Singing with Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant

Have you ever met and deeply related with a celebrity or well-known public figure in a dream? How did you feel when you woke up and recalled the dream? Did you feel as if you really made contact, as if it were more than a dream? Did you feel inspired, or energised in some way?

Earlier this week, I was called onto Sydney’s Mix106.5 Rosso and Claire breakfast show to comment on Rosso’s dream.

“I used to play in a band, and in my dream I was back in the band when Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant jumped up on stage to sing with us,” Rosso began. “Then he gave me his phone number and suggested we meet up at the Byron Bay Bluesfest.”

Rosso described his dream as the best dream he’d ever had, and he was clearly excited about it. The sensuality of the dream – hearing, singing, and playing the music – combined with feeling the close connection with a legend, had left its mark. I guess in many ways Rosso felt touched by his dream, inspired and energised by his experience within the dream, but curious about why he should dream this now that his own band days are past.

What does it mean? We’ll come to that.

What’s the most memorable dream you’ve had? Was it a scary or dark dream, or was it positive and inspiring? How many of your senses were vividly engaged in the dream: sight, sound, touch, smell, taste? How deeply was your heart connected in your dream: emotions, feelings? How difficult did you find it to describe the magic and power of your dream to anyone the next day? There’s a numinous quality to these highly sensual, energising dreams that’s challenging to put into words. The most amazing dream you’ve ever had can sound straightforward to others. There’s an element that’s easily lost in translation but profoundly found within the self.

If you’ve experienced a soul mate dream, you’ll know this feeling well. In the classic soul mate dream, you meet a special charismatic someone, and experience a deep connection that touches your heart and soul and spills over into your waking life. That dream soul mate can be someone you’ve never met, and many a dreamer has fruitlessly searched for years for the person they met in their dream – with no success because the dream mate, no matter how convincing, is a marvellous creation of the dreamer’s mind.

That dream soul mate can also be someone you do know in waking life, someone in your circle, someone you’ve been in relationship with or hope to be in relationship with, or someone you barely know anything about. Again, the classic dream is compelling, the senses impassioned, the heart and soul energised, a feeling of deep connection, of finally finding something that has been missing in your life. If you have this dream, don’t think for a moment that the actions, emotions, and feelings the person demonstrated in your dream are intended by their waking life lookalike. Hard though it may be to believe, your dreaming mind chose that person as a perfect symbol of something you feel is missing, or something you’d like to connect with, in your life. Something, not someone. And that symbol is all in your mind too. You may see Joe as confident and supportive, while someone else might see Joe as confident and self-centred, and Joe might see himself as lacking in confidence and trying to make up for it with bravado. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So are all other qualities. The Joe in your dream is not the Joe you know or vaguely know in waking life, so don’t go looking for a deep relationship with Joe based on a fabulous dream, no matter how compelling. Instead, seek to connect with those soul mate qualities within your own heart and soul. In this example, reconnect with the confidence you had lost, and reconnect with a sense of support for your beautiful self, a support that has perhaps wavered in the face of negative self criticism.

So let’s return to Rosso’s dream about a new deep and heartfelt connection with Robert Plant.

Rosso knew, before his dream, that Robert Plant is headlining this year’s Byron Bay Bluesfest, but wish fulfilment is not the explanation for this dream (or a meaningfully rewarding avenue of exploration for any dream). I asked Rosso which three words he would choose to describe Robert Plant’s personality.

“Cool, outgoing, legend,” he replied.

When you’re asked to quickly describe someone’s personality in three words, it usually turns out that at least one of those words helps explain their character role in your dream. Rosso and I would need an hour to really flesh out the meaning of his dream – and without thousands of people listening in on the radio – but here’s the essence:

Like all dreams, Rosso’s dream reflects the last 24-48 hours. Our dreams are the result of our minds processing the last one to two days, trying to make sense of our world. In trying to make sense of our world, our dreaming minds compare our recent experiences with our past experiences, then, armed with this most recent update of our individual model of life as we know it, some dreams may project forward to preview the future according to that model. To test it out in our imagination. Rosso’s recent experiences resonated with his old band days, and, in his dream, he experienced a deep connection with “cool, outgoing, legend” that he then projected into the future as a new way of being.

In a sense, he “got the number” of a Robert Plant energy within himself that he’s ready to reconnect with and energise. What a wonderful dream!

Rosso may go to this year’s Bluesfest, and, if he does, he’ll attend Robert Plant’s concert. Who knows, as a media personality himself, Rosso may get to chat with Robert, may even get his phone number or socialise into the evening. Or maybe not. Either way, life’s deepest rewards are those that energise your own heart and soul, that inspire you to find what has been lost, to reconnect with a greater part of your being, to live life bigger and brighter, to walk up to the microphone and sing with all your heart – literally or metaphorically. To be fully alive to the moment. Understanding such dreams can take you there.

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