When the wheels are coming off look out for signs
How dreams and omens helped me make a difficult decision. And 3 Rules for Deciding.
The ancients always thought of coming events as having shadows cast in front of them.
~Carl Jung, Introduction to Analytical Psychology
Hello, Dear Reader,
I’m not supposed to be here today. My calendar says I should be across the continent at the International Association for the Study of Dreams conference, in a hotel room I’d hoped would overlook a pool but would probably face the parking lot.
Instead, I’m at my desk watching the breeze ruffling the same maple leaves I look out on every day.
In today’s missive, you’ll find:
+ The literary lessons of omens and omniscience
+ Why dream signs are worth heeding
+ My three dreamy rules about decision-making
+ How omens and prophecy can benefit your writing.
Why the change in plans?
A string of mishaps and otherwise-manageable medical issues left me uneasy about taking a cross-country trip. Unsure, I asked my dreams for a sign. “One clear dream,” I asked my midnight mind.
The first dream’s imagery was simple—but its meaning wasn’t. I asked again. That night, I dreamed I arrived at my destination, checked into the hotel, and unzipped my suitcase to find it empty. I’d forgotten to pack! Plus, my travel companions weren’t colleagues from the conference but two friends who live a mile away. Even dreaming, I knew an empty suitcase wasn’t insurmountable—I had a credit card—but why local friends instead of my far-flung dream community? That could mean I should stay close to home.
Weighing the options, I decided the dream had given me a green light to go, but I’d tuck essentials into my carry-on so I wouldn’t arrive completely unprepared if the airline lost my luggage.
But that didn’t sit right either. And with only a few nights left for pre-trip dreaming, I asked the Universe one more time for a clear, unmistakable sign.
That morning, I called my mechanic about what I was sure was a “small” car problem, hoping to have it fixed before taking the hour-and-a-half drive to the airport in just a few days. His diagnosis deflated me: The problem wasn’t minor.
“I can still drive it though, right?” I asked. “It’s not like the wheels are going to come flying off or anything, is it?”
“Well,” he began—
It turns out, they could. And he couldn’t get me in for a service appointment for at least another week.
I hung up and began researching alternate plans for errands and transportation to the airport.
Then I realized I’d just received the sign I’d asked for:
When the wheels are coming off, park the car.
I canceled my trip.
A wish for omniscience and a nod to omens
Had I made the right decision? Should I have relied on signs and omens rather than simple logic? Would the results have been the same either way?
At times like this, I wish for an omniscient narrator—the knowing voice in novels that hears everyone’s thoughts and sees where every road leads. That storyteller knows the hidden currents and can raise a red flag of warning when the calm river is about to become destabilizing rapids.
Or maybe we already possess such an overseeing presence.
Our unconscious mind, which absorbs far more than conscious awareness can hold, invites us into a vast sea of information through dreams and when intuition warns that something is wrong, or when it buoys our heart to let us know that something else is unaccountably right.
Freud observed that dreams often reveal knowledge and memories that the waking subject doesn’t know they possess. Jung called the external appearance of inner events synchronicity: meaningful coincidences that feel like omens. It could be a stray acorn that plops onto our head, waking us from sleepy distraction so we don’t wander into a patch of poison ivy …
… or a mechanic’s sober assessment—jolting us into a safer choice.
Rooted in prophecy
Linguistically, omniscience and omen share roots in knowing and prophecy.
Omniscient, which combines the Latin roots: omni-, meaning "all" or "universally," and the verb scire, meaning "to know,” can grant a literary narrator an all-knowing perspective in a story or poem.
Omen, from the ancient Greek oionos, meaning foretelling, is linked to the ancient art of observing birds of prey to predict the future according to their flight patterns or calls.
Both omniscience and omens offer invitations to look beyond the narrow first-person view we habitually live by.
At night, dreams—with access to a vast storehouse of unnoticed details—can offer a bit more omniscience, surfacing warnings or encouragements we wouldn’t otherwise register.
Using dreamwork techniques, we can use our imagination to slip into the perspectives of each dream character, and even dream animals and objects, to gain a fuller picture of our circumstances. We can become our own omniscient narrator.
In waking life, sometimes all it takes is a feather floating down before us, or an honest mechanic, to keep us from losing our bearings and steering into danger.
Making the right choice
Did I make the right choice?
Did my dreams even help?
Was the mechanic’s diagnosis really a sign, or was it just a conversation with a guy who fixes cars for a living?
I’m a poet and a dreamworker, so I stand behind the process of mining my dreams for information, and heeding the signs that appear in waking life, too.
I’m also a pragmatic person. So, I ran my decision past a few members of my inner circle, all of whom I trust for their wisdom, friendship, and lovingkindness.
Synthesizing all available information from realms both worldly and otherworldly works best for me.
And so, here I am: disappointed to be far from my dream tribe, but content to know that I did what was best for my health and well-being.
Three lessons from life about decision-making:
1. In addition to coin tosses and lists of pros and cons, look to signs and omens to guide you through decision-making. Because, why not bring a little magic-dazzle to an otherwise grueling process?
2. Don’t sweat it (like I did). When a decision is difficult to make, with as many items in the pros column as in the cons, either way is likely the best one.
3. Divine Presence is on both sides of any decision. Wherever we go, there She is to comfort and guide us.
Whichever path you take, have faith that you’re headed in the right direction. Until that is, another sign or sense of deep knowing offers you a course correction.
Take this as a sign for your writing
‘Write some poems that are not in your own voice, that are coming from a body of knowledge you don’t have, that are prophetic, that come from outside the human.’
~Tracy K. Smith, former US Poet Laureate
Take today’s meditation on omens and omniscience as a wink from the universe, alerting you that your writing might need a little help from beyond.
Try this:
If you’ve been writing your poems or stories from the popular first-person perspective, this might be your sign to shift into omniscience.
Inspired by the quote above, write in a prophetic voice.
Or
Write about a time you or your character experienced prophecy through a dream or waking vision.
Get published!
If you’ve written something in response to a prompt in this or another of my Substack posts, books, or workshops, drop it in the comments! You may be selected to be published in the recently launched This Dream is a Poem Dream Circle Anthology!
Until next time, I’m wishing you dreams of clear guidance,
Resources for dreamers:
Contact me for a 1:1 Dreamwork Session. (Details here.)
Check out the International Association for the Study of Dreams, the world’s premier dream organization, and join the conference next spring:
This is the story of the waking vision I was retelling this morning. It's rough, but you get the gist of the waking vision or sign I received.
I've known my husband since he showed up at my door in 1992. We dated, then split up after two years. He married the friend who introduced us, and I was the maid of honour at their wedding. Then, they divorced, and when Facebook started up, we reconnected again. He came to see me en route to Scotland when I was living in Toronto, and he was living in Tennessee. We started dating again. Then, I got diagnosed with cancer and was in the hospital for 2 months.
When I got out, I had no money and couldn't teach yoga anymore because my body was still recovering. I started an online business that grew very fast, unexpectedly. As a result of its success, I qualified for a visa and was eligible to move to the US, which took the pressure off us getting married. On the day I was meant to move, my passport got held up at the consulate, and I was supposed to be at a conference in NC the next day. I began wondering if maybe this was a sign, if this wasn't the right path for me. I was doing all the logical work, jumping through hoops to get my passport, but doubts were creeping in.
Then, while sitting at a red light in the suburbs of Toronto, a white semi truck drove in front of me with one word in giant red letters painted on the side of it. It read TENNESSEE. I now live in TN with my husband, whom I married at the start of COVID, and we joke that we've been together for more than 30 years, minus that time he married another woman.
Your post made me realize I've been away from my dream life far too long. Thank you. What an excellent post. Loved this, "Our unconscious mind, which absorbs far more than conscious awareness can hold. . ." If only we'd tune into it more (as you have). Years ago in Berkeley I took a Senoi Dreamwork class. Ten sessions, in each we told our most important dreams that week. The last class was a total mindblower. Yes, dreamwork calls, thank you for the reminder, Tzivia.