Sacred Narrative

Frederick Banting Dreams a Way to Curb Diabetes

A year ago my step-sister Kim died at the age of 37. She suffered from pneumonia complications related to a kidney transplant she'd had 5 years earlier (a kidney donated by my step-brother Steve). All of this stemmed from a life-long battle with diabetes.

When Kim was in 8th grade she found out she was diabetic. In the early years of her disease I helped give her insulin shots. It was a strange experience to witness a 13 year old giving herself a shot in the leg or arm.

Kim may not have lived to be 37 had there never been a scientific breakthrough with insulin, but one night scientist Frederick Banting woke from a dream and immediately wrote a method for extracting insulin from non-human sources, thus discovering a way to curb diabetes.  Because of this discovery, Kim was able to live a another 24 years, becoming a loving mother and wife, sister, daughter and friend.

Kim's laughter touched many. Despite her struggles she had a lightness about her. I dream about her every once in awhile. She is always young and healthy in my dreams - and laughing her generous, heartfelt laugh.

Harriet Tubman Dreams of Safe Travels

Harriet Tubman (on the left above) escaped slavery prior to the Civil War, returning to the south on many occasions to lead other slaves to freedom.

She risked her life and that of many others, but claimed she was guided by her dreams to find safe routes on the Underground Railroad, allowing her to succeed beyond measure. Every person she helped made it safely to a new home despite the tremendous odds.

General Patton Dreams of Battle Plans

My grandfather, Captain William D. Bowell (in photo), was a US paratrooper in World War II, 82 Airborne.

He jumped into Normandy on D.Day, landed behind enemy lines and was assisted by a French family until he was able to rejoin the war. To this day my grandfather remains friends with the family, visiting them occasionally at their beautiful home in France.

My grandfather also fought in Battle of the Bulge and may owe his survival to the dream life of General Patton.

I doubt my grandfather knew then that Patton was designing battle strategies based on dreams he was having nightly, but apparently, Patton would wake from his sleep, call his secretary, Joe Rosevich, and dictate battle plans he'd learned from his dreams.

"One of these involved a successful surprise attack on German troops just as they were getting ready to mount an offensive on Christmas Day during the Battle of the Bulge." (Robert Van De Castle)

Jack Nicklaus dreams of a new golf swing

I've played miniature golf a few times. I'm really bad so there's never been any point in playing for any reason other than to enjoy the little windmills that seem to pop up on every course.

Jack Nicklaus, on the other hand, is a golf legend. But even poor old Jack suffered from a slump back in the day. Fortunately for him, he had a dream that changed his life:                     

"Wednesday night I had a dream and it was about my golf swing. I was hitting them pretty good in the dream and all at once I realized I wasn't holding the club the way I've actually been holding it lately. I've been having trouble collapsing my right arm taking the club head away from the ball, but I was doing it perfectly in my sleep. So when I came to the course yesterday morning I tried it the way I did in my dream and it worked. I shot a sixty-eight yesterday and a sixty-five today."

"When I came to the course yesterday morning, I tried it the way I did in my dream and it worked...I feel kind of foolish admitting it, but it really happened in a dream."                  

Sources: Jack Nicklaus, as told to a San Francisco Chronicle reporter, 27 June 1964; Robert Van De Castle, Our Dreaming Mind.

Jasper Johns Dreamed of an American Flag

Dreams That Changed the World

As an art student studying art history, I was always amazed that a simple painting such as Jasper Johns' Flag could have such a revolutionary impact on art. Strangely, though, I don't remember learning in art history class how this painting came to be. I was surprised to find that in the mid 1950s Johns woke from a dream about an American Flag. He painted it and the rest, as they say, is history. This painting and others produced by Johns "were of great importance in shaping contemporary art attitudes." H. H. Arnason

My favorite Johns' painting is a similar image, but in reverse colors. You may be able to make out the small white dot in the middle. If you stare at the dot for awhile, allowing your eyes to become relaxed, and then look at a white surface, you will most likely see the proper colors of the American Flag. Genius!

Quote from New York Times article (1988)

Johns wasn't sure exactly what form his new work would take, but he knew what form it would actively resist. By the mid-50's, Abstract Expressionism was the dominant style of the day, and many young artists were eagerly adopting the thrusting brushstrokes, free-wheeling lines and heroic scale of artists like Jackson Pollock and de Kooning. Johns, however, was never one for hero-worship. ''I didn't want to do what they did,'' he says of the Abstract Expressionists. ''I decided that if my work contained what I could identify as a likeness to other work, I would remove it.''

One day in 1954, Johns casually mentioned to Rauschenberg that he'd had a crazy dream the previous night. ''How crazy was it?'' Rauschenberg asked. ''Well,'' Johns replied, ''in this dream I was painting the American flag.'' The American flag? Rauschenberg didn't think it was crazy at all. ''That's a really great idea,'' he said.

Dream work is easy. To make your dreams work for you, you have to do three things:

1) remember them
2) listen to them
3) act on them