Let’s change pace again – no pics or pith…just words before I forget them.
There’s something about Thailand that mashes up my subconscious like a banana in a blender.
My sweet Thai dreams last night were again haunted by weirdness and spirits from the past.
It wasn’t a bad thing, and the haunting this time was not in a clanky chain “lock you in the house” or “muddy footprint 👣 at the bedroom door”scary kinda way – more in a “ooo look I found a secret place” kinda way.
No cryptic messages or foreboding of any form.
Hmm in retrospect I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing to have routine visitations. It always seems to happen here.
What the Hell is going on in this brain of mine lately?
So anyway – it went something like this : I was talking to a unknown guy in a house I was renting (I think) and we were talking/arguing about rent or cleaning or something stupid like that; I saw someone I knew just walk on by – a former housemate – and I was trying to talk to her. She didn’t answer, but just walked on quickly, turning around the corner of the house.
A little annoyed, I followed and turned left onto a long misty pathway lined with tall green trees and covered in vines – all backlit theatrically with a shimmery golden light- and then boom! there they all were! A long scattered line of figures stretched out the path before me, all just hanging about, chatting to each other and doing their own thing.
Then I realised they were mostly people I knew that had passed away.
My Mom was there! She was the first one I saw, just standing on the corner in her hospital gown. She looked right at me but didn’t seem to see me, busy talking to someone else. It was Mom of 20 years ago, before the dementia and strokes robbed her of movement, expression and speech.
So I kept walking, super curious now but strangely not surprised to see her.
Behind Mom, there was an old childhood crush of mine (who is still alive Thank God) – I called out her name and rushed over to hug her close – weird but even as I write this I can still feel her on my fingertips; it’s so weird – a lingering sense of the small bones of her spine and toned back muscles from where my hands touched her.
She didn’t speak but just hugged me back.
I let go and kept on walking.
Further along that weirdly lit road were other people from my past – aunts and uncles, friends and long dead distant relatives, some barely remembered from childhood. All dead and gone now but most I hadn’t thought about for a long long time.
Curiouser and curiouser! (thanks Alice). I simply walked past them all, down along the pathway, acknowledged their existence but still none of them seemed to see me.
There were strangers there as well but they were background players – all blurred edges and gossamer-like, in a perpetual soft focus a bit like the aliens at the end of Close Encounters.
I kept walking slowly down that golden gravel path into what could have been a perfect Bali sunset.
No it wasn’t like a movie or in slomo or all dramatic and shit. It just was.
I just walked as far as I felt I could but didn’t see anyone else I knew.
Then I simply woke up – instantly and with a silent WTF and the tingling sensory echo of that hug on my fingertips.
I am now quickly tapping this out before I forget the finer detail that I’m already losing so I’ll pretty it up later.
Let me head off some questions.
No Dad wasn’t there, which made me sad in the dream.
How did I feel? Confused, then happy, then elated (esp when I saw B)
What did they say? Nothing to me, at least – they we’re all engaged with each other.
How did I feel on waking?
Happysad.
It’s the lingering feeling on my fingertips that has me puzzled. Did this actually happen?
Did I travel backwards or forwards in time, space , whatever? Did I die a little? Was it the future?
I love a good crazyarse unexplained dream!
Anyhoo pull that apart, dream therapists and psych buds!
Weirded me out a bit I gotta say.
Later.
🙂
*SPOOKY UPDATE :
So I fly out of KL for Sydney late at 11.40pm, window seat, surrounded by massive purpling storm clouds snarling with angry lightning teeth, and the start of a monsoonal rainstorm hammering on the outside glass of my tiny window.
The packed jet takes forever to taxi out to the runway…waiting waiting waiting. It seems we are driving to Sydney, not flying.
The serious guy in front of me is shifty : I get a bad vibe from him and he is constantly looking around, avoiding the stewards, signalling other passengers, changing seats, and just doing things…wrong.
Upsetting the carefully scripted protocols of normal airline travel.
Rules are rules.
It puts me on edge and I watch him carefully.
Finally we reach the end of the taxiway, the jet turns onto the brightly lit strip, a long unending row of gently strobing runway lights stretching out into infinity.
As we turn the angle of the lights change, and with the smears of oil and rain on the window blurring reality, the whole runway shifts like a kaleidoscope; spins and settles then finally transforms into a sparkling golden pathway of diffused light.
I get a very bad feeling about this – hits me instantly in the pit of my stomach with a sharp stab of recognition.
This could be my dream!
Shit. That ain’t good.
The captain guns the engines. With a jolt we’re away fast and picking up speed. I’m smashed back into my seat with that glorious acceleration but my eyes are flicking from the runway lights to the guy in the seat ahead and back.
Glad I wore the brown pants today.
Deep breath.
Get ready for anything.
Here we go…
*it was all ok in the end. The shifty guy was just a nervous flyer, just too much caffeine for me and we easily avoided the storms. Got home fine although I was on edge all the way.
**really should’nt have had that last coffee before leaving Chiang Mai.
***see couldn’t help myself – had to turn it into a story 🙂
**** my Aunty G passed away quite suddenly yesterday – Thursday, the day after this dream – and I can’t help wonder a little more now about the meaning.
Man Down! 