Tag: dreams

01Sep

In which I call myself Carly and use female pronouns for myself in talking to my parents in a dream

Published September 1, 2018

Peace has too often eluded me, but I woke up from a powerful dream this morning with an unprecedented calm that feels like how I’m guessing a person at peace must feel.

All I remember about the start of the dream was that I was at the house that our family moved into when I was a teenager. My parents, both of whom are gone now, were younger versions of themselves in the dream than they ever were when we lived in that house. They were complaining that I had broken a part of a doorway leading to the back patio. I had not.

“Let’s just blame Carly,” I said, angrily. “Everyone will believe she did it. Let’s blame her.”

That seemed to satisfy my dad, who got a beer out of the refrigerator and tilted the top of the unopened bottle in my direction as if air-clinking glasses with me for a virtual toast.

I’m laughing after typing all of that, because of course I am. I did my share of things as a child that resulted in reprimand or punishment, and anyway, who knows why the author of my dreams scripted this one this way. I’m also smiling, because upon waking up rested and energized after only a few hours of sleep, I immediately knew that the point of the dream was not to be found in the particulars of what I had or hadn’t done.

That was just context, a setting. What has me at peace is that I referred to myself in the dream as Carly, and with female pronouns, to a mom and dad who gave me a different name that was put on a birth certificate that calls me a boy. I remember the spirit of my dad’s words better than I do the specifics, and taken together with his beer-bottle salute, it said, “OK.”

With me being well into my transition and life as a transgender woman, it felt like acceptance that I cannot get from him in the three-dimensional world I live and communicate in while awake. I have a new name, and a new gender identity, and I am beyond happy that my subconscious mind used them in a seemingly unrelated conversation with my parents.

I also have a new feeling, and a new tag on my growing list of blog post tags.

Peace.

Photo by lzf via Shutterstock

13May

Dreams

shutterstock_262600493Photo by agsandrew

Published May 13, 2016

Amazing things, to be sure. Four months after my mother died, I woke up from a dream that had one notable sequence: I walked into her house and saw her sitting in a chair, smiling and talking with someone. She looked happy, and I went over to her, elated, and told her how incredibly good it was to see her. She seemed surprised, as if she didn’t know the reason.

It was the first dream I’d had about her after her death, although she’d made her presence known to me in other ways. In the dream, I quickly explained why it was a surprise and a joy to see her. The whole thing seemed to be a foreign concept to her. Interesting.

This reminded me of the dream that a friend of mine had years after her sister drowned. My friend encountered her sister, alive, in the dream and said, “But you’re dead!” Her sister’s reply: “I know! Isn’t that crazy?”

That might not be an exact transcript, but it speaks to the spirit of the dream as related to me.

In my dream, my mother’s smile was beautiful, and calming to see.

Her birthday is next week, and as usually happens around that time, I will probably write something about her. The 10th anniversary of her death is less than two months away. I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to say then.

And maybe more visits with her in my dreams. They’ve been filled with swirling colors and powerful, provocative themes. It would not surprise me if they soon featured a friendly, reassuring face.