Welcome to Dream Interpretation for Dummies, where Dear Abby meets Native Americana. Come to the campfire, peer into the yawning grave, and take a dive into the collective subconscious… or maybe just explore some weird clown imagery. We’ll wait for you here.
Howdy Note: This dream has been very lightly edited. Everything you are about to read has already happened, is happening, will happen…
Dear Howdy,
Many years after graduating high school, my mother and my grandmother both told me that they thought I should have dated R, a person in my senior class with whom I'd been friendly but not close. By the time they told me this, I was already dating the person I would eventually marry, had not seen or heard from R in over a decade, and wasn't in contact with anyone who kept up with him. But the night after they told me this, I had a dream that R and I were romantically involved.
Over the course of the next eight years, I've had variations on this dream very frequently, often multiple times a month. Sometimes the dreams will be very sexual, sometimes merely romantic. Sometimes we're teenagers in the dreams, as we were when we knew each other, but more frequently we're adults. Often the dream itself is about something else entirely but will include my relationship with R as a subplot. I don't mind having these dreams, nor do they stick with me much in my waking life beyond vague befuddlement about "Why R? Why is this my recurring dream?" I've never felt any urge to reach out to R or see what he's up to. They don't seem to correspond to any moods or happenings in my life. They just come to me and I wake up thinking, "Huh, again?"
A few months ago I realized that I hadn't had this dream in almost a year. When I realized that, in full confidence of my witchery, I told myself that if I didn't dream about R that night then I was done having dreams about him for good. And I didn't dream about him! The dreams were over!
Except, of course, they weren't. I dreamed about R last night. Again, my relationship with R was a subplot to the primary dream, the details of which are hazy, but the setting was a funhouse-mirror-version of the school R and I went to. Instead of me being my normal self (a youngish-but-let's-face-it-middle-aged woman), though, I was a caricature version of a middle-aged man: balding, paunchy, a little wispy mustache. I knew this wasn't my normal self but I was fine with the change. "This is me now," I told R, and he opened his arms to me and held me. We both seemed happy.
What do you think it means? Will these dreams ever stop?
P.S. For what it's worth, the number of times that I have a dream with R in it has gotten a lot larger since I wrote you the original email, to the tune of several times per week.
Yours,
H
Dear H,
Thank you for the gift of your dream. I had a friend once; let’s call them M, who was shining and golden. I thought of them as the poets write about. And they felt the same. We had to separate for reasons that became apparent the longer we knew each other, but nothing could erase what I had felt and what I came to learn about myself from that depth of feeling. In my journals after the time we no longer spoke, there is a great, shadowy void. Writing around the feeling without actually naming it. That, hopefully, is not what we’re going to do today.
With that, into your dream we go: I’m very compelled by your matrilineal line telling you that you should have dated R, seemingly apropos of nothing, especially since it had been a decade since you had seen him, but my feeling is there is no greater meaning to it than a simple conduit for the message. They usher R back into your (Dream) life, and then they are released of their duty. Then, of course, you get married. Something feels, or it should, complete. For what is marriage if not a set contract, a pattern of behavior?
But you continue to dream of R, even though you (maybe) shouldn’t. R is no lost love, no deep childhood friend, but he is important. Still, I make no real calls here, Dreamer. I judge not the voices in the wind or the patterns they create in their wake. Eight years is a long time to dream of someone, or rather, something, but more on that later. I like that you are not bothered by these dreams, despite their often latent romantic or sexual nature. This signals to me that you, above all, are receptive to hearing.
I’ve said it before: messages can be slippery, especially in Dreamland. They revolve, they disappear, and we think, ah yes, it is done. I am the master of my fate, captain of my soul. Then they reappear.
You haven’t found the foothold, the answer among the revolving door of answers, so R comes back. He, again, is a subplot to your primary dream, once again signaling that he is not the way forward; he is just a symbol. R is a missed opportunity, a forgotten, well, dream. There is something that you haven’t done, that you haven’t let yourself have. You know what it is, probably, it is something that has lasted at least eight years, and now more. Your old man self, a different shape and size and being, is still held. Is still accepted. Know that whatever this missed chance is, when you do take it, will be something joyous. You don’t have to be afraid of it. This is me now, you say, and on the other side of it are open arms. Is there a more wonderful gift?
I don’t think these dreams will stop, not until you seize whatever there is to seize. Forgive my vague terms, Dreamer. You know the way of these things. You sought out my help, and with that, you acknowledged The Thing, making it more difficult, even impossible, to hide from. For what it’s worth, I believe in you. And hey, if you ever by chance see R again, you can say I dreamt about you. Who knows, maybe he’ll say No way. Me too.
I hope this helped. I’m sending you a dream of the person you love most in the world, wherever they are. Neither of you speaks, but they are there, and you know it. The sky is an unending, cloudless blue. Somewhere in the distance, the wind whistles. Let me know if you get it.
See you on the other side,
Howdy
Fancy a trip to Dreamland, pardner? Send your best to sadboyhowdy@gmail.com!