream, the more likely you are to have similar dreams.  This is why it’s VITAL to make peace with the dream and put it out of your mind as soon as possible.

Sweet dreams!