A quarterly newsletter offering bereavement support using dreams as a tool for healing and reconciliation.
Carla Blowey, Editor
· Introduction: Welcome
· From the Editor: About Dreaming Kevin
· Tips: Dream techniques
· Resources: Dreams and grief related books & links, web sites
· News: Programs and scheduled events
· Dreamer’s Mailbox
INTRODUCTION: Welcome
Dear Readers: Welcome to the first issue of Dreams: A Blessing in Disguise, a quarterly newsletter offering bereavement support using dreams as an alternative tool for understanding your grief and reconciling the death of your loved one.
My name is Carla Blowey and I am the author of Dreaming Kevin: The Path To Healing. I am also a bereaved mother whose dreams have played a vital role in guiding me through some very difficult and challenging times on this fourteen-year journey. I am very passionate about sharing my dream experiences with the bereaved because everything we need to know to understand our grief and survive this journey is within us. We must learn to trust our intuition, so we can become more conscious of the inner guidance depicted in our dreams. Dream work is a unique tool that can bring healing to the wounded places in our body, in our heart, and in our soul.
In this newsletter, I invite you to ‘see differently’ by using the gift of your dreams as a tool for reconciliation, healing, and spiritual growth. Each quarter I will share stories, insights, and resources about dreaming to inspire you to explore your own dream world. Please feel welcome to correspond with me and use this forum for discussion and support.
FROM THE EDITOR: About Dreaming Kevin
My journey began on January 7, 1991 with a precognitive/prophetic dream that predicted the death of my five-year-old son, Kevin. Less than twelve hours after the dream, my son lay unconscious, bleeding to death on the snow-packed street at the foot of our neighbor’s driveway. While I had been in the house making dinner, Kevin was struck down and driven over by a truck as he rode his bike on the sidewalk past our neighbor’s home. In that moment, Kevin died in my arms and with him went my life too.
In the days that followed, frightening images from the dream and the accident attacked my sanity and held me captive whether I was asleep or awake. Consumed by guilt, I believed I had lost my chance to heed the “warning” of the dream and save my son. As my journey began, grief took its toll on my body, my mind and my spirit. Strange as it may seem, within days of his death, I began dreaming Kevin. With each passing night, I longed to dream him again for there was no doubt that the wonderful feeling of being with Kevin in my dreams felt the same as if he were alive.
Determined to find meaning and unlock the archetypal images of the Nightmare, I summoned my courage and journeyed to the dreamtime where I discovered that Kevin had merely transitioned from matter to spirit and that his love for our family and me was stronger than ever. Kevin wanted me to know he was alive and the power of his love shattered my illusions of death.
Initially I recorded my dreams to preserve my ‘new’ memories of Kevin. However, I soon discovered a pattern of dreams that mirrored the pain of our separation and reflected my chaotic outer life fueling the persistent themes of guilt and suffering. Each night my fears, desires, and memories appeared on my dream screen. The dreams were like a script for a movie written, produced, directed and performed by me. Everything I had believed to be true was being tested and my belief system crumbled around me. I had entered the dark night of the soul, a place where every bereaved parent has lived in the wake of their child’s death.
Ultimately, my soul’s desire was to heal and God’s response to that was to send some amazing companions to love and support me on the voyage. My dear friend and a counselor at the time, Harry McDonald, proposed the most preposterous question a bereaved parent could ever hear. He simply asked me if I was willing to see my son’s death differently. Mired in my grief and clutching my pain, I was stunned and offended. How dare he ask me such a question? Whether my eyes were opened or closed, all I saw was my little boy’s bleeding and broken body as he lay dying in my arms. He was dead! How could I see it any way other than the nightmare that it was? Harry was actually suggesting that I risk giving up what I saw or thought to be true, to make room for what I knew to be true, and only then, my healing would begin.
I had a choice. I could choose to allow the Nightmare and my grief to possess me and fuel more fear and guilt or I could choose to expose it to the light and seek the truth. The message of the dream was not a warning to save Kevin. I could not save him from his destiny. Rather the dream was intended to prepare me for the dramatic spiritual transition that would enable me to see differently. The Nightmare was actually a blessing in disguise designed to heal my soul and empower my life.
I invite bereaved parents and all those grieving a loved one to use the gift of their dreams as a tool for healing the losses in their lives. Everything we need to know to empower ourselves is within us. All that is required is that we want to see it differently.
TIPS:
Sleep-State ADC
I know now that what I experienced is known as an after-death communication,
specifically, a sleep-state after-death communication. “An ADC is a
spiritual experience, which occurs when you are contacted directly and
spontaneously by a deceased family member or friend, without
the use of psychics, mediums, rituals, or devices of any kind. It is estimated
that 50-100 million Americans - 20-40% of the population of the United States -
have had one or more ADC experiences. Therefore, ADCs provide convincing new
evidence for life after death. “
(Hello From Heaven! Bill & Judy Guggenheim).
Visit the Guggenheims website and learn more about ADC’s at
http://www.after-death.com/
RESOURCES
Dreaming Kevin: The Path To Healing, Infinity Publishing.com 2002, Paperback, 301 pgs:
In 1991, Carla Blowey entered the most challenging time of her life when the death of her five-year-old son, Kevin, and the nightmare that predicted it, forced her to reexamine her perceptions about death, grief and the afterlife. Carla took the road less traveled and journeyed to the dreamtime where she discovered that Kevin had merely transitioned from matter to spirit and that his love for her and their family was stronger than ever. Fourteen years later, Carla invites the bereaved to 'see differently' by using the gift of their dreams as a tool for reconciliation, healing, and spiritual growth.
To order go to www.buybooksontheweb.com and type in Dreaming Kevin.
To order a signed copy go to www.dreamingkevin.com.
NEWS: Programs & Events
I will be presenting my program “Dreams: A Blessing in Disguise for Grieving Parents” this summer at two national conferences for bereaved parents.
July 1-3, 2005: The Compassionate Friends 2005 National Conference in Boston, MA.
July 14-17, 2005: 2005 Bereaved Parents of the USA National Gathering in Las Vegas, NV.
I am delighted to announce that I will be joining my fellow bereaved parent author/friends, Mitch Carmody, Sandy Goodman, and Judy Collier to present two additional workshops at the BPUSA conference. Click here to learn more! http://www.dreamingkevin.com/Workshop_descrip.htm
Next issue-June 2005: Dreamer’s Mailbox, Learn Dream Recall Techniques, Book Reviews, and Reflections From the Editor!
Dreams & Blessings,
Carla
Copyright March 2005
Dreaming Kevin: The Path To Healing
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