Talking to a friend on the phone yesterday, I asked if she’d heard from a mutual friend who had just got back from a trip up-country to visit her family.

‘I dreamt about her while she was away,’ she said. ‘It was just a glimpse, but she was really happy and smiling. I rang her to say welcome home and how did it go, and she said she’d had a wonderful time.’

Last week, I had a similarly short, vivid dream about one of my children, only he wasn’t happy and smiling, so I phoned the next day to touch base with him.

If you dream about close family or friends, it’s always good to follow up that dream with a phone call, visit or email. You don’t have to say why, but just that you’ve been thinking about them. Nine times out of ten, you’ll find your dream has exactly conveyed to you their emotional frame of mind.

Experienced dreamers know that there’s a telepathic connection on the unconscious level, but it doesn’t only work with dreams. Daydreams and random thoughts that pop into your head come from the same source in the self, and can carry the same information.

So if you have a vivid thought about somebody close to you during the daytime, follow it up with a quick call. Something will be happening that means this person wants to make a connection.

Telepathy works on the instinctual level; it isn’t logical, but emotional. It’s a natural ability in all of us which, especially in the developed world, is virtually unused.

The more you use it, the stronger it gets, in the same way that training your rational thinking processes increases your ability to reason.

You aren’t creating connections but simply becoming aware of them, because on the unconscious level we are all connected to our loved ones, swimming in the same streams of consciousness and emotions.

These connections are most obvious and easy to find between family members and close friends, but everything is connected, and being sensitive to the connections makes for a much more joined-up way of living.

Are you aware of telepathic connections between yourself and the people close to you? I’d love to hear your stories.