Hindsight In 2020 #18: Dreams In The Dark
I once read somewhere that dreams are a reflection of our unconscious mind and our emotional truth. If that’s the case, I have a lot of emotions going on in my unconscious mind.
I’m a dreamer. More often than not, I see things in my dreams. I relive past happenings. I see people from my past. And sometimes; despite not wanting to, I have nightmares.
We’ve all been there. We wake up from a dream, or worse a nightmare, and think...
Was that real?
Soon after my grandfather passed away, I had an interesting dream that centered around him. I dreamed that I was laying in my bed, next to my wife, just like any other night.
The door opened to the bedroom. It was my grandfather.
When he entered my bedroom, he was my grandfather as I remembered. He was older, gray-haired, and wearing his button-up shirt and tie like he did most days at his place of employment.
He said nothing.
As he walked to the foot of my bed, he turned and looked at me and smiled. It wasn’t a creepy or upsetting smile. It was my grandfather’s smile. I felt happy to see him.
In a moment, he went from my old, gray-haired grandfather to a young boy, maybe ten years old. He only stayed like that for a moment and then he transformed into my grandfather again.
He said nothing.
Instead, he then turned, walked out my bedroom door, and closed it behind him.
When I awoke, I wasn’t afraid. What was there to fear? It was a dream. And if it was more than a dream, it was just my grandfather. He had been sick with dementia and wasn’t himself leading up to his passing. It was nice to see him in a pleasant state of mind.
This dream was most likely my unconscious mind dealing with emotions that I had held inside while attempting to be a strong male figure for my family. In all honesty, my grandfather was on my brain and my heart was still coping with his passing. The little boy that he turned into looked eerily similar to a photo of him that my grandmother had up in their living room. It was him as a boy. Maybe my brain was just playing tricks.
For the sake of dreaming, let’s go another direction. A more supernatural direction.
Let’s say that my grandfather, from the other side of the veil, did come to visit me in my dream. Is it possible that maybe he just wanted to see me again? Maybe this was a chance for me to see him as he was, before the disease got the best of him. Depending on what you believe about life and death, you might think that’s crazy.
That would be crazy, wouldn’t it?
About a year ago I had another intense dream. This dream in particular was one that I woke up firmly believing it was real. In the dream, I had awoken in my bed to the sound of crying. At the time that wasn’t unusual as we had a three-year-old and one-year-old.
But this crying was different.
It was at this moment that I got out of bed and began to walk around the house. I had to find who or what was doing the crying. I checked in my son’s room. Everything was quiet. I ventured to the steps to listen for my daughter upstairs; and again, quiet. The noise, the crying, the whimpering was coming from outside.
As I drew near the front door of our home, the whimpering grew louder. I peeked out the window of the door and could see nothing. Still, I heard the crying. It was outside the door.
I turned the doorknob. My heart sank as I saw the source of the crying.
It was my son. My three-year-old son was outside, in the rain. Had it been raining? He was naked, soaking wet, crying out in the rain. I rushed to him, brought him inside, and yelled for his mother.
“What were you doing outside, son,” I asked my boy.
He couldn’t say anything to me. He just looked at me, cold, his lips quivering. His crying had stopped but his body was ice cold. I held him close.
Then I woke up.
It may not have been your typical nightmare; however, my son being left out in the rain, cold and crying was a horror for me. When I awoke from this dream, I felt a sense of fear. As quickly as I could, I checked our kids’ monitor in our bedroom. I held it close to my face, trying to see if my son was safe and sound in his bed.
Thankfully, he was. He was snoozing, sleeping sound with his favorite blanket.
Even consciously, I knew I loved my son and cared about his well being. However, unconsciously, my mind really wanted to hammer home the fact that I didn’t want my son to be outside, in the cold, at night!
The final dream I’d like to share is definitely what most would consider a nightmare.
In this dream, I was standing in front of an old, downtown home. It was dark.
Looking up at the home, I heard a voice behind me. I turned around to see a bald-headed man in a black suit, white shirt, and black tie. He had a single piece of paper in his hand. Looking directly at me, he began to read the paper aloud.
What did the paper say? I don’t remember. However, I do remember the subject of what he was reading.
Death.
The house and the bald guy weren't very welcoming. As I walked toward the street I saw people walking.
These people were walking slowly. They were dressed differently than the man in the suit. There were adults and children. They looked to be dressed in much older clothing. The clothing was plain, simple, and monotone. White shirts, khaki pants, and dresses seemed to be all the rage in this town. Everyone was walking, slowly, all in one direction.
The strangest thing was that all of their eyes were closed. Not one person had their eyes opened. Not one was looking where they were headed.
I didn’t like this.
I turned back to the house. When I did, I turned to face an older man. Had he been standing behind me? He had gray hair and a bushy beard. He looked unkempt. Dressed like all the others, except he wasn’t walking with them. He wasn’t walking at all. He was facing me, eyes closed, no more than a couple of feet away.
I tried to move but was unable to do so. It was as if my feet were stuck in dried cement. I looked back at the man. When I did, he opened his eyes.
His eyes were a bright white. A shining bright light where his eyes should have been. The light got brighter and brighter until eventually, I was unable to see. I lifted my hands attempting to keep the light from overtaking me.
That was when I woke up.
I sat up in the bed. Breathing hard, looking for that old house. It wasn’t there. I was in bed beside my wife. I woke her up and told her I had a bad dream.
“Don’t tell me about it,” she said. If I were to tell her about it, she wouldn't be able to sleep.
She held my hand and, after about an hour, I went back to sleep.
I don’t have the slightest idea of what my unconscious mind and emotions were saying in that dream. Was the man in the suit my mind’s way of viewing death? Were the people walking on the road all headed to some sort of afterlife? Who was that man with the bright white eyes? What was I to do with all these questions?
Who knows?
What I do know is that my dreams are always interesting. Sometimes, those dreams stay with me longer than I’d like them to. Maybe one day, in the future, there meaning will be revealed.
Next time you have a dream, don't just pass it off as some crazy happening. Wake up and write it down. Think about it. Your unconscious mind and emotions may be trying to reveal something to you.
Or...maybe you're experiencing something more.
What you believe is up to you.