When her dead ex-husband warned she was walking in his shoes

A guest blog by Deborah Dutilh on her remarkable personal experience of life-saving dream diagnosis facilitated by a deceased loved one.

My ex-husband, Jean-François, died from brain cancer in February 2011. And then he came back.

    When he visited me in a dream on August 22, 2013, I wondered if I should be worried or not. In spite of our divorce, we still cared for each other and said we’d always be connected through our children.

     In this dream, Jean-François visits and gives me a picture of a playful seal that he’s drawn. We’re walking along the beach, hand in hand. I’m wearing his hiking boots, the worn leather ones with sturdy thick soles and long red laces wound around my ankles a few times. Then suddenly we’re inside a big store like Target, driving his car down the aisles, looking for an exit.

     I woke up feeling anxious and not liking the meaning of this dream at all! I know the seal represents our pact of being connected. Does walking in his shoes mean I have a health issue, too? Do those long red shoelaces symbolize our forever entwined souls? What does the future hold in store for me? Will I need to be shopping around for solutions?

     Of course not! I don’t have any health issues. I’m in perfect health, I try to convince myself.

     When we don’t want to face the fear of what our dreams might mean, it’s easy for our inner critic to step in with a different interpretation to protect us from what our intuition is telling us.

     Upon awakening, mine tells me, “Of course you don’t have a brain tumor! But, you know how hard you’ve struggled with building your business now? Well, you could have supported him more when he was building his business, I don’t know, 25 or 30 years ago! Remember you said you’d work while he built his business, but after years of still no money coming in, you were getting fed up, you started to really resent it all. C’mon admit it! You should be feeling guilty about that!! “

      “So there you have it! Guilt beats having a brain tumor, doesn’t it,” he concludes. Without any symptoms at this point, this could be plausible, but my intuition knew better. I had no choice but to wait and see.

      On September 14 I got a massive migraine that landed me in Urgent Care. Headaches can have so many causes that the doctors weren’t concerned. They sent me home with pain meds and instructions to rest and drink plenty of fluids. Once again my intuition did not agree.

      Then, September 18, I had another very clear dream that I was at my own life celebration, invisible and easily physically passing through the guests who were telling stories about me and how courageous I was! This dream confirmed that indeed, I had something terribly wrong.

       I saw my doctor that very day. He listened intently when I told him about the recent dreams and what my intuition was telling me. The dates were lining up ironically, too. I had my headache on September 14, exactly 4 years to the day, after Jean-Francois had his seizure. My unusual headache had my sons concerned, too. We’d already been through this once with their dad. We all needed peace of mind.

       “Doctor,” I asked, “do you believe in the power of our dreams to predict illness?”

       Fortunately, he did and referred me to a neurologist to request an MRI to rule out anything serious. Still, I’m functioning perfectly and my only symptoms are three migraines and two very clear dreams that needed little expertise to interpret. No one is overly concerned, yet.

      Six weeks later, to everyone’s great surprise, the MRI showed a tumor the size of an apricot on the surface of my right temporal lobe. I was immediately admitted to hospital and scheduled for brain surgery, two days later, the day Jean-François would have been 60. I was released two days later on my 60^th birthday.

      Thanks to my intuition, dreams and doctors who believed me, my life was saved with early detection. The diagnosis, glioblastoma multiforme, is the most common, deadliest and highest grade tumor. There’s no cure and it’s recurring. Sadly, 8 out of 10 patients will die from this tumor. Fortunately, in spite of the dismal statistics, there are more and more long term survivors. I plan on being among them.

       It took me quite a while to embrace the surrealism of my new “normal.” I am convinced that all the dream work done over the years, my belief in soul recovery and the power of our dreams saved my life with early detection before any diagnosable symptoms. I was also very blessed to have doctors who believed my dreams and intuition.

       Since I did soul retrieval with Robert Moss, Jean-François has visited me in dreams several times to reassure me that all is well. He always tells me he won’t let our sons be without both of us. I believe this implicitly, that his soul is with me, along with Panther, my spirit guide, symbol of death and rebirth.

Deborah Dutilh began studying her dreams in France over 15 years ago with a Jungian mentor. She has attended workshops with Robert Moss and is part of a weekly dream group in Los Angeles. She is a theatre artist sharing her story in a one-woman show called “Into The Panther’s Cage.”