With a whole lot of luck, & the help of an old journal I kept, I dreamed this one on January 6, 2007.
I just copied my original entry & pasted it here. I still remember details of this dream as though it were just yesterday that I dreamt it.
It features my dog, a German Shepherd mix who was put to sleep back in September 2006, my cat, who's still here, but is dead in my dream, & me, my real-life cousin (who's 3 months younger than I am; I'll call her A) & younger sister (she's about 1 1/2 years younger; we'll call her M).
I seem to be playing the younger sister (in the sense that I'm always tagging along) in the dream, while my younger sister & our cousin are older, although we're all the same human age we currently are now. For brevity's sake, my younger sister is now "me" in the dream. The room we sleep in is what I currently share with my 2 younger sisters, except we've never had a TV in our room.
It opens with M & A snickering over something. I'm sitting on the floor, leaning on my bed post, looking up at them as they show me something, watch my puzzled face & me asking "What is that?", look at each other & snicker again. (This happens continually through my dream.) I get frustrated, & very near tears (or anger), & yet I don't leave the room. I stay where I am, watching them as they discuss fun plans.
The scene jumps to me following M & A through a BEAUTIFUL wooded area. The path we follow is wide (wide enough for 2 horse-drawn carriages to pass by comfortably) & well worn, with dark dirt & small flat stones scattered about. There are more on the edges than are actually on the road. The path curves gently to the left a little past the garden (& turns right later on, forming a little squiggly line before it straightens out). The day's beautiful & brightly sunny, & it casts little pools of sunlight through the roof of the trees. The trees themselves are on either side of the road, & they make a little arch with their branches, which are so intricately woven with each other that the only way to separate them would be to chainsaw them off. They grew like this naturally. (I know all this instinctively.)
About halfway down the path, there's this small garden of sorts, & I'm drawn to it. I trudge up the small pebbled path & walk through it, stopping every so often to smell some flowers. The garden isn't fully in bloom, but there are a few early ones out. There's a small wooden hut/log cabin (about 2 or 3 rooms max) hybrid where all the paths of the garden lead to, but I'm not interested in it. Instead, I sit on one of the white wrought-iron benches that are also placed a few feet from the paths & just enjoy the view of the garden.
The scene jumps back to our room again (same thing happening). But this time, I sense there's something wrong, & M & A are planning something that may seriously endanger (It? Us? Them? This point I'm not too clear on). They strictly FORBID me to follow them, & I, too frightened to even CONSIDER following, just nod mutely.
They leave, & I'm lying on my bed at an angle (head facing the right foot of my bed, & my feet at the head, left corner, which is against the bend in the walls). I'm watching this video (apparently we had a TV in our room) I used to LOVE when I was very little, & it had nursery rhymes & songs I'd sing everywhere. It begins by writing the "f h e" logo (red, blue & green respectively) on a child's yellow paper that they use when they're first starting to write & I roll around a bit because I'm uncomfortable, & the next thing I know, my dead dog is ALIVE, ON MY BED, stretched out comfortably, & panting. I wasn't afraid to touch her like I was in real life (her fur literally made me want to throw up, the stench was so bad), because I KNEW she was dead, but had come to visit me. There was no stink, & I just grabbed hold of her & drew some solace from her & told her I missed her.
The scene jumps again, & I'm back in the wooded area. The path is a bit smaller, now only able to comfortably accommodate 2 modern cars (everything else is the same). I'm feeling absolutely petrified of what my sister & cousin are about to do. I walk past the garden, pausing only briefly, which is now in FULL bloom & is absolutely out-of-this-world GORGEOUS. (I remember thinking "Wow. So that's what it looks like when it's in bloom!" There were a lot of flowers I didn't recognize & the flowers I saw do not exist here on Earth.) I keep walking & I "know" that there's a popular beach at the end of this path. I emerge, & there's the beach, sand for about 1/4 mile before it meets the water. There are some people there & they're just enjoying the (still beautiful) weather. I spy M & A close to the edge of the sand bank, where it turns into gravel. There's a steep hill behind them-all gravel-& there are cars on the top of it. I charge down the beach & manage to stop them from whatever they were planning (they're mad, of course, but they're also relieved that I stopped them from doing what they were going to do). We stay there till the sun begins to set & walk back home (I'm still a few feet behind them, tagging along), enjoying the scenery set ablaze by the sun setting behind us.
Last scene:
I'm outside in an unfamiliar backyard, yet I know I've been living there for several years. I'm lying on the white hammock (one end's attached to a tall white fence we have & a relatively tall tree stump is supporting the other end) & chatting with someone & just enjoying the day.
My cat comes over & hops on, & I'm just holding her as I usually do: Her paws are digging into my right shoulder, with her face serenely observing the world & purring like a motor in my ear, & my left arm's holding her back end. All the while, I'm murmuring, "Flowie-girl; Flower; Flowie-baby" (my actual nicknames for her) & chirping (an odd habit I have) at her. (How I do this while still on a hammock, I'll never know.) She hops off after a while & jumps onto an old tree stump that's slightly higher than eye level with the hammock, her green eyes blinking happily at me & about halfway closed in the way only cats can do. It's then that I absolutely FREAK OUT & say in my dream, "OH MY GOD! FLOWER'S DEAD! SHE'S DEAD!!! WHY'D SHE DIE?! SHE'S DEAD! FLOWIE'S
DEAD!" repeatedly & as though I'd just lost THE ONLY THING I loved most in the world. I LITERALLY felt my heart breaking into millions of pieces at that very moment. I was just about to break out into a full-out, like-nobody's-business WAIL of grief when...
I woke up nearly in HYSTERICS. I couldn't calm myself down for at least 10 minutes. I cannot explain how I felt at that moment in my dream when I discovered that my beloved cat was dead. There are no words to paint the picture of how deep my grief & shock ran. It was as though my very soul had shattered.
Quite a way to wake up, huh?
Right now, I can STILL see the pattern the hammock makes, the diamond pattern it had, the 8 ropes at each end that knotted to the fence & tree, what I was wearing in each scene (I won't add those because I'll probably bore you), etc., as clear as day. It was like I REALLY WAS THERE, experiencing EVERYTHING like I would while awake. What's really strange is my legs hurt even more today, & they feel as though I was walking a lot. My right leg was on the verge of cramping up all day.
Flower's my cat-baby. When I leave "the nest", Flower's coming with me, because we've got this bond that she doesn't share with anyone else. When I'm on the computer, she pesters me; when I'm sleeping, she's with me. Quite literally, every waking moment that I'm home, she's with me (excluding the hour or two she spends outside & around the house doing her business). So keeping this in mind, my reaction's not so surprising, is it?
Also, I don't know why I knew the path was big enough first for carriages, then for cars. That's what I "knew" at each point in time in the dream.
Thoughts?
