Just Like Heaven
I have never woken up from a dream before and celebrated the fact that it wasn't real. This is what happened the other day when I woke up from a particularly disturbing dream...
My brother, 11 years old, was dead. I don't know how it happened. It was just an accepted fact of the dream. Everyone in my family was distraught. I was. I love my brother (and the other one too, and my sisters...) and so this was naturally quite a distressing fact. It was accepted in the dream, yet it also felt rather unreal. My dream itself felt extremely real - I could feel the anxiety in myself about it - but the state of existence within the dream actually felt like I was dreaming within that.
During this period of mourning, for some reason, I sat in the garden with my mum and dad. I brought out a portable CD player and played them the song "Just Like Heaven" by the Cure. They didn't seem to know the song before (I'm sure they do in real life... they used to be fans of the Cure) ... and I pointed out that the song bears some similarity to "Inbetween Days", by the same band. The song itself is a reasonably happy one. But now I can't listen to it without thinking of this dream, so it's taken on a rather sad significance. I remember hearing the lines "Just like a dream... just like a dream" and thinking that was important.
Seems strange that in a dream about someone dying, my brain decides to pick out a song with the words "just like heaven" and "just like a dream" in it. This didn't occur to me during the dream
I left the garden and went upstairs... where, to my surprise, my brother comes running out of his bedroom. Yet, I know he's dead. This was a ghost of him, except it didn't look like one. Indeed, I was so happy to see him that I picked him up and spun around with him. I felt like I was being given one last opportunity to talk to him, play a game with him and say goodbye.
Next thing I know I hear a loud vibrating sound in two pulses, just like my mobile phone would make if I leave it on top of a table or desk. It wakes me up.
Realising it was all a dream, I punched the air in relief and celebration. The time? 8:20am. The last time I was awake? 8:00am, when I switched off my alarm. I tend to get my most vivid dreams if I fall back asleep after I've turned off the alarm clock.
The weirdness would have been complete if I'd gone over to my phone and noticed I'd got a text message... but there was nothing there. The vibration sound must have been inside my dream as well.
This dream has left my slightly disturbed. I miss my brothers, sisters and my nephew a lot... and this is something I barely considered last year. Suddenly, they seem to have a lot more significance to me.
My brother, 11 years old, was dead. I don't know how it happened. It was just an accepted fact of the dream. Everyone in my family was distraught. I was. I love my brother (and the other one too, and my sisters...) and so this was naturally quite a distressing fact. It was accepted in the dream, yet it also felt rather unreal. My dream itself felt extremely real - I could feel the anxiety in myself about it - but the state of existence within the dream actually felt like I was dreaming within that.
During this period of mourning, for some reason, I sat in the garden with my mum and dad. I brought out a portable CD player and played them the song "Just Like Heaven" by the Cure. They didn't seem to know the song before (I'm sure they do in real life... they used to be fans of the Cure) ... and I pointed out that the song bears some similarity to "Inbetween Days", by the same band. The song itself is a reasonably happy one. But now I can't listen to it without thinking of this dream, so it's taken on a rather sad significance. I remember hearing the lines "Just like a dream... just like a dream" and thinking that was important.
Seems strange that in a dream about someone dying, my brain decides to pick out a song with the words "just like heaven" and "just like a dream" in it. This didn't occur to me during the dream
I left the garden and went upstairs... where, to my surprise, my brother comes running out of his bedroom. Yet, I know he's dead. This was a ghost of him, except it didn't look like one. Indeed, I was so happy to see him that I picked him up and spun around with him. I felt like I was being given one last opportunity to talk to him, play a game with him and say goodbye.
Next thing I know I hear a loud vibrating sound in two pulses, just like my mobile phone would make if I leave it on top of a table or desk. It wakes me up.
Realising it was all a dream, I punched the air in relief and celebration. The time? 8:20am. The last time I was awake? 8:00am, when I switched off my alarm. I tend to get my most vivid dreams if I fall back asleep after I've turned off the alarm clock.
The weirdness would have been complete if I'd gone over to my phone and noticed I'd got a text message... but there was nothing there. The vibration sound must have been inside my dream as well.
This dream has left my slightly disturbed. I miss my brothers, sisters and my nephew a lot... and this is something I barely considered last year. Suddenly, they seem to have a lot more significance to me.
posted by Matt at
10:26 am
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