This neglect has shown up in my dreams in many forms: dying and forgotten fish, forgotten rooms or even forgotten wings of a home, moving back into the house where I had an art studio, etc. While my waking mind was focused on being a mother, wife and Dream Analyst, my dreaming mind was begging me to remember this other part of me that I essentially, abandoned.  I made vain attempts here and there to get back into my art by fooling around in photoshop, doing a color pencil drawing, etc. but I had yet to pick up a paint brush.

Thankfully one of my childhood friends, Kimberly Dawn, a fantastic folk artist, posts her new art pieces on Facebook… practically on a daily basis. I mean this woman paints like there is no tomorrow! Gah! I would get so jealous, but in a good way. Kimberly’s posts, along with my dreams, were motivation, gentle nudges that I finally succumbed to! I bought myself some oils, brushes and artist boards and decided to get to work, or rather get back to overdue work!

I’ve been wanting to paint a series based on our most common dreams: drowning, falling, flying, etc. but after I thought about it I decided I needed to break the ice so I decided to paint Marilyn Monroe my favorite subject to draw, paint and doodle over the years. Her face is easy for me. I know every angle and curve. If I could paint her with success then I would know I was back! So I began. And then I had a dream…

I was in a house that was not mine but I knew my way around it. I walked into a bedroom and I found my mother sitting on a bed holding my baby daughter, which I don’t really have in waking life. I had been gone so long, months it seemed, and I was worried my baby would not remember me. I took her from my mother and held her. She looked up at me, smiled and cooed at me. She remembered!!

My baby represented my art that I had been away from for so long. I was VERY worried that I would be so rusty I would not be happy and lose patience but just as the baby remembered me, so did my artist self. Marilyn was turning out beautifully and my dream was giving me approval. Whenever someone smiles at you in a dream, you can almost always connect it to self approval in your waking life, btw.  🙂

As you can see, my neglected baby is still alive, healthy and even thriving!! I am back and my inner dreaming mind is pleased. My mother in the dream represents the part of me that needs to continue to give birth to new paintings and ideas as well my ability to nurture and care for this part of me. I need to remember to continue to be a good mother to my art. I can’t allow myself to neglect it again. If I do, I have no doubt the dream police will be after me, inundating me with bad dreams. As Leonardo da Vinci once said, “A well spent day brings happy sleep.”

Want this painting hanging in your home? She’s for sale! If you’re interested, or know someone who is, go here to purchase a print.

Sweet dreams!!

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Usually, water in dreams is all about your emotions. The state of the water in your dream will mimic your emotional state in waking life.  For example, if you’re dreaming of flooding water then you are likely in an emotional state that is getting increasingly worse in waking life.  If you dream of a pool then that is a good indication that you have contained and are now in control of your emotional state, just as a pool is contained and controlled water (with the ph and chlorine levels, etc.)  HOWEVER, sometimes the water in your dream can be more about your creative “juices” rather than your emotions… and I believe that is the case with me.

You see, fish are one of the more common symbols I dream about.  For many years I have dreamed about forgetting to feed fish that I had in an aquarium.  I would dream this pretty much on a weekly basis. I attributed it to creative ideas I had been neglecting as far as my website or promotion ideas I needed to feed in order to get more radio appearances.  While that could have been the case, on some level, I am now certain that the dying, starving fish in my dreams all these years were really gentle nudges from my wiser inner mind that my art was dying a slow painful death, languishing in my no longer fertile creative juices… sigh.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have started delving into my art again thanks to a dream I had that made it abundantly clear that it was my art talent, not web or promotional ideas that was dying.  So now that I am “diving” into my creative pool again, my dreaming mind is giving me even more guidance in the form of the giant fish. Just as the fish was confined in too small of a space, my art and desire to create is confined – for the moment – to only digital art because I don’t have the correct art supplies I need to paint or draw. My dream is telling me that I can really “make a splash” once I get the proper materials.

DREAM TIP: If you can find a pun or a figure of speech in your dream, you have found a good part of the message!

And so I will listen to my dream’s advice and I will go get the pencils, the paints and the canvases I need so I can make myself, and my dreaming mind happy.  Because, believe you me, when your dreaming mind is not happy with you it will nag you to death with those annoying, persistent recurring dreams. Who needs that when we already have our mothers to do so?

Your dreams are guiding and advising you too, every single night of your life!

When you can understand what your dreams are telling you, you can make huge positive changes in your life and you’ll wonder why you didn’t start listening to your dreams sooner! Grab yourself a copy of one of my books and you’ll never have to wonder what your dreams mean again!

“I bought your books for my daughter and she loved them so much she told me I had to get them! I’m so glad I did!!”   –  Yvette, Santa Maria, CA

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Here is what all this crazy looking symbolism means and pertains to my life… and maybe you’ll get some insight into what some of these symbols may mean for you as well.  Obviously, that’s me down there in the corner looking at what is going on in the dream.

The wide open door looking out into the sky represents several opportunities that have “opened up” to me lately.  “The sky” is the limit, that is, if I play my cards right.  But due to some personal and emotional issues, what should be a wide open and welcoming opportunity has become “clouded” with uncertainty and even fear, hence the clouds.  I have allowed those clouds in due to my own weaknesses.

The hand that is reaching around the door frame was, in the dream, trying to turn on a light switch but couldn’t find it.  That represents my need to find certain things out, my need to “shed some light” on some physical unknowns I am currently dealing with.  It is a male hand rather than a female hand because it is my own male assertive energy that will take action on this unknown and get er dun.  🙂 The hand couldn’t find the switch because I still haven’t found out what’s going on yet.

That coiled up snake on the wall is a cool symbol! Usually, snakes in dreams are connected to a man in the dreamer’s waking life that is exhibiting low down behavior – hence their shape –  OR it can be connected to health issues, hence the caduceus, the symbol for physicians… you know, the two snakes wrapped around the winged staff.  I think my dream has two meanings, one is a common meaning and the other is my own personal meaning. It certainly is related to my health issues I am trying to figure out.  The second meaning is connected my latest book “Dream On It,” which is about to come out.  It has a cool snake on the cover.  Here in my dream, the snake is coiled and ready to strike because 1. my book is about to hit newsstands everywhere in March and 2. I think I am on the verge of finding out what the deal is with my health issues.

As you can see, all these different symbols in my dream have come together to create a big, and pretty cool, picture for me… a picture with a message.  I believe the message is, “Be patient. You are in the dark and uncertain about some things right now but keep looking up. You can handle it (hence the hand in the dream). There are endless opportunities ahead.”

Your dreams work the exact same way. What may seem like a jumbled mess of random objects and happenings are in fact very important and powerful messages carefully pieced together by your wise and knowing dreaming mind.  When you can learn to put the pieces of your dream puzzle together, you’ll see the big picture, the important message you are giving yourself through the dream.

Animals in dreams, sex dreams, death, weird things happening to your body PLUS way cool dream art… It’s ALL in there!  Grab your copy of So, What Did You Dream Last Night? and understand your dreams like never before!

“I have both of your books. I love them!!  It is so much fun to look up what my dreams mean in the morning.  I don’t know what I would do without them!” – Amy, Clearfield, UT

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In my dream, I was in the first home my husband and I bought together.  It was an old 1920’s bungalow that we totally refurbished.  I was walking around the house, exploring every room. It was neat to be back there. Everything looked pretty much the same… until I walked into my art room! It was stripped bare, all the way down to the dry wall. I stood there shocked and saddened… and then I woke up.  DREAM TIP: The point at which you wake up from a dream is usually where the main message is (that is, when you wake up naturally from a dream).

When I woke, I knew EXACTLY what that dream was telling me.  I had been neglecting my art for years and my dream was showing me that – in doing so – the artist part of me had been stripped down to nothingness… it was no longer a part of my identity.  This is why I felt saddened in the dream.  And so you see, the dream wasn’t really about that house but who I was when I lived there. I was painting or drawing everyday. In my current house, I don’t have an art room, and all my paint and brushes and canvases are in the basement. This picture is the last dream picture I ever did and this was probably 5 years ago, if not more. You can find it in my book So, What Did You Dream Last Night?

In fact, there’s a whole chapter on houses in dreams in this book and what all the different rooms in your house mean.

Because of this dream, I have decided to start painting and drawing again… especially painting and drawing my dreams. Art is a big part of who I am and I want to keep it alive and well in my identity so I can be my ultimate self. Stay tuned to my blog because I’ll be posting my art as it comes along.  🙂

There’s an awful lot to who you are too, and your dreams have a pretty cool way of showing you all the different parts of yourself in the form of various symbols.  When you can understand the symbols in your dreams you can understand yourself and your life like never before… and knowledge is power!

Grab yourself a copy of one of my books and you’ll easily understand your dreams every morning and get a HUGE edge in life.

“Wow, what an amazing book so full of information! I will def be keeping this one on my nightstand and refer to it often!” – Kristi Roach, Angola, IN

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