The People We Dream Of

I’m with a group of people and we’re all standing on the sidewalk outside a school, one I attended years ago. I’m much older now, it makes no sense that I am at that school, yet I also know there are classes in session at that very moment and I'm out here on the sidewalk, missing it all. I talk to the people on the sidewalk through conversations that mean nothing and I forget them as quickly as they happen.

I transport to a house, not one I ever lived in, maybe one I’ve never even been in, maybe one I just saw in a magazine or on TV. I’m following someone up the stairs, a woman. She’s a visitor, or does she live here? Do I live here? She turns around and I recognize her, I’m glad to see her, I have things to tell her but I can’t seem to get them out. Her name is-  Her name is-  

People call me bitter and cynical but I do believe in dreams. In the dead of night, the subconscious runs wild through the darker corners of our minds to reveal things our waking minds refuse, or are unable, to fathom. I don’t believe we can simply shrug off dreams. In that 90 to 120 minutes of REM sleep our true fears, loves, desires, everything we truly are, is revealed to us.

I probably only remember a few dreams a year. People that are close to me appear in them, family, dear friends. Then, every once and awhile, there’s an appearance by someone that only appears in the periphery of my waking life, sometimes just an acquaintance, a passerby, and they take a starring role in the dream.

The morning after I had the dream at the school and the house, I had to really think for at least ten minutes to recall if the woman in the house was from real life or something my dream had made up. It finally clicked: she was real: the girlfriend of an old roommate, a roommate that I had lost contact with years ago. We didn’t know eachother well, the woman and I, we had probably only hung out a handful of times and that was simply because she spent time at the house I lived in. Why would she appear in a dream so vividly and so many years later?

I had a girlfriend once who, after we broke up, would appear in my dreams very vividly, and when I awoke it was like I had seen her and spent time with her. Sometimes these dreams were painful, often times not, but without fail, usually only a few days later, that ex-girlfriend would appear in real life. There was no warning that I would see her before hand except for the dreams. On the third time I dreamed of her, maybe two years after last seeing her, I awoke and wondered if she would appear. Sure enough, a few days later she emailed me and said she would be in town. I have not dreamt of her since.

A week after my grandfather passed away he appeared in a dream. I was in my mother’s house, in the living room, and in walked my grandfather holding a peach cobbler. I was surprised to say the least. We didn’t speak much, we just shared the pie, which was excellent even though in real life I can’t say I have ever had peach cobbler. My mother was in the kitchen one room over and I desperately wanted to tell her that her father was there. My grandfather stopped me, saying not to bother her. I awoke immediately, convinced that I had been visited by my grandfather in some form or another.

So why this girlfriend of an ex-roommate? I don’t remember much about the real her except that she seemed very healthy. I remember her being a runner, a jogger. I suspect it may be my own recent interest in health and being active that pulled her up from my memory. There is the house as well, why was she in the house? At the time I knew her I thought she was a nice enough person but I was never interested in her or secretly attracted to her. In the dream her appearance made me overjoyed, I was glad to see her. Does she symbolize a change in what I want? Does she symbolize a regret that I now harbor?

I’m not sure but I do believe if I continue to think on it something will come into focus. Our dreams are trying to tell us something.

05-22-13