Once my career as a psychic was under way, more and more clients were asking for my help with interpreting their dreams.
In most situations, I don't mind a bit saying the words 'I don't know'. But when a client wants and needs something from me, I owe them better than a shrug and a simple 'Beats me'. So it was for my clients' benefit as well as my own insatiable curiosity that I made it my business to unravel the mysteries of dreams as best I could, to the point where for many years I had the pleasure of teaching very successful dream interpretation classes to the growing number of clients who were as fascinated as I was.
And then one day I found myself so shaken by a dream that I went to one of my professors for help, and the value of decoding a message received in dreams hit home like it never had before. It was during a period of huge personal upheaval in my life, which, by the way, is when our sleep adventures tend to be more vivid, intense, and meaningful than ever. I was juggling my two full-time careers, as both a psychic and a schoolteacher, taking an advanced hypnosis class, and most of all, in the midst of a nasty divorce from my first husband Gary. There was no dispute over money or property, since neither Gary nor I had any money or property to fight over. But there was a huge, ugly dispute over the custody of our two precious little sons, Paul and Chris, and our beautiful foster daughter, Mary, and I wasn't about to let anyone on this earth separate me from my children, period. It was a painful, terrifying time that I can still feel in the pit of my stomach as I write about it now, thirty years later.
In my dream, at the height of my fear, I was standing in a classroom, tightly holding my three children Paul, Chris, and Mary, who were huddled beside me, the four of us in the centre of a protective circle I'd drawn on the floor. Several androgynous, non-threatening figures wearing faceless green masks were walking single file around the outside of the circle, chanting, 'Beware of the three, beware of the three,' over and over again. The figures themselves didn't frighten me, but their repeated warning did, and I woke feeling helpless and more afraid than I'd ever felt in my life.
I was awake and almost frantic the rest of that night trying to make sense of what 'beware of the three' could possibly mean. What 'three' was I supposed to beware of? Surely it wasn't the three innocent children I was trying so fiercely to protect. Was it an upcoming date for a custody hearing that wasn't going to go well for us, maybe the 'third' of the month, or 'three' months later? Had my estranged husband somehow manufactured 'three' charges against me to try to convince the judge that I was an unfit mother? Most unthinkable of all, was I getting a premonition to emotionally brace myself because I was going to lose these 'three' children, which I'm not at all sure I could have survived? I must have come up with a thousand possibilities that night while I paced around the house like a lunatic, but none of them felt quite right, let alone offered the kind of help a warning like that should give. I've always said, I'll vigilantly beware of an enemy, I'll bravely square off with an enemy, but I can't do a thing unless I know what or who the enemy is.
Luckily, I was studying hypnosis at the time, and my professor was a genius about the workings of the subconscious mind, including the messages it sends through dreams, and I still count him among my most trusted and insightful colleagues. I was waiting outside his office when he arrived that morning. I was so frantic by then that I hope I didn't grab him by the lapels, but I can't swear I didn't. He patiently led me to the chair beside his desk and simply said, 'Tell me what's wrong'.
I filled him in on the fierce custody battle that was consuming my life and then described my dream, in all its disturbing detail. I don't cry often, especially in front of other people. I cried that morning.
'You wouldn't think a psychic of all people would feel this helpless', I told him, 'but as you know, I'm not one bit psychic about myself. If that dream was trying to tell me something and I blow this custody case because I didn't understand the message, I'll never forgive myself. What am I missing, John? What could 'beware of the three' possibly mean?'
His smile was patient and compassionate. 'Tell me', he said, 'who's fighting against you for custody? Who's trying to take your children away from you?'
That was easy. 'My husband, his mother, and believe it or not, my mother.'
Instead of pointing out the obvious, he let me catch on all by myself. It took me a few seconds, but finally I added, 'In other words, three people. Three people I need to beware of'. I was hit with that wave of relief that comes when you know something right and true has just been uncovered. The dream wasn't some dire prediction. It wasn't teasing me with mysterious new information in a kind of infuriating guessing game. It was simply clarifying and reminding me to stay focused on the three people who were conspiring to use my children to hurt me.
I felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders as I left John's office that morning. The fear that had kept me awake and pacing most of the night was replaced by a sense of resolved power, like when you turn on a bright light and discover that the terrifying, shadowy monster in the corner of your bedroom is nothing but a pile of clothes on a chair. My lawyer and I paid even closer attention to 'the three' from that day on and, because we did, we won. I was awarded full custody of my children. Thank God.
If any one event sealed my commitment to explore the world of sleep and make its magic more available and understandable to my clients and myself, it was that dream, its aftermath and everything I learned from the experience.
I learned that there's valuable clarity to be found while we sleep if we can just master the vocabulary to translate it.
I learned firsthand how lost, confused and often frightened my clients felt when they came to me for help with their dreams, and I promised God and myself I would do everything in my power not to let them down.
I learned how important objectivity is when trying to figure out the purpose of a dream, and how easy it is for the conscious mind to overcomplicate a dream's meaning when very often the simplest answer is the right one.
I learned, above all, that the sleep world is richer, more varied, and far more vast than I ever imagined and that dreams are only the beginning of that world.
From Sylvia Browne's Book of Dreams, copyright 2002 by Sylvia Browne, published in the UK by Judy Piatkus (Publishers) Ltd.
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