I am in a hurry to meet my wife. She is rapturously happy because the doctor has confirmed she is carrying my child. She has already booked a hospital room for the delivery..

I know the secret of an operation that would be unthinkable in ordinary reality. If I undergo this operation, I will be able to give birth to my wife’s child, at the same time as she will give birth to mine.

I perform the operation on myself. It is painless and simple. This surgery without blood mostly involves manipulating energies expressed as colors. It does not diminish my masculinity.

On my way to give my wife the good news, I walk along a creek bed through sparkling clear water. The world is all fresh and alive.

The father-to-be woke feeling blessed. He spoke of a terrific sense of psychic and emotional well-being, of “brimming with love” for his wife. There was no doubt in his mind that he had entered as fully as it is possible to do into the spiritual nature of fatherhood, and that when the time came, he would be ready to share fully in his wife’s journey towards delivering their first child.

The dream was anchored in the future. His wife was not yet pregnant but – in no small part because of the dream, and the feelings around it – they subsequently decided they wanted to have a baby, and she gave birth to a beautiful girl a year later.

The dream is a wonderful example of how dreaming expands our humanity, allowing us to share deeply in the situations of others, and of how dreaming can become a spiritual path in everyday life. “I’m not especially religious in the ordinary sense,” said the dreamer. “But I felt at that moment that we would become a holy family.”

Surveys suggest that pregnant mothers who dream of childbirth often have an easier time with delivery, perhaps because they have been rehearsing for it, and possibly also because, in dreaming, they bond with the infant who is on its way so they both become conscious participants on the big day. Not hard to believe that all of this can go even better when the father becomes very actively involved on all levels, not only giving physical and emotional support, but being present on the spiritual plane. Australian Aborigines say that every child needs a spiritual parent to help guide its soul to embodied life on this earth; perhaps the father who dreamed of giving birth to his wife’s baby was preparing for that role.