Can Dreams and Ancestors Help Us Find a Missing Person?

By Kelly Sullivan Walden, a featured speaker in the Ancestral Healing Summit
 

“Why, in God’s name, would you search for a missing person? You’re Doctor Dream, for God’s sake, not the Dream Detective!” my husband, Dana, beseeched, scratching his head.

He was right. 

We had enough drama in our combined families as it was, without me spending time I didn’t have looking for a young woman who’d been missing from my neighborhood for nine years, when the only foreseeable outcome would be murder, suicide, or abduction. Even in the best-case scenario, the fact that she’s been gone for so long probably meant she didn’t want to be found. But I’m getting ahead of myself… here’s what happened the day before…

I was jogging through the state park near my house, when I crossed paths with my neighbor, Sharon. We had the same workout timing: dusk—when the summer air was cooling down the canyon. Normally we’d just exchange pleasantries, but on this day, she hollered, “I hear you’re into dreams. I have really vivid ones… about my daughter.”

Slowing my jog slightly, not in social butterfly mode at all, I was on a mission to get in my work out before sunset, so I quipped over my shoulder, “Oh, cool, that’s great.”

She replied, “My daughter, Tess, has been missing for nine years. Everyone thinks she’s dead, but in my dream she’s still alive.”

Thud.

I screeched to a halt, causing pinkish dust to plume, as my body joined paces with hers. Ditching my workout plans, I removed my air buds to let this relative stranger fill my ears with the tragic tale of her daughter, “Tess was 29 when she went missing on November 17, 2012. She lived in here (in Topanga) but was last seen in Capitola Beach near Santa Cruz. If she’s still alive, she’d be 38. Her car was found nine years ago with no sign of foul play, with all her earthly belongings intact: clothing, wallet, money, keys, cell phone, groceries… everything but her blue ukulele, her most cherished possession.” 

We stopped to catch our breath. As the sun set over the canyon, she continued, “Over the years I’ve hired psychics, detectives, and psychic detectives, to no avail. My family believes Tess is dead… they’re all wanting a memorial service so we can properly grieve. But these dreams I have of her feel so real. In fact, in my dreams, she goes by the name Satya, which I looked up and discovered means Truth in Sanskrit.”

As Sharon and I continued hiking along the darkening red rocks, past caves, around roots jutting beneath the dusty path, Sharon told me Tess’ favorite movie was Into the Wild, a true story about a young man who left his car full of worldly possessions and ventured alone, into the woods. She described her daughter as talented, creative, spiritual, sensitive—maybe too sensitive for this world; emotionally erratic, nomadic, never keeping a job or a home for long, and often saying, “I don’t belong here… this world is not my home.” 

I asked Sharon if she’d ever heard of true crime podcasts, “Maybe one of them could help find your daughter,” I said, reaching for straws, desperate to be helpful. “These shows open cold cases to the public… and in some instances, missing people get found.”

“How could I get on one of those podcasts,” Sharon asked with a hopeful spark.

I heard myself stammer, my mouth running away, “Well…I…have a podcast…not that kind. Mine’s a mind/body/spirit/dream show—not true crime… but I also have a family in the investigation business… and because of my show, I have access to the world’s best healers and psychics. Maybe I can rally the troops to see if they can help...”

That night I told Dana all about my conversation with Sharon. This was when he interrogated me about why on earth I’d thought I could suddenly transform my Ask Doctor Dream podcast into a True Crime show.

To that, I rolled my eyes and said, “Since when do I ever do anything that makes sense? Let me sleep on it and see what my dreams have to say about whether or not I should do this.” 

That night I dreamed:

I’m having breakfast with a dark-haired woman (maybe Tess… or Satya). The waitress serves my breakfast, a platter of pink, heart-shaped, frosty cupcakes. “Lovely,” I thought, “But this is too much sugar for breakfast.”

Then the waitress brings the dark-haired woman eggs with broken yolks, with a side dish of unicorn, as a garnish. I gasped as I thought, “I want what she’s having.” 

Upon awakening, I interpreted the broken eggs as the tragic aspect of the situation with Tess/Satya, being un-yoked from her family. Whereas the unicorn symbolized that there could be magic involved (even if only a garnish). I felt this dream was a sign, giving me the impetus to embark on this nitty-gritty journey, while being on the lookout for the magic amid the tragic.

I immediately called my sister, Tawni, a Veronica Lake-look-alike private eye, straight out of a film noir detective movie, and she jumped on the case. A few days later, Sharon invited me to her house to go through boxes of Tess/Satya’s writing, including a book of original poetry entitled Crying in Public, and a song called Where You Belong.

A few weeks later, I took the leap into the mystery and started episode 1 of a special series within my Ask Doctor Dream Show, entitled, Searching for Satya, the Girl with the Blue Ukulele. My second episode featured a world-renowned healer, Judy Wilkens-Smith, a constellation therapist who said, “The family member who acts out the most, is often the one who’s volunteered to carry unresolved trauma from the family line, so the rest of the family doesn’t have to.”

Off air, Judy asked Sharon about any trauma that she knew of in her family line. She revealed that both sets of Tess’ grandparents survived the holocaust. In fact, Tess was originally going to be named Elsa, after her paternal grandmother, who survived Nazi concentration camps.

Wilkens-Smith said, “The family owes Tess/Satya a debt of gratitude for attempting to use her life in service of healing these unthinkable wounds.”

In the episodes that followed, in addition to meeting with the police who had been a part of her case, other family members, and Elias Lonsdale, an astrologer who conducted a dozen sessions with Tess/Satya, including one of the last calls before she went missing.

Two months into my investigation I made a list of the theories posed about what might’ve happened to Tess/Satya:

1. Murder
2. Abduction
3. In a cult
4. Homeless
5. A walk-in (another soul took over her body)
6. Inspired by the movie Into the Wild, living in the woods
7. Taken by aliens

Episode 7 brought a shock by the Palm Springs Psychic Medium, Timothy Courtney. Timothy had a successful track record working with the police, finding missing people. In his vision he saw Tess/Satya had been abducted and murdered 9 years ago, soon after she went missing. He described the gruesome details of her struggle and ultimate drowning. “But” he said, “she wants you to know that from the moment of her death, she’s been home… in her true home… no longer suffering. She’s deeply sorry to have caused you and your family so much heartache. Your dreams about her are her showing you she’s still alive, not physically, but spiritually.”

Despite this being devastating news for Sharon (and all who’d been involved in the case), there was also a strange peace that rippled through Sharon to all of us. “At least my baby hasn’t been suffering… and she hasn’t been avoiding me all these years. The thought of her being at peace is all I really care about. But… before I give up, I need another message to confirm she is truly on the other side… I can’t just give up without knowing for sure.”

A couple of days later, Sharon received an urgent voicemail from Elias, the astrologer, who had no idea about Timothy’s psychic reading. Elias revealed that his wife, who’d never met Tess/Satya, had just awoken from a vivid dream. In her dream, she was shopping at her local Farmer’s Market and was introduced to Tess, a petite woman with long dark hair who immediately said, “Please tell my mother you saw me and that I’m no longer Tess…nor Satya…I now go by Elsa. I’m at peace and I am HOME.” 

Elias’s wife said she became flooded with the most extraordinary light…that filled their house even after she woke up.

With that, Sharon broke down in tears. Elsa was Tess’ grandmother who’d survived the holocaust—the one after whom no one but Sharon and her ex-husband knew Tess was going to be named. Tess had now claimed the name of her brave matriarch, and in so doing, gave her mother, Sharon, the final confirmation she needed to call a family meeting to discuss, after nine long, hard years, a memorial service—a service that would not only honor Tess, but Elsa and the rest of the family who had been long overdue for a proper honoring.
 

Kelly Sullivan Walden is on a mission to awaken the world to the power of dreams. Known as one of America’s premiere dream analysts, Kelly has authored more than 10 books, including the recently released Luminous Humanness: 365 Ways to Go, Grow & Glow to Make it Your Best Year Yet. She is the co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Dreams and The Unexplainable and Chicken Soup for the Soul: Dreams and Premonitions, and the multi-award-winning author of The Hero’s Journey Dream Oracle cards, journal, meditations, and app.

As a dream expert, Kelly is a regular guest on many national talk shows, including The Dr. Oz Show, The Real, Coast to Coast AM, and Hallmark’s Home & Family. She’s decoded dreams for celebrities such as Topher Grace, Stassi Schroeder, Logan Paul, Rikki Lake, The Real Housewives of Orange County, and Dancing with the Stars’ Maksim Chmerkovskiy, to name just a few.

Kelly is a certified clinical hypnotherapist whose unique approach to dream therapy led her to become a trusted advisor, enriching the lives of thousands of individuals, including Fortune 500 executives, UN ambassadors, celebrities, inner-city kids, and stay-at-home moms. She is an inspirational speaker, workshop facilitator, and the host of the Ask Dr. Dream podcast. You can learn more at her website.