What Dreams May Come

The pendulum swings, in a herky-jerky kind of way.

I don't sleep much, and often it's an interrupted sleep, a restless, fitful sleep that leaves me feeling as if perhaps I'd have been better off not sleeping at all.  My dreams are often shattered, scattered things and what I retain are wisps, shreds of feelings or a word or two and not much else.

For the last few nights, I have gone to bed late (or early, if you like, given the hour) and slept hard for a few hours.  It's not as good as a long night of blissful slumber, but it's something.  In those few hours, though, my mind runs rampant and I remember more of the stories it tells.

Oh, dreams.  Sometimes even the good ones hurt.

A few nights ago I dreamed that someone handed me $5,000.  Just gave it to me.  I was stunned and overjoyed because it means I could fix the truck, pay bills, and help out a friend, too.  Woke up to a cold, rainy, grey day with $.82 in my pocket and a feeling that I'd let myself down somehow.

Two nights ago, I dreamed two dreams.  The first was full of anger.  Not mine but Someone's.  My friend Gypsy was here at Casa de Crazy and we were doing...something...maybe crocheting or something...and went out to the grocery store.  When we came back, Someone was home and he was angry.  Mean faced, flashing eyed, a-n-g-r-y!

He was yelling at me for putting the remains of a stick of butter in the refrigerator.  It was only a pat, wrapped in the paper, but he thought it was ridiculous to keep it rather than throw it away and open a new stick and he was in a rage over it.

I answered first in confusion and hurt, then in anger.  Gypsy was right there beside me, telling me "I see you"  and "I'm here" in a calm, reassuring voice.

It was bad enough that I told him he had to leave, that we were done.

That hurt enough to wake me up.

The second dream had me on a motorcycle, riding...I don't now where, only it was a largely empty highway, four lanes with a broad median and surrounded by hills.  I low sided the bike and slide over to the verge.  I hurt my leg and was walking with a limp, using a curtain rod as a walking stick.  I am was undercover officer of some sort (too much Criminal Minds before bed), and everything I had in the world was in a backpack.  Somehow I was no longer alone, surrounded by a bunch of bikers, one of whom knew me and addressed me by my real name.  I had to convince them that I was not the person they think they know, and I had to carry my backpack with me and get to my destination, but the backpack was full of things and heavy, and I had a hurt leg.  I was trying to decide what to leave behind when it struck me that it's all my life in one place and I can't leave it, I have to carry it.

Meanwhile, there are several women spinning poi in the road, but instead of poi they have swords.

Yeah, my head is weird.

Then last night I have the one dream I would happily never have again.  It's a recurring theme, often exactly the same in imagery, but it's the feeling of the dream that I know so well.

In it I am lonely, hurting, feeling isolated.  Often I am chilly.  This time I was at my grandparent's house (a new setting for this dream but a very common setting for my head's stage), the one I largely grew up in.  I'm in the room by the stairs to the third floor, a small-ish bedroom tucked between my grandfather's bathroom and the main bathroom for the second floor.  I leave the room and enter the main bathroom.  Door closed and locked, I'm sitting on the potty and I reach into the vanity drawer and pull out a piece of candy.  The drawer is full of candy, and I am sneaking it.  As I sit on the throne and eat candy, I look out the window into the yard and see a couple of men down by the stable, working.

Somehow, I am then down in the stable.  It is dark, late.  I have no idea what work they are doing, but in the dream it is okay, they are supposed to be there.  There's a metal barrel with a fire going in it, and I'm standing at it, warming my hands.  One of the men walks up behind me and wraps his arms around me in a loving, comforting way.  He is warm, and his warmth infuses me.  Oh, I feel loved, cherished, protected, and I know who this man is, he's the man who has haunted me for decades inside my head, the man who has lurked in the shadows of my dreams, the man who isn't real but if he was, I would forsake all others for him because he's the god to my goddess, the yin to my yang, he's the match I will never make because it's not real, dammit, but oh, how I want it to be!  I've dreamt him before but he's been away for a while, so finding him haunting my psyche now is a surprise.

So he stands behind me and holds me and it's so very good.  And I know I can't be there, that Someone is still in the house, sleeping, trusting, and I can't betray that, so I have to pull myself away from this warm, solid, being who gives me so much just by standing silently behind me with his arms around me.  I don't even look at him, just walk away to the house, but I am colder than when I was before I stood at the fire.

That last dream is always difficult.  In the dream, it is good.  It is sweet.  It is solid and powerful.  But eventually one wakes, and in waking all of that is left behind and I feel bereft.  
The feelings I take away from these dreams linger long after the sleep is done.  I can't shake them, they cling like cobwebs to me, all sticky and insitant.  They haunt me even as the waking world spins around and life goes on.