Dreams Can Bring Helpful Dream Voices and Useful Health Information

By Jane Carleton
 

“You have cancer.”

I woke from sleep with a voice calmly telling me this.

I’ve heard this voice before, giving me good information. Once, it insistently told me to “Go to ancestry.com." And because I followed that advice, I met the beloved brother and family I never knew, which changed my life and healed me deeply.

I remember thinking, Well, if this is true, how am I going to figure out where the cancer might be? I went about my life as usual but increased my diligence with preventative exams. I certainly didn’t want to worry about cancer! Analyzing the dream from a psychological approach yielded a little insight about how I was living my life but was not adequate for a full exploration of this dream.

This was a year or so before my diagnosis of thyroid cancer in 2019.

In retrospect, I realize it would have been a good idea to review my dream journals for other hints about my health, because when I eventually did, I found a doozy. Another good idea would have been to do a dream reentry process to go back inside the dream and get more information. We can do these things, but I was too busy to take the time.

On a side note, a few years ago I had chronic back pain and a doctor recommended cortisone injections. I mulled it over, and soon had a dream of meeting with a doctor who said, “You don’t need cortisone treatment.” So, I decided to forgo it. My back healed just fine with exercise and therapy. My dream doctor was right.

Shortly before my diagnosis, I was invited to present a talk on inner voice experiences as dream events at a regional dream conference for the International Association for the Study of Dreams. I reviewed my dream journals seeking new interesting dream stories to tell.

And I found I had dreamed a cancer warning dream three years earlier. You know the kind, the dreams we were diligent enough to log at 3:00am but then promptly forgot.

In my dream, I’m in an examination room with a doctor in a white coat. She’s petite, with short brown hair and a very strong and direct personality, very confident and highly capable. She tells me, “If you don’t find a way to reduce your stress, get more rest, and find more balance in your life, you’re at risk for developing cancer. It’s not there now, but the way you’re living is a formula for developing cancer.”

I tell her she is a great teacher, and has she ever thought of teaching about health? She ignores this, looks at me closely and says. “You need to take me seriously. Reduce your stress, get more rest, and have more fun!”

I had the dream during the time I had recently opened my combination jewelry appraisal and dreamwork office and was teaching a graduate course on dreaming. I was working absurdly long days and nights and had plenty of stress. I was living out of balance.

The medical warning came true. After my diagnosis, I scheduled my appointment with a surgeon. When she walked into the room wearing her white coat, I recognized her from the dream. She was strong, direct, petite with short brown hair as described, a top surgeon and professor at UCSF medical center. I was thrilled to learn later the crew talked about dreams during my surgery, inspired by the dream I had shared with them. And happily, all is well now with my health.

It was a powerful dream, longer than described here. I found a total of 10 things that came true, later, within that dream, some literally and some symbolically. It’s the kind of dream you can revisit many times and find more insight each time you do.

So, what have I learned? It’s important to remember that if we pay attention to good advice that comes through in our dreams, we may find ourselves very glad we did. It’s an excellent idea to review our dream journals regularly, and mine our dreams for those wonderful varieties of hidden jewels that lay waiting to be discovered. They really may just change our lives.

And when life is too busy and I need a reminder to slow down, I remember my dream doctor who came to visit with such excellent advice. She is a true ally.

You truly can polish your dreams into gems of insight, healing, and adventure!
 

Jane Carleton specializes in dreams as a personal advisor, educator, and dream group leader. She has earned two graduate degrees in Dream Studies, and Consciousness and Transformative Studies at JFK University and has taught graduate dream courses at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She is a graduate of Robert Moss’s School of Active Dreaming and has worked with Robert since 2004. She is a presenting member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams and has won their Dream Telepathy Contest. She has frequently travelled to Bali, Indonesia, where Jane spent a year living and leading dream workshops. There, she independently researched Balinese dreams and cosmology and until the fall of 2014 studied with I Gusti Made Pujana, a beloved Balinese traditional healer. 

Jane's chapters on how dreams can change your life are found in two anthologies: Rebearths: Conversations with a World Ensouled, edited by Craig Chalquist, PhD, and Chicken Soup for the Soul: Dreams and Premonitions, edited by Amy Newmark and Kelly Sullivan Walden.

Her work is academically savvy and intuitive. Jane's approach to dreams includes contemporary and cross-cultural experiential and transformative dreaming techniques and the wisdom gained from the many ways dreams have transformed her own life and the lives of her clients. It's all about dreams and gems...as a Graduate Gemologist since 1984 she pursues two careers: as a dream specialist and fine jewelry appraiser. The presence of gems in dreams is always interesting, and Jane knows all dreams have hidden gems ready to be uncovered, literally and figuratively.