Dreaming of Long Lost Relatives and Searching in the Unknown

To capture a dream you need to write about it as soon as possible. Dreams decay very fast. The more you write about dreams the longer your writing will get and the better you'll remember them.

Writing a dream journal takes patience and dedication. The reward? Better memory and better storytelling.

 - - - - - - - - 

I have an aunt and cousin who I haven't seen in years. 16 years to be exact. My uncle died since I last saw them. He died when I was in grad school. He smoked several packs of cigarettes a day and was noticeably overweight (we're talking 400+lbs). His health was never great. We suspected he wasn't going to live very long.

I wasn't close to him at all. I have a strong memory of him standing by his car; you could smell him and the car from several feet away. I can remember his face clearly. He had long brown hair. His eyes were faded. He had prominent round cheeks, thin eyebrows, and discolored skin.

In my dream, I was meeting my cousin, aunt, and mom for dinner. This aunt is my mom's sister. I don't quite remember what sparked it, but my mom got angry. She yelled at her sister and niece. I don't remember the context of her speech, but it went on for a while. This captured the attention of the other customers and wait staff.

Eventually, my mom stormed out of the restaurant. She had a long list of grievances, mostly with her sister. I didn't follow her out of the building. I found her speech very rude, but I know the history of all these connections. Sometimes you can be both rude and valid.

I sat with my cousin, we'll call her Tressa, and my aunt, we'll call her Carolyn. I could feel their emotions. I don't know why, but in dreams, people's emotions are really strong and easy to read. You can read emotions like you can see colors or hear sounds.

I apologized for my mom's outburst. I apologized for the rift that was between my mom and aunt. I decided to follow Tressa and Carolyn in this dream. I haven't seen them in ages. It might be enlightening to follow them. . .

We stayed at the restaurant and ate our food. Random customers and wait staff came to talk to us. They told us everything was going to be okay. They were watching us because we seemed like a play. I think some people clapped and cheered during our dinner.

I think this restaurant was Irish. People were wearing green. The style was kind of like a pub. I don't know why, but for some reason, I really want to write down the words: "corned beef." I don't remember the food though. I do, however, remember people's hairstyles:

(1) Tressa's hair was in a messy ponytail/bun number. Her hair: dark brown. Very thick and very wild.

(2) Carolyn's hair was down to her shoulders. It was mostly white with hints of gray. Her hair was vivid. Easily one of the easiest things to remember from the dream.

(3) My mom was wearing a hat. She had short brown hair, brown like it was in her younger days. . . the hat was beige and maybe it had a green ribbon tied around it. (Sigh… like the popular emoji.)

After we ate, Tressa took us to go antiquing. She was in the driver's seat, Carolyn was in the front passenger seat, and I was in the middle row. Tressa was driving a van. I think it was white or beige. Inside the van it was hazy. Almost like a cloud of smoke was in the van. The opacity level was at 10%.

At some point, my oldest brother got into the van and joined us on our journey. He was playing a handheld video game. We'll call my brother. . . Muriel.

When we got to the antique mall, everything got chaotic. I was searching for these purple pieces, they looked like erasers or candy. They're not something in reality. Think small purple pieces with purple and white spots and thick purple lines. These purples were in different shades.

I was carrying boxes of leftover food. I distinctly remember pancakes. Now these boxes were changing in number. There were many. And they were connected. You could open compartments, and you could fold down the compartments. They were like puzzle leftover boxes. One box had a hole in it, and I stared at that hole for a very long time. The hole really bothered me. When I flipped over the compartment, I found pancakes.

I had a video game character. I had equipped a piece of armor that I couldn't get off him. The armor was taking away his HP. If I couldn't get the armor off of him, he was going to die. I feel like somehow my video game character was connected to the purple eraser/candy/baked goods. I was in search of multiple things at once. I would ramble to others about pancakes. Tressa, Carolyn, and Muriel were all off on their own side adventures within the flea market.

The video game character must have been a dream countdown. As soon as the character died, I woke up. My cat was curled up on my stomach. He was spread out on me like a blanket. An amazing blanket.

I didn't want to get up because I was so comfortable, but I knew that if I lay there the dream would atrophy. It definitely did. There were more nuances about these long-lost relatives.

In reality, my mom is sick. She is dying from early-onset dementia and Alzheimer's. I imagine for Carolyn this has been a very painful issue for her. She looked up to her little sister. She'd always been proud of her. Carolyn hasn't had the best of health either. She did try to call me a couple of years ago. She left a longwinded voicemail. She used to trap my mom in very long conversations. Those conversations exhausted her.

I never called Carolyn back. Perhaps that makes me a really bad person. My brother, not Muriel, did talk to her though. He took up the wild phone call. I imagine we'll at some point learn more about my brothers.