I’ve never really had a problem remembering dreams. In fact, I have all kinds of dreams while sleeping… vivid ones, boring ones, ones where I speak in English and others in German. I have reoccurring dreams that I can manipulate and change while still dreaming them (I also know if something has changed in it on its own without me manipulating it). I have had dreams that have come true. I have dreamt about places that I’ve never been to… and when I did go there I knew where everything was.
The ones that get to me though are the ones that include family that has passed. This started happening years ago, just a few months after my Opa (my mothers father) passed away. He appeared and started talking to me and I just couldn’t get over the fact that he was there. I kept wondering how? How was it possible when he was no longer with us. He appeared a few more times over the next few years… and every time it was much like the times before… shock, awe and lots of sobbing, but it felt so very good to see him. Then one night something was different. I didn’t ask… I didn’t wonder… it was just the two of us, like always, and I talked to him. I told him how sorry I was that I didn’t get the chance to see him before he passed (I had wanted to go to Germany that summer for his golden wedding anniversary, but wasn’t able to). I told him that I missed him so terribly and we hugged and hugged. That was the last time I “saw” him.
My great aunt – my Opa’s sister, the one whose home I lived in for 3 years while in Germany – passed over 2 years ago. I knew I was saying my goodbyes when I left there 5 years ago – she had been battling colon cancer for years and though she was putting up a terrific fight, it was slowly kicking her butt. Anyway, once again a few months after she passed, the same thing started happening and she started visiting. Having gone through it before though with my Opa, it no longer frightened me. We could talk and I wasn’t bawling my eyes out (well not every time). It’s been a few months, so her visit should have been expected. It happened last night. She was standing right next to me, but I didn’t want to look over because I knew that I wouldn’t react well… but there she was and it felt so real and it was so good to see her. She looked great, not sick at all – the way I remembered her from before. We hugged each other long and hard… I think that was the first time we’d done that…. and then I started asking. How could it be that she could be there with me? Would she come visit me again later? Her reply was a little shocking to me. She told me that although she knew the answer to the first question, she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to tell me. She said that she would ask the “Big Guy” if she could and then come back to me.
Now I’m not very good with the whole religion thing. I believe in God and pray almost nightly (lets face it there are some nights where I’m asleep before my head hits the pillow), but I haven’t gone to an actual church service (besides at a wedding, baptism or funeral) in years – let alone be an active member in a church community. Simply put, I am a non-practicing Catholic who is trying to figure out who she is as far as religion is concerned. So to hear my great aunt telling me that she would have to ask God whether or not she was allowed to tell me how and why she was able to visit me shocked me…. maybe because I never thought that what and who I dreamt about had anything to do with God or religion.
I know that these are just dreams and the rational part of me tells me that what I am dreaming just comes from something my subconscious is working on at the time. It’s just that they feel so real… I think that is why I prefer to call those dreams visits. I don’t know. I guess if she comes back after a while and tells me the reason behind it all… well if it happens I may need to reevaluate how I look at things. I guess now I just have to wait and see.