On Tuesday, 10/16/18, I woke up and wrote this:

I had many intense dreams last night and the feeling of being alone was very strong. I wasn’t aware of feeling lonely until I woke up. In my dreams, I talk to people and interact a little, but I’m usually alone in my experience. Then I wake up, and I realize that’s kind of the way my waking life is, and it can leave me feeling lonely.

I get this way especially when I’m sick, like I am now. I don’t have the energy to truly interact with the world and others. This is when I really miss family.

The last part of my dream really seemed to illustrate an aspect of my life struggle.

Dream Written in the Present Tense

I am in my parents’ yard. I want to go inside to be with my family, but for some reason, I decide I want to pee outside. Somehow peeing outside feels freer and cleansing for me. Their house is in the suburbs so there are houses all around. The sky is a darkening twilight. I decide that I can pee at the back of the garage, and no one will see me except cars that might drive down the alley, but I’ll be able to see the cars coming before they see me.

As I start walking towards the alley, the sky gets darker, and it is not a normal darkness. There is something malevolent and nasty about this darkness. I’m suddenly very afraid to walk past the garage and to be outside.

The darkness is a bully. I can feel it weighing on me and unraveling my strength with fear. I want to run and cower down, but I know you can’t back down with bullies or they will never stop torturing you. The darkness is messing with my eyes. I am overwhelmed with a deranged kind of vision that is scrambling my mind so I can’t see correctly.

I have to squint my eyes very tight and focus on what is right ahead of me so I can keep walking straight. I keep walking, and crouch down at the back of the garage to pee. I can’t of course, because I am in the dream, but I don’t realize that. I just think, “That’s really strange. I really thought I had to pee.”

I pull up my pants and head back to my parents’ house. Now, I can see my mom washing dishes through the kitchen window where warm pumpkin-colored light is spilling out into the night. I turn around, to look back at the horizon, past the garage where the darkness was, and it is gone. The sky is a darkening twilight navy blue, but it’s good, peaceful, rich darkness again. I turn back toward the house to be with my family, but I wake up before I can get inside.

 

When I woke up, and I could feel the malevolent darkness from the dream inside of me telling me that I’m alone; I have always been alone; I will always be alone, and there will never be any way to change that.

The darkness thrives on fear and isolation.

So I thought maybe if I wrote and shared this dream, it might form a bridge from my solitary world to yours. Then the illusion of isolation would be pierced by the light of knowing and connection.

It is true that we are all alone. We are born, live, and die alone even when we are surrounded by people.

However, I believe through art, meaningful expression, and other acts of love and kindness, it is possible to cut through the darkness of fear. It is possible for us to connect meaningfully, because underneath the illusion of separation, we are all One.

We are alone, and we are never alone. How can this be?
The mind will never understand. That’s why the darkness preys on the mind.

But the heart can be brave. The heart can perceive and open up to the mystery of love and grace.
The heart can be strengthened and inspired. The heart can connect and illuminate the darkness so that the darkness can be good again. Solitude can be good again. Our togetherness can unite our diversity of experience so that our belonging with each other can be good again.

So may it be for you, my friend. So may it be for me. So may it be for us.