Dream of Daddy’s Tool Chest | Andrea de Michaelis – Creating my own reality, one thought at a time

I had a dream once, once of those dreams that sticks with you forever. In the dream, I am wandering around an open pasture kind of landscape, not really seeing anything, but not particularly seeking anything either. In the dream, along comes my father, who was a carpenter, and he’s wearing the khakis he always wore. He’s also carrying his carpenter’s box, you know the kind, long and slim to fit saws, hammers, nails, rulers and maybe a couple of lengths of wood. In the dream I am asking him for money. In real life at that time, my father was in Baptist Hospital in Miami, FL in June 1987 in a coma after a suicide attempt, and he would die a week later on Father’s Day. In real life, I never asked my dad for money as he had none and I earned good money as a criminal defense paralegal. I was, however, at an intense stage in my life of asking, “what next?”

So in the dream, here comes Daddy while I’m wandering aimlessly in an empty field and I’m asking him to loan me some money. He’s ignoring my request or, rather in answer to it, he opens me his tool chest. I look into it and think “what on earth will I do with this?” since I’m not a carpenter. So then it becomes like this magic box that anything came come out of and even though it just looks like 3 boards and a handful of nails and hammers and saws, out of those few items he could create all sorts of things.

He could put it all together one way and it would be a ladder; another way, a bridge; another way, a rocking horse for a kid.

Then suddenly in the dream he’s gone and I can either take the box with me, or just leave it. For the sake of sentiment, I figure I’ll take it for awhile until I figure out what to do with it. First I dismantle the ladder he built last, since it fits in the box when I take it apart and seems to feel lighter. I save the nails since I am not sure how many there are.

The box gets a little heavy as I walk along and it gets a little more awkward once I’m no longer in an open field but now maneuvering through wooded trails. Twice I came to streams that I built a bridge to cross and once I made this never-ending ladder to scale a wall and get over on the other side. I was starting to appreciate this tool box. After I scaled the wall, I went to dis-assemble the ladder and remove the nails, but it collapsed upon itself inside the tool box. My immediate thought was, “Ah, it knows I will need a ladder next so it’s staying prepared.”

It was then that I began to realize perhaps the box had a mind all its own and knew what I needed and contained whatever I needed. And all I had to do was keep the box with me and at the proper time, I would have everything I needed to do whatever needed to be done. My job was just to carry the tools, no matter how awkward and burdensome, and the rest would work itself out.

I realize in later years of course how symbolic the dream was on so many levels. I think right now, the main tools I strive to keep with me at all times are (1) discipline over my state of consciousness, and (2) my awareness of my connection with Source because, just like above, if I have those two, then everything else works itself out.

When I can bring myself into the awareness of my connection to my own internal guidance, I feel very powerful and motivated. My general goals are to have a happy life, to be healthy, to be self sufficient, to be well thought of, to share love with friends and to do meaningful work. So when I have the presence of mind to remember these things, it all falls into place. So I guess that’s my tool box.