Dream Woman

Hola mi Gente...

Since I wrote about dreams yesterday, I thought I should add an actual example of how dreams can work. I wrote the following a couple of years ago... 

* * *

Yemaya

The Goddess

… At every turn I am met
with her brilliance.
As of the Earth,
the Clay,
the Rivers and Streams.

I was saved by a dream… Literally.

Not a figure of speech. I rarely ever remember my dreams and maybe this is a good thing, considering what the fuck kinda shit dwells in my subconscious. However, there was one unforgotten dream some years ago that had a tremendous impact on my life. In fact, after that dream I was never the same person -- changed me completely. And, get this, I don’t even remember its details!

Nonsense, you say? Read on… 

Several years ago, my life was imploding. Everything that I had worked towards, or valued, seemed to be unraveling before my eyes. My committed relationship of about eight years was on the rocks. Actually, it was barely breathing, it was waiting for someone to mercifully shoot it. I was in my senior year of my undergraduate studies and I was so burnt out that I couldn’t retain any more information. A straight A student, my grades were plummeting and I was having a hard time finding meaning in it all. To complicate matters, I couldn’t get a job to save my life.

It was a strange time, looking back, because though I realized things were coming to a head on many fronts, it seemed as if I were just floating around there for a bit. As if it were all happening, and I was there witnessing all of this, but unable to do anything about it.

The relationship dissolved (amicably, at least), I barely escaped my senior year, and had gone on to a prestigious graduate school which I had to leave for a job and that’s where it all started. I was working for an East Harlem non-profit as a life skills trainer where I met a woman. A co-worker, she was half my age, and I really didn’t think she was interested, but eventually she let her feelings known. Actually, what she said was, “Don’t you ever get it?” during dinner once. Yes, I can be dense and sometimes I don’t “get it.”

Anyway, I’m dating this really young lady and at first, my attraction to her was minimal. In fact, I was really all that into her. I mean, she was pretty, intelligent, and we shared common interests. We spent some time going to museums, discussing poetry, discussing books, taking walks, etc. Still, I never felt any overwhelming feelings of attraction.

But I digress, I need to make my point.

Well, one thing led to another and she let on that her feelings for me were more than casual. I think the “L” word was mentioned somewhere in there, and though there were red flags and alarms screaming all over the place (too complicated to discuss here), I allowed myself to entertain the possibility that the feelings were mutual. This woman was 25 years old to my 43. And while, yes, age is only a number, the fact was that my priorities and frames of reference were much different from hers. As a result, eventually she “fell out” of love and I was left stuck. I had talked myself into love. We split and I was taking it pretty bad. Looking back, I realize now that what I felt was not love -- Maybe it was some form of an obsession more than anything else. I mean, I didn’t do anything overly stupid like stalk her, or act out on my compulsions, but I was definitely in a lot of pain.

So, there I was, a cold, rainy Friday night and I go home, just wanting to lie down. I fall for the dumb move of calling her and when her voicemail came on, I hung up, and pulled the covers over my head with the intention of sleeping forever. And that’s when The Dream happens… 

I’m in deep pain and I go to sleep. Maybe it wasn’t just this girl, but the accumulation of everything that had happened over the previous year: relationship break up, education, not being there with my son everyday -- I felt like I was in a boxing match and losing big time. I went to sleep shrouded in a deep, intense sorrow.

I dream. I don’t remember the specifics of the dream, the content, but the feelings -- damn! -- the feeling of the dream is what I remember. In the dream, there is a woman in my life, I don’t know or remember exactly what she looks like. I remember her eyes and her smile. But that isn’t important. What’s important is that in this dream this woman loved me in a way I have never experienced in my life. The love is so palpable that it infuses me with joy, washing away my sorrow as if it were dirt.

I get this very real feeling of being loved so completely, so totally that it seems as if my very being is transformed on a cellular level. In the dream, this woman knows everything about me: from my most insightful thoughts to the most pornographic. She knows it all, the good and the bad, everything, and yet she still loves me completely, without condition. In the dream, I remember hearing her voice because all I remember is that she was walking laughing with some of my friends -- she was on a journey to reunite with me. But I get the real sense that she loves me and I am filled with a total, pure, unconditional love in this dream and I’m ecstatic!

Then I wake up… 

But this is the kicker: the feeling in the dream? It’s still there! I’m filled with this incredible sense of being loved that seems to come from the very core of my being. It’s not an over-the-top “gee-I’m-so-happy” type feeling, but rather a calm presence at my center, washing away my fears and doubts. It’s as if the woman in my dream connected me to the very essence of love itself.

I never tried to analyze this dream, but a part of me intuitively sensed that that woman in my dream wasn’t someone else, but an aspect of myself. I didn’t get this by thinking about it; I sensed it in my body. At least that’s how I remember experiencing The Dream.

Since that day, yes, I have experienced sadness, anger, disappointment – the full catastrophe of life – but nothing, not even death and loss, has ever taken away this joy at the core of my being. It is truly invincible. Sometimes, when I’m challenged or the big illusions of life -- you, know, death, rebirth, taxes, finances, blah blah blah -- obscures this connection, but it is never very far from my awareness.

Now I have discovered that I was mistaken about the nature of this dream. It wasn’t an “aspect of myself” that loved me in this powerful way. Not really. The dream was pointing me to a road I needed to travel. It was pointing me to the opening of my heart because the more I open, the stronger this presence is in my life. When I close, I lose contact; when I open, the contact becomes stronger. It’s not about “me.” It’s about the dissolving of the fake wall that separates “me” from you.

Perhaps, in a way, it was about the Woman of my Dreams.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…