Remembrance Happy New Year

Of late things have been springing back to mind as if to say, “yes this really happened and it is a story I want to share.” (Pssst, don’t worry I’ll get back to the political mess soon enough.)

It’s a New Year Eve 2010 and I am going to let it have its way. I don’t know if this is a universal. With every New Years Eve, from somewhere inside me comes an automatic review of things past. This time around it was the power of dreams. New Years Eve was another wondrous night of best friends, feasting, dancing, hugging, dancing all rapped in the wonder of love. And of course drinking. Probably to much. That’s normal too.Then came a scary dream on the first night of 2011.

I am out in the cold searching for our departed cat Aldo. Unable to find him I’m desperate. Where is he? How could I have lost him? I awake. Think it through. What am I losing? Aldo was part of our family. The sudden loss of my mother as a child cause me to be obsessive about family. It represents security and safety. Any family related loss sets off high anxiety. Okay I got it. I am thankful for the ability to pay attention to dreams and learn to read them. How did I learn that?

It was in the late 50s I was in a mid life crisis. I was lucky to have found a “dream Guru." Ralph who became my guide and teacher. He would help me unlock the secret hurts that were hidden away in dreams. It was the beginning of an ongoing journey of understanding what my dreams could tell me. Being a born skeptic I thought, well I know he’s going to go over all that Freudian Unconscious stuff. I had been there and didn’t really get it. (Freud’s work was a remarkable discovery.) No we didn’t go there. But maybe we did? Just didn’t call it that.

Ralph asked, “what have you dreamed lately?” “This one has been a regular nightmare. I am going somewhere in the City. I park my car. Go to a party, meeting or just a visit . Time to go home sometimes with a friend some time alone. Start to look for where I’m sure I parked the car. Not there. Keep looking. Up one street down the next. Get desperate. car is stolen, the police took it. I wake up in another anxious sweat.

Ralph laughed, said “so who’s the car? and who’s lost?” “Oh, you don’t understand parking a car in New York City is an art. Only born and bred city people like me know the how to of parking.” Ralph had a little whimsy grin. “Now you really believe that would make you sweat and grieve looking for parking or looking for your car? What is the car to you?”

“ Are you kidding? I got my first car when I was 16 and have had one ever since. My car is my chariot to freedom. As a boy after my mother died I have always had an escape plan just in case I was to be sent off to an orphan asylum.” “So do you think the car might be you and you feel lost?" I was overcome from that hit in the gut. I left in tears, I am lost as I don’t know who I am. The dreams would soon help me out of that trap. It was in those dream sessions that I learned to keep a dream book. It sits right there on my bookshelf and is invaluable as a reference.My Dream Book is full of weird and amazing stories. A dream can tell us things that for some dam reason we just can’t tell ourselves.”

Sometimes I go back over my Dream book to check if any of those old dreams are returning? I am reminded, all dreams are not merely a reflection of deep seated hidden woes. Some dreams can be very reassuring. In 1975 on an Outward Bound trip down the Rogue river I had a wonderful dream. I was part of a Traveling Circus. My covered wagon was full of crowns like the kings wore. Each Crown signified something good I had done. As I wore each one before an audience I had to say how it was won. It was a pot puree of things. Like going shopping for my aunt, cleaning the furnace for my uncle. Helping Papa change the spark plugs on the car. And for that very night on the Rogue for helping a number of the women to build a shelter out of a piece of plastic. (They had never gone camping.)

Jimmy Durante, comedienne from my childhood referred to the “unconscious as “the subnoxious” It isn’t always so. It can reveal to us many of our most hidden fears and doubts. In New Years 2011 I raise my glass in thanks to all those great teachers who helped me unlock those nasty little secrets hiding out in my dream vault. Salute, Cheers, Prosit.