I don’t eat cake. Even in the dream I had yesterday, in which a whole banquet of desserts was offered to me, my thought was, “I don’t eat cake.” Nevertheless, in the dream, I headed straight for the cake. A rainbow ice cream cake and a chocolate cake. I chose both. I woke up before I was able to taste them.

That very day, on my way to dinner with friends, I passed by the Yummy Cupcakes store and bought four chocolate salted caramel cupcakes and shared them for our dessert. That is called following your dreams.

I do not recommend taking all dreams so literally. It wasn’t the actual cupcake, which gave me heartburn, that I needed. Rather, it was a gesture I needed to make, a gesture of allegiance and gratitude to the Dreamgiver, who is the fount of my soul’s wisdom.

The dream was not just about cupcakes and the way I’ve been hankering for them recently. (I thought about buying cupcakes a week ago to celebrate the birth of my grandson but I didn’t because, well, I don’t normally eat cake.) The dream was about that banquet of desserts laid out before me, a feast of sweet, beautiful abundance. The dream was about seeing the abundance, partaking of it. Buying the cupcakes was a salute to the glorious feast of life.

Dreams provide metaphors for your life. Living by metaphor is an adventure. This is especially valuable when life is tending toward the dreary and routine or you are getting bogged down in what you perceive as duty and drudgery, or you are dissatisfied, or winter is going on too long. The metaphors of dreams jog you out of your whines, make you laugh, or think, or cause you to drive out of your way to taste the overly frosted, absolutely luscious sweetness of life.

Sometimes conscious life itself is not enough to keep your soul humming, even in a week in which you meet the perfect new gorgeous little baby and allow his big sister to wrap you competitively around her little finger. Even after such bliss you can succumb to melancholy.

And then the Dreamgiver goes to the trouble of whipping up a whole table full of extravagant desserts, laid out by a maid who sings Ukrainian folksongs. The least you can do is take a bite. Cheers!