Prophetic Prenatal Dreams that saved babies’ lives

THIRTY-SOME YEARS AGO, Aya, a woman I did not know called me out of the blue; she had heard I listened to birth stories and wanted to tell me hers:

Her extraordinary story sent chills through me. She had saved her baby’s life by following a prophetic dream and listening to an urgent warning even when there was no reason to insist on another exam!  *See notes on umbilical cords below

“When we sleep the soul is lit up completely by many eyes;   with them we can see everything that we could not see in the daytime.”

Aeschylus, Greek poet and playwright

Prophetic dreams (also called predictive or precognitive dreams) give the dreamer a glimpse or warning of an event or potential health problems hours, days, or weeks before it happens. A prophetic dream is typically concise, vivid, and detailed; typically, the dreamer is witnessing the event without emotion (these are not nightmares). nor do they quickly evaporate like other dreams but are remembered for a long time. In a predictive dream we may also hear a message spoken by one of the characters or a presence in the dream. 

Getting a glimpse of the future doesn’t allow us to change or avoid destiny and fate, however, if we listen, we may be able to take beneficial action. Here are a couple of examples:

Nico, a first-time mother recounted a vivid dream she had around 34 weeks:

 “In my dream I looked down and saw myself and my sleeping husband in our bed. I looked down at my belly and could see through it as if it were a transparent latex balloon; I could see my baby playing and pushing her hands through my belly. Then she emerged out of my belly, I watched the cord follow and thought, ‘There is something wrong with my baby’s cord.’ At the end of the dream, I saw a terrible snowstorm.”

The week following the dream, Nico was sick with Covid. In a prenatal visit the following week, Nico told her midwife about the dream and asked about cord prolapse (because it was the only thing Nico knew could go wrong with an umbilical cord). The midwife assured her everything was fine. A week later (at 36 weeks), after a follow-up ultrasound (to check something unrelated to her baby) the doctor told her there was a clot in the umbilical artery and discussed the gravity of this development; it often results in unborn babies’ dying. While she was having the ultrasound, weather alert alarms on phones were going off in the hospital; looking out the windows she could see a white out snowstorm.

At first the doctor recommended induction. And yet, when induction was recommended, she recalled the vivid image of her baby emerging through her belly and knew her baby was to be born by cesarean. Until that moment the one thing Nico most wanted to avoid was a cesarean; she knew her baby had to born immediately and told the doctor she wanted a cesarean. The surgery and NICU teams promptly assembled. Soon after her baby was born healthy by cesarean.

After surgery, a doctor told her the blood in the cord was thick and sticky, not flowing as it should be, and that there were gray areas on the placenta showing areas of the placenta were unhealthy or dying. *See notes below

Informed by a Black Jeep Dream from Garth Voigt, former scientist and prophetic dreamer

“I had a dream about riding [as a] passenger in my car on a freeway overpass on a foggy day. When we got over the overpass, I saw a black jeep spin out of control and hit us.” 

“Two weeks go by when I am [actually] a passenger in my car on a foggy day. It clicked. We were heading to a stop light when [I saw] a woman driving a black Suzuki Samurai. I screamed at my friend (who I had told the dream to) to move into the far lane. He did so. The stop light turned red, and when the Suzuki Samurai hit the brakes, it spun out of control and wound up in the space where my car would have been. My friend got really quiet and didn’t want to acknowledge it.”¹

My Prophetic Dreams as a Midwife and Mother

While working at Simpson Maternity Hospital in Springfield, Ohio, I had prophetic dream: 

“I see a petite, young woman in labor walk through the labor and delivery doors. I was assigned to be her midwife and am with her in a labor room. She is pushing. She gives birth to a baby girl who seemed a little small. I discovered an unexpected twin—a second baby was coming! I called Dr. G. in to assist with the birth of the second which was a boy.”

That morning, I went to work. While standing among midwives and nurses at the nurses’ station, I told my dream to Dr. G. and others who were listening; everyone laughed it off.  A few hours later, I was assigned to attend a young woman in labor; I saw her come in through the doors down the hall. Her labor progressed normally; there was no expectation she was having twins… but soon exactly what I had dreamed took place: She easily gave birth to a daughter. Then I discovered the surprise twin, and Dr. G. assisted with the birth of her second, a son.

Ignoring Four Gifts of Forewarning from Predictive Dreams

As a home birth midwife, I wanted to avoid a hospital transfer and cesarean surgery in particular. And yet, during pregnancy I had four vivid dreams witnessing myself undergo cesarean surgery. I told my midwife about the dreams. Like most midwives, we were not trained in dream work (at the time). Wanting to put my mind at ease, we hoped the dreams meant I was working through my fear of cesarean, but indeed these were prophetic dreams. In retrospect, I realized had we regarded the dreams as potential omens I could have prepared psychologically and spiritually for a cesarean birth—and the experience might have been less shocking and disempowering. 

During my second pregnancy I hoped for another prophetic dream. A week before labor, I had a vivid dream: 

“I sent someone to the elementary school to bring my oldest son home for the birth, I watched myself standing-squatting while pushing at the side of the bed, then giving birth easily.” 

The dream was assuring, but I wouldn’t know for sure if it was predictive until later, when in fact, what I dreamt is exactly what happened.

The Conception Dream of Queen Maya

According to Buddhist legend, Queen Maha Maya, the mother of Gautama Buddha, had told her conception dream to her husband-king, and the wise ones interpreted it:

She saw herself asleep in her palace under a full moon. An attendant stood guard outside. Four guardian angels came and lifted her up, together with her couch, and took her away to the Himalayan Mountains. Three times a bright white elephant walked around her couch, his right side [facing out]. Striking her on her right side, the elephant seemed to enter her womb.2

A white elephant is rare; in dreams it is a sacred symbol representing spiritual knowledge or a divine messenger; an omen the child would be a great man or a teacher. 

When her time was near, Maha Maya went to the Lumbini grove, stood upright holding onto a branch of a Sal tree (in the birthing posture of mothers of all buddhas).  It is said that Gautama was born from under her right arm.

What To Do If You Think You or a Client May Have Glimpsed the Future

Only when you live what you saw in a dream, will you’ll know for certain that you had a prophetic dream. Ancient people differentiated “big dreams” from “little dreams,” and if you have more than one, you’ll also begin noticing the qualitative difference between prophetic and ordinary dreams. 

Remember, the quality of prophetic dreams is that the dreamer witnesses the events taking place; the dream is concise, vivid, detailed, and instead of evaporating as most dreams do, it stays with them. 

When a dream may be on omen, rather than analyzing symbols or dismissing the dream, ask:

Alora Acted on Her Dream and Saved Her Baby’s Life

Years ago, when I was a homebirth midwife, Alora, a healthy first-time mom nearing her due date told me her dream:

         “I dreamt my baby was born but couldn’t breathe. It was a very clear image.”

The dream was haunting her. I asked her, “Suppose it is a warning or would come true, what do you want to do?”  She said without hesitation she wanted to have a hospital birth so she could have help if she needed it. So, without hesitation, I helped her make the transfer during pregnancy. 

Soon after I was in that hospital’s labor and delivery for another reason and saw her. I asked her how things went. She told me her baby was born without difficulty, but within minutes turned blue. He was intubated, given oxygen, and turned pink. The tube was removed and soon he was dusky, so he was intubated again and pinked up. The tube was removed and he became dusky again. This time they looked with a special light and saw there was a polyp in his airway; they removed it and he was just fine.

Although neither mother nor midwife could know if the dream was prophetic, both acted on it as if it were a warning. And because both listened to the dream and did what the situation called for, her baby was in the best place for care. A home birth midwife has oxygen but cannot intubate (or remove a rare polyp in the airway)—so assuring her it was just a dream and to trust birth to pursue the home birth might have had an unwished-for outcome.

In ancient civilizations, dreams were a trusted part of a healing consultation. In Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece, patients relied on dream temples, dream incubation rituals, and dream tenders for guidance from within or from the gods. As medicine became a science, the diagnosis became increasingly, now exclusively gleaned from observations of the body, symptoms, laboratory, and radiology. And yet, sometimes a “patient” is accurately informed through a dream or intuition before discovery through technology or outcome. We should learn how to listen. I wrote this blog to raise awareness and help others consider whether a dream is ordinary or possibly an omen. Please write if you have had a prophetic dream and want to share it.

NOTES

Aya’s Dream and Birth

Understanding The Umbilical Cord Dream-Stories

The umbilical cord consists of three vessels protected (from compression or tearing) in the womb by a thick layer of white, gelatinous Wharton’s jelly. The likelihood of an umbilical cord breaking before labor is extremely rare. This event is estimated to occur once in 6,000 births during labor or with the birth of the placenta. A rupture of the umbilical cord is most commonly associated with undernourished, small-for-gestational-age babies whose cords have a thin layer of Wharton’s jelly, exposing, compressing, or stretching the vessels. This circumstance may explain why fetal monitoring in our story above showed a sudden severe fetal distress leading to the life-saving cesarean.

Nico’s Dream and Birth

Understanding (Covid, Pregnancy, and Clotting

“In some people who are vaccinated, Covid-19 produces flu-like symptoms that typically resolve in a few days. But others progress to a more dangerous phase when inflammatory proteins called cytokines multiply in the blood and cause a “cytokine storm” which makes the immune system hyperactive, and causes weakening of the heart muscle, fluid in the lungs, and clotting. How this happens is pretty interesting:

“Once the Covid virus latches onto cells susceptible to its spike protein, they enter the cells. Respiratory epithelial cells and pericytes are key targets of Covid. Pericytes are cells that wrap around capillaries. Once invaded by the virus, these cells release cytokines that act on the interior lining of all the blood vessels in the body—including placental and umbilical vessels. This lining (called vascular endothelium) is an organ in and of itself. The endothelium’s three jobs are to prevent inappropriate blood clotting, constrict and dilate blood vessels as they should, and keep blood flowing in a liquid state.³  

Blood clotting is a good thing when homeostasis is needed during tissue damage. However, during a cytokine storm when endothelial cells in blood vessels transition to a defensive posture, molecules that promote blood clotting are released in arteries (even when there is no tissue damage) and clots can cause strokes and death. During the pandemic’s early months, arterial clotting caused strokes even in young people; and in patients who died from Covid-19, autopsies found clots throughout the body.³

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