On average, it happens a few times a month. I will have a dream about someone and something that happens to them, and a few days or weeks later I will discover that the scenario in my dream happened in real life. It has always been like that.
One night when I was 19, I dreamed that my grandmother was reborn as a baby, but with her older head. I woke up to my landline ringing, went to it and heard my father tell me that my grandmother had died in the night.
Then there was the time I dreamed of a tower with bodies falling from it in graphic detail. A few days later, the World Trade Center tragedy happened.
I dreamed of my father lying still in a thing in a wall. That year he began radiation therapy for the cancer that killed him.
And the morning he died, in 2005, I had a strange feeling that everything ‘stopped’ and that I wasn’t going to make the train work. He died that morning.
So I’ve always felt a bit psychic. But often I ignore my dreams or feelings or I forget them. Like the time I had a dream about not walking down a path. The next morning I went and saw this path I had dreamed of. Ignoring my gut instinct, I headed down it, only to be surprised by a man in the bushes.
So what good is a little bit of psychic ability if I don’t listen to it or interpret it correctly? And can someone like me be ‘trained’ to be better at it?
I contacted renowned psychic Inbaal Honigman. Inbaal has been a psychic all her life and has been reading Tarot since she was 20. She has appeared on Big Brother as the reality TV show’s resident psychic to see who would be voted off. Now she runs courses that help psychics improve their skills.
I’ve always felt a little bit psychic, writes Julie Cook
Our first session starts with a Zoom call. Inbaal is bubbly, kind, personable and tells me that everyone has the ability to be psychic but they have to nurture it.
“Even people without the slightest bit of ability can train themselves to be a certain type of psychic,” she says.
She tells me that it would be good to start by keeping a dream journal and getting a deck of tarot cards to ‘ease you into the world of symbolism’. She also recommends crystals ‘to achieve more clarity’ – a clear quartz and one of obsidian. Clear quartz is “great for healing and great for sleep,” she adds.
‘Black crystals like obsidian absorb negativity and keep your thoughts clear. They help defend against people coming to drain you.’
Inbaal advises me to choose a tarot card of the day to place next to my bed to see if it can form a ‘bridge’ between my dreams and my understanding.
I choose the Six of Cups with a boy giving flowers to a girl in a beautiful square with a barrack behind.
I sleep but wake up without remembering dreams.
“If you look closely,” says Inbaal, “in the background of the card is an adult walking away. This could mean a happy childhood, with adults letting the children be children, but conversely, it could mean that the adults were not Nearby.’
I don’t think much about my childhood. Money problems, recessions, job losses, unhappily married parents and then my father’s cancer clouded my younger years, so it’s eerie that my subconscious chooses not to respond to this card.
Julie with her father on holiday in southern Britain when she was three. He died in 2005
Another night I lay out the Two of Swords.
I dream of walking down a slippery hill, terrified of falling, close to the edge of the sea. At the bottom I am introduced to a man. We go back upstairs and I know I have to get away from him then I wake up.
Inbaal explains the card: ‘The Two of Swords has a figure holding two heavy swords which represent having to make a choice. It’s about being indecisive or having to decide on a path’.
As I went downstairs to feed the cats, I wandered into the kitchen and saw a perfect, white crescent moon and gasped as three ducks literally flew across it in sillouette.
It felt so creepy that I couldn’t wait to tell Inbaal.
‘This is interesting because the number on the card is two and the ducks are three, so it represents progress numerically. Then there is the moon. If you look closely at the card, it has a moon in the background of the figure, which represents intuition. And a moon with the ducks moving across it is like the universe saying ‘get on with it, make a decision’.
I’ve been struggling with decisions lately about everything from midlife crises, to investments and retirements to even where I’ll end up living.
But something else is also happening. Since choosing the cards and writing down my dreams, I feel more attuned and empathetic. I can tell my daughter is having a hard day at school, and lo and behold, she comes home crying.
So maybe this introspection is helping me become more psychic? Inbaal says that dreams are a bridge not only to our subconscious, but to any dormant psychic ability we may have. If you can learn to open your mind very deeply to your subconscious thoughts, it can unlock psychic abilities you never knew you had.
At our next meeting, Inbaal tells me how to open and close my chakras. These, she says, are the main energy points in the body that can allow you to be more attuned to signs from the universe and spirituality.
During our Zoom we close our eyes and Inbaal speaks to me gently through the chakras.
‘Place your feet firmly on the ground and keep your arms and legs uncrossed. We start with a few breaths, and send our roots further into the ground, which makes us safe, bounded and secure.’
Then we feel the earth energy travel through the roots into the feet and up our legs until it reaches our base chakra, a red circle right at the top between the legs.
“When the energy reaches the base chakra, a red circle starts to spin and glow,” she says.
My ultimate wish is to contact my father, writes Julie. This was taken on holiday as a little girl
It travels to the sacral chakra, an orange circle below the navel and onto the Solar Plexus, the sun chakra, 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 rotating 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 glittering trapdoor opens and a silver cord stretches upwards, connecting us to the sky, so we being nurtured, nurtured 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 alert, like I’ve had four coffees.
Inbaal tells me that this is how I need to be so that I can be open to spirits, but it is safest to close the chakras down so that I do not absorb unwanted spiritual activity or negative energy.
So can open chakras make me more accessible to spirits of those who have passed?
‘Yes’, she replies.
The next few days I try to open and close the chakras. It keeps getting easier to do and ever so relaxing. I really feel the energy flowing through me and sharp and awakened when the chakras are open.
My ultimate wish is to contact my father. He died in 2005 of cancer at the age of 59 and I used to have regular very lucid dreams where he visited me. Not so much anymore.
For the next few days I will continue with my tarot card of the night, my dream journal and my chakra opening and closing.
Inbaal Honigman has been psychic all her life and has been reading Tarot since she was 20 years old
On the fifth night I dream of my father. He is in a large church with no fixed denomination or religion, is younger again and wearing a smart suit. He walks away and I keep trying to find him. There are different rooms in the church where people gather and I know I have to find him in one.
I wake up and write down my dream, feeling hopeful and wishing I could have had a conversation with him.
I’ll try again the next night and the next. I try all week but he never shows up again.
Inbaal suggests opening the chakra just before sleep 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 out, sleep… and dream about 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 shield.
I put it out 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 has brought a large wrapped present with him. It’s a pool table for my son, Alex.
In my dream, Alex is crying because he is finally going to meet my father. It’s a happy dream and when I wake up I’m sad it’s over. I ask Inbaal about its meaning.
She says: ‘A house would represent your mind and rooms in the house represent parts of your personality. The house wasn’t one you recognised, so you relate to each other in a ‘new’ way now, your dynamic as father and daughter has changed. Maybe he has had a lot of time to think about his life and he sees you in a different way, maybe you have also changed how you remember him.
‘A wrapped gift is him sharing a message that’s not obvious, it’s symbolic. The fact that it’s 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, and they can be reached one by one.’
Inbaal asks if a pool table means something specific to me. It doesn’t.
‘The padding of a pool table is very meaningful’, she adds, ‘everyone has a chance. If your son wants to go out and study more, but he’s worried about everyone getting richer or smarter than him, your dad’s pool table might say that once they’re on the green, everyone’s equal.’
I feel so encouraged now. The tarot, crystals, journaling and now the chakra opening have made me realize that I have an empathic gift.
I hope that as I develop and learn more, it will lead me to even greater understanding. There are many things I want 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.