Should I Even Share This?
But Gerard got personal at times and, since he’s (sometimes) my inspiration, I’ll put this up and y’all can think what you will. I don’t deny I’m a crazy SOB.
I had a very vivid dream last night: I was working at my computer like I often do. This wasn’t a distorted dream – unlike many dreams, everything appeared real and rational. Even after I woke up, for that first split-second I wondered how I got back to bed from my office.
The way I sit in my office, my monitors block my view of the door.
I heard the door open, and felt someone gently squeeze my toes sticking out from under my desk. I looked up and saw Jan standing back up. Now I don’t often catch names in dreams … but no doubt this was Jan; her name was even spoken. Didn’t even think how strange it was that she’d show up in my office.
I jumped up and we hugged each other as one would hug a close friend that hadn’t been seen for 50 years; for that matter, 1976 may be the last time I saw her …
Jan was a beautiful 21yo redhead. I was never certain – even now – if we were ever “boyfriend & girlfriend”. We dated a lot, we had good times together — I don’t remember why we just … stopped. I don’t remember “love” being any part or promise either. I was once a redhead as well and one of the things I remember about our relationship – if that’s what it was – is that I shouldn’t date redheads. But I really, really liked Jan. I don’t recall anything that hints she didn’t feel the same way about me. That was 1974/75 or thereabouts.
Why such a vivid dream – that still sticks in my mind long after most dreams fade into nothingness?
I haven’t thought about Jan in decades; she wasn’t “the one” that got away.
I can hear her voice even as I write this.
So I popped onto this magic box and did a Duckduckgo search. Wonder what she’s up to?
And there was her obituary from 2022. She died of cancer of some sort.
I’m open to things we can’t explain – was it Jan’s spirit that visited me last night?
I’d like think it was and that she still remembered me – not unfondly.
Rest in peace, Jan …
How sweet, DT.
I strongly believe she came to visit. Maybe to say good-bye.
What a lovely memory with which she gifted you.
Sometimes it seems that we are here and then gone in the twinkling of an eye.
Yes. Yes it was.
I can believe in that sort of thing because I had a similar experience though there was nothing physical (your hugging) about it. Years ago I was home alone in our bed, asleep I think, when something woke me up. We had a fireplace directly in front of our bed and in front of it was a young man looking at a picture that was on the mantle. The way he was dressed was from a much earlier time, maybe even an earlier century but he looked familiar. He never turned around and after a short time, there was a noise to my right which made me turn my head and when I turned back he was
gone. The strangest part of the experience was that I had no fear whatsoever. I just shut my eyes and went back to sleep. The next morning when I woke up, I went into the bathroom which was to my right and found that a suction-cup soap dish had fallen into the tub.
There were two possibilities of whom it could have been. On the mantle I had a picture of a younger brother of my mother’s who died very young. And in the living room we had a painting of a young man who resembled the one I saw. There were rumors of a ghost appearing in one of the homes in our neighborhood and I had always imagined the ghost resembled the young man in our painting.
I notice, based on a sample of one, that as we age we become light sleepers, and wake up more often at night. That puts us more in the dream stages of sleep.
The sleep researchers say that as sleep progresses and we climb out of the well of deep sleep, our dreams become more elaborate and realistic, our brains are more awake but firing randomly as the cleanup progresses. We need sleep to clean out the metabolic wastes that have accumulated throughout the day.
Lately, I’ve been waking up finally with interrupted quite elaborate dreams. I quickly forget them, even though in the first few minutes after waking, their effect on me was so much that I think I would never forget them.
Yeah, and every once in a great while, I get a person from the past, and they usually just say my name one time. But mostly it’s nobody I know, and we’re doing stuff over and over, and the dream gets stuck in a frustrating loop.
Dreams are weird.
I’ve had two vivid dreams . One involving my Mom saying “thank you”, the day after she died. (I’ll spare you the long story details.) The second my sister calling my name a week or so after she died. For both, I’m not completely sure I was still asleep, awake or somewhere in between. But they felt like blessings.
R.I.P. indeed; and worth sharing.
I almost never remember my dreams but had a recurring, vivid dream while home on leave on my way to Viet Nam, must have had it a dozen times and it was terrifying. It was dark, and I was alone, carrying a rifle and a heavy rucksack and walking on a jungle trail which was strange because you don’t do that unless you’re trying to get ambushed. And I could feel something coming up behind me, unseen and unidentified and terrifyingly malevolent, but I could not turn around to face whatever-it-was; I could only keep walking straight ahead. Then just before the unseen “it” got to me, the dream would fade to black, almost like I was being erased, and I’d wake up in a cold sweat, completely freaked out. I’d heard about people having premonitions of their death and was convinced that the recurring dream was such a harbinger, and that I would not survive.
But I wasn’t the type to try to weasel my way out of things, so when one morning it was time to sally forth to face the abyss, I got on that airplane, and from that morning never had that dream again.
You won.