I used to take comfort in meeting old friends and family who had gone on to their greater reward. During the night, when I was younger, they would visit. So real, solid, right there in the room, I could feel them.
When I opened my eyes they were gone. In the morning the memory would fade and in a short time, I knew it had to be a dream, right?
I liked to think they came to tell me something, pass on a message from somewhere or someone else. Maybe they just wanted to say one last goodbye. Maybe they weren’t there at all and I was the one who didn’t want to let go.
Either way, it was always comforting to think of people I lost not being lost, just temporarily misplaced. As if we were in the same place just a different time, or they were hanging out in the spaces between the places we use.
I don’t have those visits anymore, or don’t remember them if I do. Maybe they finally told me everything they needed to. Maybe we said our last goodbyes, or maybe it was just a “see you later,” and that’s all they needed.
I kind of miss those visits, even if they were only dreams.
When I quit smoking I joined an online forum. Imagine a group of people, jittery from nicotine withdrawals, most of who have only one thing in common, and then add the anonymity of the internet. It was a raucous, discordant place. There was always a violence lingering, brewing just below the surface. One thing that could ignite an angry, lengthy, involved detailed exchange of posts was smoking dreams. People had them and they hated them. When you have struggled for three months to avoid a cigarette, and then wake up thinking you might have slipped and have to start all over again it can really put a dent in your armor.
One person, a person I considered a friend, made the bold statement that she enjoyed her smoking dreams. She could smoke forever, and never suffer the ill effects or the enormous expense. Her clothes wouldn’t smell, she was free, and all she had to do was dream. I loved it. It was logic meeting practical application. It was art imitating life. It made perfect sense, in a disjointed way.
But, it set off a storm. People wanted to burn the heretic. She would never, they warned her sternly, be an ex-smoker if she felt that way. They were brutal, and they were legion, everybody was mad. I lost contact with her, she was from a different country, but I like to believe she is still an ex-smoker who enjoys a cigarette in her dreams once in a while.
Most of my dreams these days run from the mundane to the boring. I dream a lot about making coffee, at least since my “work coffee maker” stopped working. Maybe it’s an omen, “hold on, coffee is coming from above.” Or maybe I just sleep better now that I don’t drink so much coffee, and my body is thanking me, a smoking dream about coffee.
Sometimes I dream I can’t sleep. Occasionally those dreams are so vivid and real I wake up exhausted. It was a revelation that I was dreaming I was awake when I spent a whole sleepless night, (in my dreams), dreaming I was tossing and turning, and the alarm clock woke me. I quit trusting my dreams since then, and I’m a lot better rested.
I’ve tried to read different theories about the value of dreams. It just doesn’t seem important. I like my dreams, they bring me pleasure. Sometimes they take me places, and sometimes they bring places to me. I don’t know why we dream, I don’t care, I’m just happy I do.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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