Dreams of dying / Problem solving

Last night I dreamed I died.

I was driving home from some unknown location. It was flooded, and there was a lot of water on the road... so much that it was like driving across some vast section of glass... you couldn't even see that there was a road if it weren't for the truckers' coming towards you, marking out the asphalt path. I tried to stay close to the truckers, to mark their path where it was safe.

I got to the end of the road where it met the horizon and went to make my turn to the right, but the truck I was using to mark my path mis-estimated, and went falling off into space, off the side of the big big cliff, and I went with him. There was that sick moment when you think that somehow you're going to have a near miss, that you're going to pull it out at the last minute, and then the feeling of the wheels slipping off the concrete into thin air. It was so high that all you could see was clouds below. I remember knowing that I was about to die.

It took so long to fall. Somehow I was out of my car, falling through space. I had time to talk to God.. to ask for forgiveness. To ask to be taken home. To plead for
it to go quickly so that there would be no pain. I fell through the layers of clouds until I saw the ground coming up at me. And then it was there, and there was a bright flash of light, and it was over.

I went home, and B was there, sitting in a chair working on something. He didn't seem to know I was dead. I was suffused with a huge sensation of grief, overwhelming. Desperately I fell to my knees and buried my head in his lap, sobbing. I begged his forgiveness for being so stupid, to drive off the road and kill myself, to cut short our time so soon. It wasn't being dead that hurt me; it was the concept of being separate from B. He was soothing, and he smiled. He said something about it not being over. He touched me and it was okay. I was saved.

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When we got up this morning after the dream, I was shaken. It was so incredibly vivid. We spent some clingy moments trying to erase the memories. It wasn't till after we'd had our cup of coffee and the paper and I was putting on my makeup, that it came to me.

I popped out of the bathroom, mascara in hand. "It's a work-dream!" I exclaimed. (Bless his heart, B is getting used to my excited non-sequiturs.)

"How do you figure?" he asked.

The symbology was there all along. It had been tickling at the back of my brain. And we'd been talking about work issues just the night before. My job deals with environmental issues, with water in particular. And I came to my job with no experience or education, and have been learning in situ, on my own, for the past year. I've relied heavily on asking questions of others' expertise when I get in over my head, but it's been weighing on me that I don't have a background in my field where I feel I should. There's a real fear that eventually someone will ask me to weigh in on something I know nothing about, and that could prove to be disastrous.

"The water... all the water. It's my job! I'm driving across all that water and I can't even see the road.... where to go. I have to follow the 'bigger trucks', because they know where the road is."

We were both there. It was right on the money. "But who is the truck that led you off the edge... the one that fell with you?"

A good question. Could it be the individual we've been having so much trouble with at work? The one who 'drives recklessly, without looking'? The one who, Pied Piper-like, convinces everyone through sheer ego and bravado that he knows far more about everything than anyone else and that they should follow him blindly? Is he about to 'fall to his death'? And will I be swept over the side with him?

Hmm.... thoughts to ponder. It's true that I was seduced by this individual's speeches for a long time; I looked up to him and believed that everything he said was gospel. He was my mentor. It wasn't until the scales fell from my eyes that I found out that all that he'd told me wasn't true. And that it was hurting me professionally to be associated with him. But I've been detached from his influence for a long time now.

What am I dreaming? Am I to 'fall to my death' at work?? Or is this just my fear?

And, most poignant of all, most telling of all... is that it didn't matter that I was dead, but that to be dead was to be separated from B, and from all that we've planned and made. It all comes back to that.

The conflicts of the days past have been shrunk to proportion. I know where my heart lies.



Oh, and....

..... share and share alike. :-) I have the cold now too. LOLOLOLOL