Strange Dreams

I woke up at 4 this morning. I got up at 5:50 and turned the thermostat up to 68° and went back to bed. I fell asleep and had a dream.

I dreamed I was with my dad and my cousin Ron. Now, my dad died in 1994, my mother died in 2003, and my cousin Ron died in October of this year, yet they live on in my dreams. When I see them in my dreams, it never seems odd or strange that they’re there. My dreaming self is not aware that in the waking world, those people have passed on. In my dreaming world, they’re still alive and well.

In this morning’s dream, I owned a 1960 Buick Electra. In the real world, this was a car that my dad had owned. In my dream, we were on a mountain road – my dad had been driving “my” car – I was not in the car, I was outside standing on the road – and he got out of the car and walked toward me to say something, and the car started rolling down the road and then went off the road and crashed through bushes and brush and disappeared. In the real world, this had actually happened. My dad had driven to Blacksburg, in the mountains of southwest Virginia, and while there he drove into a gas station and got distracted by an electrical problem in the car and he didn’t put the transmission into Park. He went into the station and one of the men inside asked my dad, “Is that your car?”. Dad turned around in time to see his Buick Electra roll across all the lanes of busy U.S. 460 and disappear over the side of the road and down the mountain. It didn’t go far before it hit a fence and stopped. Police had to block highway 460 so a tow truck could winch the 4500 pound vehicle up the mountain and onto the highway again. The Buick was built like a tank; it suffered no damage and my dad drove it back home that same day.

In another part of the same dream, I was riding a motorcycle. I got off the Interstate somewhere in North Carolina and rode into a gas station and up to the pumps. Shortly afterward, cousin Ron came up to the pumps and offered to pay for the gas. That was very much like Ron. He was very careful with money, but would pay for the meal you had with him or pay for gas when he was riding with you.

My dad, in my dreams, is also very much like he was in life. When he was alive, he was very critical. When I was growing up, and even when I was an adult, he found something wrong with just about everything I did. He always found something to criticize. In my dreams, he’s the same way. He’s been dead for 16 years yet he still manages to get into my head and criticize me. I can’t catch a break from this guy! But, though they’re gone, I don’t mind dreaming about these people. In my dreams they’re alive and well and we’re hanging out and doing ordinary stuff. Some part of me cherishes the good times we had together and wants those times to continue. In my dreams, those times together do continue. My brain takes bits and pieces of memories and combines them to make new, and sometimes strange, dream experiences. The dream may be strange, but seeing my family again, never is.

Pals – an old family photo. Ron and I are in the center; he has his arm over my shoulder. My brother Ken is also in the photo; he looks to be about 2 years old, making me 7 and Ron 9.