Stephanie says

I awoke from a nap with a fully formed plan to load up the dogs and go spend the night with my mom at the 20 th street house.   Long naps leave me disorientated, no understatement that.   I had richly detailed visuals running through my mind of the steeply pitched roof, red door, towering laurel hedges lining the backyard, Mom waiting for me in the kitchen.   My mind was addled between past and present but gradually realized I was missing a key point.   We didn’t own that house anymore.   Our family home for 27 years, sold long ago. Mom bought that house in 1970, the first house she ever purchased on her own.   It was an act of courage and a step toward new beginnings.   Dad died suddenly the previous year leaving her, at age 37, with three teenagers to rear.   She was petrified at the financial commitment of a $28,000 mortgage.       She was barely functioning when we first moved into the house, sleeping away th...

I have vivid dreams. They explode into my deep sleep with movie intensity, reel after reel. Something I suspect rather peculiar is the particular location of these dreams. The vast majority of them are in two settings: one atop our grassy hill where I lived as a child in pastoral Sitkum in a little, pink stick-built house surrounded by myrtle trees; the other a two-story porched house set amongst towering trees where a middle-school friend lived at the end of our lane in Eugene. As I write that line I realize I visualize these same locations while reading. The plantation at Tara is at the Eugene location in my mind. Think about your dream locales peeps. Do you have primary locations where dreams occur? I’d love to hear your thoughts. The other night my dream took me to the seashore but through a curious landscape shape shift, now an ocean cove butted up to the Sitkum grassy hill. The actual ocean was just beyond a peninsula, which one could reasonably expect to protect the cove from br...

From the time he was a very small boy he had a recurring dream. More familiar each time, he finds himself in a residential area in unknown city. He is confused because he is alone, walking on a sidewalk on a street lined with hovering and somehow big menacing houses, late at night, catching glimpses of the moon as scudding clouds cross the night sky. Fog billows and condenses around street lamps glowing dim then bright in wafts of mist. He’s not allowed to be out at after dark and he is certainly not permitted to be wandering unfamiliar city streets alone. He is very frightened but continues walking. He notices a twisted, wickedly speared wrought iron fence next to the sidewalk, looks up and sees a square multi-storied brick house fronted with many darkened windows, a column lined vestibule centered between them. Trees are creaking and groaning in the breeze. Gazing at the house his feelings of foreboding escalate to terror. He knows something bad is about to happen. Something really, ...

We meet downtown at the park. I am so happy to see him, we are elated to see each other, we’re both grinning ear to ear and can’t stop touching. We talk excitedly, our words rushing into and over each others conversation. Our hands are clasped tightly. I’m never letting go. My eyes open and spy the bedside alarm clock; it reads 12:15 a.m. Dammit, I let go of his hand. But I’m still grinning. He died 12 years ago and I miss him dreadfully, but I’m happy when he comes to me in dreams now and again.

Pinned. Can’t move. Pressure on my chest. Gripped by terror. Can’t breathe. Heart pounding so hard I’m afraid it will burst from my chest. Pinned. Can’t move. Can’t breathe. I try to fight, can’t move. Groan. I hear “you’re dreaming, wake up” And reality breaks through the surface of the nightmare. I awake drenched in sweat, gasping for breath. This Is A Theme Thursday Post. Click this link to check out what others have written on the subject of surface.

He takes my by surprise, slipping into my dreams, beguiling me with a dimpled smile I’m elated to see. Muddled, confused, the moment our eyes meet my hesitation vanishes. I’m enthralled at his physical presence. I remain breathless throughout hoping for a touch. As the dream unfolds in disjointed story line I begin to wake. And struggle to dream a little longer, yearning already for his essence which evaporates with consciousness. Fully awake now in sweaty tangled sheets, an empty ache in my belly. I cry for what has gone.