Dreaming of the departed
This morning as I was reading my flist, I found myself reading a back-entry of kate_schaefer's about a friend of hers who died years ago, and of whom she'd recently dreamed. It shook loose a realization that I'd dreamed about dochyel a couple of nights back. I'd dreamed that I was sitting or standing across from a friend (one of those generic, unidentified friends who show up in dreams) who was sitting on a flight of stairs, and that dochyel was curled up on a coffee table, I think, between us. He'd been there for years, apparently. We knew he was dead, but there he lay, perfect, as if he were only sleeping--and then he began to rouse and awaken. And then I woke up.
I've dreamed about him a few times since he died, and we're always passing each other somewhere. The last time I dreamed about him, we were in a farmer's market taking place in Grand Central Station. He was wearing his hair long and, rather than the Van Dyke he'd worn for years, he wore a handlebar mustache (which was a pretty good look for him, I have to admit). Anyway, I was delighted to see him and he was happy to see me, but when I asked him to come with me to see my apartment ("Come see the house," I said. "You never got to visit."), he told me he had to go; he was on his way elsewhere and he was clearly pressed for time--if a little regretful about it--as if he was going to miss some cosmic train departure for some other dimension if he didn't hurry.
That dream always left me with two reactions. The first was that feeling that the people I care most about often don't have time for me, which is more about my own abandonment issues than it is related to the truth of my experience; my friends are generous and loving with their time and I know it. The second was a feeling of gratitude that I got to see him at all. One of my great sadnesses about his death is that the night before he died we'd been in email planning to get together when I next visited New York, which was only to be in a week or so.
I haven't dreamed about markbourne at all since he passed away. Or maybe I did once; I have a vague memory of seeing his smiling face in a dream, but that's all. For a while, I found it distressing that he didn't appear in my dreams, as if it was a choice he was making rather than a choice my subconscious was making. The woo-woo, spiritual side of me still feels that way a bit mainly, I think, because given the discussions that dochyel and I had years ago about the nature of the soul and its connections on different levels of consciousness, I always feel like my dreams about dochyel really are visits from him rather than my manifesting his image myself--even if he is too busy to linger for a proper catch-up. If encounters in dreams really are visits from the other side, then I'm happy to have them, and I'll assume that the lack of visits from markbourne simply means that he's OK with where we were when he left--which is to say good friends who knew each other pretty well and were happy and comfortable there. Doesn't mean I wouldn't still like to sit down and have a whiskey with him, or with dochyel for that matter.
I think one of my goals for this weekend is to do that with everyone who is solidly here with me on this plane of existence. That would be . . . a lot of whiskey. Maybe for once I should let someone else do the driving.
I've dreamed about him a few times since he died, and we're always passing each other somewhere. The last time I dreamed about him, we were in a farmer's market taking place in Grand Central Station. He was wearing his hair long and, rather than the Van Dyke he'd worn for years, he wore a handlebar mustache (which was a pretty good look for him, I have to admit). Anyway, I was delighted to see him and he was happy to see me, but when I asked him to come with me to see my apartment ("Come see the house," I said. "You never got to visit."), he told me he had to go; he was on his way elsewhere and he was clearly pressed for time--if a little regretful about it--as if he was going to miss some cosmic train departure for some other dimension if he didn't hurry.
That dream always left me with two reactions. The first was that feeling that the people I care most about often don't have time for me, which is more about my own abandonment issues than it is related to the truth of my experience; my friends are generous and loving with their time and I know it. The second was a feeling of gratitude that I got to see him at all. One of my great sadnesses about his death is that the night before he died we'd been in email planning to get together when I next visited New York, which was only to be in a week or so.
I haven't dreamed about markbourne at all since he passed away. Or maybe I did once; I have a vague memory of seeing his smiling face in a dream, but that's all. For a while, I found it distressing that he didn't appear in my dreams, as if it was a choice he was making rather than a choice my subconscious was making. The woo-woo, spiritual side of me still feels that way a bit mainly, I think, because given the discussions that dochyel and I had years ago about the nature of the soul and its connections on different levels of consciousness, I always feel like my dreams about dochyel really are visits from him rather than my manifesting his image myself--even if he is too busy to linger for a proper catch-up. If encounters in dreams really are visits from the other side, then I'm happy to have them, and I'll assume that the lack of visits from markbourne simply means that he's OK with where we were when he left--which is to say good friends who knew each other pretty well and were happy and comfortable there. Doesn't mean I wouldn't still like to sit down and have a whiskey with him, or with dochyel for that matter.
I think one of my goals for this weekend is to do that with everyone who is solidly here with me on this plane of existence. That would be . . . a lot of whiskey. Maybe for once I should let someone else do the driving.