Every now and then there are dreams where it feels like the universe is telling you something. This likely happens more often than we think, but many are not in tune with their position on this plane of existence.
I'm typing this as the sun rises on morning just before we can officially declare spring. Birds sound happy as they chirp, but that's anthropomorphism. They're struggling to survive, which often sounds human.
In one sequence last night I was trying to get from one side of the University of Virginia campus to another. My dream self had done this many times before, but a door to a passageway was locked. I remembered coming through it earlier, and I was frustrated I couldn't budge it.
Then a monitor chirped to life, bureaucratic, and asked me what I was doing there and what I intended to do. I responded I was trying to get from one side of the University of Virginia to another, and I'd used this passageway before.
"Have you sanitized your hands?" the voice asked.
I said no, and looked around.
"There's a bottle in the cubbyhole," the voice said.
I struggled to find it. Two women came by and helped me find it. They wanted to use the passageway, too. I didn't know them, but they were students and I was an outsider just trying to get through.
On the other side of the passage, I ended up at a house with my family. This house was at Smith Mountain Lake, a place where we my family had a house until my parents abruptly decided to sell in 2017 without any input from the rest of it. I dream of the place often, saddened by my immigrant parents' ability to grasp that they were selling the home where my family congregated. All but the first sentence of this paragraph is true.
In the dream, the home was still ours. I dream of this house often and it takes many forms. That house represented the rags to riches story of my family, and I have my suspicions it was sold because my mother wanted to punish us. This paragraph is still true though my mother now lives with my father in a retirement community outside Philadelphia that costs nearly $25,000 a month.
In the dream sequence I was similar to my real self. The outsider in a family of normal people who discouraged eccentric behavior unless it came from my father. I am to be seen and ready to assist with a task, but my thoughts are not to be shared. This paragraph is another blend of reality.
But, the dream began to fade, and the two women from the passageway were outside, preparing for their wedding to each other. I was happy for them, and happy that our family had gathered for this occasion. I looked out the window and somehow my diminutive black cat, Karen, was outside. She's not supposed to be outside, but she was standing on a rock wall that lined the patio, basking in the sun.
I went from the upstairs to the downstairs to get her back inside and to see if I could close any gap because I didn't want Mink, the tabby, to get outside. They're both old now and there are predators. I went downstairs, and my nephew was down there, and as I was looking for ways out, I spotted a room I'd never been in. This was a family shrine of sorts, filled with decorative plates, with blue carpeted walls.
"I've not been here before," I said, and Ryan said it was part of his childhood. In real life, this is true, because he and his sister, my brother's three kids, and my three estranged children all got to spend time there. Mine were the last to go on one day in the summer of 2016. This paragraph is a blend of reality and the dream, but that seems to be how existence is now.
In the dream, I pushed through the shrine and saw another passageway, similar to the one at the University of Virginia. This one led to a shopping mall, one that was vibrant and robust. Shopping malls also appear in my dreams as they represent a way of life that is no more. I wandered around, and at one point exited a door that led back to the house at Smith Mountain Lake. The two women who were getting married were now wearing fancy clothes, and a third woman was with them as well. I was pleased to be there, pleased to be a part of it, but concerned because of my parents' dislike of gay people. Sure, they're tolerant, but underneath there is contempt.
I went to sleep and had a dream within a dream where I was present in the couple's intimate lives, and I felt like an intruder. I feel like an intruder anytime the idea of intimacy comes up, being a perpetual outsider and all. I kept trying to switch the scene. I'm leaving out details but this was a spicy part of the dream.
I don't deserve that sort of thing, so I walked out of the dream and back into the shopping mall which had a section that was more like the University of Virginia. A crowd was walking into a room where a Black man was about to give a lecture. I was led to believe he was the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He had a solemn look on his face. I was viewing him from atop a balcony that had three sides. The seats were beds, and there were many people listening as he explained how things had gone wrong, and challenged us all to come up with ways to make things right. As he kept talking, I was aware I was not a stranger but instead I was a member of a community that had been damaged.
I woke up, ready to get back to work. This part is not the dream.
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