Are You Spirits or People?
Some thoughts on dreams.
I started a “Dreams” folder on my Google drive a couple of years ago. Every morning, I try to write down, stream-of-consciousness style, whatever I can remember from my dreams the night before, even if it’s just a fragment.
Sometimes before bed, I’ll ask my subconscious to give me an answer to a creative problem I’m trying to solve (doesn’t always work, but hey, can’t hurt to ask.)
Sometimes I’ll use a dream image or line of dialogue as inspiration — I have very cinematic dreams even though I can’t visualize. I used a line that terrified me in a horror feature I made: “we have been announced.” In the context of my dream, the power was out in my neighborhood and a serial killer was on the loose. The person who said this was announcing the fact that he was secretly the serial killer, and he was one of many (!).
Other times my dreams are simply an interesting window into my subconscious, and the act of recording them, even the tiniest flash of a memory, can evoke more details or sparks of insight.
As I’m writing this, I just recalled a single image from my dream last night, a dream I thought I’d forgotten:
A key in a hotel shaped strangely, a triangle that slid into the lock. I had the sense that perhaps one key opened every door.
But sometimes I have a dream that doesn’t feel like a dream at all. It feels like I’ve journeyed to a different plane of existence. Here’s one of those dreams.
I was on a plane, I can’t remember where to, and we got rerouted or something and landed in Brazil. The flight attendant told me we were in Rio as I was getting off the plane, and she said we were also close to another town (or airport?) called Tuvud or something like that (there may have been a train to get there.)
I got off the plane and walked down a hallway that opened up into a kind of convention center. It seemed like sort of a mall or market with different rooms set up with goods and people walking around. There were a couple of food places and I was hungry so I wanted to check them all out before making a decision. One was crowded and had TVs and looked like a sports bar so I skipped it.
I saw a train underground, like a white bullet train and I had the thought “Is that the train out of the airport?” but I didn’t get on it. I wanted to find a place to sit down and put my phone on international roaming and look for a place to stay for the next 3 days (for some reason I was going to be here for 3 days.)
I was walking down a crowded hallway (I think? Or maybe I was on a bus? But I was still inside this convention center) and a woman carrying a lot of stuff thought I had bumped into her but I hadn’t. She said she couldn’t find her flowers. But then she found them and they were a little messed up. I was still looking for somewhere to eat and didn’t find anything I liked so I ended up going back to the sports bar (I think.)
I was wondering how I was going to communicate and read the menu since I don’t speak Portuguese, but for some reason everyone was speaking English. I went up to the crowded bar and then my dad was there. It seemed like he had been with me the whole time, even though I know he hadn’t been on the plane. He looked tired and was drinking a beer, which at some point he spilled and then the bartender gave him another one.
But I was like, I don’t think you should be drinking beer? Aren’t you on medication? He didn’t listen but started to look like he was going to pass out and spilled some more and then I think he put the beer down. I was still trying to get something to eat but couldn’t find a menu and finally just asked the bartender for a cucumber drink that I saw someone else drinking.
Then dad and I were trying to figure out where to stay. I suggested we go to my cousin E.’s house since I thought he lived in Rio. Then I also had the thought that maybe we were in Sao Paolo and if so we could also go to my other cousin K.’s because she still lived there.
We showed up at E’s apartment and it was night and crowded with people. My cousin A. was there too, although it may have actually been K. It took E. a minute to place us.
A./K. asked, “Are you spirits or people? Because there are a lot of spirits around all the time and I can’t tell the difference.”
I said, “People!” like it was obvious. They both said sorry but there was no room for us to stay the night and we said no problem, we’ll get a hotel nearby and we can all have breakfast in the morning. Everyone was pleased with this plan and we left.
For context, my dad passed away three years ago, and my cousin K. is actually psychic.
To me, the airport in this dream felt like a liminal space where spirits travel through after death. I couldn’t find any food because dead people don’t need to eat, and the woman with all of her stuff was carrying emotional baggage from her life, the messed up flowers were from her grave/funeral. My cousin’s house was actually crowded with spirits that were in the process of crossing over. And the white bullet train carries the spirits to their next destination, whatever that is…
Anyone else out there have dreams like this?
Until next time,
Tara