Dreams, Part 1

I would like to open a discussion about dreams. Several readers have already sent Comments about dreams, and with this post I want to create a home for further Comments.

I think we will all enjoy reading true accounts of dreams, and comments about dreams generally, without limitations. Of course dreams which foresee events are particularly fascinating, but so are dreams which involve out of body experiences or astral travel or visions or inexplicable contacts. There are many reasons one might share stories and theories about dreams.

I’ve already told you about the one precognitive dream I can recall. The other “dream data” that come first to mind are my repetitive dreams.

For years, probably beginning when I was 11 or 12 years old, I often dreamed about flying. The story was long and progressive. When I first tried to fly by flapping my arms, the air was too thin for my flapping to have any effect. I would run along the ground, flapping away, with the same result I would have if I went outdoors and tried it today. Then, over months, the air seemed to thicken, and I could flap myself a few inches off the ground for a short stretch. I remember the first time that I managed to get to the height of the telephone wires before I had to descend. What a thrill! And then, finally, I was able to fly above nearby trees, and eventually to go longer distances. Flying became more like swimming because I no longer had to flap so hard, and I could glide for long distances.

I remember once standing on top of a very high fortress tower, summoning my courage, and gliding a mile or more before a safe landing in a meadow. Over time I flew for very long distances which took me over various fields and towns and buildings, more than once in a medieval landscape. I recall skimming just above a group of dark-clad witches who were threatening me from the roof of a castle. A narrow escape.

I don’t know when the flying dreams dwindled, but they seemed to have served their purpose when I could fly skillfully almost anywhere and had lived through (or dreamed through) various adventures. They had kept me busy at night for years – interspersed, of course, with other dreams.

The next category of repetitive dreams became a major feature in my life because they were so frequent and vivid and occurred over several years – more or less ending only in the past couple of years.

Those dreams involved trying to get back “home”, or back to someplace like a hotel or a car. They usually took place at night. In all the dreams there was a great deal of frustration. For one thing, I could not remember the location to which I was trying to return – usually in a strange city. I couldn’t recall the name of my hotel or the street it was on. When I was looking for my parked car, information about its location was also wiped from my memory. I rarely was able to get any meaningful help from people I encountered. If there was someone (usually in a wife role) waiting for me to return, I could not recall a telephone number.

A variation was when I knew where I needed to go – as to my parents’ house on the other side of a town – but got lost when I tried to find my way. In trying to cross the town, for example, I would lose track of my direction, would wander around dim side streets, and would have to make my way through complex buildings.

In another frequent form of the dream I was living outside the United States (usually in England, where I’d actually lived), and was planning to return home to the other side of the Atlantic. I seemed to have waited until the last day to make travel arrangements, and the dreams were a mad rush to get a ticket, to pack, to store things I couldn’t take, and somehow to be ready for a departure time which was impossibly close. Usually I was to travel on a ship, but sometimes it was an airliner. Every effort I made was thwarted. Here it was 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the ship leaves in the morning, and I had made no preparations whatsoever! I needed to call a travel agent but the telephone book was indecipherable. If I needed glasses to read something, I couldn’t find the glasses. The phone didn't work. Once when it did work, I tried calling for information and got an answer from some man in Wyoming who told me I had the wrong place. I think it’s fair to say that in all the dreams I can remember but one, I missed the boat. (Interesting choice of phrase?)

The common theme of all those dreams was that I had been somewhere previously, was trying to return, and encountered impediments of many kinds. I was unable to think of anything happening in my life which would explain the dreams. As years passed and I became more interested in things spiritual, it occurred to me that I was dreaming about the soul’s longing to return Home. I felt pretty strongly that there was truth in that interpretation, even though I thought I might be reaching.

I’ve written enough for one day, and so I won’t expand on that idea now. I’ll plan to return to dreams in the next post. In the meantime, please click “Comments” and leave a dream post of your own.