My For-Real Twilight Zone Dream; Also Reality

You can’t make this stuff up, and that’s the truth.

Settle in for a Twilight Zone witchy type of a story.

Maybe you should stop for a minute and get your favorite crystal to hold for protection.

I’ll wait.

Okie dokie.

Let me give you the backstory; I don’t watch much local TV news, so there was no mention of what I’m about to share, neither on TV nor the internet.

No seed planted in my gray matter–conscious or subconscious—from any source.

Here’s the dream:

I was in my car with someone else driving. The time frame seemed to be current mixed with a sense that it was also eighty years ago.

We were driving to Ramona (a quaint little town on the way to our local mountains) and were stuck behind a line of vehicles from the 1920s-30s-40s era, the kind we associate with Prohibition; suicide doors, big tires, substantial, you know what I’m talking about.  If I remember correctly, I even think the dream was in black and white, or at least most of the cars were shiny black.

However, the car I was in was not one of the older ones. It was brand new.

This road to Ramona is a two-lane highway and (in my dream) there were about a dozen vehicles snaking steadily around the curves.

1930s Gangster Cars Car club: pachuco car club

Photo from Pinterest

I don’t recall being too impatient at the slowdown (unusual behavior for me lol) and then at some point we were able to safely pass all the cars and we arrived in Ramona.
The last part of the dream I remember is that we were looking for someplace to eat or do other touristy-type activities.

Cool dream, right?

Well, that’s not the freaky part, but this is…

Here’s the Twilight Zone reality:

I had a dentist’s appointment to follow-up on some oral surgery that’s taking a bit longer than it should to heal properly.

Because of the pandemic, I haven’t been out driving in a while, so I thought I’d take the long way home and drive down the coast. It’s a warm eighty degrees today and gorgeous.

Hand to heart, what I’m about to share is truth. I AM NOT KIDDING.

As I was driving south down Carlsbad Blvd, I looked around me and my mouth dropped open.

In front of me was a line of cars exactly like I had seen in my dream. I was following them. THE EXACT SAME CARS. Vintage autos from the 1930s and 1940s.  There was nowhere to pull over and snap a photo so you’ll have to believe me.

Was it a car club? Probably, right? But I have no association with cars, new or old, and didn’t see any overt or subliminal advertising of a car club event.

All I know is that my dream was now my reality. Except it was Carlsbad and not Ramona.

Who can explain it?

Not me, that’s for sure. I’m pretty much of a skeptic, a “show me the science” type, but I’m edging toward a healthy respect for the unknown. Even more now, haha.

How weird is that? I have no idea what it all means. I researched it and what I learned is that to dream of antique or old fashioned cars represents current decisions in an area of your life being influenced by the past or by nostalgia.

If an old fashioned car is black or red this is symbolic of your thoughts and decisions being too influenced by the past, or return to unhealthy habits or views, and you might need to focus more on healthy decisions.

In dream meanings, your car often represents how you control your life. This dream implies an extension of what is achievable, and with more confidence you can achieve anything.

Generally, cars are attached to our inner emotions and can indicate spiritual progression on both a psychological and emotional level.

If you dream of an old car that is not your own – such as an antique or old fashioned car, this is a sign that you are a strong willed person – a man (or woman) of grit and steel. It is a great omen for your life now and that you can trust your own judgment.

Old Cars: Cars are symbols of movement and momentum in your life. They can indicate how you are progressing towards goals or if you are headed in the right direction in your life. If you dream of your old car and it is in good condition then this is a dream of moving in the right direction in your life.

Well, that’s all interesting and even positive info about old cars, but I could find nothing about the “coincidence” of living the same scenario as occurred in a dream. It’s not like I’m a prophet…

“Dreams are known as “the sleep language,” and since the time of creation God has brought divine revelation to mortal men and women while they are sleeping. Scripture even calls a prophet a “dreamer of dreams” (see Deut. 13:1; Num. 12:6). ” Charismanews.com

There are those who believe that dreams can indeed predict or foretell the future. Prophetic dreams are linked to major disasters, wars, assassinations, accidents, lottery numbers or even with winning horse race. Such dreams have helped solve crimes. In history, Abraham Lincoln was said to have dreamt of his own body laying in a coffin two weeks before he his assassination.

Or was it possibly a variation of Deja Reve, which is a French term meaning “already dreamed,” and it can be thought of as the opposite of lucid dreaming.

Deja Reve is the feeling you get when you find yourself in a situation that makes you feel as if you dreamed about it previously, that you dreamed you would be there.

The person I was with in my dream was not with me today in real life. Today, I was driving alone. I have no idea what it means because nothing really happened.

I simply observed a line of antique cars pretty much exactly as it happened in my dream. I could think of a lot of other dreams that could be more relevant to me; a dream about a gigantic suitcase full of money or a handsome knight on a white horse (or car) to sweep me off my feet and carry me off to the sunset. In Hawaii. That kind of thing.

or

dreams about the future could be as a sign of a prediction you are being given from your spirit guides or god. … If you have the ability to dream about the future, you will dream about such things as world events like earthquakes, tsunamis before they actually happen in the days to come.

or could it be a precognitive dream which could possibly act as a warning.

A dream might sometimes show you something unpleasant that might occur if you continue on the path you’re on.  You experience the consequences/unpleasantness in your dream, and it allows you to course-correct and make another choice if you want to, so that you avoid the outcome shown in your dream. Then what you dreamed may or may not come about, depending on the choices you have made.

The second purpose of a precognitive dream is to show you that you’re on the right path.

A dream like this is usually one in which you see yourself, in a particular place.  The details are usually very specific.  Perhaps you see yourself doing something very specific, or you notice the specific details of your surroundings.  Perhaps you’re speaking to someone who says something very unusual that sticks out in your memory.

Then some time later, you find yourself in that exact situation, in those exact surroundings, with the person in your dream who says what they said in your dream.  You might have the same exact feeling in your reality as you did in your dream, like a weird déjà vu moment. annasayce.com

But why cars, I wonder? I don’t even really care much about cars. Did I time travel? Sort of an imperfect astral projection? Something to do with planetary influences?

I really, really wonder what the message is, especially since it was very much a Twilight Zone feeling.

If anyone wants to venture a guess, please share a comment and thank you!

My Covid-19 journey of self-isolation: Day 21

March 30: I feel like I’ve been training for this pandemic pretty much my whole life, but especially ever since my life exploded and I became a full-fledged hermit in a self induced cocoon to try and survive and heal from my own tsunami of pain.

A loner by nature, I’m peaceful while everyone around me is in a frenzy. I find serenity in projects at home, the garage, and the garden. I have always enjoyed solo exercising, working out at home instead of the gym, and I’m even more self sufficient now. Beaches are closed, but my own backyard sanctuary is open 24/7.

There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. It’s a mindset. Home is not a prison; it’s a sanctuary. What a perfect opportunity to slow down and create your own retreat.

Image may contain: shoes, plant, tree, outdoor and nature

Social distancing is a way of life. Not a problem. Avoid close contact? Not a problem. Shelter in place? Def not a problem.

I’m taking all the necessary precautions; washing my hands so often that I feel like LadyMacbeth minus the fact that I’ve never murdered anyone.

Doctor:
What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands.

Gentlewoman:
It is an accustom’d action with her, to seem thus
washing her hands. I have known her continue in this a quarter of
an hour.

Lady Macbeth:
Yet here’s a spot.

Probably because my mom was an RN and cleaned so often with Lysol that I’d often tell her I had Lysol in my veins instead of blood, but my house is VERY CLEAN. Like eat-off-the-floor clean. To me, the smell of bleach is as sweet as Chanel perfume.

Now I’ve ramped it up a bit. I disinfect food containers and cans before they come in the house, open mail with gloves on, and I have enough food to last three weeks.

The worst part of all of this is that Angel Boys 1 and 2 were supposed to visit and they had to cancel their trip. 2.0  just turned four and I missed his birthday as well as my son’s celebration, something that has really never happened in the 39 years he’s been alive.

When we FaceTimed, little Angel Boy 2.0. told me that all the libraries and toy stores and restaurants are closed. When I asked him why, he said it was “because of the virus.” I asked him what a virus was, but he didn’t know, only that all of his fun places weren’t available to him. Dad’s home because the university is closed and he’s teaching online. Mom and baby are home too, and I wish I was there to help, but I can’t go to them.

Everything is beyond surreal.

So far, I’ve had some good experiences and only one bad one.

This happened on March 11 and I wrote about it that day…”This virus is bringing out the absolute worst in people, including my own community. I was at our library, buying a couple books from the little store cos I’m going to have oral surgery and need to stay put for a bit. As I was paying for the books, I saw a huge bottle of hand sanitizer at the check out counter. I attempted to use it and the volunteer (about my age or maybe a little older) said it was “only for the workers” and “didn’t I carry my own hand sanitizer in my purse”. Needless to say, I immediately went over to the librarian who apologized and assured me that the volunteers are not supposed to HOARD the sanitizer, asked me to write up a complaint (which I did) as well as request of her to make sure all employees, volunteer/paid, knew that the library is a public institution paid for by my taxes and that was egregious behavior. What she should have said was “help yourself”. 

Except for the odd hoarding of toilet paper, that was really my only negative experience. Everyone else seems to have a feeling of community, that we’re all part of this strange Twilight Zone time, that 2020 will never be forgotten.

Image may contain: 1 person, possible text that says 'I can't be worried about that shit. Life goes on, man.'

So far, I’ve used five rolls of toilet paper. I know that seems like a lot, but I use it to clean, too. Did you guys hoard anything? How are you doing on paper products? Has this slloowww down changed your life? How? In what way? What kinds of adjustments will you keep when things go back to the way they were? What is it you’re missing?

I think we’re in for the ride of our lives. As above, so below.

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“To sleep: perchance to dream”…

Of course this is Shakespeare:

HAMLET:
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub

Yeah, there’s the rub, that’s for sure.

I used to love to sleep. Sleep came so easily for me. Almost as soon as my head hit the pillow, I could count backwards 5-4-3-2-1 and be asleep. Just like that, *snapping my fingers*. I could fall asleep anywhere. I took blissful, restful sleep for granted.

Back then, my dreams were mostly of my beloved dogs and cats that had crossed the Rainbow Bridge, sometimes bringing happy messages back to me. Or every so often, I’d have a prophetic dream about my son but never really a nightmare.

Last night was a big deal for me.

April 1, 2019 marks the first night I slept an entire night without waking up once in dread, in a cold sweat, without my heart beating a million beats per second ready to jump out of my chest, without the gasp of that split second between sleep/awake and remembering that my daytime reality IS the nightmare, that there really IS hell on earth, and I am living proof.

When I first woke up this morning, it took a moment for me to perceive that it wasn’t 3am, that the earliest of early morning birds had started to sing and there was a faint hint of dawn lightening the sky.

There was no swirling of dreams that made waking up a death unto itself. A shard of glass to slice at my heart and torment me, poking at me with each inhale and exhale for the rest of the day.

There was peace. OMG, so much peace.

I had to help my brain process this miracle of healing, a painfully slow process of realization that FOR THE FIRST TIME, I had slept unfettered by the bondage of painful memories that morphed into night terrors so incredibly lucid that they haunted me during the day.  Sleep was walking into a dark tunnel with not the slightest glimmer of light at the end of it. Depressing, huh?

I couldn’t endure another dream of a gigantic mottled black plague-infected rat with oozing sores climbing in my bed to curl up next to me, no more continuation of the abject panic that permeated my waking life.

No more dreams that weren’t even really dreams, simply the continuing of the day’s macabre horrors.

For more than three years, thirty-six months, 1,095 days, 26,280 hours, and 1,576,800 minutes, I couldn’t sleep, and I’d cry out to no one into the silence of the night to please wake me up from this nightmare, please take me out of my misery; only to realize that there was no respite for me.

“No sleep for you!” said the sleep Nazi (an homage to Seinfeld’s soup Nazi.)

The nightmare WAS the reality.

The dark soul of the night became the abject despair of the day.

There is the saying “follow your dreams” but if I had followed those dreams, I would have ended up in a vortex of Sartre’s No Exit. 

I was in a neverending episode of the Twilight Zone, caught in a purgatory that I could never have prepared myself to endure. Drowning.

I tried everything: meditation, EFT, mantras, deep breathing exercises to control my out of control hyperventilation /tachypnea, conscious mindfulness, and lessons in neural plascticity to nurse my wounded brain. One of the best pain relievers was and is listening to raw binaural beats with headphones. Some nights, that was the only way I could even attempt sleep.

I dreaded going to sleep, the actual sleep, and the waking up from an unhappy sleep.

The simple tortuous action of closing my eyes created a canvas where I’d be subjected to an endless loop of conversations, images, mirages spanning more than twenty years.

I wished for a lobotomy, to be in a coma, to erase all that was etched in my conscious and subconscious.

Through pain and fear and sadness, I discovered that the only cure is radical acceptance. I couldn’t run away from it. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Wherever you go, there you are.

I had to stand my ground and surrender to the pain.
To love it, honor it, respect it, and learn from it.

Now. Right now. I hear a hawk, I hear a scrub jay, I hear the angry chattering of a nesting Bell’s Vireo. Off in the distance, I hear a train. I hear an airplane. I hear a symphony of wind chimes. I see blue sky, I see lush green grass that’s been lovingly tended, I feel a gentle breeze lifting a swarm of Painted Lady butterflies from the yellow marguerite daisy bushes to settle for a moment on the Pride of Madeira. All the rain we had this season birthed an incredible floral display.

Everything around me seems to be conspiring to show me that there’s still beauty after a storm, that there’s happiness to be discovered if you look and listen.

IMG_7039Oh and I see a bunny. Always a bunny.

My heart is wounded and scarred; I’ve been through a war zone,

I had no weapons to fight the enemy that raped and pillaged my life and my innocence. And my heart.

I’m collateral damage,

I’m eternally sad.

But I’m alive, and that’s something to be grateful for.

And…for the very first time in a long time, I slept an entire night and woke up in serenity and peace.

(But that peace wouldn’t last, as I soon learned…)