If you know me, you know I enjoy looking for insights from dreams.

But I’ve been on a kind of dream hiatus, having few memorable dreams in the last several months. That has fit right in with this pandemic limbo time, which I started pretty early. Last fall, in fact, I was starting to withdraw, and my dreams have withdrawn, too.

So when my alarm woke me yesterday in the midst of a dream that had some charge to it, I paid attention.

In this dream I was both teacher and student, and the setting was a hallway similar to one from my high school years. I was standing at lockers, talking with a teacher friend, someone who was a colleague back when I taught high school. Someone I counted as a friend back then. But I haven’t been in contact with her for a decade or more.

The lockers became mail boxes, like where teachers get their mail. But they were larger than our mailboxes at the high school where I taught, maybe two feet long and one foot high. This friend was looking at her mailbox, which was full of a variety of things connected with a club she was sponsoring. Things like sample boxes of products along with small tissue packages as well as the typical mail and paperwork that is usually in a teacher’s mailbox. It was crammed full.

I commented that I’d be overwhelmed if my mailbox were this full but that I knew she could handle it, would sort it out and work through what needed to be done. That she was really good at that. And that I’m not. We laughed, because we both knew I was terrible with organization of material things. (Still very true in my waking life!)

I’ll stop my detailed description here since this is the part that played into my doctor visit. In the rest of the dream I was a student and still kind of a teacher, too, and I was in a classroom tying to find “my” desk.

I woke wondering why this former colleague and old friend came up. I thought through some of her qualities and went through some memories about her. And then I dismissed it.

Now fast forward to my appointment. The new doc came in and introduced herself and got down to looking at my test results and asking questions. While she was typing up some of the info, I was looking at her very fashionable outfit.

And it hit me.

She was very much like the friend who showed up in my dream!

Same sense of fashion, same manner, same directness. I almost laughed out loud. Yes, of course, this is why I had that dream!

The rest of the appointment went just as I’d expect from my old friend. Good insights. She was thorough, setting me up for tests to be sure there is no underlying problem. She was not openly warm, but neither is my old friend. Or at least she wasn’t back when I knew her. But I also know that under that cool facade really is a warm heart.

I left feeling confident in this new doctor. And happy to have the insight my dream gave me.

I know I’m in good hands.

And I’m grateful my dream gave me some insight for this new medical journey.

My message for you is this: Pay attention to your dreams, especially the ones that stick with you and have you pondering. They might have some insights you can use in waking life.

In fact, they most likely do!