Crazy dreams

I've been having some crazy dreams lately. People who have been out of my life for some time are prominent, situations that are long past are suddenly brought to the forefront, feelings that I didn't think I had or that I had forgotten suddenly come to light in my sleep. It's unsettling. It's disturbing. It makes me think that my thoughts of moving on and moving forward may not be as clear cut as I would like to think.

Or maybe that's not it at all. Maybe, because it's a dream, what it means is that I am facing new challenges and new questions but am turning to the past to see how to react. Maybe having been in similar situations or having felt similar feelings in the past, I am reminding myself that I was able to move past and move forward, no matter how dire or difficult I thought my situation was. Maybe it's in my dreams that I am not struggling to come to terms with the past but am rather fortifying myself to make changes and decisions in the future.

I have heard it said that you will continue to face the same problem over and over again until you learn the lesson you are supposed to, until you have the opportunity to get it right. Like a "Groundhog Day" movie, we relive moments over and over until we have a chance to figure out the ending we want, until we determine how it is we want to react. So while the situations may seem different as we move through life, maybe if we are reminded in our dreams or in real-time, of feelings we once had, it has not anything to do with that past situation and everything to do with what's right in front of us.

So when I wake up from these dreams, I will try to remind myself to sit and to think and to learn. To appreciate where it was I used to be and to embrace where it is I am right now. Because past relationships help us define what it is we most want and what it is we do not, and in the dreaming and the living we can slowly but surely learn the lessons we are supposed to, and find what's right and true for us in life as well as in our dreams.

This is the life.
-a

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