My Autistic ADHD Memoir | Intro
My AuDHD Memoir | How dreams, creative writing and my special interests have helped me heal from autistic burnout and PTSD.
Index: Intro | Chapter 1.1 | Chapter 1.2
I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. And this is one; I’m going to tell it... — Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
In 2007, at the lowest point in my life, I had a dream I could not 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 seawater-blue eyes, radiating love.
Filled with sparkling gemstones and mysterious symbols, the dream told the story of a journey to and from an amazing location.
And it told that story coherently.
The plot was detailed but clear. Events mirrored each other in a near perfect symmetry. Characters appeared and reappeared. Separate themes played out, like storylines in a movie. And when the dream drew to a close, each loose thread came together in an emotional conclusion.
I knew that this dream was special. I was sure it had a message. Deciphering it felt like an imperative.
This was the beginning of a journey that would carry me in and out of Spiritualism, through witchcraft, halfway across the world on pilgrimage to Israel and onto the doorstep of Carl Jung.
And I processed every step of that journey through blogging. Because writing was how I made sense of things.
I had been scribbling in notebooks and on scraps of papers ever since I remembered. I had hammered out novels and short stories and poetry. I’d never published anything but, for me, that wasn’t the point.
Whenever I felt lost I turned to writing. And whenever I drifted, a dream or a synchronicity or new variation on an established special interest pulled me back.
This was how I navigated.
Approaching life like everyone else seemed almost impossible. But I didn’t understand why that was until I was late-diagnosed with autism and ADHD.
I began this memoir as a way to better understand my unique way of processing and make sense of my life and experience.
My Autistic ADHD Memoir | Dreams, creative writing and a late-diagnosis of autism and ADHD.
This memoir is now being serialized to Substack! Read Chapter 1.1 below:
A Panther in the Glove
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...
New installments of The Spirit Dream post every other week.
© 2025-2026 Barbara Graver. All rights reserved. This is an original creative work. Do not reproduce or redistribute without the written permission of the author.
Lovely, Barbara. I'm eager to read on. This promises to be very special.