You know how things just get stuck in your head? Well, a couple years back, I had this absolute shocker of a dream. Not a nightmare, but just disgustingly vivid. We’re talking running through a field, and suddenly it’s ankle-deep in dog mess. Fresh stuff, old stuff, just everywhere. I woke up genuinely needing a shower.
I told my buddy, Steve, about it over coffee, mostly just to get a laugh out of him. Steve’s one of those guys who knows an old wives’ tale for everything. He just sits back, takes a sip of his lukewarm coffee, and says, “Mate, that’s money. Pure, stinking luck.”
I laughed in his face, obviously. Dog crap equals wealth? What a joke. But here’s the thing—later that day, I got a random email that my old tax return from three years ago had a recalculation error, and they were sending me back almost seven hundred bucks. SEVEN HUNDRED. Totally unexpected.
I immediately phoned Steve back. Did I have to eat my words? Maybe. But my brain doesn’t just believe in magic. I needed to nail down a process. That little tax refund? It could have been coincidence. To be a real blogger, I had to run the numbers and put in the work myself. I wasn’t going to just sit around and wait for fate.
Phase 1: The Tally and The Doubt
I pulled out a beat-up old notebook—the kind I usually use for grocery lists and fixing the busted sprinkler head—and started a log. I called it the “Muck & Bucks Tracker.”
My Practice Log Steps:
- Step A: Record the Messy Dream. Every morning I could remember dreaming of some kind of mess, especially dog stuff, I wrote it down. A little asterisk next to the date.
- Step B: Track the Next 72 Hours. I tracked any kind of “unexpected” money. Finding a twenty in an old jacket pocket, a client paying an invoice three weeks early, winning five bucks on a scratch-off. Stuff that just showed up without me doing extra work for it.
- Step C: Look for the Messy Opportunity. If the money didn’t show up after three days, I looked for a task I’d been avoiding because it was disgusting or annoying. This was the real test, right? Did the dream just prompt me to do the dirty work?
The first few months were patchy. A gross dream, no money. A small lottery win, no gross dream. It was a headache. I was about to give up and call Steve a lunatic when I had the king-daddy of all disgusting dreams.
Phase 2: The Real-World Muck-Out
This time it wasn’t a field. It was my own garage. The dream was basically me wading through a brown, sticky flood in my garage while trying to find a tire pump. The smell even seemed to linger when I woke up. I mean, holy moly.
I woke up and immediately checked my bank balance. Nothing new. Checked my emails. Nothing. No unexpected client checks. The universal “money” machine wasn’t working. So, I switched to Step C: finding the messy opportunity.
The dream had pointed me right to it: my actual, real-life garage. It was a dumping ground. I hadn’t properly gone through it since we moved in five years ago. It was truly a monument to procrastination, full of broken patio furniture, dead spiders the size of quarters, and cardboard boxes that had probably sheltered a family of mice at some point. It was gross. It was the real-life dog poop I had to deal with.
The Garage Action Plan:
- I bought extra-thick gloves and face masks. This wasn’t a light clean; it was an archaeological dig.
- I shoved everything out onto the driveway. The sheer volume of junk was embarrassing.
- I sorted—trash, donation, and “maybe worth something?” piles. This part took forever and involved a lot of sneezing.
- I committed to getting rid of the “maybe worth something” stuff immediately. No waiting around. I had to finish the dirty job.
Phase 3: The Unexpected Paydirt
While I was tearing apart a box marked “Old Cables and Chargers” that had sat untouched since before my eldest kid was born, I discovered a small, heavy metal lockbox tucked underneath. I had no idea where the key was, so I just grabbed a crowbar and pried the thing open. It was stiff, messy, and took a ridiculous amount of grunting and effort.
Inside? Not cash, not diamonds. But a handful of documents and, critically, five old stock certificates from a company my grandfather had invested in back in the 90s. I had completely forgotten about them; thought they were long gone. They looked worthless, just dusty pieces of paper.
But I was on a roll, fueled by the disgust of the dream and the grime of the garage. I took photos of the certificates. I sent them to a friend who knew about these things. I waited.
An hour later, my phone nearly vibrated off the table. My friend was calling, yelling something about a stock split and a company buyout that had happened a few years back. Those five dusty certificates? They hadn’t disappeared. They had been converted into shares worth significantly more than I ever could have imagined.
The total realized cash from those shares, once I processed the paperwork and sold them? Enough to pay off my car loan and still have a nice chunk left over. Seriously. I nearly dropped my shovel right there in the driveway.
The Scoop
So, was it the dream? Was it the dog poop? Look, I’m still not a mystic. But here’s what I actually learned from the process I put myself through. The dream, that disgusting, messy warning, didn’t magically drop cash into my lap. It forced me to deal with the gross, neglected mess in my real life. The money wasn’t just lying around; it was hidden underneath the filth I was too lazy to clear out.
The interpretation isn’t just “poop = money.” It’s “poop = deal with your mess, and you will find money.” I had to literally wade through the grime and the dust, the stuff I’d put off for ages, and that’s where the unexpected windfall was hiding. The practice proved that the path to the payoff runs directly through the task you are avoiding because it seems too messy or too much hassle. Next time I have a nasty dream, I know exactly what real-life disaster I need to start cleaning up. It’s the full scoop, and it stinks, but the reward is real.
