Happier dreams

photo of farmhouse by Julius Csaszar

By now it should be obvious that I have vivid and imaginative dreams.  The kind you have when you sleep, at least.  There is one dream theme that reoccurs, and one kind of dream that I’ve only had a couple of times.  The first is based around the subject of the farm where my daddy grew up, and the latter is a phenomenon where I time travel.  Last night I had both combined into one.

The actual farmhouse is a four-room cottage with a kitchen house in the back.  Legend has it that the place is haunted.  Daddy never said it wasn’t true, so it must be.  It is no surprise then that the majority of my farm dreams are frightening dreams about ghosts and secret forbidden rooms you dare not enter.  The unusual thing is that in most of my farm dreams the house is fantastic with large rooms and modern amenities.  The house in my dreams is never as it really is.

In my dream last night the farmhouse was big and pleasant.  The rooms were large and spacious. I was outside with Daddy.  He was younger and doing some kind of work in the yard.  Grandpa appeared to me, first as a ghost, but then he was real.  He asked me to go for a walk with him. I was so excited to see him and so proud he wanted to spend time with me.  Through our conversation I came to understand that Daddy was supposed to inherit the farm when Grandpa died and he was to move there and become a farmer.  Grandpa was disappointed that he didn't. 

We were walking through the house and I saw a picture of Grandma in her wedding dress.  Then I realized I was back in time so I asked Grandpa if the dress was in the house because I wanted to see it.  He said there was only a piece of it left.  Then I started crying and said, “Grandpa, I have something to tell you”.  Through my tears I told him how someone had broken in the house after he died and had stolen everything.  The thieves had dumped out all of the dresser drawers onto the floor and everything had ruined over the years.  This is all true, and it hurt me so bad to have to tell him about it. 

When we made it back to where Daddy was working Grandpa disappeared.  Then somehow, magically, I went back in time and history changed.  Daddy did become a farmer after Grandpa died, and he moved all of us kids to the farm, and that's where we grew up. 

I was looking at the scene from the outside and I saw myself as a 5 or 6 year-old, snaggle-toothed, little girl standing barefoot on the hardwood kitchen floor.  The house was not scary at all.  It was warm and inviting.  Grandma was there cooking, and some unlikely cousin was at the table watching me.  There were two men at the table too, and I took them to be farmhands.  Actually, I wasn't standing, I was dancing!!  I was doing a clogging/tap dancing jig, and I was so happy my feelings could only be described as joy.  Even though I was observing I could still feel the emotions.  I don't remember ever being that happy.  My life had completely changed because I had grown up out there. 

What does it all mean?  Are dreams just memories that get jumbled up and play through our brain when it is at complete rest?  Are they our secret wants and desires we dare not share in waking? Or are they premonitions our psyche reveals when our inhibitions are down?  Whatever they are, my life would not be as rich without them.