What Do You Believe?

And yes, this is a real photo of my brain...

Not sure what to make of this, but I'm questioning my dreams lately. Sometimes they make sense, and other times, they just sort of linger into this fog of curiosity. There are many people who say they can interpret dreams and I even went to a psychologist who currently still does "dream therapy" - where she could analyze your subconsciousness by what you dreamt about. It's an amazing technique so I hear, but I never wanted to go that route because I'm not 100% convinced that dreams are our subconsciousness telling us messages about ourselves, or if it's our brain going haywire for a few hours just because it's on "down time".  Have you ever dreamt of something so awful that you didn't even want to repeat it?  You try and figure it all out, but nothing ever comes of it. Meaningless really. Or is it? What about dreaming about lost loved ones who have crossed over ~to the other side~ or dreams that are supposedly "intuitive" that'll save your life. Should we listen to every single dream that warns us about something or chuck it up to our tired lil' noggin?

Let me explain why I'm writing this post... Last night I saw Dad in my dreams. Maybe it was because I posted about Dad yesterday, or just had him on my mind lately. Strange, because I prayed for him to visit me in my dreams yesterday. If you had read my post from yesterday, as I was typing the part talking about being by the ocean with him, I actually heard the waves crashing. It was so real and so strange... Some people believe that you should pray or ask your loved one to wake you up after they visit you.  Well, I tried it. It finally worked. In my dream, I found myself in my Dad's 'man cave' with my dog. There he was, sitting in his chair with dark brown hair, a dark blue shirt and his work jeans smoking a cigarette. He said, "Ha, look! That dog's getting big!" I had Lola on a leash and said, "Yeah, she gained a few pounds," not realizing it was a visit - actually thinking it was an everyday normal occurrence that Dad was hanging around. Then, right in the midst of my dream, it hit me - Dad! Oh, wait! ---He looked at me and knew my 'subconscious' had awoken. I said, "Hiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!!" --Waving at him like a big ol' fool. He started laughing, nodding his head like, "Yep, this is a visit kid," and went on to consume the last drag of his cigarette. Then I woke up. I wasn't disturbed by it, nor was I overly emotional about it. It felt like the norm. It felt like another day with Dad -- nothing more, nothing less. Just Dad. The only thing different was that he had dark brown hair instead of his silver hair. Either that's how I wanted to remember him or he got his hair color from a box up in heaven.

Even when my grandmother passed away, she had come to me in my dreams a few times. Once right before her death. She was in a nursing home, not able to communicate or function any longer. Madelene and I were going to visit her on a particular Saturday, on January 21rst. That Friday night, I dreamt my grandma came to me yelling (as she usually did) saying, "Don't you dare come up here and see me like this! I won't have it!" Typical her. And typical me said, "Tough. I'm still going to visit."  The next day, my mother called me and said, "Deb? Grandma died early this morning."  Coincidence?  At her funeral, she wasn't 50 lbs with white hair. She was the voluptuous redhead that I remembered her as. Strange how they can manipulate someone to look a certain way. Creepy as it is, it was also comforting. Months after her passing, she came to me in a dream. She said, "I have a family secret to tell you."  So I sat down on the couch next to her's and said, "What? What?" She started to talk, and while she was talking, her voice went lower, and lower, and lower, until she was completely muted - but still talking. She didn't even look as though she knew I couldn't hear her - she kept on talking as if the volume was off. It was so frustrating. My mother keeps asking me to "think harder". Kind of funny, but impossible to do because you really can't bring back a dream. Or was it a dream?

When my wife's father passed away, it was very traumatic because not only was it so sudden, but he was only in his mid-fifties. I clearly remember having a very vivid dream about him. He came to me near a picket fence. (Not sure what that means.)  He held my hand and my arm with his other hand and said, "Don't worry. I'm going to take care of you two. Just let her know that." (Her being Madelene I'm presuming.) I'm not sure why he said this or what the real meaning behind it was, but in the dream after he said it, I was asking him questions which I can't remember, and he said, "I gotta go now," as I kept holding his arm now. I said, "No, wait! Don't go just yet," but he kept insisting, as if someone was calling him. He squeezed my arm and slipped right out of my grip right up into a foggy light.  I just watched and *poof* - woke up instantly. The dream was embedded in my brain for the rest of the morning. While having coffee with Madelene, I wasn't quite sure she was ready to hear my dream or even wanted to. It was still so very 'raw'. Then she started talking about him, and I decided to share my dream with her. It comforted her more than anything, which was what I was hoping for.

For years, I've always been able to hear and see ghosts. Sounds crazy, right? But as bizarre as that sounds, I'm so grateful that Madelene was with me to experience a few of my encounters. One, being an old lady who used to live in my parents' house. We were both lying on the hammock, when "she" appeared looking out at us through the screen door. I didn't say a word. Then, Madelene said, "Who was that??" In my mind I kept saying, "YES! I'm not THAT crazy!" Another time she witnessed it with me was when I kept getting visits from an old friend who died so tragically. I was getting so many visits from him that I said out of frustrations, "Why can't you just appear in normal form!!??" And all of the sudden, this huge, bright blueish and yellow orb flew into the living room, bounced off the floor and went straight up into the corner of where the ceiling meets the wall.  Again, I didn't say a word. Madelene said, "Did you see that??" And again, in my mind I said, "YES! I'm not THAT crazy!" Another time taking a mini vacation up at this bed & breakfast, we were trying to go to sleep, but my pillow was whispering. I raised my head to see if anyone else was in the hallway talking - but they were whispers. The only light illuminating the room was from a fake candle in the window, but it was still dark. I put my head back onto the pillow and heard the whispers once again. I noticed Madelene grabbing her glasses from the nightstand very slowly, and placing them on her face....in. the. dark. It was then I knew I wasn't the only one with the 'active pillow'. I even put my ear to the wall, to the floor, to the nightstand  --- nothing. The pillow? Tons of whispers. We left so quickly the next morning that the owners didn't charge us for the rest of our stay. They said, "We know...We've had many people flee from here. It was owned by the mafia years ago and there were tragic 'incidents' that had taken place."  And they were renovating the place big time, which to some believe it's like a field day for spirits.

This morning while talking to Mad about seeing my Dad in my dreams while we were having coffee, she said, "How come I don't see my dad or anyone like you do in your dreams?" I really couldn't answer that. I just assume she's not "opened" enough - or perhaps her fear of someone 'on the other side' pretending to be her loved one consumes her ability to get visits. She has never experienced anything of a supernatural occurrence other than while being with me. Last year while we were pulling tacks up from an old carpet so we could have hard wood floors, she said, "Did you hear that?"  I was on the other side of the room breaking my kneecaps trying to get everything done. I didn't hear a thing. She said a woman started giggling in her ear. "Did you get  sleep last night?" She just sneered at me, as though, oh you can have these experiences and I can't??  But I was just shocked she actually heard something on her own. When we finally moved into the house, while working on an important project I had to get done for work, I heard, "Debbie?"  No one was in the house. I just chucked it up to fatigue. But then again she called, "Debbie?" The voice raised itself, almost questioning why I wasn't answering her. And the only people who call me "Debbie" are those who have known me as a child growing up. Most call me "Deb" - so it baffled me. Not that it's a big deal, but still. I walked around the house, but she stopped calling me. The rest of the day I had such an overwhelming feeling of someone watching me.

I have so many stories about this kind of stuff, but I want to keep the word limit under a million and keep your attention somewhat. But strange how our minds work, or are they our minds? Do you believe that we manifest our own 'spiritual experiences', and do our subconscious minds try and comfort us with an image of our deceased loved one?  Or is it real? Do they really visit us in our dreams? If they do visit us in our dreams, couldn't it be an opportunity for someone to 'pretend' that they're our loved ones? That's something I'm a bit disturbed by. Would love to get your thoughts and maybe share your experiences too.

For more of Deb's articles, please visit: www.debrapasquella.com or join her on Facebook.