On average it happens a few times a month. I dream about someone and something happens to him or her, and a few days or weeks later I discover that the scenario in my dream has happened in real life. It’s always been that way.
One night, when I was 19, I dreamed that my grandmother was reborn as a baby, but with her aged head. I woke up when my college landline rang, went there, and heard my father tell me that my grandmother had died that night.
Then there was the time I dreamed of a tower with bodies falling out of them in graphic detail. A few days later the World Trade Center tragedy occurred.
I dreamed of my father lying quietly in a contraption in a wall. That year he began radiotherapy for the cancer that took his life.
And on the morning of his death, in 2005, I had the strange feeling that everything ‘stopped’ and that I was not allowed to get the train to work. He died that morning.
So I’ve always felt a bit clairvoyant. But often I ignore my dreams or feelings, or I forget them. Like the time I dreamed that I didn’t have to walk a path. The next morning I went for a walk and saw this trail I had dreamed of. I ignored my intuition and walked over, only to be stared at by a man in the bushes.
So what good is a little nugget of psychic abilities if I don’t listen to it or interpret it correctly? And can someone like me be ‘trained’ to become better at it?
I contacted the famous clairvoyant Inbaal Honigman. Inbaal has been psychic all her life and has been doing tarot readings since she was twenty. She appeared on Big Brother as the reality TV show’s psychic to see who would be voted out. Now she teaches courses to help psychics improve their skills.
I’ve always felt a bit psychic, writes Julie Cook
Our first session starts with a Zoom call. Inbaal is bubbly, friendly, personable and tells me that everyone has the ability to be psychic, but they should cherish it.
“Even people without that little ounce of talent can train to become a certain kind of psychic,” she says.
She tells me it would be good to start keeping a dream journal and buy a deck of tarot cards to “introduce yourself leisurely to the world of symbolism.” She also recommends crystals “to achieve greater clarity”: a clear quartz and one of obsidian. Clear quartz is “great for healing and great for sleep,” she adds.
‘Black crystals such as obsidian absorb negativity and keep your thoughts clear. They help defend you against people who come to suck you dry.’
Inbaal recommends that I choose a Tarot card of the day and place it next to my bed, to see if that can form a ‘bridge’ between my dreams and my understanding.
I choose the Six of Cups, with a boy giving flowers to a girl, on a beautiful square with a barracks behind it.
I sleep, but wake up with no memory of dreams.
“If you look closely,” says Inbaal, “there is an adult walking away in the background of the card. This can mean a happy childhood because adults let the children be children, but conversely it can also mean that there are no adults around.’
I don’t think much about my childhood. Money problems, recessions, job losses, unhappily married parents and then my father’s cancer devastated my younger years and so it is uncanny that my subconscious chooses not to respond to this card.
Julie was on holiday with her father in the south of Britain when she was three. He died in 2005
Another night I put down the Two of Swords.
I dream of walking down a slippery slope, terrified of falling, close to the edge of the sea. I am introduced to a man downstairs. We walk back upstairs and I know I have to get away from him, then I wake up.
Inbaal explains the card: ‘The Two of Swords shows a figure holding two heavy swords, which symbolize that you have to make a choice. It’s about indecision or having to choose a path.’
As I walked downstairs to feed the cats, I walked into the kitchen and saw a perfect, white crescent moon and gasped as three ducks literally flew over it in sillouette.
It felt so creepy that I couldn’t wait to tell Inbaal.
‘This is interesting because the number of the card is two and the ducks are three, so that numerically represents progress. Then there is the moon. If you look closely at the card, there is a moon in the background of the figure representing intuition. And a moon with the ducks moving across it is like the universe saying, ‘Go ahead, make a decision.’
I’ve been struggling lately with decisions about everything from midlife crises to investments and retirement, to even where I ultimately want to live.
But something else is also happening. Since choosing the cards and writing down my dreams, I feel more attuned and empathetic. I sense that my daughter is having a difficult day at school and lo and behold, she comes home in tears.
So maybe having this introspection will help me become clearer? Inbaal says that dreams are a bridge not only to our subconscious mind, but also to any dormant psychic ability we have. If you can learn to open your mind deeply to your subconscious thoughts, it can bring about psychic abilities you didn’t even know you had.
At our next meeting, Inbaal tells me how to open and close my chakras. These, she says, are the key energy points in the body that allow you to be more attuned to signals from the universe and spirituality.
During our Zoom we close our eyes and Inbaal gently talks me through the chakras.
‘Put your feet firmly on the floor and do not cross your arms and legs. We start with a few breaths and send our roots further into the ground, making us safe, bounded and secure.’
We then feel the earth energy traveling through the roots to the feet and down our legs until it reaches our base chakra, a red circle at the very top between the legs.
“As the energy reaches the base chakra, a red circle begins to spin and glow,” she says.
My ultimate wish is to contact my father, Julie writes. This was taken on holiday as a little girl
It travels to the sacral chakra, an orange circle below the navel and to the Solar Plexus, the chakra of the sun, and this circle turns yellow. From there the energy flows to the heart chakra, which is green, and then to the throat chakra, a blue spinning circle.
After a few moments, the energy reaches the third eye – a purple circle on the forehead – and moves to the top of the head, where ‘a bright white shimmering shutter opens and a silver cord extends upward, connecting us to the sky, so that we are nourished, nourished and protected.”
It’s a strange experience.
When I open my eyes, the colors seem brighter, her voice seems clearer, and I feel incredibly sharp and awake, like I’ve had four cups of coffee.
Inbaal tells me this is how I need to be so I can be open to spirits, but it is safest to close the chakras so I don’t absorb unwanted spiritual activity or negative energy.
So could opening chakras make me more available to the spirits of those who have passed away?
“Yes,” she answers.
Over the next few days I will try to open and close the chakras. It becomes easier and easier to do and increasingly relaxing. I can really feel the energy flowing through me and sharpening and awakening once the chakras are open.
My ultimate wish is to contact my father. He died of cancer in 2005 at the age of 59 and I regularly had very lucid dreams in which he visited me. Not so much anymore.
In the coming days I will continue with my Tarot card of the night, my dream journal and the opening and closing of my chakra.
Inbaal Honigman has been psychic all her life and has been doing tarot readings since she was twenty
The fifth night I dream of my father. He sits in a large church with no fixed denomination or religion, is younger again and wears a neat suit. He walks away and I keep trying to find him. There are several rooms in the church where people gather and I know I have to find him in one of them.
I wake up and write down my dream, feeling hopeful and wishing I could have had a conversation with him.
I try again the next night and the next. I’ve been trying all week, but he never shows up again.
Inbaal suggests opening the chakra just before bedtime and laying out a tarot card that relates to masculinity. The obvious choice is the Emperor – a strong card of a man sitting on a throne.
I put it down, sleep… and dream of other things.
Inbaal asks what was my father’s zodiac sign. I tell her Cancer and she recommends the Knight of Cups, a water sign but also because the figure carries a crab-like shell.
I put this down one night, open the chakras as she said and fall asleep.
That night in my dream my father comes to me. He is happy and we are in a strange house. He brought a large wrapped gift. It’s a pool table for my son, Alex.
In my dream, Alex is crying because he finally meets my father. It’s a happy dream and when I wake up I’m sad that it’s over. I ask Inbaal about its meaning.
She says, “A house represents your mind, and rooms in the house represent parts of your personality. The house was not a house you recognized, so you now interact in a ‘new’ way, your dynamic as father and daughter has changed. Maybe he has had a lot of time to think about his life and he looks at you in a different way, maybe you have also changed the way you remember him.
‘A wrapped gift is him sharing a message that is not obvious, but symbolic. The fact that it is huge is also meaningful, he really wants to make an impact. I love the symbolism of a pool table. Several possible goals have been set, each of which can be achieved.’
Inbaal asks if a pool table means something specific to me. That is not the case.
“The flatness of a pool table is very meaningful,” she adds. ‘Everyone has a chance. If your son wants to study more but is afraid that everyone will be richer or more intelligent than him, your dad’s pool table could say that once you step on the green, everyone is equal.”
I feel so strengthened now. The Tarot, the crystals, the journal and now the chakra opening have made me realize that I have an empathetic gift.
I hope that as I progress and learn more, it will lead me to an even greater understanding. There are many things I would like to say and ask my father. He died so young and I wish I had gotten more of his advice. I like to think that these dreams can be a bridge to what happens in the future.