Dreams

In the last five years, I have rarely dreamed in my sleep. When I have experienced dreams, they have always been stressful, traumatic, scary, or disheartening. Sort of reflecting my own perception of myself, my life, and how I see the world. There have been a few supportive, semi-comforting dreams, but the details would never stick and I didn't really care.

When I was a kid, I would sometimes dream what would happen the next day. It didn't happen that often, but sometimes, as a conversation would unfold in my elementary school class, I would suddenly recognize the exact voice and words being spoken from a dream I had. I knew who would respond next and what they would say and who would speak after that person. I would watch it play out before me exactly as I had dreamed it and it scared me to death. I didn't understand how I could know something like that. And I still don't know.

The same thing goes for intuition. Sometimes, I have these powerful moments of intuition where I just know, incontrovertibly, something that is about to happen, or I suddenly, powerfully recognize a person I have never seen before in my life (like Paul or Kyle), or I just know that somehow I'm going to be affected by something or someone in such a way that my life will change.

And sometimes it's over minor things, like knowing what someone was thinking without them saying it (doesn't happen very often!), or over objects, like that Valentine's Day in 2010 when my roommates were getting package after package and flower delivery after flower delivery left on our porch. I wasn't expecting anything and honestly didn't care, but when I stepped out my door to go to work, I saw a little package on our porch rug and everything in me suddenly, possessively proclaimed "THAT'S MINE!" I remember being so floored, so confused by the intensity of that inexplicable reaction and I was actually scared to pick up the bag. But I finally did and, sure enough, no surprise, it was for me. From some secret admirer. Which was impossible, absolutely impossible. I was in such shock over it, that when I came back from work, I put it on my desk, unopened, and just stared at from my bed across the room, wondering how the hell it existed, why would anyone want to send me something, was it a joke? It had taken forethought, intent and I couldn't (and still can't) believe that someone actually wanted to give me something. I kept the bag after eating all the cinnamon flavored chocolate bears (which I don't like, but I wanted to honor this amazing, impossible gift) and cherry-flavored lips (umm, kinda suggestive and kinda awesome). I still have the bag. And even though this was six years ago, I still pull it out every Valentine's Day and just wonder over it for a few minutes.

That was a major tangent. My point was that dreams used to be a big deal for me. I kept dream journals and used to have powerful, intense dreams that would affect me so deeply and stay with me for days and days. And even though I outgrew that particular ability of dreaming what would happen the next day, I still valued these dreams and, honestly, lived for them and desperately wanted to believe they had some sort of unconscious truth to them. Particularly over one person back at BYU. When I first met him, I experienced the most intense moment of recognition/intuition in my entire life. It scared the living shit out of me. But I won't go into details about all of this, except to say that yes, I had many intense dreams about him, some of which I later on learned held details that were actually true about him that I couldn't have known (the state he was from, the number of siblings, that he had lived on a ranch, etc).  But that ship sailed long ago. And I had locked all of this away, up to the point where I have honestly lost all of who I was once was, that vibrancy and joy of life back when I believed and was so intensely moved by my intuition and dreams.

But last night, I had two dreams that were...that were so intense and so wonderful, just like the dreams I used to have 5+ years ago. And one involved this person I haven't dreamed of in a good way since 2011. But now I'm hesitant to write them down. They're so personal. One involved him and one involved flying and both filled me with that old wonder. I'm grateful I had them, It seems to tie in with the shift happening in my life now. Perhaps I will write them down in my journal, although maybe I won't. I don't want to get hyped up and tangled over what might have been. Already trying to push it away, bury it forever...

Wow, all that build-up for nothing, right? I miss who I used to be, and when I woke up this morning from these dreams, for just a moment, I felt how I used to. But we can't go back.