What Dreams May Come

"To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause."

--Hamlet

I've always had very vivid, memorable dreams. I don't know if this is because my imagination is that much more powerful than other people's, or if it's simply because I dream right before I wake up. I'm not an expert on dream theory, or anything. But I wake up most mornings with clear, detailed memories of the things my brain dreamed about the night before. Often these dreams feature celebrities--exactly who stars in my dreams depends on what TV show or book I'm currently obsessed with. When I was a freshman in college, I dreamt about characters from the TV show Lost almost every single night, because I watched at least one episode a day (and thought about it when I wasn't watching it). Last year I would frequently dream that I was in the Holocaust because my class on the subject made such a deep impression on me.

But not only do I remember who showed up in the dream, or what crazy and illogical things happened, but I remember sensations. And feelings. I'll wake up with the distinct memory of someone's arms wrapped around me. Or of sunshine, warm on my face. I still vividly remember a moment from a dream I had a few years ago: I was standing with my eyes closed, possibly in a field. I could feel the sun on my face, and I could see its light through the red of my closed eyelids. I felt such a feeling of bliss that I began running towards the sunlight, eyes still closed, yet fearless of falling. It was beautiful.

Usually, though, these dreams just feature situations or people I'm stressed about. I've had a series of dreams over the past couple of years in which I reunite with an old friend. Things ended on somewhat bad terms, and we never speak anymore. When I'm awake, I don't really mind; people grow apart. But when I dream, I seem to constantly run into her, and I always say exactly what I wish I could say in real life. I dream about conversations I wish I could have, about stressful work situations, or about the things I fear.

But dreams usually have an element of absurdity that make them less upsetting. I wake up and think, "Why would I suddenly have to swim across a lake in order to clock out at work?" or, "There's no possibility of having that guy's baby, why worry about it happening?" I mean, I've dreamed about being shot by Tommy Lee, about being in a Soviet gulag, about my little brother Marvin being killed (who's Marvin? He certainly wasn't Jason), and about a talking wolf attacking me in my backyard. To name a few. Re-examining the strange, off-kilter aspects of the dream help me remember that they're just dreams. That they have no relevance, no real influence on my life--no matter how many details I can remember, or how strongly I could see or hear or smell or feel things within the dream.

But here comes the catch. I dream vividly about the situations that upset me--ergo, I have started dreaming about my dad. A couple of weeks ago I had a dream that still haunts me. In this dream, I was in a department store, and I saw a girl I was friends with in high school. We were chatting when someone else came up to talk to me. I turned to look, and felt this completely visceral shock--It was my dad! Alive! And talking to me! I remember that sensation of shock and amazement running through my whole body. I felt it in my stomach, my feet, my heart. Later, I tried to think up the right simile for the feeling: an electric shock, a bullet to the stomach...Mostly it was like my entire body flinched, I was so surprised.

But then, moments later, I thought...wait, this is a dream, isn't it, because my dad is dead. He can't come back to life. And then I grew profoundly sad because it was such a vivid dream. The details were perfect. My brain had gotten his voice, his mannerisms, his face exactly right. I even recognized his sweater. (It was a thick, reddish, plaid one. He would wear it a lot during the winter, around Christmastime.)

There was nothing absurd about him. There was nothing to mitigate the emptiness that followed the heady moment when I thought my dad was alive. There was nothing to make those dream moments any less horribly sad than my waking ones.