Premembering Our Dreams Into Reality

Nick Smith
Jul 16
4 min read

Here we are again, huh?

That space. Not quite there yet.

Not fully healed. Not back to that sense of absolute wholeness (understanding that healing or wholeness is a life-long journey). But there’s this undeniable current, pushing.

Demanding movement. Just one step.

But where does it lead?

That question sits with me. It echoes. Like Alice with her Cheshire Cat. "Which path should I take?" And the cat, so cool, so detached, "Well, where are you going?" Alice, honest, vulnerable, "I don't know." And the response that chills you to the bone, "Then any path will do."

It sounds simple. Almost liberating. But when it’s your life, when you don't know where you’re headed next, "any path will do" isn't freedom. It's often just drifting. No real anchor. No true north. And that, I've found, can be a particularly insidious kind of paralysis.

I’m sitting here, deep in reflection on this very journey. And the next natural progression, the only real question that matters for me right now, is precisely that: Where am I going next? Who am I becoming? What am I ready to bring into existence? Because the more clarity I can forge around those questions, the more likely I am to build true, resilient hope.

The Power of Pre-Membering

We talk about this a lot in the 12 Journeys in the Journey of Vision, this absolute necessity of having a clear vision. And it’s not just some spiritual platitude.

Hope theory suggests that when you possess a vivid vision, you don’t just believe your future will be brighter; you understand, deeply, that you are the architect of that brightness.

You know you’ll overcome whatever obstacles emerge to make it real.

But if you’re unclear? If the image is hazy?

It's incredibly difficult to anchor anything. To create genuine attachment to something that hasn't even materialized in the physical realm. Bringing the ethereal to the material.

This brings me to a concept I’ve been teaching, one I keep coming back to: creating a fascination with your vision.

Think about that word: fascination. Its etymology is powerful. It comes from the Latin fascinare, which literally means "to bewitch" or "to bind with a spell." It implies an almost irresistible pull, a deep, magnetic connection that holds you. You’re not just interested; you’re bound to it. Fastened.

I think about my youngest daughter, Capri. Years ago, she desperately wanted a silicone doll. We weren’t exactly flush with cash; these dolls run around $300. But she knew this doll. She envisioned her. Named her Olive. And then, she started to prepare. She cleared a space in her room for Olive. Just like a mother prepares a nursery, anticipating a baby.

Capri anticipated receiving Olive.

To anticipate means to bring something forward before its time.

Even though she had no clear pathway, no visible route to bringing Olive into her world, it didn’t slow her down. Not for a second. She was, in essence, digging ditches when there were no clouds in the sky.

It’s a powerful metaphor, right from ancient texts. After a prolonged drought, with no promise of rain, people still dug ditches. It was an act of profound faith. A physical demonstration of their trust in an unseen vision. Capri's actions were precisely that: a tangible demonstration of her faith in a process she couldn't fully comprehend.

The Reframe: Memory of What's Next

We often think visioning is about seeing what might be possible. But the true reframe, the profound shift in perspective, is this: Visioning isn't just about possibility; it's about pre-membering what's inevitable.

Kathryn Lee, who's been on our show, shared her story of wanting to be on Oprah. She didn’t just wish for it. She envisioned herself there. She saw where she was sitting, what she was wearing. She distinctly remembered seeing herself in blue. And Oprah, notoriously, rarely wears blue on her show. But when that vision became a reality, there was blue.

Kathryn called it a memory of things yet to be.

Lydia Nibley, a brilliant screenwriter and daughter of the incredible Hugh Nibley, captured it perfectly in a conversation we had. She called it pre-membering. To remember is to reattach, right?

To bring back together what was once there. So, to pre-member? That’s to attach before it’s time. It's about forging a bond, creating an attachment, to something you don't yet have physical access to in space and time.

So, as I sit here, grappling with where I’m going next, what I’m creating next, I've got visions written down. Plenty of them. Who I’ll be. What I’ll bring into this world. They're there.

But then I picked up Happy Pocketful of Money, and it challenges you: write 5,000 things you want to bring into this world. Five thousand. You scoff. I scoffed. Until I started writing. I’m only at about 150 items that I’ve clearly visioned. Not even close to making a dent in that number. And yet, many of them are already showing up.

Simple visions. Like having my toes in the sand on a beach in Puerto Vallarta, smoking a cigar, a glass of whiskey in hand. That happened. Over three years ago now. Almost four. I even documented it on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1XvrwNj9dR/.

That simple vision, that seemingly small intention, set in motion everything that needed to happen for that dream to become a reality.

And it did. In ways I never, ever expected and could never have predicted.

So today, I’m leaning into it. What's next?

I'm visioning my dreams. Visioning my partner. Visioning my creations. Visioning myself. Who I am truly stepping into being in this world. Even visioning that.

They are declarations of things that are yet to be. And anytime I feel resistance to the dream, I reframe it as a bridge statement, "I am learning... I am trusting... I am developing... I am becoming..."

What future are you pre-membering right now?

Give me a follow to keep up with the journey.

Let's make some memories of things yet to be.