Odette Laurent
Dream@dreamweaver_odette
Dream journal tip nobody told me for years: write the last scene first, then work backwards. Pulling the thread from the end unspools the whole thing.
Rituals, prayers, dreams and encounters from every faith.
Dream journal tip nobody told me for years: write the last scene first, then work backwards. Pulling the thread from the end unspools the whole thing.
Last night, the ghats at Dashashwamedh: evening aarti, the bells, the river full of little floating lamps. Seventy-one years old, and in my dreams I am still nine and holding my father's hand.
Dreamt I was doing a reading for my landlord and every card I flipped was the Tower. Woke up, checked my email: the radiator guy can't come until Thursday. The cards were right.
Brigid is a goddess of poetry among her other trades, and every so often I wake with a line that doesn't feel like mine. Last night's: 'The well remembers what the bucket forgets.' I keep a pencil by the bed now, not a pen, because pens die at 3am and pencils don't. Wrote it on the back of the electric bill. No idea yet what the rest of the poem is. I'm in no rush. She's never once handed me the whole thing at once.
Every so often someone at the mosque teases me and asks me to interpret their dream. My name is Yusuf, after the prophet who read the king's dreams, so I suppose it's fair. I am very bad at it. I mostly just make tea. But I'll share one of mine. We're taught to tell a good dream only to people who love you, and this place has started to feel like that. My grandfather, who died when I was nineteen, was pouring tea in a garden I've never seen. Tulips everywhere, which he never grew. He handed me the glass by the rim, the way he always did so I wouldn't burn my fingers, and said nothing at all. I woke with the smell of bergamot in the room. I don't need it to mean more than that. He was well, and he was still looking after my fingers.
Lucid again last night, which for me means about 11am. Night-shift baker problems. The trigger was the clock in the bakery. It's a big ugly Hobart clock over the proofing cabinets, and in the dream it had no hands, just a smooth white face. I've done reality checks for so many years that my body knew before I did: no hands, no time, you're dreaming. Everything went sharp at the edges, the way it does. And Henri was there at the bench. He died in August, and I've dreamed of him a few times since, but never like this, never with the light this clear. Sleeves rolled the way he always wore them, one higher than the other. He was laminating croissant dough. I didn't ask him anything big. I'd planned to, I keep a list for exactly this, but when it came to it I just stood beside him and watched his hands. He tapped the dough and said, in that flat Lyonnais way, 'You're rushing the butter. Cold butter, warm heart, not the other way round.' Then he laughed at his own joke, which he also always did. I woke up with the smell of flour in the room, which I know is probably just my hair. I made the croissants slower tonight. Waited an extra ten minutes between folds. Best batch I've turned out in months. Take that however you like. It's going in the journal as a visit.
Six years this November since my husband Walt passed. He was not a witch, not even slightly. He called my herbs 'your weeds' and built me every raised bed I ever asked for anyway. Two nights ago he was in my dream, standing in the garden in his green barn coat, pointing at the calendula. Not saying anything. Just pointing, the way he used to point at a fence post he'd decided I needed to look at. So the next morning I went out in my robe and muck boots and looked. The calendula is usually finished by now up here, we've had two frosts, but there were seed heads all along the back of the bed that I'd completely missed. Those little curled crescent seeds, dozens of them, dry and ready. I sat on the edge of the bed he built and cried for a good while, and then I collected every last one. I don't know exactly how these things work. Forty years at this and I know less than I did at thirty. But I know that man always did want me to save seed instead of buying it. Come spring, every calendula in this garden will be from Walt's bed, and all five grandbabies are getting a packet.
Plant systematics midterm tomorrow, and last night a yarrow plant the size of a person sat on the end of my dorm bed and said, very slowly, 'Achillea. Millefolium.' Then it said it again in case I wasn't listening. I've been making flashcards for two weeks and apparently my brain has converted them all into houseguests. Pretty sure this is either studying working or a visitation from the entire Asteraceae family. Either way, I am not getting that one wrong.
In the ancient world, people travelled to the sanctuaries of Asklepios, at Epidaurus, at Kos, purified themselves, made an offering, and slept in a special hall hoping the god would come to them in a dream. It's called enkoimesis, incubation. I am not at Epidaurus. I am in a one-bedroom flat in Brunswick with a sheepskin rug from IKEA. But I wanted to try a small, honest version. I wasn't asking about my body. That's what my GP is for, and Asklepios, son of Apollo the healer, would agree. I was asking about my brother. We haven't properly spoken in almost two years, over something stupid that grew into something big. So: a bath, clean clothes, a honey cake on the shrine and a short hymn read aloud (badly). The lamp was only lit for the prayer and blown out before bed. Then I slept on the rug beside the shrine, which my back has opinions about. I dreamt of a dog. A big, scruffy, yellow dog, very calm, who walked me down to a harbour that looked like Piraeus and sat beside me on the steps. That was all. We just sat. Dogs were kept at Epidaurus and were part of the god's sanctuary life. I knew that, but I didn't think of it until I was writing the dream down this morning. What I felt wasn't advice. It was the feeling of not needing to fix everything before sitting down beside someone. I texted my brother at lunch. Just an old holiday photo of that harbour and 'remember this?' He replied with three laughing faces and a photo of his own dog. It's a start.
The Talmud says a dream that isn't interpreted is like a letter that isn't read. Which is a lovely line until you have a nervous one at 4am and your study partner is asleep. I dreamt the challah wouldn't rise. Over and over, every Shabbat, flat dough. Very subtle, my subconscious. So on Sunday I did a small, informal version of hatavat chalom, 'making the dream good': I told it to three friends from study group over bagels, and they answered me that it was a good dream. One of them added, 'and also you need new yeast.' Both were true. The new yeast worked. So did the friends.
Sunday night my tía Nena came to me in a dream. She passed in March. She was sitting behind me on the porch steps of her old house in Hialeah, braiding my hair the way she did when I was little: too tight, and with a lot of commentary. When she finished, she tucked a white flower into the braid and said, 'Don't forget me on Mondays.' I don't forget my eggun on Mondays. But I've been rushing, I'll admit it. So yesterday I took my time. Fresh water, a white rose just for her, her name said out loud and slowly. Some of what that dream means I'll take to my godmother, and that part stays in the room. The braid and the flower felt fine to share. She'd want people to know she still fixes my hair.
Uncle Roosevelt kept an old dream book on the kitchen table, the kind folks used to buy at the drugstore, cover held on with tape. Back in the day plenty of people used those to play the numbers. Uncle never did. He said the Lord and Aunt Ruby both frowned on it, and he wasn't sure which one scared him more. He just liked reading what the old folks thought dreams meant. Last week I dreamed about fish. A whole washtub of catfish sitting on my porch. Now, any Southern grandmother will tell you what dreaming of fish means. Sunday after church my niece pulled me aside on the steps. Baby due in May. Didn't even need the book.
Hollywood taught a lot of people that anything involving Vodou and dreams must be frightening. In my family it's the opposite. Dreams are mail. Grann would ask us at breakfast, 'Who visited?' the way other grandmothers ask whether you slept well. Last week I dreamt of her lakou in Jacmel: the yard swept so clean you could see the broom lines, the mango tree, her voice calling my name from the kitchen in the tone that meant food was ready and I was late. I told my manbo, because that's what you do. What she said back stays between us. But I wanted to share the swept yard and the mango tree, because that's what Vodou looks like most days. Family, memory, and somebody calling you in to eat.
Lost the matching sock months ago, so the survivor has been promoted. Inside: a handful of dried lavender, some chamomile, and rose petals saved from the bouquet my sister brought for my birthday, all wrapped in a scrap of muslin first so nothing sheds. Tied off with garden twine. It lives under my pillowcase, not inside it, because I learned the hard way that lavender in your ear is not restful. Have I had prophetic dreams? No. Have I had gentler ones and fallen asleep faster? Honestly, yes. I'll take it. If you're sensitive to any of these, swap in whatever smells like comfort to you.
A few of you have messaged asking how to start lucid dreaming, so here's what actually worked for me, minus the mystical packaging: 1. Pick one check and do it twenty times a day. Mine is pressing a finger into my palm. Awake, it stops. Dreaming, it sometimes goes through. 2. Read something, look away, read it again. Dream text rarely holds still. 3. Ask 'am I dreaming?' and actually mean it. Doing it on autopilot doesn't carry over. It took me about six weeks the first time. Be patient and be kind to your sleep. If it's making you anxious or wrecking your rest, stop. The dreams aren't going anywhere.
You’ve reached the edge of the sky.