Experiencing the drowsiness upon waking again. I must need the sleep.

Dream: Penguins

The dream began with me standing on a beach. The water was clear like a swimming pool. The waves came in slowly and rhythmically.

Suddenly, a flock are very large, gray birds swooped in and landed in the water. They had with them their young and as I watched the birds all began to resemble penguins. I yelled to my son who was with me, “Look! They must prefer this water because it is so calm and clear!” I watched them for a while, fascinated.

Then my daughter came running from around the side of the water. She was yelling and waving her arms to tell me she was there. I immediately motioned for her to stop. I didn’t want her to scare away the penguins. She didn’t stop and the water began to foam and the waves crashed into the beach, all previous rhythm lost. The penguins remained but I could not longer see them clearly through the foamy water. Eventually they retreated too deep to see.

I entered the water to get a better look and ran into a young man who was wading through the water. He saw me and said, “I know you!” Then he lovingly grabbed me around the waist and tossed me very high into the air as if I was a tiny child. I could feel the sensation of falling back down.

Dream: It’s Okay to Cry

Then the scene shifted and I was walking into a bathroom (cleansing and renewal). An older man was with me. His hair almost completely gray but his face indicating he was much younger. He was smiling and I knew he was the man from the water. He said, “Have you met my family? This is…..” and he went on to introduce different members as he walked past me into the bathroom.

Then I was inside the bathroom heading toward a stall. It was locked and I asked loudly if they were always locked. Someone called out, “Just open one.” I approached a stall and as I reached to open it, it opened and a woman came out grumbling about not being able to poop because of some medicine she was taking.

As the woman walked past me I looked more closely. She was covered from head to toe in white towels (protection). Where her skin was exposed it was red and raw as if it had peeled off. For some reason I knew she had cancer. I stopped her to ask her if she needed a hug. She turned and looked at me and said she didn’t, that she was okay. I said, “Come on. Hugs are good.” She came close and was talking, making excuses for this or that and making little sense. I wrapped my arms around her and gently pulled her toward me, hugging her close. She kept talking about things I can’t recall now. I could feel the thick towels and worried I would hurt her raw skin but I kept hugging her saying, “It’s okay to cry.”

Eventually the woman began to relax and emotion was evident in her voice. I only recall that I kept encouraging her to cry and continued to hug her close to me. The more emotion I felt from her, the more emotion I exhibited. Eventually I was sobbing as I was saying, “It’s okay to cry.”

Another woman walked into the bathroom and interrupted us. The women wrapped in the towels thanked me and left. I turned back to the stall she had been in and entered it. Inside there was no toilet, just a small hole in the ground. Used toilet paper surrounded the hole and it was quite dirty.

The women who interrupted us was waiting for me as I exited the stall. She resembled someone I went to high school with who was very tall – 6ft. The woman spoke to me about the women wearing the towel. I can’t recall what we talked about but whatever it was sent me back to the moment I was hugging the women and I began to sob. The emotion and tears woke me up.

It took me a while to get myself together. The emotion felt cleansing so I allowed it. The whole dream sequence felt cleansing.

A song kept coming into my head. The lyrics, “Wait if I’m on fire, how am I so deep in love? When I dream of dying I never feel so loved.”

Considerations

I slept for about 10 hours and when I woke I wanted to sleep 10 more. My body felt so relaxed and free from pain and I kept shifting in and out of the in-between.

I remember thinking about the part of the lyrics, “When I dream of dying…”, and thinking, “Funny, but I rarely dream of dying.” For some reason I kept thinking I might die soon but I was not concerned about it. It was just a passing thought that really didn’t feel to be mine.

There was a brief consideration about what would happen when I did. It seemed that my dreams would become my reality and there would be no more physical reality to interrupt them. I liked the idea and remember listing out all the things I hate about being in physical reality. I said, “It’s so heavy here. I hate feeling heavy all the time. I won’t miss that one bit. I hate having a body. I hate having to eat, to drink, to use the restroom.” Then I thought some more and said, “It’s not the body I hate really. I like this body. I just don’t like the survival part. I really hate surviving.”

I had a distinct feeling of what surviving feels like. It is a constant fear of the alternative – death – that is always there. Even when I am well-off, when I have all I could ever need, the feeling is still there, looming in the distance, reminding me that at any moment I could lose it all and be back in a position of scrambling to avoid death. And all the feelings that accompany the downward spiral toward death are feared – pain, despair, hopelessness, abandonment, hunger, starvation, cravings, and feelings I don’t even have words for – all the ways the body degrades as it heads toward inevitable death.

As I mull over all of this now, I wonder if I was being shown why I often ask for death when I am feeling tired and worn down by life. Death is an end to survival and to be free of survival and all that comes with it would be glorious.

June 13th

Though I haven’t written about this yet, I have had several dreams and incidents relating to this date. The first dream was on May 24th. In it I was with a man who I was dating in secret. We ended up at a ceremony inside a chapel where a huge bonfire was set. The dream ended with us playing a board game and saying our goodbyes. He left saying, “See you in three weeks.”

A week later or so I had another dream where I was having a conversation with my SIL. In it she said I had told her June 13th would be when something would happen. I can’t recall exactly what I told her. All I woke remembering was the date.

At work the next day I was thinking about the date. It felt familiar but I couldn’t figure out when I had heard it or why. As I sat at my desk I saw a flier I had been given a week prior. The date on it was June 13th. It is the date of a pool party being held for all the employees.

Still, it was odd and I couldn’t help but think of the message, “See you in three weeks.” The time frame matched up almost perfectly.

Then on Friday the same flier was sitting on my desk. I scanned over the date on it while in a bored state and read it silently to myself but rather than read what was actually there – “Thurs June 13” – I heard myself read, “Thumbs up.” At the time I was not fully aware of it happening until the “thumbs up” message seemed to repeat. Then I shocked back into present time and thought, “What?” and re-read the flier to make sure I was not seeing things.

So I guess I will see what happens on that day. Maybe nothing at all.

Penguins

The above dream is the second dream I’ve had in a week about penguins and clear, relaxing water.

On the same day I had the dream about June 13th (the one with my SIL) I had a dream about miniature penguins.

I had a dream of going on a trip to an island full of tiny, black and white birds that reminded me of miniature penguins (problems are not as big as they seem, keep you cool). I was on a boat (emotion) looking down in the clear, aqua-blue water (clarity) as they swam in the wake. I put my hand in and touched one. I was fascinated. They were about six inches long.

On the island I took pictures of them. They were everywhere and I had one of those Kodak disposable cameras.

The penguin dream I had last night was of much larger penguins and their babies. Again, I was fascinated by them and my memory of the dream was as if everything slowed as I focused in on them.

Penguins are not creatures I normally see in my dreams. I can’t remember ever seeing them before. They symbolize change, adapting to change, expecting the unexpected and solving problems in unconventional ways. For more information about penguin symbolism check out this website.