Within weeks of this first experience, I started having more and more of these types of dreams. Over the course of the next decade that followed, I began identifying specific cues within and after my dreams. In my travel dreams, I would always wake up in my dream and my surroundings were exactly where I feel asleep. If I feel asleep in bed, I'd wake up in my dream in my bedroom, if I feel asleep on the couch, I'd wake up in my dream in the living room, etc. Since it was nearly impossible for me to distinguish if I was dreaming or if I was actually awake, I'd started doing little tests in my dream to confirm that I was in fact dreaming. I'd jump up and see if could float in the air, or I'd try to walk through a wall. As I began to learn how to fly in my travel dreams, I felt this was important so I wouldn't mistake being asleep and take a flying leap off my balcony just to find I was really awake and not in a dream! As the dreams progressed, I became aware of this loud buzzing sound that was precede me the start of a travel dream. It was a whizzing, swirling sound that increased to a crescendo and at its peak I would pop awake in my dream.

As I said, I've had dozens of these dreams, and most were of not real consequence. Just me waking up in my dream and roaming around my surroundings. But there have been a few very notable experiences that have stayed with me to this day.

About 6 months after these dreams started, I had one of these dreams in the early morning hours when there was a little light outside. This was the first time I had a dream when it was light outside. I knew this because I had woken up and had a hard time going back to sleep and didn't get to sleep until the sun was starting to come up. To my surprise, when I woke up in my dream it was completely daylight and I noticed that the dream also had daylight, and I became aware that all my dreams before had been dark, just like it was outside. I had thought, how strange. Am I in some world that is somehow tied to the 'real' world, but yet exists in it own dimension of sorts? I got out of bed in my dream, and walked into my hallway. As I stepped out of my bedroom, there were large black ferocious dogs that lined each side that were someone being held back but were lunging forward trying to bite me. Again, I had thought, this is strange, this is the first time something had shown up in one of my travel dreams that wasn't actually in my real world surrounding. I felt the same evil and fear wash over me as I felt that first time. I froze for a moment and looked down the hallway. At the end of the hallway stood a hooded figure that instead of a face had an abyss of darkness. It's fingers were long and scarred, and it motioned me toward it. With a magnetic pull, it drew me toward it and I could feel a wave of what I could only call unrelenting temptation overcome me. I somehow knew that the pull of this feeling represented the torment of all mankind's struggle with addictions. As I felt myself giving in, I could feel that if I gave in completely I would somehow not be able to continue in some way with my life. I wasn't clear how, or what, but knew that I had to resist. I pulled out of the magnetic pull, raised my hand to halt the figure, and said 'you do not belong here, you must leave.' At the same time, I wondered how I knew to say that. In an instant the figure was gone, and I was immediately transported out of my home to a sea of beautiful light and colors. There were colors I had never seen in real life, and the light was astonishing and blissful. There was a single note of sound that was played from some where, which sounded like a string of harp had been plucked. I then heard 'all is well.' I woke up from my dream, and had a sense of peace unlike any I had experienced up to that point in my life.

Then, about 6 months after that experience (and after other travel dreams) I had another remarkable and memorable dream. I had fallen asleep in my spare bedroom, and woke up in one of my travel dreams. I drifted out of the spare bedroom and headed toward my bedroom. As I went down the hallway, I suddenly had the urge to try and fly. I realized that I had been drifting in my dreams, which felt like walking in real life, but I had not flown. I felt myself try to fly and immediately fell to the ground. I was frustrated. Then, in an instant, I was transported out of my house and I was suddenly standing before a being that looked just like me. I knew it was me, it even looked like me but yet it was an absolutely perfect version of me, flawless and perfectly balanced in features. It was the most beautiful person I had ever seen. There was a large color surrounding this look alike of deep blue and in the center, just over my chest extending down to my stomach was a vibrant magenta color. It was absolutely breathtaking! As I was marveling in such an extraordinary site, the person standing before me began to project this intensely bright silverly white light. The light was somehow coming from inside the figure and bursting outward toward me. It kept getting brighter and brighter, and I thought this should be blinding me. This is brighter than a 100 suns combined. Yet, I could watch without any problem at all, and I found myself in absolute awe. This brilliant being of light was now had us both washed in the light that emanated from within. Suddenly I found myself back in my spare room's bedroom and still being in my travel dream, got out of bed and headed into the hallway once again. I knew I had to try and fly, so I used all my effort to try and lift myself up. I got a couple feet in the air and fell. I felt frustrated. As soon as I had that feeling, I was once again transported back in front of this being that looked like me. The same color surrounded her, and then she began filling with light just like before. After the entire space was filled brilliance, I found myself back in my spare room's bed again. Still in my dream I got up and tried to fly once again. Again I wasn't able to, and again I was transported to this angelic looking figure, and again I was sent back to try and fly again and again. Finally, after several attempts, I was able to fly! I walked into my bedroom and there was a lamp that was on. I held my hand out to the light and said, I command you to move. To my surprise, the lamp share lifted up. At that point, it felt like I had a task that I needed to completed, and I had done so. The dream ended there.

Again, I kept dreaming, but now my dreams were starting to become prophetic. I dreamt that I walked out to my living room and I watched my husband's car get towed from the parking lot outside our condo and I said, if had only paid the $78 dollars this would have never happened. The next day, I told him about the dream, and unknown to me my husband had actually gotten a parking ticket several weeks before. My dream reminded him of it and he called to find out how to pay it. Later on that day, he called me absolutely dumbfounded. The ticket was $35, but there were late fees because he hadn't paid it. The total cost of the ticket was $78. After hearing my travel dream stories for months, this was the beginning of him starting to ask questions and becoming very interested in what I was experiencing.

I travelled to what seemed to be many placed in my dreams, and I had many experiences that helped validate that somehow what I was experiencing was more than figments of my imagination that were being generated by a sleeping mind. Yet even with the validation, I still doubted that I was somehow leaving my body and traveling in another world that was connected to ours but different. That was until I had this next experience. This will be the last one I'll describe. A couple years later, after a divorce, a move out of state and after I entered into a new relationship, I had an experience that confirmed my experiences for me in a way that wouldn't allow me to deny what was happening any longer. As I said, I had gotten into a new relationship and the gentleman that I was seeing was a widower, who's wife had suffered a fatal heart attack in their house. One night, I was sleeping over at his house, and I found myself having a travel dream. There was a unique quality to this dream. It seemed like the buzzing that I heard before I woke up in my dream was louder, the colors were crisper, and there was a light that emanated from me as I walked through the house. I approached the end of the hallway where there was a mirror (in real life and the dream) and there was a woman with long hair standing there looking at herself, yet there was no reflection in the mirror. I gasped, and continued pass to go down the stairs hoping she wouldn't notice me. I made my way to the living room and there was a woman sitting there in a rocker. She was horribly sad. She extended her hand to shake mine, and introduced herself as Laurie. This was the name of my boyfriend's late wife. She had distinctive features and she was rocking in a chair that I had not seen because it wasn't actually in the house. She went on to tell me how she didn't want to leave her husband and she wanted to watch over him. I told her that I would take care of him and she could be free to go. Her sadness lifted and the dream ended. At this point, I had not seen a picture of my boyfriend's late wife. I hesitant, but I decided to share the dream with him the next day and I described how she looked. He said that I had described her exactly how she was, all the way down to the heavy makeup that would be so thick that it cracked over her wrinkles. As for the rocker, at one point when they both lived in a different house, there was a rocker that Laurie was very fond of but for some reason they decided to leave it on the porch of that house and not move it when they moved.