IT'S JUST A DREAM, JUST A DREAM

I would have posted this yesterday, but it was Thursday, and I had other plans for that day. Anyway, I have got a story for you guys that I think is going to knock your socks off, blow your skirt up, throw you for a loop. Whatever. I am telling you: this one is a freaking doozy. I woke up Wednesday morning just trying to wrap my brain around this dream I just had. I know that most of the time dreams are us trying to work out our problems in our subconscious. However, this one did not feel like that. One of the reasons is because the main person in the dream is someone that I reconnected with on facebook about a year and a half ago. We did the FB thing. A few emails when you first reconnect, then comments on pictures, he occasionally comments on my blog, but mostly nada. Meaning he is not in my conscious mind at all. So, I decided to send him an email. Yeah, it bugged me that much. Here is the email I sent to him:

Hey, I know it’s been a long time since you’ve heard from me. And this email is going to be weird. So, take a moment to buckle your seat belt. I’m going to skip the pleasantries and go straight to the weird. I know, that is so unlike me.

So, here it is. I had this dream last night and you were in it. That is a first. It is a double weird because you have not been in my conscious mind at all lately. It isn’t like we have been talking on email or I have been posting blogs and you have been leaving comments. In other words, there is no good reason for you to be in my subconscious mind.

Moving on to the dream itself… you know I can’t remember anything that was actually happening in the dream because what was going on with you was very intense. You were on fire. However, I could talk to you and you could talk back. It hurt but you wouldn’t let me put it out. You kept saying that you could handle it. The flames came right up to your shoulders. And I kept saying that I really thought you should either stop, drop, and roll, or let me pour some water on you. It went on like that for a long time. There were other people in this dream that we both knew, but I can’t remember now who they were. They weren’t real happy with you being on fire, either. But, they had other things to do and kept leaving. I was the only who stayed and watched and/or discussed putting the fire out. Finally, you decided you couldn’t take it anymore. That was a HUGE RELIEF moment for me. I can’t imagine what it was for you. And you did the stop, drop, roll thing and I grabbed a towel or some other cloth and patted you down where you were still flaming.

After you were finally fire-free, the only place that you were burnt was your chest. You couldn’t tolerate wearing a shirt. You had a terrible burn on your chest (so I could totally get the not wearing a shirt thing because that would really hurt).


And then I woke up. I thought about that dream for a long time after as I lie in bed. It was weird. Who wouldn’t think about it? I have to say that you are the first person on fire that I have ever dreamt about. The fact that the burn was isolated to the chest said to me (upon waking) that it was a heart wound. It was a burn on the inside that showed on the outside, but really could only be on the inside. The odd thing is why YOU were the burning man. You haven’t done or said anything to suggest to me that you have any heart wounds or are anything less than happy in all aspects of your life.

My cousin is psychic. Or to a degree anyway. Her channel is more open than a lot of people’s. She didn’t want to be psychic and went through a period of getting terrible headaches (migraines) until she accepted them. I have never considered myself to be psychic. I have become more intuitive as I have gotten older, but not psychic. However, if my stupid old channel is trying to open and I am resisting and it is giving me migraines, well that is unacceptable. I will let it open. No more migraines, thank you very much. I have plenty already.

I only told you the last because I want you to understand that I am not being nosy. However, if you read this and you can see yourself as the burning man in my dream… meaning it resonated for in some aspect of your life, please say so. If you read this and you think, well that is so not anywhere close to me or what is going on with me, well say that, too. I am just trying to figure this one out.

This is what he sent back:

Um, whoa.

Okay, let me respond on a couple of fronts. First, I am generally a pretty happy guy. My marriage is, by all accounts, really solid, I have a great relationship with my two kids. Things are good, and relative to a lot of folks, I think my heart is in a pretty good place.


But there's a second point. I haven't spoken to my dad in nearly two years. It's a long (really long) story, but suffice it to say that our relationship has been damaged to the point that it is nearly irreparable. He cheated on my mom with a younger woman, and then left her to marry said mistress. But that's something that I can get over. The problem is that in the ensuing years, he and his new wife have turned into these incredibly mean, self-centered, narcissistic, materialistic people. There are countless stories I could tell. They are truly toxic. She has two children by a prior marriage, and hasn't spoken to either of them in years.

Well, about two years ago, the two of them sat down and wrote this incredibly ridiculous letter to all four of their children (my brother and I, as well as her two kids), essentially disowning us. None of us have spoken to them since. I've made peace with the situation, and feel that it is best for my two sons that they have no relationship with them (they did some horribly mean things to their various grandkids over the years).

Well, my brother finally broke down the barrier and invited them down for a visit. On the last day of their trip (yesterday), he confronted them on a lot of the crap that has been pulled over the years. So yesterday evening, I spent several hours on the phone talking with my brother (and my wife) about the outcome of that conversation, and struggling with the question of whether I want or will seek to have any relationship with my father. He is 72, and given our family's health, probably doesn't have a ton of time left. I'm horribly conflicted.

So while I wouldn't describe myself as suffering from any sort of severe emotional distress, there is no question that, last night, I struggled with personal and emotional conflict more than any other day in the past 18 months.

Make of that what you will.


So, I am asking you unbiased people out there in blogland: what do you make of this? Do you think that my dream about my friend being on fire was representational of the emotional conflict he was feeling that night? Even though he says that his father is toxic and he has made peace with that, in my dream it was very clear that his heart was hurting. Do you think he really has made peace with that, and my dream and his situation are unrelated? Or do you think that I had the dream so that I would send him the email, so that he would realize that his heart is hurting? Do you think that sometimes we live in denial because if we acknowledge the truth it is just too damn painful? So, are the dream and my friend connected or was it just a random coinkydinky (coincidence)?


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