dreams can be so real, such complete versions of a heart life that it seems like there can be no sincere return home... as if an essential part of myself has tangled with the underworld, the id, the bog, the sloth brain and after that things just aren't quite right.
i woke once, having dreamed of my beautiful newborn daughter, her head covered in thick black hair. she had blue eyes. she was warm in my arms, i could feel her body move against me... her name was olivia. my love for her was fierce and deep and as real as i am now, as real as anything i could know. waking up, my arms still held the shape of her as if she were still cradled at my chest. the ache, the longing, the grief i knew in that moment was near unbearable.
i dreamed once of a friend many months after her death. somehow having returned from the dead, she was in the hospital, disoriented and tired, but quite alive. when i hugged her i could smell her perfume, feel her bird bones and her warm skin... she laughed into my neck as we held each other for a bit. it was so nice. but what a cruel dream.
lately i have been dreaming and am quite aware i am dreaming; i've been telling my dream self to remember this or bring that back or pointing out one thing or other.
a few nights ago i had a dream about a man who was my husband many lives ago; he was awful and abusive. as i watched him do things i'm not going to write here it was as if i stood outside my dream self, observing. i said to my self, you know who this man is. i looked at him while he tried to claim what was best in me and shouted at him, 'i know who you are! i know you!'
this morning i dreamed i was walking through the snowy night into the morning with a friend, talking some things out... she was getting ahead of me. i had fallen behind because i was bent double, sobbing into the glaring sun on the snow. i woke up this morning clutching my pillow.
it's strange to wake up like this. as the dream dissolves and i start the return to 'consciousness' i can feel it coming up from my stomach, up my throat... sometimes i know what's happening and the sob is caught in the cave of my mouth and my eyes burn with the effort to stop it from hurting so much.
3 comments:
Amazing intensity. A walk tomorrow? Call me.
Thank you for this.
thank you and you're welcome. having re-read this i am surprised at what came out of me.
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