Thursday, wherein I wax New Age-y
I'm not much of one to write about my dreams. I don't believe that dreams predict the future, or that they even authentically reflect the past. Sometimes a dream is just a meaningless mish-mash of disconnected things thrown into relationship; other times it reflects current concerns in our present life.
Then again, other times they are something else entirely. Last night I had the most detailed dream I have had in a long time, and the subject matter was loss. I believe, based on family issues at present, that I understand where this dream came from, but the content was so surprising.
It was set at my grandmother's house, a house that I loved dearly as a child, but which is, of course, gone. For some reason it had been moved to a seaside village of my childhood, to which I am no longer connected. It was also somewhat larger than it had been, and incorporated elements of my other grandparents' house in Spokane, which really didn't fit. So, in essence, that one house had become a combined setting of locations lost since my childhood.
Weird.
Within the house we were sitting down to a large family dinner, and as was the case with my large, Italian family, almost everyone was there (out to the second cousins) plus assorted family friends who, while not family by blood or marriage, were de facto treated as family. I had a long conversation with my Aunt Theresa, who died young of pancreatic cancer. I had a more in-depth chat with my Uncle Paul (decades dead of emphysema now) than I ever had in life. Of course my grandmother and I talked a great deal, and her sisters-in-law were there too. Strangely, two childhood friends who meant the world to me (but who got left behind as life moved on) were there too, in adult versions of themselves.
That was weird too.
I spent a lot of time explaining to everyone why my parents were not there; how my mother was in a nursing home, and my father in a separate assisted living facility, and neither could come as a result. Everyone was quite upset by this, and confused as well. No one seemed ready to accept that my parents would not be coming around anymore. Which is doubly strange, since more than half the attendees at this family party are dead, and shouldn't have been there in the first place. Their concern about this issue seemed, while kindly, rather out of place, much like themselves.
The dream ended with myself and a cousin taking a run to a local Italian deli in New Haven (likely long, long gone now) to get more food for the meal.
I had not been thinking on these issues yesterday, and certainly had not been thinking of so many of the people in the dream - some of them I have not thought about in years. It was a great example of how the search programs in the brain operate according to their own logic, and assemble a virtual reality based on what we desire to experience without being consciously aware of it. It was a strange, strange experience.
The weirdest thing of all was the talk with Aunt Theresa, though. To see her still so young and full of life was almost a painful thing.
I think I need a mental vacation of some sort. Badly.
Then again, other times they are something else entirely. Last night I had the most detailed dream I have had in a long time, and the subject matter was loss. I believe, based on family issues at present, that I understand where this dream came from, but the content was so surprising.
It was set at my grandmother's house, a house that I loved dearly as a child, but which is, of course, gone. For some reason it had been moved to a seaside village of my childhood, to which I am no longer connected. It was also somewhat larger than it had been, and incorporated elements of my other grandparents' house in Spokane, which really didn't fit. So, in essence, that one house had become a combined setting of locations lost since my childhood.
Weird.
Within the house we were sitting down to a large family dinner, and as was the case with my large, Italian family, almost everyone was there (out to the second cousins) plus assorted family friends who, while not family by blood or marriage, were de facto treated as family. I had a long conversation with my Aunt Theresa, who died young of pancreatic cancer. I had a more in-depth chat with my Uncle Paul (decades dead of emphysema now) than I ever had in life. Of course my grandmother and I talked a great deal, and her sisters-in-law were there too. Strangely, two childhood friends who meant the world to me (but who got left behind as life moved on) were there too, in adult versions of themselves.
That was weird too.
I spent a lot of time explaining to everyone why my parents were not there; how my mother was in a nursing home, and my father in a separate assisted living facility, and neither could come as a result. Everyone was quite upset by this, and confused as well. No one seemed ready to accept that my parents would not be coming around anymore. Which is doubly strange, since more than half the attendees at this family party are dead, and shouldn't have been there in the first place. Their concern about this issue seemed, while kindly, rather out of place, much like themselves.
The dream ended with myself and a cousin taking a run to a local Italian deli in New Haven (likely long, long gone now) to get more food for the meal.
I had not been thinking on these issues yesterday, and certainly had not been thinking of so many of the people in the dream - some of them I have not thought about in years. It was a great example of how the search programs in the brain operate according to their own logic, and assemble a virtual reality based on what we desire to experience without being consciously aware of it. It was a strange, strange experience.
The weirdest thing of all was the talk with Aunt Theresa, though. To see her still so young and full of life was almost a painful thing.
I think I need a mental vacation of some sort. Badly.