5 Tips For Psychic Dreaming

Around Thanksgiving, I wondered about a psychic story I could share for my New Year’s blog. I was looking for something that might illuminate the benefits of what might be called Conscientious Psychic Dreaming. I hadn’t been particularly attentive to my dreams at the time, so I had little of note to draw from.

I thought, "A prophetic dream will come, and when it does, I’ll follow where it leads me.” This is all you need to do; call out for the dream, and have the intent to catch it.

A few days later, on my first night of a month-long trip to Taipei, the dream I called for came.

The story that unfolded from my intention highlighted the remarkable psychic reflections that can be found in a dream one might otherwise disregard as frivolous. It also inspired me to draw up Five Tips For Psychic Dreaming, which are included below.

​The dream was short, virtually a picture:

As I walked up to my place of business, a house at the edge of town, high up on a sea bluff, I saw a sign above the porch: Derek Calibre’s Psychic Readings.

Above the sign, someone had placed a single-frame cartoon, similar to one you’d find in The New Yorker. It featured a crocodile relaxing in a deck chair, legs crossed, smoking a pipe. Some yards before him, I was illustrated, with a backpack on my shoulder, happily setting off on a path that ran along the bluff’s edge.

Indicating the guy walking on the path (me), the crocodile gave those of us viewing the scene a knowing look. In the caption, he was quoted: “Maybe he’ll do a psychic reading on himself.”

When you have a dream in which an animal appears, consider it a visitation by a Totem Spirit Guide. Its presence is most certainly meant to indicate that animal’s qualities. First, see if you recognize your spirit guide’s talents in yourself. Then look for that animal to make an appearance in your life.

Crocodiles don’t inhabit Taiwan, but in the month I spent touring that country, my Animal Guide showed up twice.

For ten years I’ve been involved in this symbolic/dreamscape business. And I still fall into the trap of referencing what I refer to as the ‘dictionary definitions’ of the archetypes at hand. Thinking the Crocodile inauspicious, I searched the Internet for his symbolic meaning.

Within five minutes I collected a confusing selection of words and phrases that ranged from ominous to encouraging: “Hidden danger, threats, maternal protection, patience, initiation, survival, adaptability, reclaiming psychic power, denying truth, unconscious repression, fertility, keeper of time, comfortable in two worlds (water/land), tough skin, stealth.”

How was I to take anything specific or meaningful out of all that? I liked some of it, but it was hard not to dwell on the sense of ‘hidden danger’.

To console myself, I took comfort that the Crocodile of my dream appeared kicking back on a breezy deck. He seemed relaxed to me, with his legs crossed. That little detail of the pipe in his mouth gave him an air of thoughtfulness and maturity. And he was portrayed in a cartoon! Cartoons, in dreams, represent looking at life through a lens of humor and truthfulness.

Since this crocodile suggested I look at myself through a psychic reading, I dug through my suitcase and pulled out my tarot deck.

As I shuffled the cards, I thought of the picture he saw, of me setting off on a cliff with a backpack on my shoulder. It struck me as an obvious recreation of The Fool archetype as depicted in the Rider Waite Tarot.

In the language of the Tarot, the Fool represents the central character in the archetypal Journey of Life. With a backpack on his shoulder, he sets off on a carefree journey, naive as to what’s in front of him. When the Fool comes out in a reading it signals surprises, life in the moment, a complete lack of rules, fearlessness, and openness for adventure.

It was my first trip to Taiwan, my boyfriend Ken's homeland. Ken has been a central figure in my life for twelve years, so this was kind of a big deal. The day before I left New York, I got into an argument with him. “I haven’t heard what we’re doing yet on this trip,” I complained. “I’m traveling all the way across the world and there doesn’t seem to be a plan.”

“D, relax. I’ll show you everything.”

“Yes, but can I get a sense of what ‘everything’ will be? It’d be nice to have something to look forward to.”

I wasn’t to get a plan out him. OK, fine.

I flipped a tarot card: Judgment Day.

When we die, our life is reviewed and we awaken to a new life. I’ve seen a version of this card depicted as a heavenly angel offering a hand to a figure stepping out of a coffin. It represents lessons learned, gratitude, waking up, finding your calling, life after a major change, a breakthrough of some kind.

I didn’t much like the card at the time. Frankly, it made me want to cry. I put the deck away, wondering if my crocodile dream was a crock.

I loved Taiwan. The people were incredibly friendly, the food was delicious, and the scenery was stunning.

Ken and I took a road trip from bustling Taipei in the north, to sleepy Taitong in the south, making our way through the mountains, towns and national parks with no hotel reservations. We stopped at places we liked, and knocked on doors. That’s the way the Fool would do it.

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Over and over again, the themes of my dream played out on our trip. I experienced surprises at every turn.

While traveling along a freeway, I saw four people in the breakdown lane, standing around a kind of bonfire. At first I thought they were having a bar-b-q. As we zipped past, I asked Ken, “How are they allowed to make a fire on the freeway like that?”

“Someone died there. They’re burning money so the person has it in heaven.”

“Oh,” I said. For a long stretch, we rode in silence. I’d just looked into the mirror of the Judgment Day Card.

The Taiwanese are crazy drivers, fearless behind the wheel. Lanes often seemed optional. My Lonely Planet Guidebook explicitly advised newcomers against driving. But I had to. After two days in the passenger seat, my nerves were shot. I laid down the law. “I’m driving.”

Signs with arrows looked like gibberish to me. I had no idea what any of them meant! A woman’s voice issued directions in Mandarin out of a GPS unit suckered to the windshield. “Chien Fong… Jdo dran… Dao da mu di di.”

I kept thinking, only a Fool would do this. But I was careful, and after a while, I got the hang of it. Ken and I made a good team. While I drove, he kept an eye on the map. He translated the GPS’s directions, and looked up attractions we might take in.

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In Lalashan, the mountains of north-central Taiwan, we stayed at a house with a porch perched on a ledge in the sky. My only quibble with the place was that it had mosquitoes.

The next day, while shopping for rain boots, I saw my first crocodile. He was on a package of mosquito repellant. There wasn’t a place we stayed at that didn’t have mosquitoes. They were an endemic part of the trip.

Upon awaking, we heard something like a loud thunderclap. An hour or two later, we drove up the mountain, hoping to take a hike. Shortly before the trail head, we had to turn around; a landslide blocked the road. This was the thunderclap we’d heard.

The roads in this region curl around 2,500-foot-high mountains. We traveled through some of it in fog so thick we could only see 10 feet in front of us. At one spot, Ken had to get out and move some rocks that had fallen into the road. At several points, portions of the road before us had simply fallen down the mountain.

For three days we rode the perilous route 7, and the treacherous route 8. It was crazy, but also worth it. The scenery was stunning. Photos simply couldn’t do it justice.

Whenever I felt scared, I remembered my relaxed crocodile. By this point, the essence of his message seemed apparent: the danger, the path along the edge of the cliff, the Fool. It all made sense!

Taiwan is famous for its Sea Clouds, a phenomenon I never encountered before.

On a hike around Ceifeng, an alpine lake, I came upon a sign alerting us to a special bird in the area— “The Little Angel of Judgment."

The theme of Judgment, life after death, continued when we came upon a sign highlighting some of the nearby fallen trees. It reminded us of the new life that was able to spring up as a result of those falls.

One morning, in Taroko National Park, Ken woke up having dreamt that someone had bitten his hand. “Who bit you?” I asked. “I don’t know,” he replied, “but they bit me right here.” He pointed to the soft tissue behind his thumb on the back of his hand and asked, “What do you think it means?”

“Reminds me of an expression, ‘to bite the hand that feeds you.’ It might mean something about challenging your boss, or benefactor… You'll have to see.”

When you’re wondering what a dream means, think of it as having many meanings. You have the artistic freedom to interpret it as you wish. A symbolic meaning will come out of your first associations with it.

Out of curiosity, I looked up ‘bite the hand that feeds you’ on the Internet and one contributor wrote that it was first used in the 18th Century by England’s Edmond Burke. Apparently, in some sort of parliamentary dispute over spending, he was quoted as saying, “having looked to the government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that feeds them.”

Little did we know, Ken was having his own prophetic dream!

We next crossed the Tropic of Cancer to Taiwan’s sunny south. My crocodile appeared a second time at a B & B in Hualien, along the eastern seaboard.

It was a gorgeous, modern house featuring a porch a couple hundred meters from the sea. The owner was an artist with an amazing talent for cooking.

Ken read over her menu, and translated it for me. “Says here the recipe for this fish soup was inspired by one she ate in South Africa. It reminds her of gratitude. She went through hard times at that point in her life… the place they stayed at had a lot of mosquitoes, and…” He trailed off a moment, reading the mandarin text, searching for how to translate it. “What do you call those big lizards?”

“Big lizards… You mean, crocodiles?”

“Yeah, crocodiles.”

“Or alligators maybe, but wait, it really says that? Where?” And then he pointed to it in the text.

A couple of days later we decided to go to Green Island. Do you remember that old ABC show, Fantasy Island? They could have filmed that there. We were set up with a guide to take us snorkeling, a 77-year-old man. I thought he was going to just stand off to the side, but boy, did I underestimate him. He could hold his breath a really long time, and dive 20 feet!

He threw us each a lifebuoy, and with a garbage-bag of bread in his hands, towed us far out to the reef. He had fins. We didn't.

The reef was a cliff, which dropped off precipitously. When I looked right, I saw a throng of fish; Angels, Parrots, Trumpets, you name it. To the left, open ocean. We drifted too far out and got caught in a strong tidal current. For a moment I nearly panicked that we were going to be swept to sea. It took us about 15 minutes to get back to a quiet reef. There, the old man thrust the bag of bread in my hand.

I think it’s not exactly good for fish to receive bread. But as they say, ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans’, so I fed them. When I opened the bag, the fish practically attacked me. One chewed my finger and made it bleed.

Back on land, Ken pulled off his mask and laughed. “Ha ha! My dream!” That night, a mosquito bit him at the very spot he dreamt of on the back of his hand.

The next day we woke up at 6am for a hike. One of my books advised us to beware of poisonous snakes in the area, especially the Habu, described as brown, with numerous black spots, aggressive, and inclined to attack shadows and moving objects.

You’d think, after hearing such advice, that I’d be looking at the ground as I walked this hike. But I had to look straight ahead, or else I’d run into spiders the size of my hand. They hung from three-foot-wide webs hanging at face-level.

Later, we rode a moped around the island, stopping at one point to walk a path up to a beautiful sea bluff. There I sat on the grass, and basked in the wonder of my dream’s adventure.

Thank you, Spirit, for the ability to walk along the cliff’s edge: for the gorgeous views, the people, the wildlife; all the gifts of this great planet.

5 Guidelines on How To Experience Your Own Psychic Dream

1. Carry a sense of humor about this psychic dreaming business. Think of your inner dreamer as winking at you.
2. Recall an unrealistic, surreal, or whimsical dream. It’s better if it’s a scene, vignette or snapshot, rather than a full episode. Set the intention recall your dream, and it will come.
3. Overcome your doubts about this dream’s psychic relevance.
4. Write your dream down, leaving no detail out. Let is be simple and short.
5. Over the subsequent days, occasionally wonder about your dream’s psychic relevance until elements from it appear in your waking experience.