Both of my parents were librarians, so growing up surrounded by books was normal. I often had books stacked along my bedroom walls. After reading them, I'd build make-believe castles and cities, imagining worlds beyond the ones I read about. Looking back, I believe those imaginary worlds also offered an escape from the pain and trauma I experienced throughout childhood and into adulthood.
During those same childhood years, I was also experiencing recurring nightmares and unusual dream phenomena. Many of these experiences continued into adulthood, spanning more than four decades. Although trauma was a significant part of my life, I didn't yet understand how it might be connected to my dreams.
Growing up in the Christian faith also influenced how I understood my dreams. In the churches I attended, people often judged me as sinful or cursed because of my dreams and the trauma I experienced. After a while, I stopped talking about my dreams and began suppressing them altogether. Over time, I lost touch with that part of myself.
Much later in life, following a divorce, I no longer had a church home. This gave me the freedom and confidence to explore my dreams more openly. What seemed like an adventure to better understand my dreams led me into many other areas. I found myself reading scientific studies, examining firsthand accounts, and learning from people across neuroscience, psychology, and spiritual traditions.
As I learned more, I began finding explanations for many of my frightening dreams. I also started recognizing connections between my dreams and waking life. As I confronted certain fears and worked through past trauma, my dreams began changing. Sometimes, those changes helped me recognize the progress I was making while awake. In a way, my dreams gradually became a kind of compass, helping me better understand myself.
Today, my work focuses on unusual dream phenomena, particularly those that seem to cross into waking life. Having benefited from research myself, I want to make that knowledge easier for others to understand. I'm equally interested in investigating phenomena that researchers are still working to understand.
Building trust is another important part of my work because dreams are deeply personal. I want people to feel comfortable sharing their experiences without fear of judgment or dismissal.
That same commitment to trust extends to how I bring people together. My background in community engagement and strategic relationship building has taught me the value of connecting people from different backgrounds. For me, that means bringing together researchers, historians, people from different spiritual traditions, and those with firsthand accounts. I believe bringing these different perspectives together can lead to greater understanding, new insights, and opportunities for collaboration.
Dreams can be hopeful, but they can also be frightening. Experiences involving sleep paralysis, many types of hallucinations, recurring nightmares, or even dying in dreams can be difficult to talk about. Through sharing stories, writing, and making complex research more accessible, my hope is that fewer people will feel they have to suffer in silence.