Night of dreams

It is always tough to spend any time at all in the ken of serial killers. I love this beautiful header Connie sent me this morning, a wonderful antidote. Last night I seemed to be dreaming all night long. I was moving cattle with my sister Ann and I could see that my dad was not going to help us. He was tired of driving cattle. His life as a working cattle rancher was over. But I was thinking well the cattle will probably lie down and sleep when we do and they will be there in the morning. I was worried about losing any of them.
Don't know what that dream means but I do think that interaction with the dead keeps people from getting too upset especially as they get older and something goes wrong. I have been down visiting a long time resident in here who is under hospice care. Her nurse came while I was there and I met her. She is a very pleasant person.
One of the bloggers I follow was talking about the vastness of space and how extremely small and insignificant we are in our galaxy which we know now is just one among many many. I try not to let that bother me. In fact I find it quite reassuring. When I read about serial killers I think how terrible it would be if man was any more significant than he is with people like that among us. We have not evolved enough to be any more significant than we are, methinks.
However I can always think of something that will cheer me up. I noted that Paul Dirac, the physicist, would spend hours thinking in order to come up with new insights in his field, and that is what I have always done to come up with new insights into our life of the spirit.
For example scientists still dispute that we can receive dreams that foretell future events, but for those who do receive these dreams the language of dreams is understood, and a whole life time may be spent trying to advance knowledge of how this can happen. I began to notice I had feelings and dreams about future events, and I could almost pinpoint where this event was going to happen and how significant it might be in relation to my life.
How could I do this? I am not quite sure, but a dream of the future will usually have quite a few signs that help me to recognize the event when it comes to pass. I could go back to the dream and tell whether it had happened or not. When it did happen, I would know almost instantly that this was it. For example one time I set out on a trip. The night before I dreamed that my car started failing and on the Glen Canyon bridge over the Colorado river it stopped. I was quite worried, as it is against the law for a vehicle to stop on that bridge. I was driving from my hometown in Boulder to Phoenix. I had my two younger children with me. Ronda was around five or six and Dan was still a baby. I dreamed that after my car stopped on the bridge I saw a spirit make a big dive out away from the bridge. I knew this had something to do with what was wrong with the car. I thought and thought but I could not come up with any further explanation of what was going to break.
I have always compared the attempt of the mind to get the message of the future as kind of a charades. The action in the dream means something which you may have trouble 'getting' but that is because details of a future event are very hard to pick up. I was picking up I was going to have a car trouble about 12 hours in advance but not exactly what kind.
Sure enough, about a mile from the Glen Canyon bridge my car began to miss a little and slow down. I was very worried about the bridge but I was actually able to get across the bridge although going slowly and up the hill into Page, Arizona. I pulled into a gas station and asked the driver to look and see if he could detect a problem. He opened the hood and said, "Oh, it is your fan belt. I think I have got one." He replaced the fan belt and that was it! How lucky could I get?
But it sure felt serious when my car could hardly make it up the hill to Page. When I thought back to the figure diving off the bridge, I laughed. Of course. He was 'fanning the air!" And I had not been able to guess what on earth the figure in my dream who I thought was James Dean was trying to tell me. For quite a long time he was my guardian angel over automobile trips.
Well, because it was kind of a funny dream that was an indication the problem was not going to be too serious.
So this is how the study of dreams goes. But to me this is why some people receive remarkable dreams about the future and others don't, because they are interested in doing so, and willing to try to interpret dreams, that is pay attention to them to see if there is a message about the future contained within them.
Of course a future event involving a death is a lot more serious, and those dreams will be more somber as one would expect. But the very fact that some people can pick up future events in dreams tells me there is a lot we don't know about our minds. So there is no reason to be too pessimistic about what is in store for us, including an existence that we may go to after leaving this one because something in us does not die.
I have always thought that life requires an escape hatch when pain becomes too great. So the body that is getting old and broken down is discarded and perhaps a more durable aspect of ourselves just steps out of it to resume a possible previous existence. We may return many times to this existence after an experiment of 'life' is over. I 'sense' this, and I have no reason not to think it is so.
I have sensed spirits many times. This caused me to conclude that if you dream about someone who has passed this is their way of 'visiting' you. They want to tell you something because they find you are able to pick them up.
The study of dreams helps you to put a 'face' to who you sense in the dream. Certain vibrations you may recognize in dream form as this person or that person. My father, for example, was the prominent spirit in my dream last night, which signals that he wants to communicate to me. Should I let him speak? Why not, I ended my last memoir chapter talking about how worried I was about him dying when I was ten.
DADDY: I did not know how worried you were about me. I am sorry I worried you as I did with my drinking. I want to tell you I have quit drinking now for good. Ha!
GERRY: So what is your message?
DADDY: I am worried about my oldest grandson's drinking. He and Raymond are the only grandsons who lived with me, I really got to know. I put Gary to work driving the truck when we hayed when he was only five! He loved driving the truck. But I am afraid if he does not do something about his drinking he will die too young.
GERRY: I am sure that Raymond has tried to convey to him his concern in his latest visit. What do you suggest that he do?
DADDY: I have tried to visit him, but I don't know that he is open to my spirit. I am going to go to Boulder now to see what Raymond can come up with in the way of an AA meeting, which might have helped me. I never found enough help in church. I was worried about all the brothers drinking, a lot more than you think. You saw what I did to try to quit, but when I saw that I may have caused you to have a nervous breakdown, I was determined I would quit. It took me two or three more years to shut my drinking down to almost zero, but not quite. You must agree though I got a lot better.
GERRY: A great deal better, otherwise you would have died. I appreciated the fact that you tried to stay alive. I regretted that you and Mother fought so much though, and that you got drunk that one last time when I was living with you, which I thought contributed the most to your death in nine months.
DADDY: I was not able to get through my divorce well. It was a mistake to marry again. You tried to tell me not to marry, but I did not listen to you. I got upset when I went to see her after she left, and she refused to return to me and got drunk and caused a terrible wreck. I was very lucky not to kill any of those young men I hit. I did what any drunk fears he will do when he drives drunk. I always wanted to come and apologize for doing that.
GERRY: I always assumed you were sorry that you did marry after she left you, of course.
DADDY: It was just crazy. The whole thing was crazy. Your mother married a week after the divorce was granted, so I thought I would show her and find someone to marry me, too. I am surprised anybody was willing, but as you said she had no idea what she was getting into. There is no fool like an old fool. She felt she made a terrible mistake, too.
GERRY: She did, she did not even know you. I could see her realizing almost immediately she had done something stupid.
DADDY: It has taken me a lot of years for me to allow you to say what you thought about Bill Isabel and all that. My brother Reed told me to quit denying the truth, just to admit it. What could that hurt? I would never want to live the kind of life I did again. It was miserable. I don't know what kind of lesson there was in it for me, but I have had a hard time learning it.
GERRY: I have often thought about what kind of lesson I was supposed to learn coming to the earthly existence as your daughter.
DADDY: Do you think it was worth it?
GERRY: I thought it was the kind of lesson that few would agree to learn, so I must have agreed to the kind of life I was going to have to live. I think I did. I thought there was good reason for it. Few know how they would handle such a life as you and I lived, as father and daughter. It was tough, but I think that we had something to teach the world. That is always the way I looked at it. I did not think you were going to be able to help turning out as you did, born into those circumstances, nor could I help what was going to happen, but what I could do was learn from it. I would think when I was growing up, would I have wanted another father? The answer was always no, because every human being born on this earth is going to have some developing to do, some problems to contend with. I thought there was enough excitement and beauty in our lives to make up for all the problems, that great country where I got to ride the range with you. That was a unique childhood. Getting to know horses. Punching cows in some of the most rugged and beautiful cattle ranges on earth.
DADDY: I never knew whether what I could offer you would be worth all the pain I caused you.
GERRY: You tried to give us girls a stable life, an education, opportunity, and some money you were able to accumulate from a lot of hard work.
DADDY: I tried to follow the example of my dad who tried to do the same for his kids. I felt the same about him, that I would not have picked another dad. Even though his flaws were many. I thought my flaws were worse than his, because I got addicted to alcohol, so young I hardly remember when I started. He sure could not understand that! Well, I never thought this talk would be so easy. I will try to come again some time. Before it is time to pick you up to ride the long long trail with me. Into another land just as beautiful. You will see.