Do your dreams mean anything?

Dear Readers,

You may wonder why I discuss my personal stories on a professional platform. This is because I believe that nuances from our personal lives shape who we are at work. I believe both are interlinked.

So, here is another story from my childhood which has had a great impact on making me who I am today as a person and a professional.

The story starts with my mother and a dream. By dream here I mean the mental, emotional, and sensory experiences that take place while we are asleep.

If I come to think of it now, we were a weird family.

We believed in dreams. Often discussing them in detail, extracting meanings and contemplating over them for days. In hindsight there was always a clear meaning or message, but we never actually did anything about what we assumed the message was. We were just in awe of being able to decode the dreams as per our understanding. Being together gave us a strength that honed our 'spiritual connection' even further while we took pleasure in unlocking life’s mysteries.

As a young girl, my sixth sense was as sharp as a knife, often sensing an event before it occurred. But then time happened, I moved out of the house and I also stopped dreaming, literally. The razor sharpness of my mind's eye seemed to blur after the connection broke. Two decades of my life, when I was focused on raising a family and following a daily existential routine, my interest in life's mystery called dreams seemed to have gotten buried somewhere.

Over the years, we dispersed as a family. Last year, we lost our central pillar of strength, our beloved mother. The interest in the mysteries of the world and dreams was instilled in us by her. While she loved spiritual mysteries and dreams, and took lessons from them, she never never let her life be ruled by them. As a person, my mother was a warm woman who opened her heart and home to everyone. Her trials and tribulations as an orphan shaped her early life, instilling a strong will to overcome odds at all costs. While life pulled her back on several occasions, she pushed back at it with all her might, and I admired her mental strength. She went onto to become the first woman to achieve the highest levels of education in her family, opening a path for other females in the family to follow. Over time, she led a successful career while juggling a home, husband and four children. A social and popular person in the community, she broke glass ceilings in ways she had never imagined she could, while making a name for herself in the process. In short, she achieved so much in her life, and could have easily strutted around bragging about her success. But she always had her feet firmly planted on the ground, and one day she told me the reason why.

She sat me down and narrated a dream she had before even she knew that she would hit milestones in her life.

In her own words:

"I dreamt that I am in my old school. It is dark and cold. In the far distance I see a woman, who I have never seen before, sitting on stool grinding wheat on a stone mill. I go near her and see that she is dressed all in black. She has a skin the colour of gold, a wide forehead and jet black hair that was parted in the centre peaking through a head covering. I go and sit down infront of her, intrigued. She stops what she is doing and looks straight into my eyes and says "God likes humbleness" and then goes back to doing what she was doing. I then wake up."

After narrating her dream, my mother then looked straight into my eyes and said, "You too will achieve much success in life, but never become a proud person." I listened to her with wide-eyed awe. In my mind's eye, I could also visualize her dream and hence, her advice went straight to my heart.

My mother's words came true. I have achieved much success and happiness in life, in all aspects. I am blessed. But I have never forgotten my mother's words, a message passed on to her randomly through a dream which she chose to heed.

So, yes, I believe in dreams and the messages they give us, having had several of my own true to life experiences.

On a lighter note, lots of theories have been offered on why we dream and what dreams mean. Theories suggest that dreams are used to regulate emotion, like dealing with fears; to consolidate memory, replaying things from our day to help remember them; to solve, or on the other hand to forget, real-world problems. Another theory suggests they help the brain predict its own future states.

Whatever the reason, believe in your dreams especially if the outcome can make even a small difference in your life or maybe impact someone else.

Keep dreaming!

Ciao, until next time lovely people

Love,

Asma