Zoilita Grant says dreams have fascinated her since childhood: brilliant geometric shapes and tones, dreams of basket weaving at seven, and a dream during a vision quest that began a recurring journey lasting twenty-seven years. The Secret Life of Your Dreams is her guide to remembering dreams, discovering personal symbols and carrying what they reveal into waking life, built from personal stories, client experiences and what she calls DreamWork exercises.
We could not find a publisher or retail listing for the book at the time of publication, so the description here is the author's own. On her website, Grant says she earned a degree in clinical psychology at UC Berkeley and later a master's in social work, and worked as a psychotherapist before turning to coaching. She calls her approach Hypnotic Coaching.
This is the third of three conversations with Grant about her books, after Change Your Mind and Change Your Life and The Menopause Mind-Body Connection. RedSquibble sent Grant our standard questions for authors. Her answers were provided in writing and appear below as she wrote them, with only minor typographical corrections.
The Book
What is the book about? Please provide a brief synopsis without major spoilers.
The Secret Life of Your Dreams invites readers to explore the remarkable inner world that unfolds while they sleep. Through personal stories, client experiences, and practical DreamWork exercises, I guide readers in remembering their dreams, discovering their personal symbols, and exploring the emotions and patterns beneath the images. We journey through recurring dreams, nightmares, healing dreams, lucid dreams, and extraordinary spiritual experiences. Throughout the book, the invitation is to bring what we discover into our waking lives, where insight can become meaningful change.
What inspired this book, and how did the idea develop?
Dreams have fascinated me since childhood. Some of my earliest dreams were filled with brilliant geometric shapes and tones. At seven, I experienced dreams of basket weaving that inspired me to create baskets and teach other children. Later, a powerful dream during a vision quest began a recurring journey that continued for twenty-seven years. These experiences, combined with more than fifty years of exploring hypnosis and the subconscious mind, inspired me to share a practical way for others to develop their own relationship with dreams.
How does this book differ from your first book in its themes, style, characters, or message?
This book brings my exploration of personal transformation into the intimate world of dreams. Its focus is the language of images, emotions, memories, and symbols that emerges during sleep. The writing combines personal storytelling with gentle guidance and experiential exercises. Because this is nonfiction, the central figures are people sharing meaningful experiences, including my own. Its particular message is that we can learn to listen to our dreaming minds and carry that awareness into the choices we make while awake.
What central themes or questions do you want readers to consider?
I want readers to consider what becomes possible when they pay attention to their inner lives. What might a recurring dream help them notice? What emotions are asking to be acknowledged? What does a particular symbol mean within their own experience? The book explores self-trust, creativity, grief, love, courage, and the relationship between insight and action. One question runs through everything: What will you do with what your dream has helped you discover?
Writing It
Did any personal experiences, research, or outside influences shape the book?
My lifelong dream experiences and decades of working with hypnosis and the subconscious mind shaped this book deeply. One especially meaningful experience occurred during a pilgrimage to Egypt, five years after the sudden death of my husband, Rick. A dream helped me recognize that I could carry our love forward while opening my heart to life again. The book also draws on scientific understanding of sleep and dreaming, alongside spiritual exploration, while distinguishing personal meaning from what can be scientifically established.
What was the most difficult or surprising part of writing it?
One of the greatest challenges was finding language for experiences that were deeply emotional and sometimes beyond ordinary explanation. I wanted to share their beauty and significance while leaving readers free to form their own understanding. Revisiting dreams from different stages of my life also revealed how their meaning could deepen over time. A dream remembered for decades could offer a fresh understanding when viewed through the eyes of the woman I have become.
"This book returns the authority to the dreamer."
What do you believe sets this book apart in its genre?
This book returns the authority to the dreamer. I encourage readers to discover their own symbolic language rather than depend on fixed definitions from a dream dictionary. It brings together personal experience, practical DreamWork, self-hypnosis, visualization, and an openness to spiritual mystery. Above all, it helps readers build a bridge between a meaningful dream and a meaningful action. Understanding a dream is valuable; allowing that understanding to enrich your life is where transformation begins.
For the Reader
Who would benefit most from reading it?
This book is for anyone curious about their dreams, including people who believe they rarely remember them. It may especially resonate with readers navigating grief, change, recurring emotional patterns, or questions about their direction in life. Creative people, spiritual seekers, and those interested in the subconscious mind will also find invitations to explore. You do not need special abilities or previous DreamWork experience. You can begin with curiosity and a willingness to listen.
What has writing this book taught you?
Writing this book has deepened my appreciation for the many versions of myself I have been—the dreaming child, the searching young woman, the teacher, the wife, the widow, and the woman still discovering new possibilities. It has reminded me that meaning can unfold gradually and that some mysteries can remain mysteries while still enriching our lives. Most of all, it has reinforced my belief that awareness becomes powerful when we allow it to influence how we live.
What do you most want readers to remember about it?
Your dreams belong to you. Others can offer questions and possibilities, but your feelings, associations, and lived experience matter in discovering their meaning. I hope readers remember to approach their dreams with curiosity, compassion, and openness—and then take something useful into the day. Your story is still unfolding. There are parts of yourself waiting to be discovered, possibilities waiting to be explored, and light you may not yet realize you carry.
The answers above were provided in writing by Zoilita Grant. Cover image courtesy of the author.
Interviews by the RedSquibble books desk. The author's answers were provided in writing.
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