“Picture” This

“Do you dream often? Do you remember your dreams?”

I dream all the time. I used to remember my convoluted dreams in detail and relate them to the long-suffering Husband, who would shake his head. (He almost never remembers his dreams at all, even when I wake him from  nightmares.)

However, in the last decade or so, most of my dreams just lift in the mornings like fog.

I won’t even go into daydreaming, which I do a lot of. I can’t fathom how people go through life without imagination, but then, it amazes me that people can’t or worse, would not want to, write, but again, I digress.

I have had a few actual dreams that have been, if not life-changing, certainly have been lifelong.

Seriously, I remember two distinct dreams that I had when I was four. I am not going to go into them. One was simple and involved Elvis, which certainly had to be from my sister’s influence. I am still working on the other one, since that one truly made a major impact in my life.

I had another type of dream, a recurring one most of my early life where I was hiding out and deathly afraid to be found. I never saw those from whom I was hiding, and for many years, I never heard voices. Hiding and being caught is a fear of mine; I absolutely hated to play hide-and-go-seek. I’d end up purposely being caught rather than endure the torture of waiting in fear.

These dreams didn’t happen very often; they were short, but they were intense. Finally, in one I experienced as an adult after they started coming a bit closer together, I heard the people from whom I was hiding speaking a foreign language. When I woke up, I was totally confused. I knew people from that country, some good, some bad, (as happens with people from any people), but I had no fear of them, and this took me completely by surprise.

I was confused, but happy. I now had a handle on it, and immediately knew what to do:
I exposed myself to that language.
I never actually learned the language, but I did some studying. I knew, I just knew that knowledge would be power, and I believed that I would not have those dreams again, or would not be afraid in one if one came to me.

I was right on the first count; I never had a hiding-out dream again.

I could go on. I know that I have had some very funny ones, (which escape me at the moment), but I want to tell you  a story of two dreams, which were somewhat related.

A very close friend of mine died about a dozen years or more ago. We only corresponded, first through a group, then email, but we were in contact every day, several times a day, often with running conversations.

 I can only imagine what we would have done with messaging!

We saw each other through person problems, family illnesses and deaths. We sent gifts and we had a lot of fun together. We could never get together in person, but we could not have been closer if we lived next door to each other.

She helped me through my illnesses, and I was as with her as much as possible through hers, even the one which took her life, but I did it from here in Kentucky, to her in Iowa.

A short time after she died, I had an extremely vivid dream of her. She had been unable to travel to see me, so in the dream, The Husband and I went to see her. She insisted on taking photographs, lots of photographs. Oddly, she was using an old-fashioned portrait camera, hood and all:

She spoke of my other family members, whom she knew well through me, as I had grown to know hers. It wasn’t a very long dream, but it stayed with me. Despite my getting on with my crazy life, it kept popping into my mind. Except for the camera, it felt so real, and the memory of it kept stopping me in my tracks.

After a number of days, another memory hit me, and nearly took the breath from me.

I remembered my mother telling me of a dream that she had. Since my mother had been gone for at least five years at this time and her dream happened years before that, I was stunned.

Mom had told me that she was rather overwhelmed by a very real dream of my sister’s late mother-in-law. The woman died young, (in her 40s), and had been gone for probably 20 years at that point.

My mother said that she seemed to be in her home where my sister and her daughters were visiting, and in walked my sister’s late mother-in-law.
The two women had a very cordial relationship, even though their children’s marriage was a rocky one. The other woman had died when their mutual granddaughters were very young, but now they were grown, and the oldest had a young son.

Mom said that Betty was so real, and although she was a bit surprised at first, she said to Betty, “Oh, did you come to see the baby?” The boy was no longer exactly a baby, but  Betty never spoke, she just smiled. No one else seemed to know that she had arrived, yet she mingled among them

with a small camera, taking photographs.

I was overwhelmed myself when this came to mind.

I believe that there is a spiritual realm, maybe more than one realm. 
Can people visit from beyond? Can they ‘pass thorough’, as it were?

Most cultures think so. I don’t know if it happens often or seldom, or if we are just not aware when they come through. Those with near-death experiences often tell the same type of stories about seeing their loved ones and passing up the possibility of contacting them so as not to disturb them, but perhaps a visit in a dream can be handled by many, and our loved ones make use of them.

I have not researched whether the image of taking photos is a common theme with those who believe such visits are possible, but I did write a free-form poem about Betty’s ‘visit’.

I have had dreams of others who have gone before, and at least one other was very ‘real’ to me, though  these are two very real ones with the picture-taking in common.

Have you ever had dreams of visits of those who passed? Have you ever dreamed of  them taking photographs?

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