I have had several dreams since my daughter Jeannine died in March of 2003. Through further exploration with a dear friend of mine whose passion is projective dream work, I have discovered that the lessons revealed have always been relevant to my journey.
Walking and Lost
With that, I want to share with you all a dream that I had several evenings ago. I was walking down an unnamed street which was near my place of work. It appeared to be first light; but I believe that I was walking at either 2:00 or 2:30am. That was the time frame that came to me after I awoke. In addition, I was walking naked. I recall feeling panicked, not because I was naked, but because I was lost and didn’t know how to find my way back to my place of work. There was no one behind or ahead of me; I walked alone. After some trial and error,I did eventually find my way back.
Black and Elderly
Once I got back to work (still naked), I went to my office and saw an elderly black gentleman,whom I had never met before, sitting at my desk. When he made eye contact I abruptly moved away. I then proceeded to go to another part of the building where I saw my immediate supervisor providing assistance to an elderly woman who had been attacked by her husband, whom I deduced had a form of dementia. Though groggy, she appeared to have recovered from the attack. At that point my dream ended.
Breathe
I went to work the morning after my dream. Before I left my house, I was drawn to look at my CD collection and pulled out “Wreck of the Day” by Anna Nalick. I pulled out this CD specifically for one song called “Breathe(2am).” I discovered this song several years ago after watching the movie “Griffin And Phoenix.” I played the song as I was going to work and got chills when I heard this one lyrical passage:
“2 am and I’m still awake writing a song
If I get it all down on paper it’s no longer inside of me,
threatening the life that it belongs to
And I feel like I’m naked in front of the crowd cause these words are my diary screaming out loud.”
My Truths Revealed
The chills were due, I believe, to the synchronicity that I experienced with the lyrics of this song and my experience in dream time. The title of the song and the lyric alluded to 2am, the approximate time that I was walking in my dream . I was also naked in front of several people at work, though they appeared to be oblivious to it.
I will definitely explore the symbolism of my dream more extensively with my friend at some point. But I want to share with you my impressions of the truths, as I see them, that my dream was trying to reveal about our grief journeys:
- There are many times that we will feel lost and disoriented on our journeys. If we remember to breathe and have faith, we will eventually find our way again after the death of our loved ones.
- We all have stories inside of us to tell. Once we get those stories of our loved ones outside of us, whether on paper or otherwise, it not only helps us, it helps others. Our spiritual growth is not inhibited when we celebrate our ongoing connections to our deceased loved ones. if anything, sharing our stories enhances our connectedness with others, ourselves and the universe.
- The death of our loved ones strip us naked of our existing beliefs which are then replaced with others that help us adjust to our new reality.
- The elderly woman who survived the attack from her husband in my dream reminds us that we may feel battered and bruised many times throughout our grief journeys, but that we can also develop resiliency as a result of the challenges we face.
- The significance of the elderly black gentleman is unclear to me at this time. But as I have discovered we don’t always make instantaneous connections to events that transpire on our grief journeys. In time, those connections will become apparent. When we make those connections, enlightenment follows.
Copyright David Roberts of Bootsy & Angel Books, LLC (www.bootsyandangel.com). Post originally published by the Open to Hope Foundation (www.opentohope.com)
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