The Scent of a Dream

When someone you loved returns in a dream, perhaps it’s not nostalgia: perhaps it’s a compass.

By Nuria Ruiz Fdez

HoyLunes – Sometimes, the people who are no longer with us return in our dreams to remind us that life is not just about breathing, but about daring. This is the story of such an encounter, of that hidden message whispered at night, and of the decision that changed a destiny.

For weeks, a presence kept visiting me in my dreams. It wasn’t a ghost or a cold memory; it was a warm figure who arrived smiling, in a small boat that floated on a calm sea, beneath a clear light that seemed to caress me.

We all have someone like that: someone who left too soon, who left words unsaid, or who simply slipped away quietly. That person who, in dreams, calls us without speaking, with a gaze that holds a thousand stories and always seems on the verge of saying something important—right before we wake up.

Years ago, I received news that changed everything. On an ordinary day, while driving with the damp Levante wind lashing against the car, I got the call no one wants to answer.

—“Hello? Is something wrong?” I asked, feeling that knot in my stomach that warns of an approaching storm.

—“Just to tell you… they passed away a couple of hours ago”.

The world turned strange for a moment. My heart pounded hard as cars sped past, indifferent to the trembling inside me.

In that moment, I clung to a memory, to a song, to a strange scent that hit my face.

Pain hurts, but it also teaches you to go on.

From then on, absence soaked my life with a silent echo. But, as often happens with time and dreams, that absence began to fill with presence. Because deep down, we all know that dreams are messages from the unspoken—open doors to what we cannot or will not face when awake, compasses that guide us when the path ahead feels uncertain.

For three nights in a row, that presence has returned to my dreams. And although I couldn’t hear the words they wanted to say, I felt their push, their call.

Today, that call takes shape in an email: an invitation to keep writing, to take a leap into the unknown, to be part of something new.

Perhaps that message was not just for me. Perhaps it was for all those who have ever been afraid to take a step forward, for those who hesitate and need that invisible nudge that can only come from a dream, a memory, or a voice that seems to whisper: “Now is the time”.

Accepting that challenge has meant understanding that living is not just existing, but daring to write one’s own story—and the stories of others—one word at a time.

And so begins this new adventure I will share with you. It will be a column blending narrative fragments, memories sometimes real, sometimes fictional, but always with human portraits born from reality. Each piece, though able to stand on its own, will be part of a larger tapestry: my own life’s journey and the lives I have encountered along the way.

I want each text to be a small universe that can move the reader on its own, yet also speak to the whole—like stitches in a handwoven embroidery.

The tone will be intimate and literary, a voice that whispers sensory images, that gently brushes the skin of everyday life with poetic cadence, revealing the extraordinary in simple gestures.

I am a human observer, present, attuned to fleeting moments and to the glances that conceal a thousand secrets. I will write in the first person, like someone sitting beside you, sharing a secret without hurry.

Each column will begin with a striking scene—a gesture, a scent, an image that sparks emotion. Then will come the core: the anecdote or memory, the person portrayed, that moment that shakes us and moves us. And to end, I will leave a brief reflection, a flicker meant to linger, a small flame that remains lit in the reader’s mind long after they’ve finished reading.

As I write these lines, I imagine that perhaps they will appear again between my sentences—or perhaps slip into the dream of someone who needs them. One way or another, they will remain here, urging me not to be afraid.

I close the laptop. I look out the window. And for the first time in a long while, I feel that I am exactly where I am meant to be.