In my 3/29/12 blog entry I mentioned that one night my 2 year old daughter Autumn had cried out for the first time in many months, right at the exact moment that I was thinking about it. So a couple of nights ago between 3am and 4am I had an extremely vivid and realistic dream that I heard crying. I assumed it was my 8-month old son Jack as he is still not sleeping through the night. Then it got louder and I realized in my dream that it’s not Jack crying, it’s Autumn and she was yelling out “Dada!”. So I jumped out of bed and my wife Nadia was already at the door urging me to get in there while she took care of Jack. Still in the dream, I comforted Autumn and told her she could sleep in my bed for the rest of the night. That was all a dream.
Suddenly, a few minutes later at 4am in real life and while still sleeping I hear crying…through the fog of me now starting to wake up I am positive that it’s Jack and that Nadia will take care of it as I think I have Autumn with me in bed. But the crying keeps going on and then I wake up fully and realize Autumn is not with me…that was just a dream?! Yep. And it’s not Jack crying, it’s Autumn yelling out “Dada!”. So I jump out of bed and Nadia was already at the door urging me to get in there while she took care of Jack. So now in real life I comfort Autumn and rock her for a bit and put her back to sleep. Complete déjà-vu as it felt like I had just gone through the whole thing twice. For some reason I seem to be super-connected to Autumn and her rare waking up occurrences…a few weeks ago through the baby monitor when I thought about it and it suddenly happened, and then a couple of nights ago when it happened exactly the way I dreamt it happening minutes beforehand.
In that 3/29/12 blog we talked about coincidence vs. psychic experience vs. quantum mechanics and parallel universes…but what about dreams? Are they an unconscious gateway to another universe, or can our dreams give us clues about stuff that is happening in our lives, or can they predict the future, or are they just a fun way to pass the time while sleeping? Nadia occasionally has dreams where she is talking with her father (who died 11 years ago). He comes to her and they talk and he tells her that he is doing well, and she catches him up on stuff. She says it is very comforting to know that he is still with her. About a month ago she had a dream that he came to her and they talked about his grandson Jack. He said he has been watching him grow up and he loves him very much. Nadia told him that Jack had been extremely fussy lately overnight and her dad told her that it was because he had a sore throat. A trip to the doctor the next day confirmed that diagnosis, and as it turns out we were all on the verge of a viral cold. Kind of cool…thanks for the heads-up Grandpa.
I am actually a pretty good dreamer as well. Extremely vivid, colorful, and realistic dreams to the point that sometimes later in the day when I remember something I have to pause and think about whether that memory was real or a just a dream. Back in my younger days when I was married to Lona I have even had sex dreams that were so realistic they would sometimes turn into real sex in that we would wake up and we would be having sex in real life. We called it sleep-f*cking. That was cool I suppose, except to this day I still worry about when I have to sleep in the same bed with a dude…like in a hotel when we are travelling or something. Over the last 25 years I have had to sleep with various guy friends for various space reasons in hotels or camping or whatever, including Mitch Manson, Ted Booker, Tommy The Freak, Mike Murphy, Brad Pronger, B-Dog, Dirty Dan, etc. I was always worried that something goofy would happen and, well…
Back in the mid-90’s me and 3 buddies decided to meet up in Stevens Point, WI for the huge annual rugby tournament/party that they have there every year. I was living in Madison, WI and drove up with a friend of mine Derrick Goetz who was a rugby player in the tournament. Two of my friends Gary Paulson and Jerry Meyers from Minneapolis drove over and met us there. We got a hotel room with two double beds, so me and Derrick got one bed and my Minneapolis friends got the other. We partied hard that night with all the crazy rugby players and got back to the room and passed out on our beds. I was deep asleep and dreaming when suddenly I hear: “Quit it. Hey…quit it!” and I woke up to discover that I was spooning Derrick and stroking his shoulder-length hair! Oh my god. In my dream I had met this hot blonde chick, took her back to the room and I was stroking her hair. Damn it! So when I woke up and realized it was Derrick I was spooning and not a hot chick I quickly scooted over as far as I possibly could on the bed and tried to go back to sleep. We all had a good laugh about it the next day…and more laughs when we got back to work the next week because he of course told EVERYone.
Anyways, I attribute my awesome dreaming to 2 things: First of all, it has been many years since, but we partied in a variety of fun and creative ways back in the old days while in college and touring with the Grateful Dead. I am guessing that maybe some of those incredibly vivid and extremely fun hallucinations that my brain conjured up transferred over to my dreams. The second thing is that off and on in my life I have written down my dreams…especially when I was a kid and on into my teenage years. I sometimes keep a journal by my bed and I write the dreams down as soon as I wake up. After awhile I got really good at remembering the dreams…like you get in the habit of it and so your brain programs itself to remember the dreams for you when you wake up. It’s cool…and it’s really funny to read them days/weeks/years later. I don’t know if dreams are gateways or clues or just our brain’s way of passing the time, but they sure are fun!