The dreams in which I'm dying
2002 01 07
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When I was a young woman of 19, I died. Now, once every few years, I live the last night of my life over again in the dreams of someone who never knew me, and who doesn't know my name.
What follows is how she sees me; how I appeared to her the last time I lived the last night of my life.
I've had this recurring dream for years now - a dream in which I am living the last night of a very pretty young woman's life; a pretty young woman suffering such great pain that I have no words for it. Sometimes I wonder why I have this dream. Why do I walk this heartache over and over? It's always the same, except for last night. There were differences in the dream last night; and though the details of it are fuzzy, I'll attempt to detail it for you - as much as I can recall from any time I've had this dream.
Always, always it starts in an immense mall.
She begins to walk from one end of the mall to the other. She has a party or some kind of dinner function to go to, and it's in a banquet hall located somewhere in that mall.
She walks with purpose, and as she does, she realises that once again she's reliving the last night of her life. It's not that she just lives that night over and over again only. She lives her entire life, spends this one night in my dreams, dies, then comes back to live her life over again. She knows it, and so do I.
Along the way, she will meet up with the girl who's been her best friend since she can remember. They begin to speak in heavy tones, but not ones of depression. These are ones of knowing, of thick emotion; tones that know.
"I know you," she'll say.
"Yes, I was sent to you when you were a child. I was sent to you tonight to give you comfort. I know you're going to die again tonight," her friend will say; in such a way that there's no mistaking her whole and sole purpose in the young woman's life was to watch over her and give comfort. Particularly on this last night.
The young woman will nod, and pick up a bag that contains the ballgown and accessories she will wear this evening.
For some reason I, as this girl, suddenly notice I'm wearing ridiculously high heels, and every few steps I fall on my ass. It doesn't seem to hurt, but it gets annoying and frustrating all the same.
The dream is semi-lucid, in that I know I'm dreaming, and I know I'm having a dream I've had before. I think to myself, about the shoes, "I don't remember this happening last time."
She begins to walk again and asks someone, it might have been the friend, where the bathroom is. She needs to change her clothes.
She enters the bathroom and squeezes herself into a far too small stall. She hears giggling some few stalls down, and realises that there are four other people in the bathroom with her. Two of them she knows are female, and one of them is her father who has just married one of these girls who can be no older than she is. She suffers a momentary pang, and opens the stall door so she has enough room to don her gown.
It's a gorgeous gown; a simple floor-length of a dulled robin's egg blue satin. It has a sheen of green to it when she turns this way and that. But it's almost imperceptible. There is a matching shawl which she wraps about her shoulders.
Suddenly, her father is there by her side. They hug, and he speaks.
"I love you," he says.
"I know father, I love you too. I'm going to die again tonight. This is my last night."
He knows, they hug once more, and she leaves.
She begins to walk through this mall again and realises that she doesn't know where Hungry's is. This is the name of the place where this banquet is supposed to be. "This didn't happen in the dream before. It was never a restaurant." Being unable to find it, she enters the grocery store and asks for directions from two stock clerks who remain stoic and silent.
"I know it's this way, but where exactly?" She looks around and out at the darkness of the night. It's 11 p.m. "I don't recall her ever being this late for the party before," I think to myself.
This time I woke at this point, though there are times I wake after she's been to the party. I don't remember if I ever know how she dies; but I know that after that party something tragic happens to her. Perhaps, it is because of something that happens during that party.
There is more sorrow to it than I can describe. There is such an aching sadness of knowing and necessity throughout the whole thing. She hurts so much, and is powerless to stop living this night over and over.