And you give yourself away

I had a very disturbing dream this morning that I had to write down and, since it was written down, I thought I would post it. I recognize that some parts of my dream as so wacky that, if other parts weren't so painful, I would most certainly be laughing. Please feel free to laugh, cry, or just shake your head in pity at my weirdness.

It starts out with me dreaming that I am having a dream. I am inside a building without my family but with many other people. I start to feel a sense of foreboding and fear and so I start to look around me to see what is wrong. When I see what is wrong the fear inside of my chest begins to squeeze around my heart. There are at least three very large, angry black and brown bears loose in the building attacking people. I panic and start running for the other side of the room and crouch down next to the wall. In my dream, my view pans out and I see my purse sitting on the floor, forgotten, and I see myself crouching on the floor, along with many others, and hoping that if I stay still that the bear will leave me alone. He does not and I know things do not end well for me.

Next in my dream I am in a class room in the same building, getting ready to take a test, and the professor is showing us something on the overhead. I am unable to sit and listen well because of the dream I had and that I didn't have a pencil with me. I decide to stay after the class to get some one-on-one information with my professor and find that he is dancing Tae Kwon Do moves and tells me to do them with him or I will fail the class. I am embarrassed and hesitant because I have no idea how to dance, but I know that my professor knows that once I start dancing my body will know what to do. So, I take off my shoes and slowly begin dancing Tae Kown Do as well. Our bodies soon begin to synchronize and I suddenly seem to know things I hadn't known before. I had some sort of new connection to the universe. I knew my professor was in love with me and I saw that he wanted to touch his forehead to mine and tell me so; I knew that I didn't love him and if I professed such that I would ruin his life as well as mine; I knew that there was another professor who had attended the class, who was also now hiding behind some chairs and watching us, specifically to be able to dance with him as I was dancing with him because she was in love with him and he didn't know it. She was angry with me for taking her place and vowed to get back at me. I started feeling afraid again. I knew she had the power to fail me and make my life miserable and that she was figuring out at that moment how to hurt me as I had hurt her.

My professor's next class was starting to begin so I sat down to listen, but was too distracted by the vengeful female professor to comprehend what was being said. I decided that if I quietly left
everything would be ok. I would show the female professor that she had won and the two of them would be very happy together and she'd stop plotting my demise. As I walk through the halls I see many students finishing up their finals or who have finished and are getting ready to take the results to the office. The building now has that end-of-semester feel to it and I know everyone is excited to be done.

I reach the front of the building and grab on to my youngest son's hand and tell my oldest son to follow me to the car. There are a lot of people surrounding us, many of them young children, and I look for my oldest son to make sure he's following me. I don't see him, but I know he is near. That's when I see the bears and know that my dream and been a premonition. I yell at my oldest to follow me to the wall and tell him to stand perfectly still. There are other adults standing around telling the kids to hold still and to let the bears sniff them. For some reason the bears are not hurting these adults who are not crouching or standing still by the wall, but I also know that their safety is not assured either. I am crouching there, holding M's hand and picturing where S is standing and I know that the bear has passed him. He is nibbling on the hair of a young toddler who is asking an adult why the bear is nibbling on his hair. The adult tells the child to let the bear nibble and promises that he if does so he will be safe and will move on. Somehow I know the adult is telling the truth.

The bear then moves to the next three kids and sniffs them as well. The bear stops in front of M and me and I suddenly saw the dream sequence happen all over in my and had a running commentary on what he would do next. This is when he will move my hair (he does), this is when he will start to move on to the next person (again, he does), this is when he will stop and decide to gnaw at me. For some reason this part differs from my original dream. He does not eat me and moves on to the next person.

I wait until I think the bear is distracted enough and I grab my kids' hands and run them out to the car as fast as I can. The car is unlocked and I put them in it. For some reason I have 3 other kids with me, but I didn't recognize them as mine. I just knew I was supposed to have them with me. Then I realized that I didn't have my keys or purse and that I needed to go back and get them or else we wouldn't be able to get home. I tell my oldest to sit and wait in the car until I got back, not to talk to anyone, and to not be afraid, I would be back as soon as I could.

I ran back to the building praying that the kids would be ok. When I got back to the building I looked down and saw my purse. That's when I remember the rest of my dream. I see the bear trying to attack me again and me hitting him with my purse. I pick up my purse and keys and prepare for the bear to turn around and notice me, which he does. He starts running toward me and the battle ensues. It takes awhile but I fend the bear off. I don't remember if someone eventually takes the bear away or if it runs away, but I do know that I was alive and the bear was gone. Then it hit me. It's been over an hour and the kids are waiting in the car. I start to hyperventilate and freak out. "Please!" I yell to one of the men nearby, "Please, go out and make sure my kids are ok!" I know something is wrong. It's hot out, the car was unlocked. Maybe they got out and were hit by cars, maybe someone kidnapped them, maybe they died in the car because of the heat. My heart cries out for them and I run to the car.

They are no longer there. I run, crying out their names. I know they are not in the parking lot so I start running toward town, feeling the empty ache of not knowing where my precious boys are. I run into one of the other bears and it attacks me as well. I hit the honey-covered bear with my purse and it looks at me confused. I just hit it with a pillow. I know it's futile to fend the bear with a pillow but I am angry and aching and want to live to hopefully find my kids. I eventually start to run and the bear tries to stop me by pulling on my legs. The side of the road turns into the top of an arcade game and I try to climb over it. The bear almost succeeds in pulling me down but I slide down between back of the arcade game and two fake games. I open up the front of one of the games and pull out my children's fake plastic swords and hold onto them, wishing I could be holding my children but only feeling the empty ache of fear, loss and not knowing if I'll ever see them again. I start to sing parts of U2's With or Without You (for some reason in my dream I only hear this part of the the song and not the whole thing.

And I wait without you.
With or without you.
With or without you.

And I'm waiting for you

With or without you
With or without you
I cant live
With or without you

And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away
And you give
And you give
And you give yourself away

My dream starts to pan out as I hear Bono singing the last phrases over and over again and I see myself sitting on the ground holding their swords, wondering if I will ever be able to hold my babies in my arms again.

I finally woke up and knew that I wouldn't be going back to sleep. I went downstairs to go check on the kids and touch their sweet faces, hoping that the ache I feel in my chest would lighten. It did not. I decided to write out my dream, hoping that seeing the words would help. It has not. I know that the ache will eventually lessen throughout the day, as it has in the past when I have had nightmares about my kids. It's at times like these, when the line between dream and reality are so blurred and the pain so real. that I feel I can understand, to a small degree, the pain others feel at having truly lost their children. To any of those parents who may be reading this, please know that I am so truly sorry for your loss and your pain. My heart goes out to you, today and always.