A Comforting Dream, Part 1 of 3

Ever had a dream that felt like more than a dream?

I feel like I'm taking a chance writing this in public. For one thing, any narrative that one seeks to describe out of a dream always makes you sound kooky. But also, some of the assumptions I make about dreams in general based on this dream might make me sound like a wacko to you. I guess I should just start by describing the dream.

It's been a couple of weeks now, but I had this dream where Mom was coming to visit me for a week. She was coming down from Alabama with her mother & her sister. The first day she came, she and I reconnected in affectionate ways that are normal for mothers & their sons (and as was normal for us). I always enjoyed it when Mom scratched my head & played with my hair; so I would oftentimes lean against her shoulder & let her play with my hair. In this dream, Mom & I were doing this on our first day together. I didn't have an awareness of the strangeness of this encounter because of Mom's death; I was simply enjoying the rich, full amount of time we had together after recognizing that we had been apart for some time. The best way to describe this part of the dream was that Mom & I were reconnecting both physically and emotionally.

I'll get more into this next part of the dream in another upcoming entry, but the very next day Mom surprised me with the news that she, her sister, and her mother were going to cut their trip short. They had to go abruptly, seemingly after having planned to spend time with me for a week. I was upset, we had a conversation about it, and then all of a sudden I woke up.

When I woke up, I remembered every detail of this dream. In fact, the dream stayed with me & sort of dominated my thoughts the whole day.

I'm not a dreams expert. I haven't read a whole lot about dreams. But my Mom (who had a Masters in Social Work) did, and she passed a lot of what she knew on to me. I recognize that a lot of what happens in dreams is the subconscious element of the mind working out & dealing with matters that haven't been resolved consciously. And, really, it seems that there is a whole lot more that we do NOT know about dreams than what we do know. With that in mind, I wonder if it is possible that what I dreamed was in some way Mom, in the spirit realm, reaching out to comfort me.

I know that sounds nutty. I usually don't believe in that kind of stuff. In fact, if it weren't so insensitive to do so, I'd probably often burst people's bubbles when they voice stuff like that. But what if it's possible? We have stories in Scripture where God seems to use dreams from time to time, from Jacob's ladder to Paul's Man of Macedonia. What if it's possible that God let Mom interact with me in my subconscious-controlled state? What if he let us have a moment together because I miss her & she missed me? Just because the experience was so rich and there were so many parts that felt so real, I almost think that that is what happened.

Even if it that's not what happened, I was comforted. There are a couple other elements of these dreams that have been anything but comforting, though. I'll be addressing those soon.