Nighttime Dreaming

After the actor and comedian John Belushi died, I had a dream that I was walking down the street in downtown Manhattan, and I turned and saw him lying on the sidewalk face down. As I walked towards him, he looked up at me and said the following:

When we are sleeping, that's the reality, and when we wake up, that's the dream.

I've thought a lot about that over the years, especially when I started having repeating dreams. I constantly dreamed of the same places over and over, and the places I dreamed about seemed like a second reality to me, as though I was living two separate lives, one awake and one asleep. I wasn't sure where I really belonged or what was real anymore.

So how do we know what our dreams mean, or do they really mean anything? I have read books and magazine articles that tell me dreams are simply the brains way of dealing with all the trash encountered in a day. Others feel their dreams are meaningful, even the ones that are obviously something they saw or heard over the course of the day. I think we all have those dreams, and maybe they are the most common, the dream where the laundry soap is on every shelf in the supermarket after having had a dispute with your daughter over laundry soap. These are what I would refer to as "clutter" that is in our brains and comes out when we dream. However, there are dreams that do mean something, premonition dreams, and dreams that try to warn us of impending events in our lives.

I had a dream one year around Christmas. My grown son was coming to visit me in spite of me telling him it was a bad year to visit. My roommate and myself were staying temporarily with our neighbor, a man who seemed to be a decent and kind person. However, after we rented rooms from him, he turned into a nightmare. I was worried about him doing harm to my dog because he hated that I spent all my free time with her. A few nights before my son arrived, I had the most horrible nightmare I think I have ever had. In my dream I was in a restaurant, a huge restaurant that made lots of money. I was standing on the stairs with the owner, talking to him about working there. He had slicked back, black hair, and a mustache and looked like the devil himself, but in my dream I discounted his looks. The next thing I knew in the dream I was inside my home and the owner of the restaurant and some of his less than nice friends broke in and assaulted me. I ran to the bedroom where my son was sleeping to check on my dog, and was so busy worrying about my dog I didn't notice my son had gotten out of bed and was headed out when two men grabbed him and shot him. I had been so worried about my dog I didn't think about my son. As it turned out, the day my son came to visit the man we were renting from got into a big fist fight with my son. The man had been drinking and doing drugs that morning, and I'm not sure what started the fight, but I got in the middle of it and stopped it. The dream had been trying to warn me that it was my son who was in danger, not my dog. That would be a warning dream, a dream that warns you of future events or situations around you that could influence your day.

Speaking of nightmares, I took a dream class in college and learned in that class that nightmares are trying to warn you that you are in danger. The instructor told us if we can figure out the reason we are in danger while awake, the nightmares will end. That, or if you can manage to do it in a dream, confront whatever it is that frightens you and ask them what they want. They will tell you and you will know what it is you need to change. I had nightmares every night for a week, and then noticed my back door didn't lock even when it was locked. As soon as I fixed it the nightmares stopped.

It is often thought that dreams can be interpreted by looking at what certain items mean, such as if you dream of winning the lottery you are going to come into money, or if you dream of cats, a definition of cat dreams is given. However, I don't think this is a good way to analyze dreams. Items, animals, travel, money; all mean different things to different people. So maybe a cat means fear to me because I'm afraid of cats, but it might mean comfort to the person down the block who owns ten cats and they are his or her family. If each item in the dream is interpreted by what it means to you then it will be more correct.

Premonition dreams foretell an event that is about to happen, be it good or bad. I had a dream about the towers in Manhattan before they were destroyed, and in the dream I was riding an elevator to the top floor, but the building was invisible, transparent, and could be seen through, as though it didn't exist. Many people had premonition dreams about the downfall of the towers, but many people don't like to talk about it.

I've reunited with a wonderful man, and ever since I did I haven't had those dreams about a separate reality. I guess maybe my dreams were trying to tell me he existed, he was out there, and just be patient.