Dreams and Mystery Trips

 

It’s been awhile since I’ve dreamed about Don but last night I woke up many times with vivid details of dreams still hanging on. One dream fragment was about visiting him once a week and I’d be in our old Blazer driving to another town where he was staying and when I got there, I could only watch him from a distance. Another time I was with others who were in the town watching their loved ones and we were all sitting in a circle passing around a worm-like thing with fish hooks attached and chanting as we held it. As the 'thing' went around the circle it grew bigger and more teddy-bear-like with each person that held it. At one point in my night of dreams I remember thinking I was seeing the bright light that many people who’ve come back from a near-death experience describe and I woke up in a panic and thinking, Ohmygod, it’s real! Closely followed by: Maybe the light was the alarm clock face. God, no, that’s red! The dream that finally woke me up fully so I couldn’t fall back to sleep was of me trying to find my Blazer after a visit to watch Don and as I looked for it the tiny town kept growing, adding more streets to search as it the light faded from the sky. What a night! I hate not getting the sleep I need, especially when the dreams involve searching. I have a lot of searching dreams.

Of course, it’s easy to see that searching in dreams means you have something important lacking in your life or that you need an answer to a dilemma or problem. The bright light can mean a need to pay closer attention to something going on in your life but in my case I think it symbolizes a straight forward fear of death. I do a lot of day-time worrying about dying without finding a meaning to my life and not finding something truly satisfying to do with the rest of my time on earth. All this business about it being about the journey, not the destination is getting increasingly harder for this goal-orientated person to buy into. Well, that's what I say today. Stay tuned, tomorrow I might be singing a different song.

The circle was the most interesting dream fragment This was something I haven’t dreamed about in the past and this is what dreamforth.com has to say about circles: “A dream of a circle represents your life quest for excellence, unity, and fulfillment. On the other hand, it may also signify that you are having difficulties resolving a certain issue. You cannot seem to come to a satisfactory answer. You may feel as if you are at a stagnant period in your life; you aren't moving forward as planned.”  Boy, they nailed it for me! And my guess is the others in the circle are like-wise widows and the thing we passed around while chanting represents the grief stories that we swap online, which grow less and less painful as time and the telling goes around our widowhood community.

It was a busy night of dreaming and sometimes I wish I didn't remember my dreams because they can haunt me until I figure out their meaning...or what I think they mean. Science says they don't mean much at all and they are just a by-product of the events of our day being transferred to a different part of our brains to be recalled later as memories. Still, if you don’t remember the details of your dreams and you want to, there are things you can do to help you transfer your night dreams from your sub-conscious mind to your conscious mind. You’ll need to keep a notebook and a light-up ink pen by your bedside so you can jot notes---even just a single word to act as a queue later on---without turning your light on. The more you do it, the more you’ll recall with time and practice.

Changing topics: This week I have a by-annual appointment with my internist---always lots of fun <picture a rolling eyes icon here> and a lecture at the museum where I will take myself off the snowbird list and sign up for some docent volunteer days. I’m also going to the culinary college for lunch with a bus load of people from the senior hall and on a mystery trip, also a day trip sponsored by the senior hall. We can’t be going very far since we’re due back in town by three o’clock. I’m being pickier about the trips I sign up for this summer. I skipped the Chicago gangster tour, for example, and the “Les Miserables” tour at Drury Lane outside of Chicago, and the Detroit Tigers/Chicago White Sox game because those 12 and 14 hour day trips are hard on my body and the dog. I mention them, though, to inspire other widows to look into their local senior hall activities. It might surprise you that the old stereotypes of sitting around playing bingo for soup cans no longer apply. One of the schools near-by also sponsor community enrichment trips. They are going to Amish Country this summer which is really tempting for me. I’m more the pastoral views than cityscapes kind of traveler. But right now I'm going to travel out to the dog pen and pick up a winter's worth of poop that the melting snow is revealing. ©