Dreams and Real Life

Inspired by the poetry event at Artful : The Gallery on Monday evening. July 6, 2026. Kristina Campbell, Curator and Poet, debuted her new chapbook called “For An Art.”

Over the hump to restored health and six months into my recovery, I began to dream again as I had in the past, with vivid colours and the sense I was awake in my dream. This new dream was short but powerful.

My pillow fell into the ocean. Walking up to the high-bank lookout, I could see the speck that was my pillow sinking in the ocean below. Panicked, I climbed up and over the wooden lookout railing, risking life and limb, thinking I should recover that pillow. As I hung from my fingertips on the lookout structure, I decided I didn’t need the pillow and pulled myself up and over the fence back to safety.

I woke up from my dream, feeling uplifted and energized. If I could do all that in my dream, I knew I was on my way back to health. I knew it because my dreams and real life had intersected before. I wasn’t sure for a second or two which world was which.

In real life, the dream signalled a turning point in my recovery. Just a month ago I wouldn’t have been able to pull myself up, dream or no dream. My leg muscles were weak, and my bones felt like lead. I found out just how weak I was one day. Crouching on my knees, I washed the cupboard, and then could not pull myself back up. My legs began to shake and pain shot through my joints as I hollered for my family to come help.

Ten years earlier, I had a very real and persistent online stalker. He messaged he was in love with me and that I was the spitting image of his dead wife. Over the next two weeks, I responded firmly that I was not interested, and that I had a partner who was the love of my life. When he didn’t stop, I blocked him, filed a police report, and that was that.

The dream I had on March 6, 2024, was about a male stalker who was a real estate client of mine. He too said he was in love with me and was planning to move to my town to be near me. As in real life, I responded he could do what he wanted, but I wanted nothing to do with him and told him not to contact me again.

The setting changed to my office. My son walked in the door looking for a file. I certainly didn’t share my files with anyone, so I was curious which file he wanted. Of course, he wanted the file on the real estate client/stalker. Why would he want that file? I was unprepared for his answer.

He called me on my phone, wanting to talk to you. I knew you didn’t want to speak with him, so I made an excuse why he couldn’t talk to you.

In my dream, I told my gob-smacked son I was capable of speaking with the guy and wanted to do so by myself. Immediately, an avalanche of people appeared in my office. I spent half my dream kicking everyone out. There were even a couple of junkies living underneath my bed in the same room. I made a mental note—dark shadows I need to deal with? When I finally thought I was alone and had begun speaking with the former client, I saw a microphone slide underneath my office door. That was the last straw. Jumping up, I stomped on the microphone and broke it, yelling at my son for trying to save me, and then at the stalker.

 You’re in love with your fantasy, not me. Get lost!

Then all the people I had kicked out of my office before appeared again. Apparently, they had just moved to other rooms in the house, so I screamed at them too.

I am a powerful person and don’t need any of you to take care of me. You don’t respect my privacy and don’t trust me to make healthy decisions for myself. Leave me alone!

I woke up with the sense that all those people were the parts of me I didn’t need anymore and were ready to be cleaned out, recording in my journal that something energetic was happening. Could it be a download of some sort? Am I being tested? Why is my third eye buzzing like those mini hair removers? Only the hindsight of time could tell me what I needed to know.

If you’re still reading this post, good because there were more dreams. On March 22, 2024, I had a memorable dream involving an old woman. She had appeared many years earlier in a guided meditation, so I recognized her. I thought she might be a human manifestation of my soul before I reconnected with it. She wasn’t, by the way. No, she was an enigma to me, often appearing in my mind seated on the ground, stirring the dirt in front of her with a wooden stick, always without saying a word. On that day, I heard her speak from within me.

Oh my dearest one, you were born fractured. I was an old woman hidden for many years, to reappear in your dreams when you were ready. You were ready when you reconnected with your soul and when you no longer hid yourself.

That’s true. I hadn’t seen the old woman at all after I felt my soul reconnect. The dream ended there, and a short time later I wrote another entry.

Today I am a new number, a number that doesn’t define me, but it does bring with it a body that aches and gets tired if I try to push it forward. My number is waking me up to what I’ve done to my body over the years. I stamp my feet in my mind and think, enough is enough. My number taunts me. I have the time to slow down, but I must write. I wake my body up early again to write on this, the first day of my new number. (Journal Entry - March 2024)

While writing this blog today, a poem emerged from that journal entry, most likely inspired by the poetry event at Artful : The Gallery on Monday evening, July 6, 2026. Kristina Campbell, Curator, debuted her new chapbook called “For An Art.”

Enough is Enough

A number does not define me.

Aching,

pushing, pursuing, plodding does.

My mind stomps its impatience.

Enough is enough.

Retreating is not an option.

Demanding,

breathless, hurtling through time just because.

My number taunts its judgment.

I counter screaming I am enough

on this first day of my new number.

(Poems of Alice 2026—Enough is Enough)