It is simple to ache in the bone, or the rind—But gimlets—among the nerve—Mangle daintier—terribler—Like a panther in the glove. — Emily Dickinson

My great-grandfather was a tent revival preacher famous for his altar calls, and my grandmother, his daughter-in-law, was cut from the same cloth.

It bothered her that my parents didn’t go to church, so she tried to make up for their failings by telling me stories from the Bible whenever she got the chance.

On Christmas Eve 1964, it was the story of the Magi.

I don’t remember if she read the story straight from scripture or if she knew it by heart—but as she spoke something happened.

The air began to sparkle. I felt a palpable, resonant current wound gently through the room. I knew that we were not alone.

And that’s all it was, just a breath of energy, but that energy was so distinctive when I felt it again, decades later, I knew it.

At the time, of course, I only knew that something unusual had happened and that—like so many other things in life—I couldn’t explain it.

The next morning, on Christmas Day, my grandmother gave me a very special gift—a beautiful white leather-bound Bible that closed with a shiny gold-tone zipper.

I was only eight, but I was no stranger to reading. So I began with page one, as you would any other book. Immediately drawn in, I read straight through to Genesis 3:8—and stopped.

I read and reread the passage, struck by the certainty that this story was older than any I’d ever heard before. I felt a sudden awareness of vast expanses of time and the almost irresistible pull of a great, unexplored mystery.

I had no idea why this particular passage affected me that way. But I had sensed the mystery. And I continued to chase it.

I went on to read Genesis and Exodus and bits and pieces of the Gospels on my own. But while I loved the stories and the language, there was no more magic.

So I moved on.

I read ghost stories and Gothic fiction. I played with the Ouija board.

My favorite shows had paranormal themes. I never missed Bewitched, Alfred Hitchcock’s Ghostly Gallery, and the long-running paranormal TV show Dark Shadows.

But while I loved exploring all things mysterious, everyday life was difficult.

I was sensitive to the supernatural, but I was sensitive to everything else as well.

I tasted the plastic in bottled milk. Fluorescent lights made me queasy. Noise overwhelmed me. Wool was so abrasive it burned. Polyester petticoats cut into my waist like tiny knives.

To me, these sensations were very real, but whenever I tried to explain them, I was told that I was wrong.

Not, “I’m sorry you experience this.” Not, “I don’t feel that way.” Not, “how odd.”

Wrong.

And so, as time passed, I learned to keep my feelings to myself.

I stopped talking about fabric and lights and the taste of plastic. When I was bullied, I kept quiet. When I cut my knee riding my bike, I hid it until it was too late for stitches.

When I was sexually assaulted at the age of nine, I accepted the cover story I was given and got on with my life.

This wasn’t a decision necessarily. It was a process. It was as much a part of my development as any strangling vine. It was how I taught myself to mask.

But I had no idea that what I was doing was in any way unusual.

I thought everyone had the same sensitivities. The only difference I could see was that others were apparently strong enough to handle the edges.

So I made a Herculean effort to handle them, too—but the sensitivity remained.

I was porous across the board.

I felt an almost mystical connection to nature. I loved walking in the deep woods with the crows calling back-and-forth overhead. I swore I would know my grandfather’s farm blindfolded. I felt the energetic shift between forest and meadow and marshy lakes.

And even though I was already on my way to becoming someone else, I trusted the energy.

This essay is excerpted from my AuDHD slash spiritual memoir The Spirit Dream (name subject to change). I have been going back and forth on whether to publish it or not. I resolved the conflict by deciding to publish it here.

You can read the intro here:

About the Memoir

I was very late-diagnosed with autism (2022) and ADHD (2025) and the affect of that diagnosis and the way I view myself and my writing was far-reaching. The Spirit Dream was my way of putting it into perspective and finding meaning.

This post is excerpted from my upcoming book The Spirit Dream.

© 2026 Barbara Graver. All rights reserved.

This is the dream that inspired my memoir The Spirit Dream 🌙

Intro | Pt 1

The Spirit Dream

It was almost three A.M. on a summer night in 2007 and I was wide awake.

So I passed the long sleepless night on the computer, drifting from one website to the next, until I stumbled upon a bible passage I knew by heart.

The 23rd Psalm.

I remembered how I had committed this psalm to memory as a child and how I used to recite it before bed from time to time in the years that followed. So I said the old familiar passage right there over the keyboard and then I set aside my laptop and fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning with a sense of excitement I hadn’t felt in what seemed like forever.

I didn’t usually remember my dreams, but I remembered this one. It was detailed and magical and absolutely breathtakingly beautiful.

Heart pounding, I turned on my laptop and captured my journey through the night as quickly as I could.

Aside from the headings and a few minor edits, what follows is the account of the dream, as I typed it out that morning.

Part I: The Hospital

As the dream opens, I’m approaching a big hospital. I’m working as a nurse again and this is the first day of a new job and I’m not sure where to go (a common problem in many similar dreams). I go to several outside doors and find them locked. Finally, at the last door I find an elderly woman on the ground in severe pain. She tells me that she has had two difficult surgeries and that she will die before she goes back to the hospital again.

I don’t know what to do or say, so I go in through the door. I’m looking for the emergency room and at first I am lost. After asking for (and not understanding) directions (another common work dream problem) I wander onto an elevator. There is a young doctor in a brilliant white coat inside the elevator. I tell him what has happened, and he gets off and goes with me to see the woman and her relatives, who are there with her. He tells them that she doesn’t have to come into the hospital if she doesn’t want to and they take her away.

I am at a brightly lit a nurse’s station. I have the feeling that I’ve been working here for some time. And that there are no bad feelings associated with that (which has never happened to me in dreams about nursing or in my nursing career in general). The young doctor is at the station too, looking at charts. After a moment, he stops and says that he has to move away soon and that he needs to learn the route by traveling it. He suggests that we all need time away from our work and that we should go on an adventure together.

Part II: The Journey

We take two cars. There is an odd assortment of women (presumably nurses). One is very beautiful. Her eyes are a vivid sea-water blue and her face is high-boned and delicate. She wears a layered gown of shimmering blue silk and I find her very exotic. Around her neck hangs a deep blue sapphire necklace and some of the bluest lapis I have ever seen.

There is an older woman, as well. She looks like a woman I know in real life. She is sweet and lost and seemingly lonely, just like her real-life counterpart. There are several other women. One is young and withdrawn; the others have already faded. As it turns out, this is a journey of discovery. There are moments of awkwardness because I don’t know anyone well, but there are other moments that seem almost euphoric.

We are on a train and I spend time alone. I am sitting in a day car with many windows. The car is rushing through a sunny countryside though I am more aware of the streaming sun than I am the scenery. As I sit, an idea for a book overtakes me. The images and characters and dialogue are vivid. And they stream through my mind so quickly it is all I can do to write them down. The story is about a man involved with two women. One is young and beautiful, but she is also married and in the end, he chooses the one who is unencumbered. The manuscript flashes by from beginning to end. Somehow I capture it.

A lot of different things happen. Sometimes we’re on the train and sometimes it seems that we have disembarked along our way. We are in a jewelry store. I see many lovely things. I look at a small locket depicting a traditionally Catholic guardian angel with children, but it’s small and drab - nothing like the beautiful pieces worn by the woman in blue. I sense that it is all that is available to me but I don’t buy it. In another scene, the women and I decide to swap clothing. I have a single article of clothing I’m proud of—some sort of gold and red top. I offer it to the woman in blue and she accepts it.

Part III: Our Destination

It seems that we have arrived at university or school. The woman in blue shows me a sort of screen that is not a television but a bright flowing blue divided into many different shades which appear as if pressed between two panes of clear glass. The screen swivels like an old-fashioned chalkboard and the many shades of blue swirl together in changing breathtaking patterns. It is vividly blue and has a shine to it that is almost metallic. It reminds me of a sand art item I saw once in a variety store but much, much better. Its beauty and the spectrum of blue is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

The women and I are together in a classroom. A book review or lecture is being delivered. A man is showing us pictures from a book he has written. At first the content seems Buddhist and then it’s something else, but I don’t remember clearly just how it is different. We’re all moved by his presentation and find it very inspiring. For some reason, we know all about him and are surprised he’s become so spiritual. It seems that he was famous in some way earlier in life and that he had a bad reputation at that time.

Then I am outside with the young doctor. He asks me about my parents and I tell him something. briefly, without going into detail. He letters a sort of monument to my father (in cobalt blue). He invites me to letter the one for my mother myself, but his lettering is perfect and I have terrible handwriting (in dreams and in life). So I ask him to do it for me and he does. The monument only has my parents’ names. Or I think it does because I don’t recognize the characters or letters. The monument includes no information about who they were or what they did. But it seems complete as is.

My mother’s monument transforms into an ornament made out of clear glass with deep blue lettering. I know that I’m supposed to hang it in a tree at our family homestead and, all at once, I am there. It’s not the big main farmhouse where my mother grew up but something similar to the smaller house that she lived in before my grandfather inherited the farm. There is something about the tree having been cut back in preparation. I hang the ornament on a branch and leave.

Part IV: The Return Trip

I find myself back on the train and discover an old book. The cover is a work of art—old fashioned, intricate, tooled leather. It is dusty and a bit worse for wear, but still handsome. I’m very impressed with it. I open it and see I have written it. I’m surprised but, at the same time, I remember.

Finally, we’re at the end of our journey. We sit at a big table and talk about how we have changed. I’m wearing a sparkling red ruby or garnet bracelet. We decide that we should exchange jewelry as souvenirs of our trip.

I don’t want to give up my bracelet, but I offer it anyway, secretly hoping that the woman in blue will give me some of her lapis. Instead, she gives her jewelry to the older woman (who has nothing to offer her in return). I feel disappointed but understand that this is the right thing to do. Although my desire for the beautiful blue gemstones is strong, there is no associated envy or bitterness. I feel strongly that all is as it should be.

The young doctor thanks us and tells us that he now knows the route he should take to his new home. He does not return to the hospital and I am not sure if the women return either. I have a sense of parting. It is bittersweet, but I know it feels right and I have no regrets.

Part V: Back to the Beginning

Finally, I am back at the hospital. Someone is holding a funeral for the woman who was lying in pain just outside of the door when I first arrived. The funeral is being held on the other side of the large parking lot. It is far away, at the edge of the lot, but I can see a seated effigy draped in red and understand that this effigy represents the woman who has died.

I am now inside the hospital. A patient on the floor where I work has passed and I remember that he was the man who taught us when we were away. I know his history, so I’m not surprised that he died alone. I’m not sad about it either because I remember his lecture and know that he was at peace.

As I am leaving his room, or perhaps the floor, a young girl comes in and asks for the man. She says that she is his granddaughter and I tell her he is gone. Surprisingly, I find the right words. I tell her that it’s alright, that he has changed, and for some reason her tears are cathartic for both of us. We leave the hospital together and I have the feeling that everything has come full circle.

Afterward

I finished typing out the dream and turned off my laptop.

I was sitting on the same couch I’d slept on, wearing the same sweat pants and t-shirt I’d worn the day before. The room was still small and cluttered, and the stereo from the house next door was already blasting.

But everything had changed.

This post is excerpted from my upcoming book The Spirit Dream.

© 2026 Barbara Graver. All rights reserved.

In 2007, at the lowest point in my life, I had a dream I couldn’t explain.

Unlike the murky, sepia-colored dreams I was used to, this dream was sharp and bright and saturated with color. A spectrum of blue, unlike anything I’d ever seen. Vivid reds. Shining white light. A beautiful woman with deep-water blue eyes, radiating love.

Filled with sparkling gemstones and mysterious beings, the dream told the story of a journey to and from an amazing location, and it told that story coherently.

As the woman in blue guided me from one dream experience to another, separate themes played out, like story-lines in a movie. When the dream finally ended, each loose end came together in a memorable and emotional conclusion.

I woke up convinced that my mysterious dream guide was someone special. I knew that the things that she showed me meant something. And even though I had no idea what any of it meant, I was determined to find out.

About My Journey

This was the beginning of a spiritual journey that carried me through the New Age, in and out of Spiritualism and Wicca, halfway across the world on pilgrimage to Israel, and to a diagnosis of autism and ADHD.

My dreams and creative writing were part of that journey and in the end, the big dream I’d come to call the Spirit Dream helped lead me back to the person I was meant to be.

While this isn’t a typical memoir, being neither entirely about neurodivergence or spirituality, I hope it will appeal to people with an interest in both.

Thank you for reading <3

🌙 Update

I’ve decided to serialize this memoir here on Substack! You can start chapter one here:

START CH 1

©2025-2026 Barbara Graver. All rights reserved. This is an original work. Do not reproduce or redistribute without written permission.