Some dreams fade by breakfast. Others insist on becoming real.
A couple of years ago, I had one of those rare dreams that cling to you long after you wake — vivid, symbolic, and strangely coherent, as though it arrived with a purpose.
It began in my flat… except it wasn’t my flat. Everything was reversed, mirrored, uncanny. It took only a moment to realise I was actually standing inside the flat across the hall — my neighbour’s. In real life, they were mid-renovation, and in the dream, their walls were stripped back to bare brick.
Except these bricks were carved into tiny geometric recesses — secret cubby holes, each one the size of a palm. And inside one of them, I found a ring.
A chunky five-stone ruby ring, glowing with a tone I had never seen before: a deep burgundy-brown, hypnotic and earthy, somewhere between garnet, ruby, and something impossible. The moment I woke, I reached for the pen and paper on my bedside table and drew it — the exact shape, the stone placement, the weight of it.
That sketch became the blueprint.
So I made the ring exactly as it appeared in the dream.
It exists.
It’s real.
And I documented the entire process in a YouTube video — from the sketch on my bedside table to the final polished piece.
Things Took an Even Stranger Turn
But the dream wasn’t just about the ring.
As I explored the mirrored flat, a mother dog appeared — large, black, anxious. At her feet were brightly coloured test tubes, each containing a tiny, perfectly still puppy. The tubes were icy cold. Instinctively, I placed them against the mother dog’s warm belly, nestling them safely until the puppies began to move again.
Dream logic dictated a quick trip to the corner shop (for Rizlas, apparently), and when I returned, the mother dog was joyful — her puppies alive and gently wriggling.
And that’s where the dream ended.
And Then Life Caught Up
Seven weeks later, there was an incident in my building — police on the stairwell, neighbours whispering. One evening after the commotion, the woman from across the hall came over for a glass of wine. We didn’t know each other well, but conversation unfolded easily, and eventually I mentioned the dream — mostly because I was still carrying it around like a question that hadn’t been answered.
She went quiet. Then emotional.
She explained that she and her partner were going through IVF. And her spirit animal — something deeply personal to her — was a black mother dog, the exact breed and build I had seen.
We sat in silence for a moment, both of us feeling the uncanny overlap.
The dream felt less like imagination and more like a message carried between worlds.
When Dreams Shape Art: A Long Creative Tradition
This wasn’t the first time a dream inspired something physical — and it won’t be the last. Throughout history, dreams have birthed some of the world’s most iconic jewellery, sculptures, and artworks:
Dalí’s surreal landscapes
His melting clocks and distorted figures came directly from dream states he engineered intentionally.
René Lalique’s visionary jewellery
Lalique often said his pieces felt “received,” appearing in full in his mind before he ever sketched them.
Frida Kahlo’s symbolic accessories
Her jewellery choices in self-portraits often connected directly to dreams that explored identity, pain, and rebirth.
Hilma af Klint’s spiritual diagrams
Her abstract works — decades ahead of her time — were guided by dreamlike messages she claimed were not of her own making.
Tiffany’s opal-inspired glasswork
He described dreaming in colour — specifically opal blues and greens — which shaped some of his most iconic designs.
Dreams have always been vaults of imagery, intuition, and symbolism. They bypass logic, offering something raw and unfiltered — the perfect ground for creativity.
The Dream Ring That Became Reality
The five-ruby dream ring now sits in my studio: a reminder that inspiration doesn’t always come from research or moodboards. Sometimes it arrives uninvited, strange and symbolic, demanding to be made.
And if you want to see how a dream became metal, stone, and fire, the full process is in my YouTube video — from that sleepy sketch on my bedside table to the finished ring glowing under the bench light.
Dreams are not just dreams.
Sometimes they’re instructions.
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