Dreams Dreams Dreams
I’ve been having crazy dreams lately.
This isn’t a new thing for me in life as I’ve always been a bit of a dreamer. As a kid, I had a recurring dream where I was hanging out with a group of cool, older kids on a road trip to go see a killer whale in an aquarium. I would always wake up right before I got to swim in the tank with the orca and fulfill my life dream. After reading this, you probably won’t be surprised that Free Willy was one of my favorite movies.
Though I expected the crazy dreams to start right after Tim died, they didn’t really crank up until about a month ago. Most nights I wake up at least once after a vivid, usually halfway traumatic dream. I keep a journal and pen at my nightstand, but despite this never write them down. Sleep is one of my very favorite things in life, so although I know I probably won’t remember the dream unless I write it down… I never do. The thought process goes something like; I should write this down so I remember. It’s awfully important. You know, it’s so important that I’m SURE I’ll remember everything clearly in the morning. Yes, that is best… and then I immediately fall back asleep.
So a lot of these important, significant dreams I have no memory of.
Others I have a vague feeling or shadow memory. The themes are usually divorce or addiction, but rarely death. I seem to always know that Tim is dead, but he’s alive and in front of me in my dream despite this knowledge. There have been several where we are trying to navigate a life apart during separation or after divorce. Others I will see him in front of me completely high off of who knows what. In one dream, I remember he was staggering in front of me with a syringe sticking out of his arm. I could only watch him wave and falter, trying to walk. I couldn’t help him.
I had a dream that we went to visit some close friends of ours at an amusement park, only that amusement park was actually a mall. My friends and I all know Tim died, but we act normal with him being present and in front of us. The four of us go to “bumper cars”, but the ride is really me driving an intense, winding road in my Kia. I’m driving, and Tim is in the passenger seat. I’m trying to catch up with our friends, but I never do. I feel like I’m driving SO FAST, but the speed gauge never goes above 45mph. When we finish the “ride”, Tim and I go to a locker room to get my belongings and we start to have an argument. At one point during this argument (which I can’t fully remember), he turns to me and says “I think you’re being unreasonable when you count how many drinks I’m having.”
I turn to him and say, “Was I being unreasonable when I found you lying dead on the floor?”
He gets quiet and extremely angry, and tells me he wants a divorce. I start to cry, and hold his hand. “The last 8.5 years were the happiest of my life,” (I guess I subtracted the last year of our relationship due to all the shittiness, LOL @ dream me) and his face softens. He starts to tear up. “I would do it all over again,” I tell him.
He looks at me with glassy eyes and says, “I didn’t know..” and then I wake up.
A dream like that will leave me feeling confused and depressed for days.
Last week, I dreamt about Sex and the City which I think is officially a sign that you’ve watched a show too much. Carrie & Mr. Big were ridiculously happy, and we were all traveling to their honeymoon in an underground moving apartment under a bridge. They said it’s a very NYC thing to travel that way. Miranda & Steve were getting divorced, because Steve developed a drinking problem.
One night, I dreamt I was alone in a large, modern house at Christmas. It had huge, open rooms of square, white tile. I wandered around thinking about how sad I was to be alone at Christmas, but the entire time I had a English Bulldog puppy in my hands. It was a black & white female, and probably 6 weeks old. I don’t even like Bulldogs (they were Tim’s favorites), but the puppy was adorable. I kept thinking, well this is a really sad situation… but I sure do like my puppy!
I have a journal (which is another story itself) that I write to Tim in. Typically, I try to write something each night but there were several days after I received the final toxicology results that I couldn’t bring myself to write to him. When I finally did, I scribbled something along the lines of “This was a very shitty and unfair thing you did to me. I deserve an apology!”
That night, I dreamt that Tim had actually almost overdosed many, many times in secrecy months prior to his death. In my dream, I watched him sleep curled up in a ball and drift in and out of consciousness. Someone in the background (maybe myself) was telling me, See? You couldn’t have prevented this. There were other times you didn’t know about. It wasn’t just the one you stopped, and the one you couldn’t stop.
That may be as close to an apology as I get. I’ll have to see what dreams may come tonight.
22 thoughts on “Dreams Dreams Dreams”
I’m sorry you’re having such troubling dreams, I know that feeling and it can be really upsetting. Maybe they will help you sort out some of the mixed up feelings you must be having during the day.
(Hugs) All of these are pretty tough to wake up to, I imagine. You can only do so much processing while you’re awake, your brain will have an easier time of dealing with everything while you’re sleeping. The fact that you’re driving your bumper car is a really good sign, though.
I have a love hate relationship with crazy dreams. They can be disturbing but they are just dreams. Then there are the dreams that feel real. Sometimes I think maybe they are real or at least in part. Perhaps that really was an apology or an explanation. Hugs. I hope you have some sweet dreams.
The thing that I like about dreams, whether disturbing or happy, is that they seem to exist in some middle of conscious land where all things are possible.
I like that a lot. That’s a really nice way to think.
{{{{{hugs}}}}}
Dreams are such a tricky thing.
Wow… I know I dream (everyone does), but I never remember them. Like, EVER. Those sure are some crazy dreams, but they seem like they might be a little therapeutic too. I hope you have some happy dreams too… and maybe one day get to swim with Orcas in real life. 😉
I legitimately would die of happiness if I got to swim with Orcas.
**hugs**
I’m a firm believer that there are so many things that we see or hear and don’t process/understand (thanks subconscious for making that decision) and those things feed our dreams.
From an outsider’s perspective, I can see the processing in those dreams you mentioned and how they reflect what you’ve blogged about the grieving process.
I’ve always thought it stupid that we usually see the stages of grieving in this nice, neat little linear list. It’s not like that at all – it’s like a roller coaster full of blind corners and drops that has on/off line switches like a train track.
“I’ve always thought it stupid that we usually see the stages of grieving in this nice, neat little linear list. It’s not like that at all – it’s like a roller coaster full of blind corners and drops that has on/off line switches like a train track.”
Quoting that above bit because it’s so very true. My father passed a few years ago and even now it’s funny what will trigger me right back to full blown grief. It’s not as crushing as it was then but it’s still very much a part of life.
Dreams are fascinating. Though it sucks waking up from an upsetting dream and having it hang a cloud over your whole day, it really is interesting to see how you are processing things in your sleep. Dreaming is like touching another dimension – I have always loved my own crazy dreams.
I also loved Free Willy. I always have crazy dreams. Vivid, a lot of them are gory. The first horrifying one I remember is one where I was hiding at my kindergarten teacher’s house, and she had eaten a bunch of my classmates. And I had to help my brother escape her house. Sometimes I have lovely dreams and sometimes I am scared to go to sleep. I hope you have some nice dreams mixed in there for you. Dreams that involve ponies and food and happiness. And maybe more bulldog puppies?
I have gory dreams, too! I have this recurring one where I am heading into some kind of village and someone has slaughtered all the inhabitants and there’s this lone man holding a sword with blood dripping from it. I can’t tell if he’s the one who’s killed everyone, or if he was defending the village.
I also have dreams where I’m doing something incredibly boring, like paying the car insurance.
I hope you have happier dreams!
dreams are crazy things – intermixing all different experiences and snippets of information into one jumbled vision (like when different people or places that i know will be combined into one person or one place – always kinda crazy!). they’re sometimes disturbing, but also sometimes surprisingly pleasant. i hope yours will not be troubled for very long!
oy crazy dreams!! 🙁
Hugs girl!!
Oh Lauren 🙁
Oh, Lauren! I really do empathize with you here. I know it’s weird, but I believe dreams are more than just runaway subconscious thoughts. They are also a vehicle for us to communicate with others, dead or living. There are many reasons that have led me to this conclusion, but I believe this. I hope your dreams soothe you more than they upset you, I’ll keep you in my thoughts!
oh, the subconscious… if your days are not hard enough it comes back to bite you when you are at rest! If it is any consolation I too have experienced some pretty awful dreams.
My father died when I was 15, our family company was involved in some litigation cases and life was damn hard financially as all our funds were being poured into pursuing these cases – like really tough eg; living on mattress in the back of the company offices. And this had gone on for years . Anyway, he died before resolution of the cases, the company was wound up etc.
So a few years later mum and I were really comfortable, life was amazing I was 19 or so had an amazing boyfriend, horses were winning a lot on the circuit and I started to have this dream it was so vivid and real, I would wake up gasping for breath and the pain would take hours to go away…..
The dream went like this- My father wasn’t really dead, the morgue had just dumped his body over a ravine in a jungle somewhere. Dad had clawed his way to the top of the ravine, managed to find his way back to us over a long period of time, But ….. we had this lovely life, back in a nice house, and he of course wanted to pursue the scum that ruined his company again. I was pissed off he was back and wanted to return us to a terrible life – hows that for a guilt trip..
And I would wake up knowing that I was such a terrible person because although I loved him so much. Writing this now still makes me feel bad, maybe everyone will judge me as a terrible person, but honestly i would do anything to have my father back. And I would have that dream every month or so for a year or two.
I’m with Slickchickie: dreams can be a way for us to process things, they can be a reflection of our subconscious, but I also think they sometimes are a way for us to communicate with others at another level. My entire family believes this and we have had experiences that confirmed it.
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this in the comments before and forgive me if I have. I read every single post of yours and make a mental note to comment later when I’m at a computer (it’s impossible to comment from my phone at work) and then the moment passes and I realize later I never did get to comment. But here goes.
My grandfather was my world. He made all of my dreams come true. I got to own my first horse, Lucero, because of him and he financed my lessons and shows. He was the main support beam of our family and the day he died was devastating. I was 24, and I was holding his hand when he passed. Only my uncle and I were present when he went. I had never seen a person die before. His passing changed my life fulminantly, making me see that if you want something from life, you should do it NOW and not wait until tomorrow or next month or next year. His death led directly to the series of choices and decisions that brought me to where I am at today.
He came to each member of the family in dreams to say good-bye. But he never came to me, and I was upset at him for a really long time. I think it’s because I was there when he went so I had already had the opportunity to say good-bye. I moved away from the island before the holidays immediately after his death. He had always been the source of magic for us during the holidays and it was a huge relief to not have to deal with that emptiness. With his empty house that used to be my shelter, where I would sit and talk with him for hours about life and hopes and dreams. I used to have a recurring dream where I was walking through his house, looking for him. In some dreams I knew he was dead and everything was covered in dust and decaying. His library of books, all covered in dust and cobwebs. There were holes in the roof. There was water damage. In others, it was immediately after he died and it was just the empty house with everything looking the way it did when he was alive. In others I didn’t know he was dead but I was desperately looking for him because there was something I need to talk to him about.
He finally did come to visit me. 2 years ago. We were already living here in Maryland. In the dream the entire family was there, including my grandmother who passed away a year before my grandfather. And Grandpa was there too. We were outdoors and it was a gorgeous sunny day on the island and there was light, light everywhere. And Grandpa sat down next to me and we talked about horses and Lily and it was just like old times when he was alive. He let me visit with him one last time.
My aunt had the same dream that same night.
I have not had the dream of the empty house since.
May your dreams start bringing you more comfort than grief soon, Lauren. *Big hug*
It sounds like you must be having stress dreams : ( I get those when I have a lot on my plate and am worrying about something. It usually turns into last night’s TV show turned dark (the reason I only watch comedy before bed)!
Hi Lauren,
Long time reader who doesn’t comment often.
Just curious if you’re familiar with reiki? It’s a healing modality. I live in Austin too and could recommend someone if you were interested. It is very very helpful to just “re-balance” and feel better. After an hour long session I always have more energy. I thought it might be helpful to suggest.
Sounds like your subconscious is a bit ahead of you and helping you decompress all of your feelings. Might be a bit of encouragement of better days to come?
Best,
Grace