I had a dream early this morning. The problem I have with this dream is that it is one of those dreams. People that know me, know what I mean by that. For those of you that don't ...sometimes I have dreams that are special, special because they are like snapshots of the future. I can't really explain it. As a child I had a recurring dream that use to scare the hell out of me. Not because it was filled with dark and evil things, but because I knew something was wrong. This is what I could tell you about it then: Something was going around, around, around, and then suddenly something happened and it scared the hell out of me. Everything was kind of blurred from the beginning so that wasn't like I could tell what it was. I had this dream over and over again for years...YEARS. It was always the same, never varied. The older I got, the less I freaked but my heart still pounded a mile a minute and I still felt that instant panic, though it was less intense with age. I was maybe 4 the first time I remember having it. I would have that dream once a month, several times a week, twice on the same night, while sleeping in my bed or even while asleep in the car. When and where varied but the content of the dream never did. Never ever. Then one day it stopped. I never had it ever again. But what is interesting is what happened just before it stopped and that made that dream click in my head while I was awake. By "click" I mean it literally clicked into place, the dream and my awake state met. I know its strange but here is what happened. I was maybe 10 years old. I was at the county fair with my family and I wanted to go on another ride. My parents were talking to some people they knew and I was allowed to go on this ride. I was the only person on the entire ride. Everything was fine for the first few rounds, I'm enjoying the rush of the wind, the blur of everything flying by me but then very suddenly when I was nearing the top, the gate flew open. *click* Its not like they had safety seatbelts back then either. I felt a sudden burst of fear and panic but there was also something farmiliar about it. I wrapped one arm around the back of the seat and used my foot to pull the gate up to my hand. I tried to get the gate to latch to the seat but it wouldn't. I was slamming it into the latch but it wouldn't go, my heart is racing. Meanwhile, I am still going around in circles and the guy that runs the machine is talking to some guy, my parents are talking to their friends and I'm yelling everytime I get near them, hoping they hear. The machine is too loud, they can't hear me. I'm afraid, like in the dream but this time Im already awake. I realize that I will be fine. I use my foot to hold the door closed by crossing my foot over my knee and I am holding on to the back and side of the ride with both hands. Finally the guy slows my ride and when he stops me at the bottom the gate flew open. He asks me if it just came open now and I said, no, it flew open earlier but I pulled it back and that I tried to yell at him but he didn't hear me and that it was OK, because I just held it shut until my ride was done. It was like what had just happened was really just like all of my dreams. As I had woke, the fear was gone..and as soon as the ride ended, the fear was gone. It wasn't until years later, that I realized that after that ride that the dreams had ended too.
Even though I don't have those same type of re-occurring dreams, I do have dreams that have the same feel to them. They are not your everyday, run of the mill dreams. They are diffenent in a way that I can't really explain to you. They just are...some are stronger than others and some are more detailed. I once had a dream where I was sitting at a picnic table talking to a female. I could tell it was a female only in the sense that I just knew. She was a blur, but I knew we were laughing, I could see a garage in the background, a sloping hill of high grass. I could feel the breeze, smell freshly mowed grass, could hear in addition to our laughter, a bird singing. Years later, I was sitting at a picnic table with a friend, we were laughing and suddenly....click...it was that moment I had dreamt about. Everything, exactly the same in that one brief second. Until that second when everything lined up, it was just another day, just another moment in time...but I had been there before in mind not in body.
Then there was the time I dreamed about being in a restaurant. There was a old fashioned bubble jukebox to my right. I was sitting at a both with a low tiffany style lamp over head. A man and a woman were sitting across from me, though their faces were blurred, I could hear our conversation. A boy was to my left and a girl to my right, sitting on the end of the table on a chair. I could hear the conversation and the music and I could smell french fries. Then I woke up. Years later I was bringing the Hartman kids back to their Mom after the Llama sale in Omaha. We had made plans to meet half way at a restaurant I had never been to. We settled down in a booth to eat dinner and it wasn't until during our conversation that ....click....Rhonda's new husband said something...and there it was, the dream, only now they had faces and every single thing in that dream was reality again.
Still sound strange? How about a dream that I actually told someone about months before it ever happened. I dreamt that I was sitting on steps, to my right was a little girl with light curly hair. I had a children's book on my lap. I glanced ahead of me, down a sidewalk to the street. There were two large trees in front of me and bushes across the street. Standing in the grass, just off the sidewalk was a blurry person but I knew it was a young Steve from Family Matters, but yet it wasn't. I knew it, I could feel it. Years later, I have been working as a nanny for the Leaches for a couple of weeks. I am sitting on the front steps of the house and Katie is to my right. Chris is standing in front of us, goofing around. Suddenly he hikes up his pants and starts doing an impersonation. He's Steve Urkle he announces and ...click...the trees in the front yard, the bushes across the street, Steve from Family matters in front of me, standing in the grass just off the sidewalk. I glance down at my lap, a children's book. My heart flutters and think to myself, "holy crap!"
I can't explain the dreams, why they feel so different from other dreams at the time I am dreaming them, how it really feels when they click into place. What I can tell you is that I had one last night. In the dream, it was dark, I couldn't see where I was walking but there were trees, branches, I could hear the sound of feet stepping on leaves or dried grass, branches...there were saps and pops, voices around me, an ice cold wind and I can hear the wind in the trees around me. Then a sudden rush, a loud sound, a scream that makes me turn in a moment of excitement, fear. That is when I woke up...but it was one of those special dreams, I could feel it. Now I just have to wait, forget about it and when its time, well, i'll just have to see what life brings me.