|
TUESDAY, 3 NOVEMBER
|
| Dear friend, |
|
I got Nadia’s email on Thursday, and I read it standing up in the kitchen because I was supposed to be making dinner. Three lines. A recurring dream about a swimming pool, and she keeps not getting in.
|
|
The water is always clear, she said. She can see the bottom. The temperature would be fine, the way you know things in dreams without testing them. But she is wearing a coat, or someone calls her name from the building behind her, or the lifeguard says they are closing in five minutes, and she turns around.
|
|
She wrote: “It is not a nightmare. Nothing bad happens. I just never swim.”
|
|
|
|
|
The sentence that stayed
|
|
That last line is the one I kept coming back to, because a nightmare at least gives you something to push against. You can wake up shaking and name it. This dream gives you nothing to name (you cannot even call it a bad dream, because it was not), so all you are left with is a pool you never used and a coat you did not need.
|
|
|
The pool is clear because Nadia already knows what she wants. That is the difficult part of this dream, harder than any monster or fall, because there is nothing to solve. The obstacle changes every time: the coat, the closing announcement, the voice calling from behind her. Her sleeping mind has stopped giving her a consistent reason, which probably tells you how long this has been going on.
|
|
What people have said about water dreams for a very long time is that clear water means understanding and murky water means confusion. Nadia’s water is not murky. She is not confused about what she wants. She is standing at the edge of it wearing a winter coat.
|
|
| “ |
She is not confused about what she wants. She is standing at the edge of it wearing a winter coat.
|
|
Wide Awake At 3 a.m. Again? Read This Before Bed Tonight
Your body is exhausted, but the moment your head hits the pillow, your mind switches on.
Tomorrow's to-do list. That awkward conversation from Tuesday. The bill you forgot to pay.
You check the clock. 00:00. Then 1:15. Then 3:02.
And by the time your alarm goes off, it feels like you never really slept at all.
If that sounds familiar, you're far from alone. About one in three adults regularly doesn't get the sleep they need.
But here's what gives me hope: falling asleep isn't only about how tired you are. It's also about how calm your body feels when you lie down.
It's simple enough to do right in bed, with the lights already off.
|
|
|
What the pool is asking
|
|
I do not know what Nadia’s pool is. It could be rest, or a person, or a Tuesday afternoon with nothing in it. But she can see the bottom, which means she has already done the hard work of knowing, and the only question left is why she keeps putting the coat back on.
|
|
Most recurring dreams keep their scenery and keep their feeling. Nadia’s does the opposite: the feeling stays and the excuse changes, because her sleeping mind already knows the excuse is beside the point.
|
|
If you have this one, where the good thing is right there and you keep turning around anyway, you probably do not need me to tell you what it is. You already know. The dream has been showing you that you know.
|
|
|
Nadia, and anyone else standing at the edge of something tonight: what would happen if you took the coat off?
|
|
|
|
If you have a dream you want me to look at, send it. One dream is enough and short is fine. I read everything.
|
| Sleep well, |
| Dream Signs |
|
|
|
P.S. Nadia wrote back after I sent her this. She said, “The coat was the part I never thought about.” Tell me what you noticed in yours. Sometimes the obvious thing needs someone else to point at it.
|
|
|
✦ TONIGHT’S PRACTICE
|
| 📝 |
|
The edge of the pool
|
|
Before you sleep tonight, write one sentence about the thing you can see but have not reached for yet. Close the notebook. Do not explain it.
|
|
Tell me what you wrote
|
|
|
|
|
|
✦ MANIFESTATION TIP
|
| ✨ |
|
Say it once, to the room
|
|
Name the thing you have been circling. Say it out loud once, to no one in particular, the way you would say it while looking out a window.
|
|
What came back
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ✦ |
|
Dream it. Sign it. Live it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
