I wake up.
Wait, it was a dream…?
It all seemed so real. But then, I am not really one to remember dreams. I do not have a lot of experience with this.
For as long as I can remember, (pun intended), remembering dreams is not something I have been particularly good at.
Digging into the topic just a bit, we apparently dream upwards of 5 times a night, ranging from 5 to 40 minutes each.
Dreams tend to occur during REM sleep, and to remember the dream, you pretty much need to wake up during or very shortly after the dream. The reason for this is believed to be that the cross connect between short term and long-term memory as well as the long-term memory center are not very active during sleep.
Dream memories are also a factor of personality, sleep patterns, and cognitive function.
Sleep function, cognitive function, both of which I would guess I am not in the ‘normal’ category.
Sleep function; as a product of my time in the military, sleep was never a given. There were times when we would need to work 36 hours or more in a row, with little or no sleep. I learned to fall asleep quickly and in a myriad of conditions, bright lights, loud sounds, no bed, construction fumes, people talking around me. Given that, it would be a stroke of luck if I woke up during or near the end of a dream cycle.
Cognition; I unfortunately have suffered (at least) 3 TBI’s (traumatic brain injuries), imaging shows lesions in my brain, some of which are in the cross connect between short- and long-term memory areas. While awake, I struggle with memory issues, so given this it would seem to me that I would have the deck stacked against me for optimum dream retention.
At the time of the dream, I did not know these things. I was not aware of the damage I had done to my head over my lifetime, and how that was affecting me. To me, it was an odd dream, that had no clear meaning. It was not troubling, like a nightmare or a flashback, (I do have plenty of those), it was a very comfortable dream, it felt like I was where I needed to be, it was natural, like I walk every day with a wolf whose head was above my hip.
I pondered the dream, but really did not think it mattered greatly, it was a cool dream and that was that.
Little did I know.
I would walk with Greywolf almost every night for the first several months, it was the same walk, the same details, and always ended when turning to take a step toward the cabin.
It became quite frustrating. To me there was a meaning or a message, but I could not put the puzzle pieces together. As time went on, the dream occurred less and less, was I blocking it? Was the message over, or an opportunity missed? I just really did not know.
As it turns out, the answers would take years, decades even, to become evident. In that time, the winding path would lead to more frustrations, more pain, but also much more understanding, faith and growth.
Has my walk with Greywolf concluded? The dreams haven’t surfaced in quite a while, if you had asked me a year ago, I suppose I would have said that perhaps that chapter had closed, and to be honest, I was not sure what it meant.
But some books are more complex than others, the chapters keep coming, the plot resurfaces in ways that you do not expect. Once you read or go through the new twist you can look back and see how the pieces fit together.
One would think that you could predict future plot twists, sometimes maybe, but there are some things that are meant to remain behind a veil until the time is right.
This is life, this is the walk. For now, my book still has blank pages, the pen has ink, the walk continues, one step at a time.
