Sleeping With The Dreamer

I get in bed. Snuggling under the cozy covers. Always laying on my right side on the right side of the bed with my right ear down since it’s lost 50% of hearing. Flannel sheets and pillowcases comfort me. On top is another flannel sheet for layering and two thick cotton blankets made in Germany.

            Physically, I am alone. My body is the only body in this queen-sized bed. But I am not alone. The Dreamer takes over as my Self goes to sleep.

            Notice the cliches. “Fall” asleep. “Drift off” to sleep. “Go” to sleep. They are all active verbs. As though sleep were a destination. Back in the day when I was a workaholic and lived by lists—and lists of lists— I one day awoke (pun intended) to the fact that I saw sleep as just one more thing on the list I had to get done that day. The last thing, for sure. But still, it was ON the list in my mind.

            Sleep, now, is no longer an activity or event or chore. It’s not an accomplishment nor a goal. To sleep is to surrender into an embrace. And then The Dreamer takes over.

            Sometimes we go to familiar places or engage with familiar people. Most of the time it’s new, strange, challenging, confusing, unnerving, or revelatory. Sometimes it’s downright foreign. Literally. Languages in our dreams have ranged from Japanese and Russian to French, Spanish, and Italian. And The Dreamer understands them! When I awake, I feel like I’ve been to the Tower of Babel and back.

            Such a fascinating world sleep can be. And more real than the “real” world. Where often solutions to my own problems or issues are revealed. They float up into my consciousness like answers to questions asked of the 8-Ball.

            Deep, vast, limitless. The Dreamer knows no bounds. And I fully trust The Dreamer. Like a Guardian Angel or the Holy Ghost, it takes me where I need to go. Or shows me what I need to see. Sometimes as a warning. Or a reminder. Or a heads-up.

            During an especially difficult time in my life, The Dreamer showed me walking—by myself—against traffic. Dense pedestrian traffic. The masses going blindly one way. And there I was, forging my way in the opposite direction. I was getting there!

            When I woke, I had renewed faith and courage to continue, being newly-divorced after 30 years of marriage, new in a small town where I knew no one and everyone else was married, and starting a new business all on my own.

            Ah, sleep. Perchance to dream?

            I should hope so.