Sleep, Dream, Repeat

I am one of those people who always remembers their dreams.  This used to be so interesting when I was younger because every single night was like a new adventure in my head.  These days, not so much.  And, I shouldn't even complain because for a while, all I had were gut wrenching nightmares, which I rarely have anymore.  These days, I literally have the same three dreams over and over and over.  I know my brain is trying to work something out, but I have no idea what it is.  These are the basic frameworks of my three dreams:

1) I am married to someone who isn't Ted who I feel lukewarm about.  He is fine.  Nice person.  We don't have a lot of chemistry but we seem to have a nice enough family.  We like each other, even if we aren't really in love.  In the back of my mind, I have a faint memory of being married to someone else who is the yin to my yang - someone that I am ga ga about.  I wake up and see Ted sleeping next to me and breathe a sigh of relief.

2) I am in Costa Rica on vacation with friends with the intention of staying at my house.  When I get there, I realize that I never told anyone that I was coming and so my house is rented out and we end up staying down the road at some kind of a youth hostel.  The trip is fine but totally unfamiliar and strange.  We go do fun stuff but we hang out on a different beach, we go out to different places I have never been to and we don't see anyone I know.  It is fine, just not "my" Costa Rica.

3) I enter a vortex where time and space don't matter at all and the landscape is the combination of Costa Rica, my Jewish summer camp, and my kibbutz in Israel.  I am confused about who to look for first because they are all in a mish mash.  My room on the kibbutz is in the middle of the younger kids cabins at camp and all I really want to do is go swimming in the Costa Rica Ocean.  Nothing happens at all - I am just surrounded by familiar places but feel totally out of place in all of them.

What makes me crazy is that there is only ONE thing that I want to dream about - MAX - and I almost never do.  Once in a while, he is a background character.  Like, in the dream where I am married to some guy - Max is one of our children and the story of his life is definitely there.  But, I don't get to interact with him at all, other than to maybe know he is around.

After he died, I had many dreams about Max - but they were horrific.  I've written about some of them here- but not all.  Some were too awful to ever recount.

And, then - there was that one dream.  The dream that I beg to have again every night before I got to sleep. The one where he was mine again.  I could smell his sweet baby smell, I could kiss his chubby soft cheeks, I could hug him and feel him in my arms.  He was mine.  He was here.  He was alive.  And, it was SO SO real.  Instead, I am stuck with these same three other dreams night in and night out.

Sleep, Dream, Repeat. 

3 comments

Anonymous said...

I often have weird dreams. One repeated dream is very similar as your dream#1. I often dream that I am married with another guy and then feel so guilty for my husband. I also very rarely dream about my precious daughter, maybe just a few of time after she's passed, and everytime she was just standing or playing in a distance and never be close to me to hold her or kiss her.

Nikki said...

Abby, I have spent the last week or so reading your entire blog (I found you from a comment on one of Heather Spohr's blog posts). I am so sorry that you lost your sweet Maxie. It is so unfair that bad things always seem to happen to good people. This blog keeps his memory alive, and lets people who have never met him (like a random 25 year old from across the country) learn about him and how wonderful he really is. You are in my thoughts and prayers!

Erin White said...

Not sure if you are soliciting analysis, but here goes.
Sounds like you are doing something that you think should be right or ok - something that "looks good on paper", but deep down you know it's not the right thing.
Could be the obvious... It's so complicated for you because on the one hand you are "enjoying" your life with Mo, but, on the other, you are living without Maxie. Calm on the surface with a nasty undercurrent... Or, maybe something else entirely, like being unsatisfied with your job even though you feel like you SHOULD be content?
Ok, fulfilled my amateur psychology quota for the day. xoxo