Dreams

My awesome friend, Maren, and I have a fun thing in common: our dreams at night. She has some of the most amazing dreams I have ever heard. She goes to places in her dreams at night that most of us have never been to during the day. It's wild.

Many people do not recall their dreams the next day. I LOVE waking up and realizing that I had so much going on all night long! Often times though, I realize that my dream was not a dream at all, but a message. Heavenly Father speaks to each of us in our own special way. For some people, it's through their dreams. I have felt for the longest time that He communicated to me through them. (Some of you are now leaving the building. It's all good.) Anyway, I know that I need to pay attention to my dreams. Amazing things have happened when I have listened to them.

Many years ago, I was having a dream about a cousin of mine. I rarely saw her so I found it odd that I would dream about her. In the dream she decided to go on a trip to the beach alone. While she was there she was brutally attacked. I continued to have this dream and several promptings about it while I was awake. I was initially embarrassed to call my cousin, so I called my aunt and discussed this with her instead. I knew she would not think I was strange. (Her mother was a tarot card reader.) I told my aunt this story, and said that I just needed to know if her daughter (who is a grown woman) was planning on going to the beach any time soon, and told her about my dream. It was winter time, so it made me doubt the dream. The goosebumps spread like wildfire all over my body as my aunt said, "You know, she just asked me to go to the beach with her because she didn't want to go alone. I told her I wasn't' going to go. I think I will now." I'll never forget that experience, and it has made me pay attention to my dreams ever since.

Many other similar experiences (not quite so dramatic) have happened since that time. One of my most recent dreams was that I had decided to go to college. In the morning, I woke up and had this extreme desire to go to school. After much thought and much sharing (thanks Amy, Leah & Maren), I decided to go. I started last week and am so happy about it. It has been a life-long dream to go to college. I really don't know if I would have even thought it possible if I would not have had that dream. It felt like a prompting, and I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for it.

My son, Josh, is going to be a big dreamer too. I don't know about promptings or any of that, but he has a heck of a good time while he sleeps. He wakes up many mornings with a story to tell. The other day, he said, "Mom, I was traded last night." He explained that he was traded to another football team in the area. He dreams about sports A LOT. How funny. Last night, he dreamed the show, Extreme Home Makeover, gave him a million piece Lego set. Then he went to the beach and saw an eel and a giant octopus. How much fun is that for a 10-year-old boy?