I’ve been working with my dreams for the past several years. My practice is somewhat sporadic as often I’m more interested in sleeping than capturing any messages that come through. Nonetheless, most nights, with the assistance of my Reiki superpowers, I ask for some sort of guidance or healing when I go to bed, and an array of helpers (my Dream Team) consistently provide words, images, songs, and bizarro movies that I attempt to decode.

The other morning I caught just a fragment of a very vague, but elaborate, dream. Curiously, it had nothing to do with what I had asked the previous night. When I referred to my journal, I realized that a few days earlier I had requested information about the chronic low back pain that has been active lately after years of hibernation.

It helps to remind myself that the subconscious, like healing, doesn’t operate in a linear way, nor on a schedule that makes any sense to me. But, hey, who am I to question such things? I do my practice the best I can and trust that my soul has its own agenda that is likely based on deep wisdom and infinite power. It’s quite a relief to know I don’t need to know all the details!

What came through was my hosting a dinner party on a chartered bus. Huh? Haven’t deciphered that bit yet! But a man came up to me and introduced himself as Dr. Joe Hart. (I somehow knew it was that spelling and not Heart.) He asked me to touch the area of his back that correlated to the area where I felt pain, and then showed me a stretch. A stretch I have been neglecting lately, but has been tremendously helpful in the past.

Naturally I’ve renewed my commitment to doing that stretch daily. But there’s more! I searched for the good doctor’s name online and the first entry was a professor of orthopedic surgery who had written a few articles about knee injuries. Hmm… I had a right knee injury about 5 years ago that was acting up. So much so that I haven’t been hiking in ages, and my right quad and hip have been wonky. Which is directly affecting my low back.

I almost gave up writing this post at this point because I’m not sure what follows is going to make sense to anyone but me. While I was taking a break from seeking the right words, I found a notification in my inbox from a friend’s blog. She had just posted about a dream. It follows, doesn’t it, that someone who takes advice from their dreams also notes synchronicity, right?

So here I am, giving it my best shot.

I don’t follow medical research speak, but I did scan the first article I found written by my dream doctor. He used the phrase “quadriceps inhibition” which spotlighted the memory of a video about back pain treatment that I had recently watched. The video mentioned “reciprocal muscle inhibition” and suggested a quad stretch I enjoy and a strengthening exercise (bridge, ugh!) that I do not. Being human and perfectly imperfect, I skipped the bridge, despite it also being suggested in the Integrated Positional Release treatment for low back pain that I’ve been utilizing (sans bridge).

That’s three different references to quads and this simple exercise that I’ve been avoiding because it’s difficult for me. A long history of yoga practice has taught me that the challenging poses are the ones that are often most helpful for me. Lord knows I don’t need to do any more of the easy ones! (Savasana anyone?)

I’ve been editing my well-researched and self-prescribed therapy and eliminating the challenging bit that could be very helpful just because its challenging. Not so smart, eh?

So that’s a lot of words to say that this dream pointed me to an exercise that had been recently suggested twice elsewhere and not done once. (Rolling eyes emoji here!) It would probably be smart to follow up on “reciprocal quad inhibition” and see if there’s another useful rabbit hole from that mash-up. Yet, further research can also be an avoidance strategy that keeps me from doing the darn bridges! Which, btw, aren’t so bad once I get going.

My point is that I needed to follow the clues to get the gold. The soul doesn’t generally offer instructions in the form of clear directives; it often speaks in metaphors, and, since it runs through the labyrinth the subconscious, it’s highly subjective and flavored by the other ingredients floating around in there.

Sure, there are dream dictionaries one can reference, and sometimes there are universal themes that are fairly obvious. But I’ve gotten my juiciest messages by using Reiki at night while asking for some help, doing my best to capture the stories that come through, developing a habit of writing them down in the morning, and putting on my detective’s cap. Of course, none of that helps unless I follow through with the prescribed action.

It might sound like a lot of effort, but it doesn’t seem that way to me. I view it more as an opportunity to connect with my soul and reap valuable rewards while I’m asleep (!) than as work. It definitely helps the process to not take myself too seriously.

Give it a try and lmk how it goes. And if you have any ideas about why I was hosting a dinner party on a moving bus, I’d love to hear them!