Reflections on a Dream 2021-07-27

Social media sometimes does strange things to my dreams, mostly giving unexpected people or places I haven't interacted with in a long time (or ever!) key roles.

I actually enjoy this. It generally makes dreams more memorable, and it's something about dreaming that's unique to our times.

I wanted to write about a dream I woke up remembering this morning.

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My current day self was at a birthday party. My wife and two kids were there. It was for the father of girl in my class growing up. I can't remember ever meeting him though, so my brain filled in that part.

People were passing presents, and we were sitting on a sofa watching. Someone was standing in my way, obscuring the view of the father, but a present was passed in a bag that had a happy family's photo printed on it. “We had this bag printed,” the gifter mentioned as she handed the bag to him. At first I was hung up on the quality of the bag – it looked like any mass produced gift bag because the photo was high quality and looked like the ones of families that come in picture frames.

The bag had a man and a woman with two kids about the age of mine. Then I realized what I was looking at. It was a past photo of the family hosting the birthday party. I remember thinking, “Oh, so that must be the father. That was him then…”

And as soon as I thought that, the person standing in front of me moved and I saw him, much older, laying out on a chaise longue, looking admiringly at my kids and me. I happened to be hugging my son. I could feel from his gaze that he missed that chapter of his life.

Then the dream jumped to what was supposedly the Grand Canyon, which is where my family went for vacation this summer. But of course it wasn't the real Grand Canyon – it was a collage of many different places and concepts. Physically, the place was huge like the Grand Canyon. It was like Sedona in that we were filled with some sense of mysticism. The place had these three tall canyon temples (those large mesa like structures that stick out from canyons). And it was also a little bit like Machu Picchu because there were a lot of ruins scattered atop one of those temples – which was also a little like a volcano because there was a small crater.

I was learning all of this while studying a map we had, trying to figure out where to go. We were on the path of a pilgramage that this place was known for.

When I looked up from the map, we were on top of that mountain – it was actually a very lush forest, not a desert environment. We found the path we needed to get on and after going through a row of trees, we were on top of rocky edge looking down at the ruins, thousands of tourists and pilgrims scurrying around. I remember feeling awe struck, like there really was magic to this place. It wasn't just a lie being sold to get people to come. I instantly wished I had known more about it because we weren't going to have enough time to figure out what we needed to see in our limited time.

We explored for a while, but mainly remained in what seemed like the “tourist areas” because things were very commercialized: a coffee shop, gift shops, etc. I was exhausted and disappointed because I felt like we were missing something powerful.

I felt, “Well, we'll need to plan better and come back. We've still got time for lots of vacations.”

The dream went back to the party. I was telling the details of our trip to the father who said he was also there earlier in life.

We were both looking at the map now, and he was showing me the things that stood out to him. He explained some places we hadn't even made it to because we were distracted by all of the shops. Apparently, there were no shops or developments when he was there.

He then pointed out a place that was hardly visible on the map.

“This is the place all of the natives were talking about when I was there, but I never made it there. It was too difficult to get to.”

It was shrouded in secrets from long ago. It felt like the most important place in the world to visit, and we missed it. A place still undocumented in the modern world.

The old man was regretting not seeing it too.

“I've always been curious what was there. I told myself I'd go back, but never did. Life got in the way. No way I could make that journey now.”

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I woke up feeling many things. Nothing novel, but reminders wrapped in a new package that made them stand out.