Sweet Dreams

I've been dreaming about Max a lot over the past few nights.  Finally my dreams aren't nightmares.  In fact, I have a feeling that they are full of meaning but alas, I know nothing about dream interpretation. Listening to someone tell the details of their nonsense dreams is pretty much annoying, I know, so feel free to skim this post.  I won't be offended.  Two nights ago, I dreamed that we had another baby.  A little girl.  She looked JUST like Max.  I am holding out hope that we are the type of parents that can make all kids that look alike.  Ted's parents made two pretty similar looking kids.  My friend Jess and her husband Steve totally make one type of kid.  Their little girl and boy look just alike.  So, anyway, my baby girl looked just like Max.  She was also sweet and smiley and easy.  I kept pressing her face against my face so I could kiss her and smell her.  It was so real.  It felt like Max was back.  I miss him so much.  Of course, I woke up aching for him.  My arms felt empty and I was sick to my stomach.  But, I also felt like it hadn't been so long since the last time I saw him.  Last night's dream was definitely weird.  I kept seeing a 5 year old Max, standing with a black horse.  He was translucent and his image was flickering a bit.  I kept going to him to hug him but I would end up hugging air and then the image would jump a few feet further away.  I was chasing him all over a big field.  From nowhere, another boy showed up and Max looked scared and ran away from him.  I chased after Max as he ran up a staircase on the side of a house and hid.  He was talking to me though and he kept saying that something loved me.  Over and over.  "What are you saying?  I can't understand you Max", I kept repeating.  Then a non-dream like voice, a really human seeming voice said in my ear, "Yoga loves you".  I woke up and could feel the breath on my ear.  Creepy.  And, what the hell?  "Yoga" loves me?  I am not sure I feel the same.  My abs and hips are killing today from a particularly hellish session on Thursday.  If I've got any readers with dream analyzing skills, help me out here.  I guess the most important point is that instead of being scared to go to sleep because I fear nightmares, I am looking forward to sleep these days because I get to be with Max for a little while, if only in my own head.

I know someone else who used to have sweet dreams

6 comments

rebecca Patrick-Howard said...

Take it as you will, but my interpretation is that Maxie is sending someone into your life, someone he is partly responsible for choosing. I definitely believe you are making contact with him in your dreams. I had a similar dream with a staircase in it not long after Toby died. A friend of mine who practices a different religion wrote me, all excited, because apparently my dream was very similar to what they believe happens when you die and she was certain I had visited him (and not vice versa) in that dream.

I think the 5 year old Max was just the form that his spirit took on at the time. I believe spirits are ageless and sometimes they appear differently. Normally, the color black means a delay in something. My interpretation would be that something good is coming your way, although it's going to take awhile. And Max is telling you that he knows about it and is sending it to you.

I had a conversation with a friend after Toby died. I didn't understand why, before he was born, I saw him in dreams and he was a toddler. Obviously, he never reached that age. She thought she was beig helpful and told me that what I was probably seeing in my dreams was God's wish for Toby and what he could have been. At the time, I thought that was horrible. To me, it meant he was SUPPOSED to have lived to be a toddler but for whatever reason something terrible happened (like a mistake I made) and it didn't happen. Now, I look at it as it being his soul in toddler form appearing to me back then. When Pete's mom died two weeks after Toby his sister said that it was okay, she was in Heaven taking care of him. (We are not Christian so this didn't comfort us.) I don't like to imagine him being a baby, though. I like to think that in the afterlife he is able to do the things he couldn't on Earth and didn't have to stick to baby form. Maybe when I do see him again he will be a baby for me for awhile so that I can get the chance to see him as I remembered him but over time his spirit will take on different forms and we can have a different kind of relationship. Have conversations and things...

Sorry to get so theological on you. I think your dream was wonderful.

Joyce said...

I used to be very interested in dream analysis and keep a blank book by my bed so I could write them down. Then I read that the best way to know what your dreams mean, other than the obvious symbolic stuff, was that whatever your first instinctual interpretation is, whatever the first idea of what the dream means, is what it actually means.

Yael said...

I think it is a wonderful dream - and I agree with Rebecca I think good things are coming your way and that Maxie may have something to do with it.

Kathleen said...

Hi Abby,

I'm happy to read about your sweet dream and see the adorable picture of Maxie enjoying some too. So precious. : )

I wrote in a previous comment about my grandmother possibly "visiting" me in one of my dreams shortly after she transitioned. (I don't really refer to it as "dying...") Well, my experience with her communicating in a dream was similar to what you wrote. It seemed a little "creepy." It was nondream-like and scared me a bit, but I suppose because I don't completely understand such. I feel strange even sharing about it, especially on a public blog (private person over here) but...

My personal analysis of your dream (please take what you like and leave the rest): I think Maxie is communicating his much forever love for you the best he can. I think you two are connecting with each other the best you can in a different way (and I know it is not the ideal, favorable way). I think he's happy and smiling to always see you and that you are doing yoga - as it's such a wonderful way for his mommy to take care of her whole self (mind, body, "spirit" and heart).

Wishing many more sweet dreams,
Kathleen

Nechama Tamler said...

Hi Abby, I had a teacher in graduate school who taught us a little about dream interpretation. I was pregnant with Yoni at the time and had a very real but fantastic dream that I still remember, 36 years later because of the analysis I did with it at the time. The professor's idea was that every aspect of a dream is a projection of a part of yourself...including any people in the dream, any objects in the dream, etc. What I remember about this is that the dreamer is really the only one who can really KNOW what the dream is meant to tell. Maybe it is some profound message from your subconscious that manifests itself in imagery that grabs you and doesn't let go.

I also recently read a book that I had seen reviewed in the New York Times Book Review about a month ago and then I borrowed it from the Library--The Grief of Others--it is fiction and very well written--about a family who loses a baby at birth. It made me think of you; if you are reading these days, I recommend it.

I think of you often and send my wishes for a r'fu'ah sh'layma---healing of body and soul. And ask your forgiveness in advance if anything I have said is upsetting to you.

Sari Stricke said...

I like what Kathleen said and I agree about the yoga, too... I was really glad to see you at Golden Bridge.

I feel that this dream shows so much connectedness between you and your relations on a mysterious soul level.