Saturday, March 13, 2010

Dreams and Dreaming












Damn! It’s so rude to be awakened in the middle of a fine dream just for the purpose of having to pee. I tried to ignore the urgent twinges in my bladder until my beautiful and fabulous characters faded away from me. If only I could place a bookmark in my head and fall quickly back to sleep and see how it ends, or punch a TiVo button to record the rest of it. This was so much better than the book I fell asleep with. Crap! Even if I could go back to sleep, which I rarely can do these days, my mind tends to flip channels and move on to another subject that is usually not very much fun. And sadly as I sat here trying to recall such a wonderful story, it had left me too.

I wish I had more dreams like that one, whatever it was about. I know I was enjoying it and had some regret that I had to leave in the middle of it. But while I'm thinking about dreams, I'm reminded that I've had some that were so profound, I remember them to this day.

One dream I had was on the eve of my 16th birthday. Sweet 16 is supposed to be a milestone in a young girl's life, so I was really happy to finely get there. In this dream, it was my birthday and I came out of my room to the voice of my father. He had that special twinkle in his eye that said he was up to something as he told me to go look outside. I stepped out into bright sunshine and parked on a carpet of lush, emerald green grass in the corral next to the house was a very small, compact helicopter. "Try it out," he said. You'll get the hang of it. I strapped myself in the little chair and flipped a switch. The blades above me began to rotate. My chair was not enclosed and I felt the wind in my face, though it wasn't strong. I took hold of the stick and I began to lift up a few feet. I didn't want to go any higher than a few feet; I just wanted to get the feel of the controls. As my confidence began to build, I moved around a little, then went higher above the roof and tree tops. My stomach lurched a little as it sometimes does when an elevator takes off quickly. I felt so free, excited, joyful, and then damn! Something woke me up. I lay there for what must have been five or ten minutes trying to decide if it was all a dream or it really happened. The excitement of soaring in the air was still stirring within me and I wanted to do it again. I was disappointed when I decided that it had to be a dream and that I couldn't run out and try my little helicopter again.


Years later, I mentioned the dream to a family therapist. She laughed and agreed it was a wonderful dream, but ones like that one are not unusual. They are often associated with transition from child to adulthood. It made sense to me. I was going to experience the freedom that came from driving, and being able to date if I wanted to but boy I would sure like to experience that feeling of flying again.


The second profound dream I have had came several months after my son, Jason passed away. One man who lost his whole family in a horrible automobile accident told me not to be surprised if I started "getting weird dreams." The mortician, whom we had already been acquainted with through Erin's skating rink told me that there will come a time when the real grief would hit me between the eyes at the strangest times. He told me of a time when he lost a loved one and it hit him while he was driving. He said it was so strong, sudden and out of the blue that he had to pull over and stop the car. Both of these warnings proved true in the dream.

One evening as I was just starting to fall asleep, I felt a presence walk into our room. My mind thought it was Erin and I expected her to shake me on the shoulder and tell me what was wrong. I didn't ask her; I let her come to me. But she didn't. She just stood at the foot of my bed. This is where it gets weird, but it didn't strike me as being strange at all at the time.


The figure was trying to talk and somehow got the message to me, thanking me and thanking Dad for everything and what we ment to her. I was given a symbol; a dove, like a Christmas tree ornament. (there were a number of years that I decorated our Christmas trees with doves). Then to my husband, she gave a drum with a scroll. Again like a Christmas tree ornament. The figure, with raised hands began to chant, praising God. That's when I got slamed in the gut and realized that it was goodbye. I started to scream, but nothing would come out of my mouth; my breath was gone. That's when my husband started shaking me. I woke up with a start, sucking in precious air. I remember I continued to gasp for air for some time, but I didn't want to tell Kit what had happened because I needed to think about it. At first, because I really thought it was Erin coming into our room, she was the one saying goodbye but deep down I knew it had to be Jason, but it took me awhile to accept that.


I read a book sometime later about death and dying that many cultures expect family members to have similar dreams as part of the process of separation. Sometime after that, Erin had her own dream, but it wasn't as traumatic as mine. Whenever she mentions it, she said it was very comforting. Jason hasn't come to me in a dream since.


My mom had a prophetic dream once. She thought it had to have meant something because it was so real to her. She said she was driving up the hill towards our house and saw our home on a trailer being moved very, very slowly across the top of the hill. Then it started snowing. A few months later, they found and purchased several acres in Coloma and began building their retirement home which took a very long time to complete because of countless delays (slow moving house). The sale of the property they owned gave them plenty of money to build their home and pad their retirement funds (the snow or rain often symbolizes money).


So I guess the whole point to this little story is that there are all sorts of dreams. Most of them we don't remember. But maybe the profound ones, the ones that stick with us down to our core, the ones where we say "It was so real" we should pay more attention to. There may be a message there.

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