in dreams

i’ve talked about my dreams before. sometimes, i wish i lived in my dreamlife because it’s frequently so much more fulfilling than my waking life. in my dreams, i’m happier, or braver, or more confident, or more successful... and i’m certainly much luckier in love when i'm asleep than i am in actuality.

but sometimes my dreams are unsettling. they’re not nightmares, per se, but they’ll occasionally leave me shaken or uneasy, even hours after i wake up. i had one such dream the other night...

i was in the living room of my parents' house... waiting to die. just sitting in one of their armchairs, perfectly fine physically and dressed normally, but very upset because i somehow knew i was going to die before the end of the day. but i didn't know how and i didn't know why. just that it was going to happen, that it was my time to go. it was probably afternoon (time-wise) in the dream, because the sun was shining in the big front window.

i was crying, and kept saying that i wasn't ready. i thought (in the dream) that if i could just manage to stay up past midnight, i would have survived my predetermined fate and would be fine (because the date of my death would have passed). sort of like, "maybe i can sneak through and live..."

i can't remember what my mom and my sister were doing or saying, but i know they were there. i also remember a very deep, very profound sense of sadness, fear and regret... so much so that i woke up with that feeling (it took me a few minutes to snap out of the dream and realize it WAS just a dream) and it hung with me for much of the following day.

initially, i chalked it up to just another manifestation of stress, but decided to consult my friend steph, who is a bonafide savant when it comes to dream analysis. i emailed her the above description, and this morning she sent me this reply:

“My first instinct would be to treat death as a metaphor for an ending. You are afraid to end one part of your life, and afraid to start the new part. You are afraid you aren't prepared, that you won't be able to handle it, you will fail, and you will be devastated so much that it will feel like a death sentence. The fact that everything seems normal on the outside would indicate that you are ready, despite your internal anxiety. Waking up with the profound sense of sadness, fear and regret indicates the level of emotional gravity of the ending. Whatever this ending is, you've lived it your whole life - you are being torn from it. The sneaking through part would be you trying to see if you can make the transition without really letting go - tricking death as it were.”

i know there are a few of you who will instantly see how freakishly telling the above interpretation is. without knowing much about what’s going on with me (she lives on the other side of the continent), she was nonetheless so dead-on right (no pun intended) that i almost wanted to cry when i read it. and it gave me a strange sense of comfort – maybe because of the bit about me being ready despite my anxiety.

the arrival of this astute analysis was especially appropriate given yesterday’s entry on my sense of being unmoored and directionless, as well as entries in the last months of 2008, where change was definitely a recurring theme. then, later today, i read this, which popped up on my computer screen seemingly at random... but i knew it wasn’t just a coincidence.

things have been changing. some subtly, some not. i’ve been moving towards the new and letting go of the old. or trying to, anyway. and, amid all this, i’ve sometimes felt like i’m spinning in the middle of a whirlpool, where i’m reaching for something rooted... something moored... in order to feel okay. but, ultimately, i'm the only one who can truly make me feel that way.

in the past few weeks, i’ve definitely been sensing the need for change – or, perhaps, the necessity for it amid other changes already in progress – which is probably from whence the secondary feeling of being adrift came in the first place. because, for me, change has always been scary. something unsettling. something that forces you to let go of what’s familiar and secure for the unknown, unproven and unfamiliar.

but, as it says in the linked story, change is necessary.

and so are dreams.