the dreamer

They say that dreams foretell the future. Or at least, that they reflect your daily struggles, wants and needs in a way that’s a firm caricature of what it is that you. really. want. out of life.

I keep a dream journal. Big surprise, right? Actually, over the years, I’ve filled several. But it wasn’t until the advent of the internet that I had quick and easy access to dream dictionaries. Instead of paying $1.29 at the grocery store for a tiny 15-page pamphlet that scoped out my dreams in just a line or two, now, I have access to words on top of words that tell me what my dreams mean.

I take it all with a grain of salt. I don’t think a book, a website or really, any other person can tell me too much about myself. I like to read the dream interpretation websites because they’re fun. And oddly specific. I had a friend who had recurring dreams about fighting elephants and sure enough, we found them in the dream dictionary, wreaking havoc and representing confusion.

Sometimes I think my real life begins and ends when I am sleeping. I have such vivid dreams when I sleep. I lead blind manatees to water. I care for a baby that’s only a head, with a grinding motor whizzing and beeping behind its brain. I grasp slippery, stinging scorpions and work hard to stop them from reaching ‘round and hurting me.

My dreams, inevitably, are beyond classification. But there are some classic dream symbols there. Death and rebirth. Self destructive and self defeating. And triumph.

And most of all, I dream about my mother:

And earlier that night I dreamed of a bedroom filled with butterflies that were enormous, pulsating in brilliant liquid colors. I was fascinated by them and frightened too. My mother entered the room and picked one up and took it outside.

My mom figures prominently in a lot of my dreams. In my dreams, she doesn’t have MS. She walks quickly, bounding up stairs and laughing at me over her shoulder, leaving me to try to catch up.

We walk everywhere when I am sleeping.

Sometimes I have the presence of mind to ask her how she can walk. She laughs me off and I wake up upset, bereft, crying and confused.

I don’t need a therapist, a book or a dream interpretation website to tell me why I dream about my mom. I love her, she loves me, and like most mothers and daughters, we have a complicated relationship where our lives are distinctly intertwined, convoluted and of course, overly emotional. I think about her a lot. So inevitably, I dream about her too.

And I don’t know if my dreams can tell me my future. For now, I’m happy just to sleep, knowing that the dreams will come, when I need them the most.

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