Dreams

Dreams

I awoke early that morning in Atlanta under a cloud of loneliness and despair that lingered around me, the gray residue of a most unsettling dream. In those first few seconds of waking, I felt the censor of my subconscious as it pushed the images and thoughts from the dream down into some deep recess, so I fought myself and made a concerted effort to remember what I had seen and felt. I thought about the dream for as I lay there in the dark, keeping it the foreground of my mind so I could write it down later.

In the dream, I was walking up a metal stairway that climbed the inner courtyard of an apartment building. I reached a landing and walked down the covered concrete passageway that fronted the apartment doors. It was raining hard out in the courtyard. I came up to an open door and went inside.

A bed sat in the center of the room surrounded by a circle of chairs, and in the chairs sat a variety of friends, both old and new. My ex-wife, Loretta, was sitting there, along with her husband, Bill. On the bed, my former lover in California, Lindsey, was in the throes of loud and ardent sexual intercourse with a friend of mine, a consultant I knew in Atlanta named Jeff. A blond woman stretched out naked along the edge of the bed next to them, and she watched them closely as she lay on her side with her head propped up and resting on her hand. Jeff and Lindsey loudly and vigorously approached the climax of their sexual coupling; I could not avert my eyes and watched them intently. A murmur of approval emanated from the crowd that sat clustered around the room, surrounding the bed at the center. With crystal clarity, I could see Lindsey’s features change during orgasm and once again, I reveled over her wanton beauty in the strong heat of sexual fulfillment.

When the act was complete, those in attendance clapped and cheered. I was in torment, overwhelmed with anguish. I looked at Loretta and she was looking back at me knowingly. Lindsey, Jeff, and the other woman stood up and walked through the crowd to the far wall where they opened a door and disappeared into another room. People were milling about and talking with great animation. Loretta came over to me and kissed me deeply, and I walked out of the apartment through the open door to look at the rain pouring down in the courtyard.

Then I was awake.

I got out of bed and followed my pre-workday morning routine, but the dream was always there lurking behind my conscious thoughts and actions. Later, at work, I told Jeff about my strange vision during the previous night and he enjoyed a good laugh at my telling of the story, and at his role within the drama.

The dream remained in the forefront of my day and it colored every aspect of my waking minutes. Jeff was a true and honest friend, and as for the other woman lying on the bed, I had no idea who she was, or what she represented in my dream. Lindsey had been out of my life for almost three years. I certainly wanted the best for her, and that included a warm and fulfilling sexual life with a new partner. Yet for me, there was something so terribly painful in the dream that it haunted me deeply throughout the day. I mourned the things we once shared, missed the passion and ardor of our relationship, and bemoaned the deep emptiness that remained in my life in her absence.

Dreams amaze me with their strange mix of juxtaposed emotions and images, and I marvel over the way that complex mix of emotions and images swirls through the mind during sleep, oblivious to time, place, or chronology. I have never believed that dreams possess the power to foretell events. Rather, I see them as a safety valve mechanism, a subconscious pressure release when internal conflicts become too strong, yet who can say for sure.

That evening I relaxed at home and ruminated over my life, following the chain of events that led me to the East, to sit at that table and feel anew the emotions of loneliness and emptiness. At that moment, I decided that all I could do was to write this down, to say that tonight in Atlanta, I am alone and in despair, and a terrible ache and yearning is churning within my soul, as if a hurricane was slowly making its way up my coast.

 
 
July 1997
Atlanta, Georgia