Precognitive dreams work in a variety of ways for dreamers. They have informed people about things that occurred the next day. Sometimes they have been a mystery with a silver lining that later unfolded and benefited the dreamer. This link between the dream and the event has taken days, months and even years to comprehend.
For two weeks, I had dreams about art galleries and museums. The walls were covered with framed paintings and photographed pictures of individual portraits. Small groups of people walked around and admired the art. These dreams didn’t seem to have a deep message or meaning for me. When I woke up in the morning, I felt a calmness from experiencing the nightly artistic tours. I belonged to a writers group that met on a monthly basis. We brought in a variety of individual manuscripts, read the material, and critiqued each other. A week after I had these dreams, the person in charge of the group gave us a writing idea to get the creative juices flowing. She suggested taking a favorite painting and writing a story prompted by the subject matter. This thought appealed to me so I went to the library and check out a huge anthology on famous paintings for inspiration. When I opened the book, I felt a dé jà vu about the dreams I had two weeks earlier.
After looking at hundreds of paintings, I felt drawn toward five of them. I had ideas for all of them but I couldn’t figure out which one to start writing a story about. One was Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych. The diptych format comes from the Byzantine icons of Christian saints.
On a weekly basis I met with a another group of people. We would read a chapter in a book on spiritual development, discuss the contents, and then talk about our nightly dreams. While meeting with this group, I noticed that a small stack of books had been removed from an end table in the leader’s house. They had been there for several weeks and covered up a diptych of Mary and Jesus on the table that was now in plain sight. This caught my attention. The next week, I returned to the leader’s house for our meeting. Her teen-age daughter walked into the house, set her keys and purse on the table in front of the diptych. The handbag had a picture of Marilyn Monroe printed on the front. I was stunned but aware of what was going on.
I hadn’t understood why I had dreams about paintings until this event occurred. They were precognitive about the inspirational writing idea that I received when I met with the writing group. Finding the Marilyn Diptych picture in the book got me close to coming up with an idea to start my writing. The keys on the table opened up the door to a synchronicity. This manifested in the icons of Mary and Jesus on the table. Seeing the likeness of Marilyn Monroe on the purse was even more verification to pay attention to these events.
My intuition told me to develop a story about the Monroe portrait. The writing just flowed. Within a few days I completed the work. I named it Picture Perfect and the short story was published a few months later.
It took some time to piece together the chain of events but it was well worth it. Some skeptics have said that this was an uncanny coincidence or selective perception on my part. Fortunately, I paid attention to my dreams and had them guide me to accomplish my creative goal.
Early inspiration
by Marie Otte
back in the dream repeating as a theme ascending stairs with pillars in pairs high ceilings, spacious walls perfect light falls this expansive art gallery seems intriguingly bleary many paintings discharge faintly while one portrait is glowing saintly preparing me for the future what I need to secure emotions are added on by this feminine icon she makes flowing words mandatory as we complete my short story
