I am getting ready to go to Jackson to visit my folks and just woke from a nightmare-like dream. So vivid. Called CJ (daugher Caryn Jo) to tell her. She agreed I should write it down. Maybe some day I will understand it.
This is what I remember. The ages of the kids puts the time-frame of the dream about 1974.
I don’t know what went before. This is where I became “aware” of the story. My current real life next door neighbors’ yard was next door in the dream. Our family dog, Brandy, had been missing. Where I remember the dream beginning (although I had the sense of it being in progress prior to this) is me looking out the window and seeing the neighbor’s yard with a hole in the back yard. At first it wasn’t that big but during the dream it kept getting bigger.
At first it was about two feet wide. Somehow I knew it was deep -- 10-15 feet.
I look out the window. It is almost evening but still light. I see Brandy. He is in the hole but nearly to the top. He is covered in dirt and mud and struggling to reach the top of the hole. And get out. Somehow I know he has done this many times. And is doing it once again. He struggles and almost makes it. But finally falls back.
I am relieved to know where he’s been. But concerned. It seems natural to think we’ll go over there tomorrow morning and get a ladder or something and help get him out.
Now it is the next day. Tom and John are about 10-12 years old. They seem to be running around the neighborhood trying to find a ladder.
My first thought when I realize Brandy is trapped down in this hole is that we could put a rope down and if we could somehow get him to grab it with his teeth, we could pull and he could claw (like he had been doing for how long?) his way to the top. But I figured we wouldn’t be able to make him understand to grab the rope with his teeth. So that’s when I decided we needed a ladder.
Why we can’t find a ladder, I don’t know. As part of the dream it seems I am aware that we make many unsuccessful attempts to do so.
The hole is getting bigger. Now it is about the size of three cars in width at the top and I can easily see down in it. The bottom is narrower than the top. Meaning the sides are slanted.
Now Jerry is down there. I don’t know his age but his hair is not grey. He is stocky, though.
Suddenly he leans back against one side of the hole. As though he is in pain or having some kind of physical problem. As part of the dream, I wonder if he’s having a heart attack.
I am the observer in all this. Although I sense that I have been directing efforts to get Brandy out.
Now there are filing cabinets along some of the sides of the hole. And Tom and John are down there now too. They and their dad seem to think pulling some of the drawers open helter-skelter would make stair-step like levels and Brandy (and they?) could climb out that way.
I “think” this is not a good idea. I am concerned that the open drawers will make the filing cabinets topple over.
I don’t know if I convey this to them or just think it in my observer mode.
Sure enough, one of the cabinets falls over. It lands on Lisa. Suddenly, she is down there too. Where she has been till now, I don’t know but now she is there. She is about 4-5 years old.
Jerry doesn’t seem to realize the cabinet has fallen on top of her. I try to tell him. He almost doesn’t believe me. But moves it enough to realize she is under there.
I can see her face. Her eyes tell me she is in pain and frightened. Her lower lip is trembling and her arms and legs are shaking also.
I am trying to make Jerry understand that she is hurt but he doesn’t seem to realize it. He seems to be carelessly pulling her from under the cabinet. Her constant eye contact with me makes me know how distressed she is.
All I want to do is grab her and hold her and comfort her.
Where Caryn has been in all this I don’t know.
That’s when I wake up.
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