Dreams Vs. Reality

I have had two successive nights of dreams about meditation. It appeared to my mind as a separate existence, a refined and peaceful place marked as beyond a huge beautifully carved teak divider. In the dream, I marked each time I sat in invisible gel I painted on the divider. I marveled at how as it dried, it disappeared. It probably points to that fact that even with all the years, my practice has not fully manifested in daily life. Not in a bad way. I don’t appear to others as supremely relaxed, much in part to the difficulties processing that my brain injury has affected me. Of course, I am markedly better than I was 10 years ago, and life is a process where one is never done. A few people have noticed changes and it particular my partner. These dreams don’t smack of desires unfulfilled but more a sign of how the brain has divided my meditation experience vs. day-to-day living. I can hope that these two will merge closer, perhaps at the moment of death. So be it.

Then, last night, my third night I had dreams about people close to me that died young, and they came back to make jokes with me about my older body versus when they knew me. It was pleasant and welcoming sign of getting closer to existing like them.  It never appeared as a nightmare, and they were very friendly and fun dreams. I even woke with the desire to call them. When people young die close to you and often faster than expected(20 and 30’s) you scramble to figure out your own existence masking your hurt at the time. I had fortified myself to appear stronger than what was felt internally. These things come out as you meditate, often in a good way….a natural cry of release of all you held back. This is not happening now but did the first couple years of long retreats. Now, anything I would have held back in the past is felt immediately and reacted upon. For those that don’t meditate you don’t become helpless, you instead, become freer.