There aren’t very many women where I work. I’ve been the only woman in my group for many years. Recently, we hired another woman. I had a dream where she was one of the main characters. We stopped by her place for some reason, and she had one of those super cool industrial turned living quarters places. It had all these big pipes and valves running overhead and here and there, and was very spacious. It was relatively new to her, and I’m not sure she knew all the workings of the valves and plumbing. When I walked in, I also noticed she had the exact same furniture set that I inherited from my mom. Only hers was pristine, as though it were fresh off the showroom floor. Mine is in the garage, filled with cobwebs, chipped and scarred and battered and very well worn. I was very impressed with the condition of her furniture. Someone who was with us (it could have been me) fiddled with one of the valves, out of curiousity. What does this do It’s just a water valve. Or something. Suddenly, the room was filling with water. There were these manhole looking plugs in the floor and water was coming up quickly. She ended up with several inches of water on the entire floor before we were able to figure out the proper combination of valves to use to make everything drain and go back the way it was. These are some of the hazards with using an industrial space for a home, when the machinery hasn’t been disabled.
I don’t know what that dream is all about. I don’t even know her. She’s in my group, but not my subgroup, so I never see her and never speak with her, unless it’s group meeting day. Even so, we don’t interact unless work dictates a reason. Not that I wouldn’t be friendly. That’s just how things are at my office. We’re sort of autonomous.
I had another dream that featured my brother as a teenager. He had that sparkle in his eye. It was a good-natured sparkle, as though he were happy and amused by something. We were outside the house, maybe behind it, hanging out on the hill. In real life we seldom hung out together, because I was in college when he was in high school. Maybe I was actually my younger sister in the dream. Anyway, he was making jokes or teasing or just being pleasant. This dream was a happy dream, and it makes me happy and sad to think about it. I wish he could have stayed the kind of person he was in that dream. Happy. Maybe if he could have lived longer, he would have found that sparkle again. I miss him.
A part of me wants to think that the dream was his way of reaching out to me to tell me that he is okay now, and not to worry. All is well. If I could remember that dream more clearly, I might know. But the details of that dream escape me, and I’m left with wistfulness and sadness for the beautiful boy he was, and the troubled man he became. I wonder if the sadness will ever go away. I think of him every day. Every single day. More now than before, when he was alive, when I took for granted that he would always be here, at least as long as I would be here. I figured he’d get through the rough waters and things would settle down and all would be well again.
I had a recurring murderous dream that deeply disturbed me. I already wrote about it. I read somewhere that murderous dreams aren’t really about murder, but about changes in life and/or attitudes. I certainly hope so. Even so, those kinds of dreams shake me up. To the core.
