Another great piece from you, J, and enjoyable read.

Thank you for the compliment on my dream interpretations. That really made me smile. For me, my dreams are as important as my waking life. When I was young and having vivid dreams that left me quite emotional, I'd be told that they are "just dreams" as if I should just forget about them. It made me wonder why I would have them then and why they affected me so much if they were unimportant and not to be examined. But I trusted my parents to know what is best, so I didn't question it much further, though it didn't stop my dreams or the affect they sometimes had on me.

When I was 11, I had a dream that really affected me, so much so that I still recall it well today (33 years later). I dreamed that I was at my 12th birthday party dinner taking place in a dimly lit Italian restaurant and with all of my family and extended family attending. I was wearing denim bib-overall coolots (ha ha, I thought they were the coolest apparel ever at the time).

Everyone was eating and chatting. I sat at the head of the table, so not right close next to anyone. The lighting was soft orange-yellow, but otherwise quite dark. Just then a golden light appeared behind and next to me illuminating an escalator (of glass and gold light). My Mom's sister (who was living at the time) was standing next to me at the base of this escalator. She was wearing a cream-colored robe (like a Grecian robe).

I suppose she spoke to me telepathically, telling me to come with her and ascend the escalator steps. No one else around me had noticed this scene and they carried on obliviously. I was rather amazed by it all, including that no one else seemed to be seeing or experiencing this golden light scene. I followed my aunt up the escalator, excited at what was happening, but also a bit concerned in trying to understand it all.

When we reached the top of the escalator, I ceased to see the restaurant. I was now in a plain room with a wooden floor and a large wooden table. My grandpa and grandma who had recently passed away, were there, along with a lot of other people who I somehow knew were family, though I didn't really know them. I also realized that it was a waiting room of sorts. They were all wearing white robes and waiting for something (maybe for the whole family to join them eventually). This dream ties in with my Mormon upbringing and its belief of a waiting stage before the second-coming and resurrection.

Grandma smiled at me, but I could tell she couldn't see me. She was holding a tiny baby. Grandpa was frowning and not looking in my direction. I asked my aunt why Grandpa was frowning as he never really frowned around me when he was alive. She said it was because he didn't know I was there. She said Grandma knew though (but couldn't see me).

It was so white and bright in this waiting room and here I was wearing denim coolots. It made me feel out of place and I wanted to fit in. I saw a closet with white robes hanging inside. I asked my Aunt, who was wearing a cream colored robe (not white, and I later determined it meant she was an intermediary) if I could put on a robe like everyone else. She said, "You can try." I walked over to the closet and reached out for a robe, but my hand went through it. I tried a few more times, but though I could see the robes and they looked solid, they were not.

When I woke from this dream I was utterly stunned. I didn't know what it meant except that it felt so incredibly real and it had to do with dying and therefore must mean I am going to die on my 12th birthday. I ran to tell my mom about the dream. She listened and then assured me that I was not going to die on my birthday. But I didn't agree with her. The dream felt so real and so meaningful to me, and that was my interpretation (which I now know was my fear interpretation). And that is one of the biggest hiccups in divination and dream interpretation - the fear factor. It will come in and skew the message. Hope/desire will, too.

I had a bit of anxiety in the next week or so leading up to my birthday, but of course I didn't die on my 12th. I now have many years to look back with a bit more wisdom and I can see that if anything, the message was that I was not going to die on my 12th birthday (couldn't put on the robe). And that others who have died continue on in some way. I told the dream to another aunt of mine who gasped and said that the baby was hers. I had not made the connection that she had lost a baby shortly after it was born a year before the dream. Telling her my dream really ended up affecting her. Which in turn really affected me knowing that she also believed my dream was somehow real.

While I'm at it, I will say that two years ago I had visions and dreams that showing me that I would die soon. And once again, fear convoluted my interpretation of the dream and demanded that I find out exactly when. I recorded it all in my journal though it's too lengthy to relay here. But the dates I came up with were all wrong. And one thing I can say about it all is that, again, looking back on it, though I was not told a specific time or date, only that I would die, I began "reading" dates and times into when this death will occur. And that is where the convolution comes in. Fear demands control, and control demands answers, specifics. And "that" is where I believe prophecy and prediction goes awry. It is the same for Harold Camping and other doomsday prophets. They/we start to see patterns, and the underlying fear in facing these vague assurities demands we try to find a specific answer so we can relax and "know", and thus we begin to grasp at synchroncities and read specifics from them. We lose sight of living in the "now" in faith because we have to know what will happen "then" and "when". We aren't trusting flow and letting go...we are scrambling to control/know the future. Yet it is not ours to know/control as we are "here" for the "ride". Que sera sera!

It might be different if I had a dream in which I was told and shown verbatim, "Alisa, you will die/depart your physical vehicle on xx.xx.xx at xx am/pm." But that was not the case. Instead, whether it is tarot, dreams, etc., it is shown in symbols and thus is up to interpretation. So grasping onto any cold hard facts will be a stab in the dark. Thus is the nature of spirit, to provide a chance to see the many possibilities and probabilities, not to dictate which of those will ultimately, absolutely eventuate.

Unlike physicality, where laws (physics) demand consensus and repeatable outcomes, spirit will not conform to specific rules/laws. Spirit offers us choice every time. If it has any rule at all, it is that you must choose constantly how you will view it because it does not have any attributes that are fixed. It is always up to interpretation. I may see a vision of a big orange ball and be delighted by it, whereas another might have the same vision and find it the most frightening harbinger of bad news ever. But the vision of the big orange ball is neither one nor the other. It simply is all possible interpretations.

To sum up my belief and opinion, the answers are all around for us to see and divine through which ever method suits us. The way to become clearer about "it all" is to become more conscious and realize/recognize our fears and desires so that they will be less apt to convolute our "seeing". However, I feel that once fears and desires are fully realized, "seeing" is just "being".

Deep...

I better get an apple and I'll see if I can cut off the peel in one long strand. I'm pretty sure it should form into DC, though I bet I get the same answer as you due to the possums around here.