You know when you have a dream and it doesn’t feel like a dream? It feels like an experience. Like you were somewhere else entirely… maybe visited by a spirit or a higher being. While you were there, you understood it. Then you wake up and you can’t put it into words.
So you want more of that. You want to know how to get back there.
Here’s what I’ve found after working with my dreams for over twenty years: the more you chase spiritual dreams, the further away they get. There is a path to having more of them, though. I call it the dream ladder, and it has three rungs.
Why do dreams feel so real sometimes?
A spiritual dream feels more real than waking life because, in a sense, you’re closer to who you really are. Your everyday senses aren’t built to carry that experience back. (I go into the spiritual meaning of dreams more broadly here.) It’s like trying to describe a colour no one’s ever seen.
Most people want to jump straight to that. The problem is you can’t skip to the top of a ladder. You have to climb it.
The dream ladder
The dream ladder has three steps:
- The cryptic dream. Regular, weird, symbolic dreams, and choosing not to brush them off.
- Act on the dream. Working with what your dreams show you, until life starts speaking back.
- The spiritual dream. The clear, more-real-than-real experience everyone wants.
Let’s start at the bottom.
Rung one: the cryptic dream
People often say that if a dream feels clear, it might be someone trying to reach you, and if it’s messy and symbolic, it’s “just a dream”.
Here’s the thing. Most of your dreams are weird by design. Your higher self, or a deeper part of you, however you want to call it, is trying to get a message across. It can’t just spell it out, because of free will. We’re here to learn, and we have to choose to learn.
So you get a cryptic message, and you get the choice. You can say “that’s just my brain processing the day” and forget it. Or you can sit with it and work out what it’s saying.
The dreams you’re dismissing are the ones trying to guide you.
Rung two: act on the dream (and watch life answer)
The second rung is about shifting your awareness and actually working with your dreams. When you do, life starts to speak back. Things align. Synchronicities show up.
Here’s a night that showed me exactly that.
My wife and I went to London for a punk show. I put on one of my favourite old band t-shirts, sat on the bed while she got ready, and ended up watching an old video of a band that split up in 1989. A bit of nostalgia, nothing more.
On the twenty-minute walk to the venue, my wife told me about a dream. A dolphin came out of the ocean and confronted her. We talked it through… dolphins are playful, intelligent, people feel a spiritual connection with them. At the end she said, “Oh my god, this dream is about my boss.” I’d never have made that connection. Only the dreamer really knows.
Then she said she’d actually been thinking about another boss at work, called Charlie. The second she said it, a woman a couple of metres in front of us started shouting, “Charlie! Charlie! Come here, Charlie!”
When synchronicities start to stack up
We kept walking. A news alert popped up on my phone: it was the anniversary of the very album on the t-shirt I was wearing.
Outside the venue, someone started chatting to me about my t-shirt. The woman with him said her name was Arwen… and her middle name was Evenstar. My wife and I are huge Lord of the Rings fans. Arwen embodies the divine feminine in a story where it’s almost completely missing. She started talking to me about children, and the wonder kids have about everything, which was exactly what I’d been making videos about.
Part of me was standing there thinking, “Is this a dream?”
Then the band came on stage, and the frontman was wearing a t-shirt of the band I’d been watching on YouTube before we left. A band that hadn’t played together in over thirty years.
None of that would mean anything to anyone else. When it’s your life and your connections, it’s profoundly powerful. When you pay attention to your dreams and deal with what’s in front of you, life aligns around you.
Rung three: the spiritual dream
So how do you reach the top rung? By doing the first two.
When everything in the way has been cleared, the connection between you and your higher self is like a pillar of light. Nothing’s blocking it. That’s when the best conversations with yourself happen. That’s when the spiritual dreams come.
Your higher self wants to connect with you. It’s a wiser, more evolved part of you, and it wants to help the version of you that’s here right now. It just has to meet you on its terms, so you raise yourself to that level.
Why you can’t bring it all back
When you do have one of those dreams, you often can’t explain where you were. That’s not a failure. Maybe you’re not supposed to bring it all back. Maybe it’s just there to show you that, yes, this exists… this is who you really are.
It’s not about leaving this world for another. It’s about both worlds converging. We’re here to take that wisdom and bring it into how we live, right here.
Questions people ask about spiritual dreams
What is a spiritual dream?
A dream that feels like an experience rather than a story. It’s often clear, emotional, and more real than waking life. Many people describe meeting a guide, a loved one or a higher version of themselves.
How do I know if a dream is spiritual?
The feeling is usually the giveaway: clarity, a sense of being somewhere else, and a weight that stays with you for days. Regular dreams carry guidance too, though, so don’t dismiss the weird ones.
Can you make yourself have spiritual dreams?
Not by chasing them. You get there by climbing the ladder: paying attention to your everyday dreams, acting on what they show you, and clearing what’s in the way.
Why do I feel synchronicities after working with a dream?
When you act on your dreams, you start noticing the same language in your waking life. The meaning was always there. You’ve started looking.
See the first rungs in action
If you want to see what it looks like when someone takes an active role in their dreams, I’ve interpreted a real dream from start to finish. It’s free.