On Interwoven Dreams

It is not uncommon for me to dream.

It is also not uncommon for me not to dream.

What is uncommon, however, is for me to dream about my wife. I am closing in on the three year mark and I believe I am up to six dreams of her in total. I’d say it’s an average of one every six months, which is true, but misleading as two dreams occurred on consecutive nights. In the first couple dreams she was back, but I knew that she was going to die and was powerless to stop it. In the other three dreams she was also “back”, but the moments of which I dreamed were normal moments we could have easily had when she was actually here (with the exception of certain details of the third dream of the five, which I wrote about here.) As you have by now guessed, I had the sixth dream quite recently, but you’ll have to read a bit further before we get to that.

Friday night I fell asleep at some late hour in the overstuffed leather recliner with both the tv and the lamp still burning up electricity. I do not usually sleep comfortably in the recliner, but there are still periods (though increasingly shorter in duration and further between), when I opt to remain there at night rather than face my empty bed. When coupled with the incessant noise created by the tv, it’s a wonder my mind was able to formulate dreams that night, let alone clearly enough that I would remember them.

My dreams throughout the night bordered on psychotic – the kind you have when you eat too much greasy food just before dozing off. But two were so lucid and so very different from all the others, that I could not help but recall them the next morning.

During the first of these dreams, I was dating someone. For those of you who are new to this blog, I have not dated anyone since my wife’s death, nor have I thought about it a great deal. I am not one who dwells on such things or seeks them out. I am as content as I can be alone, but am becoming increasingly accepting of the idea that I could possibly be happy with someone else someday, if and/or when that time comes.

And that was the beauty in this dream. I think for many of us widow/ers there is a tendency to want to replace what we had with our husband/wife/fiancé if and/or when we do meet someone else. During those times that I have pondered the general idea of dating, it has crossed my mind that it would be easy for me to do the same. But in my dream, at least, this was not the case. Sure, she had some of the same qualities as my wife, namely a similar hair color and a beautiful smile. But she mostly possessed qualities that made her unique unto herself. She was not a “replacement” for my wife, but was instead someone I could care about (and love?) for who she was alone.

This dream showed me that someday I could possibly love someone else. I don’t think I’ve entertained that idea up to this point, and might not have now, had I not had it forced upon me in my slumber. In fact, I think I’ve spent more energy the last few years resigning myself to the idea that I might just be single for a good many years.

I don’t remember many specific details of this dream, but I do remember being blissfully happy. And it felt really good.

Cue dream two. The initial details are a little fuzzy, but at the beginning of what I remember, I have just come off my first date with the dream girl when I somehow find out that my wife is still alive. She is in something of a comatose state and resides in an abandoned house in the town where I grew up. She is being kept alive by her own sheer willpower and the grace of God – no machines whatsoever. And no one has been privy to the fact that she’s been alive all this time until now.

So at the outset of the dream I am forging my way into this abandoned house, which has no useable entrances and has become quite treacherous to enter over the years. After climbing over, under, around, and through all manner of debris, I come to a room where she is lying on a bed, quite still, but also seemingly quite comfortable. At this point the dream takes on a fairy-tale-like state and I swoop in and save her, so to speak.

But some of the fairy-tale ending is missing. While I am incredibly happy to see her and know she is alive, I am as concerned about showing her what has happened during the last two and three-quarter years as I am about having her back again. I even remember specifically taking her to each of the rooms I’ve painted in our house, hoping she’ll be pleased with the colors I’ve chosen.

And in the back of my mind lurks the date from which I have just come. During the dream I remember being relieved that things had not gone further with the dream girl, but also wondering what might have happened had my wife not miraculously been found alive. It is enough to create chaos deep within a man.

While the details of these dreams did not match up completely, I can’t help but think they are related. And though I generally do not put much stock in dreams having meaning, it seems that in this instance they almost certainly must.

Like the fact that I must be inching closer to the prospect of dating, whether it happens tomorrow or in ten years. And the fact that I could someday embrace a relationship with someone who is very different from my wife. And the fact that I can choose to do this, knowing that I am as content as I can possibly be with my current circumstances.

I think what surprised me the most about these dreams is that there was a level of guilt evident in the mix. I don’t know if I have written about this here or not, but a few days before my wife died, we had a conversation during which she asked me to make her some promises. Her health had declined very quickly and though I don’t think either of us believed she was going to die at that point, it was necessary for us to say some things to each other. The one thing she asked me that I could not promise was that I would marry again. And here’s why. I told her that even (though hard as it was to imagine at the time) if I ever managed to fall for someone else, I could not guarantee that someone else would ever fall in love with me. I don’t believe in making promises I can’t keep. So instead I told her that I would keep myself open to the possibility.

I guess that’s what I’m trying to do now. I was just naïve enough to think it wouldn’t be hard.

And, for now, it was only a dream.