Crazy Dreams

OK it is 3 AM and once again, I am waking from yet another strange dream. I have to tell ya I have had a lot of them lately. I don't know if it is the medication. I think it may be part of it but as far back as I can remember I had very strange active dreams and nightmares, and when I was young night terrors. So anomalous dreams are not out of the ordinary.

Now let me regress.. A few weeks ago, I had a dream that every time I would wake up and go back to sleep it would pick back up where it left off. That one involved some people I had recent contact and some I have and never would even know. I was leaving a building at a university with a friend of mine that was with a professor and me. Along with us, other students were in the class were leaving the building at the same time. Upon walking out of the building there was a group of what looked like terrorists opening fire on everyone. Let me clarify this was only a dream and did not happen in real life. Therefore, in the dream some of the students were able to runaway. The rest of us were told to sit on the ground and not move. So the 3 of us that walked out of the building together began trying to negotiate with these people because by this point, the police had arrived and those holding us hostage had demands they wanted met. So we were trying to keep talking to them and going through all the motions of our combined training in working with difficult people or situations. I than woke up.

When I fell back to sleep it continued where it left off. Except this time enters the white dog Kiki that I fostered last winter and have again this winter. With her owners, she is a little escape artist and gets out frequently. With me, she can't get out because I have a fence in my back yard. However, in my dream she was running around and barking and chortling which sounds like singing or talking kind of. Anyway, no one was shot and after I woke up for the last time I thought wow OK that was weird. I will say I think I do understand the meaning a correlation of it. Recently I had done a presentation for a class with a friend at a university and was talking about my life and different things that had occurred during my life. My dream was representative of my fears of the repercussions of sharing such personal information with strangers.

So tonight, I wake up after another crazy dream. In this one, I was floating above myself not flying just floating, and I was not dead. It was as if I was just kind of checking things out. I remember I was feeling lonely and was trying to see what everyone else was doing that was so important. Everyone I saw was busy with all of their responsibilities, work, family, children, and all their other responsibilities. So wrapped up in their own lives that they could not see beyond what was right in front of them. Alternatively, they were afraid of all the unknowns so they stay inside the safety of their own bubble. I understand that there are certain aspects of my life in which I do the same. I know the demands society places on people. However, while I was floating around I saw so much more. The selfishness of people, and the humility of others. The self-lessness of some and those that thought they were owed everything from others. I remember in my dream asking myself why I feel so much compassion for everyone and seem to be looked over by many others. I felt like I did not matter to anyone and was there taking up precious air that could be used for more worthy endeavors. It was a very lonely feeling, isolated. Like I was the only one that was keeping in contact with my friends by making the first move by calling or E'ing Very few of my friends initiate it with me first. That sometimes makes me wonder if they are really my friend, especially if it a one sided give and take that was all giving from me. Not all are life that but a majority of the times it is. I hate the loneliness and boredom.

Then as the dream progressed, I was hovering over myself and started seeing myself at all different ages. At those ages, I seeing all the other strange dreams I would have at those ages. Some were reoccurring like my Charlie friend that I would in my dream of course find in a closet in the basement and as soon as I walked in the closet mutated into a huge jungle rain forest. There we would play and climb on trees and play with all the other animal friends in the jungle. You see Charlie was a monkey. Yes, I said monkey. I had that dream a lot as a kid. In addition, tonight I saw it again in my dream but it was like a dream in a dream. I know this sounds crazy but it was what I was dreaming.

Then once again, there were terrorists firing at me and only me this time. There were others that I knew that were watching this and laughing at me as I was trying to dodge the bullets. I knew they were real bullets and they were laughing. Some of them my friends. Than just as I saw one coming that I could not get away from I woke up with a start.

In trying to figure out what this one meant I think part of it was because every now and then I think of people I call friends and the call me friend but it seems like the only times I hear from them they need something from me or whatever. I sometimes question if they are friends if I am the only one instigating and keep the friendship going by being the ones that calls or Emails.

I also think that part of it is I trying to recapture the good things from when I was a kid, and my Charlie dream is a sweet comforting memory. Maybe that part was telling me that I need comfort right now. Friends that are supportive of some serious health things going on with me and feel like it is just me against the world and this health issue. That I have to do it alone as I have with every other thing in my life. I need that support and sometimes just an escape from it for a little bit of time. To just have fun with someone where the health issues are not the entire conversation point. Just fun, to laugh with others, talk with others or whatever.

I will be really honest and expose my emotions here and I am not real good or comfortable with doing it but I am feeling it right now. There are times since I have been going through this I just get so discouraged and wish I could talk to someone who would encourage me. Friends… We all need them. I start balling because sometimes that is all I can do. On the other hand I feel like I am imposing on my friends and don't want to burden them with my feelings. My friends know me as an upbeat happy person who is willing to go to any lengths to help my friends. Sometimes I just get discouraged when I am in a place where I feel like I need a friend to do for me what I do for them.

As far as the part where I was being shot at, at one point I could tell that one of the shooters was me. Now here again let me just clarify I am not feeling like I want to harm myself in any way. Nothing even close to that. Maybe I was trying to be shot so I could feel alive or maybe it was my trying to kill those horrible parts of my childhood. Alternatively, maybe it was even me punishing myself for opening myself up to strangers so completely, and was feeling vulnerable about it. I don't know but that lonely feeling never left during the entire dream. Another possibility is I was trying to kill this issue with my health in me.

I don't know any ideas. I am open to them.

I did write this at 3 AM but fell asleep before I got it posted so the tme stamp is 7 something AM.

And Still......

Ah man, I don't think I can take anymore of this, and why when I am only asleep, why not remember these things or see these things while I am awake?
Well I prayed and asked about that tonight when I woke up from a nap. I like to ask the questions that does not mean I always want the answer., and still I got one. When I am awake my defenses are too high and I am so vigilant in protecting my mom against my sadness, and loneliness, and gosh forbid me from letting anyone know I am vulnerable because then I would just melt away and die. It's not that things like that are not being remembered while I am awake, it is just I am not as open as I am when I dream. Not to mention His word did say he speaks to us through dreams and visions.
I long for the day that even the good ones don't make me a weeping puddle waiting for the mop, and the bad ones don't have the same sting. I am sure it is out there somewhere and I have faith that I will reach it in HIS time not my own, (I'm not too fond of that part) but it will come. I just don't want to be a walking or driving rolling puddle with a mop not far behind while I hang in the balance.
So since I am crying all over again after waking up and immediately feeling that lose of those first 2 minutes after he passed. It just seems so fresh and raw in those moments it is overwhelming.
Tonight's dream was more like a film and I was in the theater watching it. If I had to title it it would be called "Through the Years". I saw him painting the living room when we first moved here and he spilled the paint can and mom quietly ushered my sister and I away because lets just say he was not happy. I was 3 years old I don't know how that would even still be in the memory bank. I watched when I was 4 and after dinner he would aways sit at the dinette table and read the newspaper. Sometimes I would sit on his lap while he did so and he would read it to me. It was not very long before I was reading it to him without him reading it at the same time. I am sure that is where my love of reading came from. In 4th grade I tested out of high school with vocabulary, comprehension and everything.
I heard his laugh in my dream. That alone was the biggest blessing because it had been many years since I heard that really deep hard laugh. In part because I lived far away and also because he had been sick for a while. Even though it has only been 3 years he's been gone but I almost had forgotten it. I loved to hear him laugh that hard, and his eyes would sparkle and shine when he did. I miss that.
I saw him planting the maple tree that was no taller than I was around 6 years old. Now it towers well above me and the house like a live guardian angel.
I saw him up north at the cabin we used to have and fishing from the pontoon boat or the pier. He taught me that if I caught a bullhead (catfish as you may know it) to be careful taking it off the hook because it's whiskers would sting me. I would fish by myself at dusk off the dock and when I caught one I would scream at the top of my lungs so he would hear me in the cabin DDDDDDAAAAAAAADDDDDDD he would come out as fast as he could and I would simply say I got a bullhead come take it off, and so he would. I knew if I screamed loud enough he would come. Sometimes as I got older and lived away from home I could whisper his name and know he would be there. Can you hear my heart whispering for you now daddy?
There was of course a great deal more in my dreaming film to even go into. It just makes me feel that deep void that his death has left behind. I know that even though my heart hurts so deeply it is almost selfish. I know my dad is back home with his heavenly father and his own dad that died when we was very young. He is happy in that perfect place we all long to go back to. I know the sorrow is for me, my family and his friends.
I know I have said this but I love him and I can physically feel the hurt of my heart. I know that gap will get smaller and eventually I will smile and only cry with great laughter in time. I don't believe in someone feeling sorry for themselves or wallowing in things but I think that this is something I have to let take his course and try to allow myself the time I need for that. It's just so deep it makes wonder if I will ever see the light again with that part of my heart and soul. I am not depressed (a little crazy, at least I think so at times) it's just a sad hole inside that needs to be filled up again.However, I'll tell you that I have done a great deal of really challenging and terrifying stuff of things I was sure I would never come out the other side of, but this.... Oh man, this by far is the most challenging, terrifying, and exhausting to go through. I wish I could do it all once, Cry once and just move on.
Unfortunately I can't do it. Believe me I have tried, it doesn't work.
So again I say good night to my dad and and to anyone reading this though a flood of tears. I just pray that if this happens again at anytime that it won't feel so fresh and new. For now I just hang in the balance and believe as a friend and her son told me that he is looking down and watching over his family. I hope I am the person he wanted me to be, and love as hard and deep as he did, and is proud of me for something. Lord knows I am trying for him and our God.
I just feel like I am stuck in one of those hamster balls that you put them in close up and let them roll around in them.
Some day I'll see you again dad. In the mean time I hope and pray that when you look down you will see something pleasing to your bright eyes. I miss you!
Sorry to all who read this, but this is what has been in my head and my heart lately. Thanks for putting up with me.