Que?

Dreams are a complicated extension of intuition. When I was sick, but was unaware of the mutated white cells in my bloodstream, my dreams were ripe with images of death and saying good-bye. The night before I discovered the first lump, I dreamed of it in precisely the place it was later discovered. Our culture often overlooks the value of intuitive sense, especially women’s intuition. We are taught in childbirth to “do what the doctor tells us” and in mothering, there are magazines enough to build great paper towers. No level of expertise, however, compares to the body’s ability to sense and direct us whether we are birthing children, rearing them, exploring our world or turning inward. And dreams are an opportunity to reflect upon the messages our body receives beneath the brain’s radar during our waking hour. In a sense, we relive our lives in dreams.

My dreams of dying and having cancer lead me to seek further medical attention even after doctors told me I was healthy. My blood-work was normal and despite the size and solidity of the lump, I was told to wait six months. Time was not on my side. The dreams persisted and I eventually met with a surgeon who agreed to biopsy and later made the official diagnosis of diffuse large b-cell lymphoma. The doctor told me what my body had known all along.

Welcome to my life in dreams.