One of the topics that crops up from time to time at writers’ workshops is a session on dreams. According to presenters, we should analyze our night-time adventures because they are telling us something.
Linda, our developmentally different daughter, had let a bunch of exotic animals out of their cages. I was trying to decide how to get them back where they belonged without anyone knowing who let them loose. This morning when I looked at the calendar, I knew the message the dream was sending me–it had been fourteen years since she died of breast cancer.
The answer was easier when I was alerted to a possible problem. Ken and I were vacationing in a cabin. In the evening, I decided to go to the grocery store. I got lost in the dark and then the car quit. I walked to a nearby farm. The lady-of-the-house greeted me and invited me inside. The young woman, who was obviously pregnant, told me she was from Australia. She had met the farmer when he visited her homeland. I checked my pockets for my cell phone to call my husband but I had left it behind. I asked to borrow hers and she handed it to me. Then, I realized her instrument was useless because I didn’t know anyone’s number except my own–I relied on my list of contacts. I woke up without knowing how I was rescued.
Thinking about my dream the next day reminded me that when our phone hung on the wall, I didn’t need to look in the book listings for most of the numbers I dialed. I even still remember some of the 4-digits that I used years ago when an operator asked, “Number, please?” As a precaution, I have memorized my husband’s cell phone number.
Have you had a dream that was a message?
I dream, but have had no messages that I can think of. In college one of my roommates used to write down my night time ramblings, but what they meant, I don’t know. I once gave a speech in my college speech class based on my dreams. I also walked in my sleep, as a kid.