I Dreamed A Dream

Many months ago, when I was still living in California, I had a dream that was thick with sadness. I woke from it very early in the morning, conscious only of the blackness shifting to a pre-dawn grey.

It was a sad dream. And lying there, unmoving, I felt the dull and empty kind of sadness you feel in the face of death. And this dream was about my death.

I was in a hospital bed, and a man I had loved was at my bedside. We had broken up recently. Yes, we were broken. Our relationship was like a clay pot riddled with air pockets, shattering in the kiln. Shocking but not surprising.

I knew I was dying and I had requested some pills to bring about the end quickly. I felt pain for a moment, but it quickly passed.

And then I changed my mind.

I didn’t want them to work, I didn’t want to leave yet. We rushed to the nurse to reverse the effects of the pills, but no nurses were to be found. Some time passed and I was still alive. I believed the pills weren’t working, that I would live.

The details of the dream have faded, even as the emotions resurface. But I remember that I died suddenly, soon after this. I watched myself fall to the floor. But I thought I would live, I whispered to myself. I felt betrayed. Once death comes there is no going back. In my dream I experienced the absolute and desolate finality of this.

I remember watching my friends and family gather beneath me as I floated over their heads. I felt frustrated, stuck in a form where I couldn’t be part of their lives anymore. My friends became a writhing mass of movement, a musical number, with my mum swaying in the centre. I remember feeling briefly amused, they were dancing up a storm.

Around this time, I also had dreams of being hugged by a male friend, it was a different friend each time and I remember each one clearly. People I had shared a special connection with, in the distant and recent past. And each time it was the strongest, warmest, safest hug you can imagine. Like a hug a father would give.