Ever since I was a young girl I have been gifted with vivid dreams that come to me in technicolor, with intricate details such as facial features, hems and pleats of dresses and coat sleeves, and the presence of sensual elements, such as taste and smell. As an adolescent I started to wonder at the significance of my dreams. I began poring through dream analysis books, my initial searches leading me to keep a journal specifically for recording my dreams which I kept tucked under the right corner of my mattress.
In my final year of high school a close friend of mine found an article in a science journal which discussed lucid dreaming, and the possibility of training yourself to control your dreams. We were transfixed by this article, spending a lunchtime huddled together in the musty backstage area of the school theatre, taking down careful notes and agreeing to try it out that very night. The first goal the writer noted was to try to fly in your dreams, that this very feat would be the first step to taking the helm of your individual dream journeys. Scott was able to make himself fly after three days of dreaming; I never figured out how to fly.
From that point on, any time I have attempted to control my dreams I have failed. I still keep track of them, not by stringently noting them all down on paper, but by running the details through my conscious mind during a hot morning shower, while driving to work, or sometimes in conversations with close friends. Most of the time I enjoy the experiences I have in my dreams, even the haunting and surreal ones; they give me a ticket to walk along a different path for a moment; an opportunity to toss aside reality and responsibility, and be someone else entirely. As soon as I stopped trying to direct my subconscious, the images seemed to flow even smoother, and with brighter tints and hues.
There are the occasions where dreams repeat and reoccur. These particular reruns of the mind are never welcome holidays, instead they are the moments I wish I could jump in the middle of with a big red marker and edit for content, or push a giant rewind and erase button, removing myself from all of it completely. The times I have tried to insert my will onto the inner eyelid screen the dream seemed to elongate, or worse yet, become something filled with a heightened sense of frustration, or peppered with beasts of the fire red eyes variety that chase after me as if they have been let loose to run me off their lands.
In my final year of high school a close friend of mine found an article in a science journal which discussed lucid dreaming, and the possibility of training yourself to control your dreams. We were transfixed by this article, spending a lunchtime huddled together in the musty backstage area of the school theatre, taking down careful notes and agreeing to try it out that very night. The first goal the writer noted was to try to fly in your dreams, that this very feat would be the first step to taking the helm of your individual dream journeys. Scott was able to make himself fly after three days of dreaming; I never figured out how to fly.
From that point on, any time I have attempted to control my dreams I have failed. I still keep track of them, not by stringently noting them all down on paper, but by running the details through my conscious mind during a hot morning shower, while driving to work, or sometimes in conversations with close friends. Most of the time I enjoy the experiences I have in my dreams, even the haunting and surreal ones; they give me a ticket to walk along a different path for a moment; an opportunity to toss aside reality and responsibility, and be someone else entirely. As soon as I stopped trying to direct my subconscious, the images seemed to flow even smoother, and with brighter tints and hues.
There are the occasions where dreams repeat and reoccur. These particular reruns of the mind are never welcome holidays, instead they are the moments I wish I could jump in the middle of with a big red marker and edit for content, or push a giant rewind and erase button, removing myself from all of it completely. The times I have tried to insert my will onto the inner eyelid screen the dream seemed to elongate, or worse yet, become something filled with a heightened sense of frustration, or peppered with beasts of the fire red eyes variety that chase after me as if they have been let loose to run me off their lands.
One of these rerun mental motion pictures feature my teeth falling out so vividly that I awake to frantically run my tongue across the top and bottom of my mouth to be sure all are present and accounted for. Another one has me trying to follow a path to a place I remember from my childhood, only to find myself stuck in a dank and freezing field of frozen over plants and larger than life buffalo leering at me with piercing otherworldly eyes. A more recent addition involves being trapped between two societies, one run entirely by vampires and the other by a misogynistic government, and my role is to pass between them and sort out which are the actual villains.
When I have traced the patterns and occurrence of these dreams I can follow a dotted line around the times in my life when I have no control of anything, or at least the perception of control seems to be removed from my hand. The children are usually part of the equation, things happening to them or in their lives that I cannot help, heal, or fix. I recall a time that Julia was being bullied at school by a clique of mean girls who seemed to spend their time inventing new ways to torture and humiliate her. Throughout most of this experience I was forced to sit idly by while I watched her spirit being squashed on a daily basis, her eyes full of tears and pain pleading with me not to contact their parents or the school authorities, which left me conflicted and pacing the room. My teeth began disengaging themselves from my gums weekly around those days, falling into my lap during a business meeting, or shooting from my mouth while I tried to speak.
Lately my reoccurring dreams have taken a turn and I find myself reliving some of the times from my own childhood when I felt trapped, frightened and unable to free myself from the hands of someone who once hurt me on a regular basis. I try to raise my arms to wrestle my body free, but my arms are weighted and immovable; I try to open my hands to claw and scratch at the shadowy face that I remember all too clear, but my hands are sleep-tingly and non-responsive; and, I try to yell but when I open my mouth only smoke flies out. A few nights ago, in the midst of a version of this dream, I was finally able to get sound to come from my mouth, but when it did the screams only sounded like my children’s cries; the ones that happen when they fall and scrape a knee, stub their toe, or slam their fingers in a door. It is an echoing sound of physical pain, and it was only silenced by the sudden cool hand resting on the side of my face, the touch of my young son Max waking me and saying more juice.
I know that the recent worries about Max are part of what is causing these dreams. The waiting, as they say, is the hardest part. Recent struggles with insurance and finances just seem to add insult to injury, making it all more clear that without money you do suffer in this society, and are not able to obtain the same level of healthcare that the richer and better insured have available to them. I have spent hours researching autism, running down lists of early signs and symptoms with a mental highlighter, marking all the descriptions that fit the way Max behaves and reacts. Afternoons and evenings have been spent looking up local support groups, checking out school programs that offer help with what may be his issue, and talking with other parents and siblings of children who are growing up with this particular life challenge. All the reading and discussing cannot give me the peace of mind of knowing, though, and all the help that is graciously available is out of my reach until I have a diagnosis. No insurance equates to no diagnosis. So, I find myself once again haunting the job boards while I wish and hope for a good opportunity with benefits to show itself, while I silently mourn the near approaching end to my days of staying home with the children.
Talk about a loss of control.
The lesson that I wish I could take from all of this is that if I could only just learn how to breathe into my days, to let a bit of my worry and world wrestling level attempts to navigate everyone and everything go, then maybe my waking life would mimic my dreams; the ones that happen when I am controlling my awake life, and letting go in sleep, that is. Perhaps I could trade, take the director chair and scribble notes in the margin of my dream scripts, be in total control of my nocturnal journeys. In exchange I would spend my days freeing my hands from trying to steer and manuver the world around me. If I could sort out how to do this at night, and in the light of day let go of the reins, would it change anything?
I ask my daughters each morning what they dreamed of while they slept, a question I will also ask of Max when he is old enough to answer. The responses I get vary, sometimes I just get the sleepy voice and sigh response of come on, mom, I don’t remember. Other times, though, I get details and descriptions, and I sit down enraptured by what goes on inside their unique minds. On those mornings when time allows more than an exchange of single sentences, I find that the dreams help open doors to deeper conversations. At times it is the easing of fears that lack other ways of floating to our surfaces, other times it is questions about the world that appear, queries of reality and possibility. These are the times when the cords of connection weld a bit stronger between myself and them. I can feel it, and can almost see the gossamer threads tying bows around our internal existences.
Last night Veronica dreamed that she was riding a horse through a field of green. As the horse and rider ran across the grass the horse suddenly sprouted purple wings which allowed it to fly the both of them high up into the sky. High enough, Veronica explained, that she was able to taste a cloud. And yes, Momma, clouds are yummy, just like marshmallows. Perhaps I can borrow Veronica’s dream horse and teach myself finally how to fly.
When I have traced the patterns and occurrence of these dreams I can follow a dotted line around the times in my life when I have no control of anything, or at least the perception of control seems to be removed from my hand. The children are usually part of the equation, things happening to them or in their lives that I cannot help, heal, or fix. I recall a time that Julia was being bullied at school by a clique of mean girls who seemed to spend their time inventing new ways to torture and humiliate her. Throughout most of this experience I was forced to sit idly by while I watched her spirit being squashed on a daily basis, her eyes full of tears and pain pleading with me not to contact their parents or the school authorities, which left me conflicted and pacing the room. My teeth began disengaging themselves from my gums weekly around those days, falling into my lap during a business meeting, or shooting from my mouth while I tried to speak.
Lately my reoccurring dreams have taken a turn and I find myself reliving some of the times from my own childhood when I felt trapped, frightened and unable to free myself from the hands of someone who once hurt me on a regular basis. I try to raise my arms to wrestle my body free, but my arms are weighted and immovable; I try to open my hands to claw and scratch at the shadowy face that I remember all too clear, but my hands are sleep-tingly and non-responsive; and, I try to yell but when I open my mouth only smoke flies out. A few nights ago, in the midst of a version of this dream, I was finally able to get sound to come from my mouth, but when it did the screams only sounded like my children’s cries; the ones that happen when they fall and scrape a knee, stub their toe, or slam their fingers in a door. It is an echoing sound of physical pain, and it was only silenced by the sudden cool hand resting on the side of my face, the touch of my young son Max waking me and saying more juice.
I know that the recent worries about Max are part of what is causing these dreams. The waiting, as they say, is the hardest part. Recent struggles with insurance and finances just seem to add insult to injury, making it all more clear that without money you do suffer in this society, and are not able to obtain the same level of healthcare that the richer and better insured have available to them. I have spent hours researching autism, running down lists of early signs and symptoms with a mental highlighter, marking all the descriptions that fit the way Max behaves and reacts. Afternoons and evenings have been spent looking up local support groups, checking out school programs that offer help with what may be his issue, and talking with other parents and siblings of children who are growing up with this particular life challenge. All the reading and discussing cannot give me the peace of mind of knowing, though, and all the help that is graciously available is out of my reach until I have a diagnosis. No insurance equates to no diagnosis. So, I find myself once again haunting the job boards while I wish and hope for a good opportunity with benefits to show itself, while I silently mourn the near approaching end to my days of staying home with the children.
Talk about a loss of control.
The lesson that I wish I could take from all of this is that if I could only just learn how to breathe into my days, to let a bit of my worry and world wrestling level attempts to navigate everyone and everything go, then maybe my waking life would mimic my dreams; the ones that happen when I am controlling my awake life, and letting go in sleep, that is. Perhaps I could trade, take the director chair and scribble notes in the margin of my dream scripts, be in total control of my nocturnal journeys. In exchange I would spend my days freeing my hands from trying to steer and manuver the world around me. If I could sort out how to do this at night, and in the light of day let go of the reins, would it change anything?
I ask my daughters each morning what they dreamed of while they slept, a question I will also ask of Max when he is old enough to answer. The responses I get vary, sometimes I just get the sleepy voice and sigh response of come on, mom, I don’t remember. Other times, though, I get details and descriptions, and I sit down enraptured by what goes on inside their unique minds. On those mornings when time allows more than an exchange of single sentences, I find that the dreams help open doors to deeper conversations. At times it is the easing of fears that lack other ways of floating to our surfaces, other times it is questions about the world that appear, queries of reality and possibility. These are the times when the cords of connection weld a bit stronger between myself and them. I can feel it, and can almost see the gossamer threads tying bows around our internal existences.
Last night Veronica dreamed that she was riding a horse through a field of green. As the horse and rider ran across the grass the horse suddenly sprouted purple wings which allowed it to fly the both of them high up into the sky. High enough, Veronica explained, that she was able to taste a cloud. And yes, Momma, clouds are yummy, just like marshmallows. Perhaps I can borrow Veronica’s dream horse and teach myself finally how to fly.
she went under the cover with her torch
she fell asleep till it was morning
she dreamt about the girl who stole a horse
judy never felt so good except when she was sleeping
L.
you know me, i'm impulsive
2 comments:
just wanna say, that i have spent the last hour on audrey kawasaki's website. it's my new goal to own one of her paintings.
What a lovely dream..:) so happy.
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