Dreams & The Medicinal Journey

My first recurring anxiety dream started not long after my family and I immigrated to the United States when I was five; they were stunningly predictable. I would leave my house for some reason and when I returned, my house was gone. I’d walk around with a growing sense of panic until everything seemed quite dire. Inevitably, I would see a stranger and work up the courage to ask for help. He (it was always a man) would walk or drive me around the neighborhood while I cried unconsolably. Sometimes I was naked, which was more embarrassing than the crying because it came with the vulnerability and shame of feeling totally exposed as a young girl. I never found my way back home before I woke up.

Those dreams faded into the background as I slowly changed into the person I thought I had to be in order to fit into the mold of being an American. By the time I’d learned how to ignore my own instincts, and emotions, and latch onto other people for security somewhere in my adolescence—I can’t tell you an exact time—those dreams were replaced with water dreams. I was always near some big expansive body of water, in an unprotected area, and a tsunami was approaching. All I could sense was impending doom as the angry wall of water gained momentum in the distance. Sometimes I was locked in place by horror and other times the anxiety moved me into action looking for somewhere to hind, but neither offered a reprieve before I was about to be devoured by the massive wave. I’d wake up before the tsunami hit, which in itself felt torturous because it told me this nightmare would be continued at another time.

The tsunami dream lived with me for no less than twenty years, in one variation or another. However, it started to morph and change after I had a sleeping dream of awakening somewhere around my thirty-eighth birthday. When I woke up that morning, I made a promise to become a reflection of the woman I experienced that night. For the next two years, I made radical shifts in my life. However, I still wasn’t brave enough to end my co-dependent relationship, even though we’d clearly outgrown each other. To avoid the discomfort of leaving, some mornings I would retreat into a new practice of writing morning pages. Mostly, I’d write to understand, explore my desires, and secretly dream of a different life.

And yet, a funny thing happens when you open yourself to new possibilities that require making radical shifts in your life. Either you start making different choices or life slowly starts to fall apart. This isn’t due to some unseeable force that derives pleasure from your suffering, but because individual transformation is a natural evolutionary consequence of being human. Things naturally begin, change, grow, mature, and end; it’s the upward spiral of evolution. At that point of my life, I still liked beginnings and change for the sake of excitement, but embracing the rest of nature’s cycle, especially growth and maturity through the inevitability endings and uncertainty, was frightening to me.

By the time I admitted my partner was nowhere to be found in those lovingly penned pages, our relationship unraveled with the same dysfunction that kept it together. Sadly, neither of us had the ability to end it with the respect it deserved. The end of that relationship was the start of the real pilgrimage to find myself; now I was single for the first time and fully responsible for my life. It felt scary, and uncomfortable, and uncertain, but I started exploring self-awareness, questioning my limiting beliefs, and offering myself self-care for some ballast.

It was during this time when I had my last significant tsunami dream. Like so many times before, I was near an expansive body of water. However, as the wall of water gathered momentum, I wasn’t afraid. Instead, I was busy gathering those around me who were panicked and taking them to safety. I showed them a vacant building—a large house that looked ravaged by war—and invited them to join me in the empty rooms, just before the wave arrived. The water traveled over everyone, including myself, and dissolved back into the sea. Everyone looked around in amazement, but I knew we were safe all along. When I woke up the next morning, I knew I would one day help others navigate change and transformation.

Over the years, my ideas about how I would do that have shifted in significant ways. For over ten years, I threw myself, with total abandon into metaphysical healing practices, until I had a healing practice of my own. By the time the pandemic hit in early 2020, my healing practice had already experienced a slow dissolution. I trusted the outcome, but was never so unsure about life. My life was filled with material abundance, growing relationships, but I had no idea what was next for me on the career front which I’d used to largely define my worth.

The truth is, I had no idea who I was if I wasn’t healing, fixing or solving other people’s issues, so I threw myself into my husband’s dreams. This was an important time for us a couple; we learned to navigate our differences and respective strengths against the backdrop of multiple construction projects and a new business venture. In the background I dabbled with somatic practices and revisited mediumship in hopes of conjuring up a new spiritual community in the midst of all the isolation. Honestly, I was shocked to discover how easily anxiety moved in to my body whenever I felt uncertain…and couldn’t fall back on “healer mode”…especially when I perceived those I loved either struggling or suffering.

This self-awareness was heightened when my husband had a life-threatening health issue around the first of this year. The discomfort of holding on—to the façade of my independence, the idea I can save anyone, dreams still yet to be realized—had been echoing in other areas of my life, too. I had a vision for a solo real estate project that went off the rails because I ignored my own instincts and found myself in the middle of difficult negotiations looking for justice; a promising new healing business venture ended abruptly when my new business partners went in another direction and ended our friendship in the process; and, my father was struggling with a serious health issue… and nothing feels more excruciating than the inevitability of physical death for those you love the most…regardless of how much inner work you think you’ve done.

I was in a cavern of uncertainty and none of my old techniques or interests could squelch my longing to feel settled. So much so, I was asking for internal guidance about how to end this cycle of discomfort. Like so many times before, the answer took me by surprise: take a guided medicinal journey.

I’ll admit, taking a psychedelic journey felt a bit like cheating. I’ve spent the last fifteen years healing, deepening my commitment to self-discovery, and understanding my true nature through direct experience with the Divine. I’ve had profound moments of spiritual awakening without the aid of anything mind-altering, some I’ve already written about on Substack. In addition, I started a two-year meditation teacher training in the Spring. It’s deepening my understanding of how to embrace not just the good parts of life, but also how to be present with the more challenging moments. That said, I could feel the call of the medicine and I’m so glad I listened.

Through the medicinal journey, I swam through a sea of reluctance to move to a higher state of consciousness. To do that, I had to traverse my own psyche, which might be the scariest thing I’ve ever done. (I really don’t recommend it for anyone who doesn’t have some sort of established inner self-discovery practice or without someone to guide you.) I threw up the anxiety I’ve been carrying since my family immigrated to the United States when I was young. When that left my field, I faced the fear of my aloneness. I entered the vastness of emptiness; it felt like the beginning of time. I witnessed the alluring dream of illusion—emphasized in this journey through the creation of illness and suffering.

Yet, I also I received affirmation of how a voice of clarity guides me to each important signpost. I experienced waves of gratitude for how we walk each other home, whether we consider someone or something a friend or foe. Finally, I felt the Power of the Divine Feminine and She showed me how to rest in the Presence of Love through the simple act of allowing. I saw the benefit of surrender…which hurled me deeper into an unending field of perception…there (which is really here), I felt the promise of something perpetually birthing itself… as I rested into the longing to know myself, more fully.

As the medicine receded, the voice of clarity declared I did not need medicine to wake up. I felt the pull of the conditioned person coming back on-line and I realized some old habits are difficult to break, so I couldn’t help but wonder how that might unfold.

Since the journey in early September, there are parts of my life that no longer seem to fit. Though it doesn’t feel like endings, as much as letting it all belong in a larger sense of spaciousness. I’m definitely more comfortable with uncertainty which I now see as an opening to reach beyond my mind and through the grace of not-knowing…rest in something ineffable, unchanging, silent, spacious. I can now more fully grasp the benefit of relaxation as a tool in transformation; I get yoga, somatic practice, meditation, and mindfulness in a whole new way. Of course, I understand that relaxation isn’t a technique at all, but how I allow the dance of consciousness to bring me into a natural state of being, where I can witness the waking dream with clarity.

Yet, I’ll admit—staying as the perceiver for a sustained period of time is easier said than done without the aid of medicine, but I still don’t feel like I cheated—the trauma of being human, within the dream of consciousness, can be difficult to decipher and digest.

Though something about the medicinal journey also proved disappointing, after-the-fact. Since the pandemic, I was living with another recurring dream: it’s been years since I left some old job I’d clearly outgrown. I’m about to embark on a new, exciting chapter. Then all of a sudden, I’m back in my old position. I’m humbled and doing exactly what I did before. I’m working with familiar people, though there’s usually one person I really admire and I’ve recommitted to the redundancy for their sake…and there I am…repeating myself…even though none of this feels right.

I was shocked to experience the dream only a few weeks after the journey. I was staying at a friend’s house, as we were planning on going to an all-day healing session the following day. I explained the dream over breakfast that morning: my resignation was announced on a huge leaderboard, like you might see in a train station or at the airport before the advent of technology. I listened as the letters finished clicking into place and watched with excitement as the declaration…Susan Crampton Davis has resigned…was front and center for everyone to see. I was reveling in how wonderful it felt to make a new choice.

But before I could turn to exit the building…the announcement changed in an instant…the leaderboard declared I’d returned to my old position. I hardly had time to catch my breath between announcements. Then I woke up.

And there it was—my resistance to the dream of knowing myself fully, without it being overly defined by self-examination, fixing, and healing.

It was time for something new.