dreams

[felicula]

For once, I don't remember waking up before this dream. The timeline and details aren't as crisp and vivid. It was less visually oriented than it was emotionally detailed. There was still a visual and sequential component, though.

It started out with me and Aidan playing, then roughhousing. Something happened and Aidan went limp. I only remember clinging to him, holding him and hysterically sobbing. I knew that he was dead, and that it was my fault.

It broke my brain. I couldn't grasp how my playing that day was any different than how he and I had horsed around other days. I couldn't come to grips with my own guilt. There is no way I can describe it and adequately convey the sense of maddening despair.

I could start to have normal conversations with people, but then I'd remember as if the death had just occured. The veil of denial, sanity, and survival would pull back and throw me headlong back into hysterical sobbing. Every time I'd remember the death, I'd break down. I'd go through the motions of letting everyone know what happened like I had the first day after.

To me, every day seemeed like the day he died. I remember calling my mom, trying to break the news to her that her grandson was dead, only for her to tell me that she knew, that it happened a week ago. Then, and old friend called out of the blue, asking how Aidan was doing, and my cycle of insane hysterics began all over again.

The absolute grief was the star of the show. That must be what going completely and utterly insane is like. I was living in the moment, the throes of despair seemed more real to me than attempting to continue with real living. I grasped at any possible way to hook back into the ever-replaying cycle of grief. I was alive, yet caught out of time.

I can look at it from the perspective of a detatched observer as I write it down. My waking emotions didn't echo the dream ones. Reading it back, though, I'm crying as if experiencing a fraction of the grief again. It's vastly less than the emotions in the dream, though. There really is no way to fully express the depth of absolute despondency that I'd experienced in the dream.

I have no waking sense of Aidan in danger. It doesn't feel like a warning or a premonition. It was simply a dream, vivid in a new and different way. However, my dreams forge very real memories for me, especially vivid ones and ones that I spend so much time thinking about.


EDIT:

mechanchaos: at one point I thought that was what dreams were for, trying out emotions you never had before...

me: Ah... I dunno. This wasn't just "trying out". It was taking a swan dive into a depth of despondancy akin to the hell in What Dreams May Come, or worse. It was struggling for sanity while craving the very cycle that kept me right where I was in guilt and grief. It was... beyond words.

Comments

[coderlemming.livejournal.com]

:( :( :(

Somewhat often, I have dreams like that... I've lost friends, lost my cat, lost limbs, lost everything. Horrible thing upon horrible thing piles up further and further until I just can't handle it anymore... life goes to complete shit and I can't manage to recover it. Then I wake up to a bittersweet sense of relief as my real life washes over me, but I still feel the loss and complete despair from the dream.

Humans are incredibly complex little critters.

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

The part I have trouble reconciling is that there was no sense of relief upon waking. There's just this disconcerting overlay of the emotions I lived through while dreaming over the very real, living, energetic, and loving little boy running around the house.

This morning I can't hug him without crying. I've been having trouble talking about it without crying.

Intellectually, I know it wasn't real. I know that no harm came to my son for even a moment. I know it was all in my head. But emotionally, the loss has scarred me. The event wasn't real, but the feelings are VERY real. It's as if I crossed places into an alternate reality for a while and now I have to try to reconcile that and adapt to being back here. I can't just turn off the grief, though. I have a feeling I need to work through it like I would any real loss.

[dawnstar.livejournal.com]

That makes a lot of sense. Whenever a dream feels real to me - happy, sad, whatever - it takes me a lot of time to get back into this reality. Frequently, I don't actually want to, either. Even if it was a sad dream. Returning to the "real" world makes me feel disoriented, when I've dreamed that powerfully.

You may indeed have to work through this, and there may be something symbolic to it as well, something in your life that isn't as it should be and the dream is just the manifestation of that. By working through the dream, you'll work through the problem, and vice-versa. It may not even be related to Aidan.

Whatever I can do, you know I'm here. If you want distraction today, or want to talk, or a little of both, just say the word. *hugs n loves*

[dawnstar.livejournal.com]

I can too closely relate to the emotions in your dream. In dream or in reality, those are very painful feelings to have, and I sympathize and send many hugs and much love in your direction.

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

***hugs tightly, then more tightly***

[dawnstar.livejournal.com]

*eye-bulges, like when Kristen tackled her last night*