Feeling sad after a dream

I had a multi-fold dream again.  Just woke up from it.  It’s almost 5am, so I’m up about an hour and three quarters early.

The first part of my dream….

I don’t remember too many details of the beginning of it.  What I remember is the last leg of that dream segment.  My close friend and one-time-could’ve-been John V. was featured in it.  A bunch of us friends had been running around a building with a lot of staircases, up and down, down and up, up and down, etc.  John rushed outside, at last, and jumped into a HUGE pickup truck.  Not Monster Truck proportions, but still very large.  I ran into my sister in the "lobby" of this building with all the staircases, but I shooed her away, telling her I’d be back in a few minutes…I had to go talk to my friend John.  Surprisingly, she let me go without a fuss.  So I went out to the truck and attempted to talk to John.  It didn’t go very well.  We only exchanged a few words.  They were civil, but not friendly.  I got the gist of what was going on, though.  He was going to run the truck full-speed-ahead down the street he was on, but the street was jammed full of people.  At one point, the crowd pushed his truck so hard they turned it 180 degrees, which was apparently the "right" direction for his take-off, anyway.  He gunned the engine, and two children suddenly appeared in the street.  Some people and I screamed to watch out for the children, which John did do.  Then, when the road was entirely clear, John was slated for take-off.  As he began accelerating, I noticed a small child at the end of the block, in the street.  I dashed down to the end of the street, ran out into the road, and attempted to pick up the child, but the child had already moved by the time I got there.  Meanwhile, the scene changed.

I suddenly found myself inside a store, on an aisle.  I had on what I can only describe as a multi-pocketed garment of some kind, and all the pockets were filled with fake flowers and things that you’d find on the same aisle as those.  I was using my foot to sweep the aisle of items, getting ready for John to speed down the aisle in his truck.  I was by a door that led outside.  After a few encounters with customers in the store, and realizing that it might look as if I were shop-lifting (what with my pockets bulging full of fake flowers), someone announced that it was finally time for John’s take-off.  I looked down the aisle, away from the door, waiting for John to zoom down the aisle.  Well, I got a surprise.  The top of the (apparently steel) door bulged, then began to push away from the frame.  In no time at all, the door buckled; came off all its hinges; and John’s truck flew by.  

This was the last I remember of this portion of the dream.  The next portion is bizarre, to say the least.

This part has nothing to do with John.  Mikey and I were on a bus, driven by the lady who plays Berta on "Two and a Half Men".  There were many people on it, and I came to realize that Mikey and I were the only white people on the bus, aside from the driver.  During the ride, someone brought up that I am a singer.  So naturally, what does everyone say when they find that out?  "Sing something!"  So I did.  It was very peculiar, though.  I started singing "Miracle" by the Clark Sisters.  One of my high school friends, Rachel, was on the bus, and she uttered, "Well, THAT’S to be expected."  The way she said it made me feel bad, because it was like she was saying, "Oh, he just picked a black gospel song to fit in!" or something.  I didn’t let it stop me, though.  I kept singing, but I realized that while I was getting lost in the song, my teeth were clenched tightly shut.  My lips were moving, so the words were coming out, at least to some degree, but I couldn’t open my jaws.  I actually reached up, while still singing, and pried my mouth open, which was painful (so I wonder if I did that in real life, too).  Meanwhile, I got totally lost in the song, as happens when the Holy Spirit takes over me.  I kept hearing laughing, which made me wonder if I was singing badly, but I kept singing, anyway.  After I finished, I got a big surprise.  Everyone on the bus was complimentary!  By that point, we’d reached our house, so Mikey got off the bus.  I was going to give Rachel our phone number, so we could more easily stay in touch, but Berta decided to play a little joke on me.  At first, she thought I was off the bus, and she started backing up.  When I told her I was still on it, she told me I’d missed my chance to get off the bus.  I was trying to find a piece of paper to write our phone number on.  Rachel had a day-planner thing, but all her paper had things written on it and no room for more.  I had OUR day-planner, and I finally located a piece of paper.  Then I forgot our phone number.  I signed my name to the paper, but it looked wrong, so I signed it again, in a different spot.  I still wasn’t satisfied, but I ran up to the front of the bus, asking Berta for help.  I said, "Our number starts with 8-7-4" and she replied, "5-4-3-5".  I wrote it down before I realized that was not our number.  It was a combination of two of our old phone numbers.  When I told Berta, she laughed and said, "That’s MY number!  Now call me sometime!"  

By this point in the bus trip….we had NOT sat still while all this was going on…we were on a muddy road that resembled creamed carrots.  It was mushy and orange.  We got stuck in the muck.  Eventually, I promised Rachel I’d send her my number somehow, and just as I said it, I remembered our number, so I yelled it to her.  She got it.  So here we are on the carrot-looking road, stuck.  Suddenly, other buses start to pass by, and we all realize that we’re stuck on the shoulder of a paved road that looked similar to a state highway…one lane going each direction.  We all questioned why Berta had gone onto the shoulder with the road available.  There was no answer.  Well, we got turned around, somehow….in the blink of an eye, too, because I was suddenly sitting back where I had been when Mikey was still on the bus.  One guy I didn’t know laughed and told me, "Man, while you were singing, it looked like you were about to fall over a couple of times!"  I just told him I knew I wouldn’t.  Somehow, I sensed – the way one does in a dream – that he meant when I raised my hands up and bobbed side to side (I do that when I’m engrossed in a song) was when he thought I would fall down.  I knew that the presence of God had held me up and kept me from falling and hurting myself.

And then I woke up.

I think I know what to make of the John portion of

the dream.  I think it means that I have gained all I can from my relationship with John, and it is time to let him go.  I will always love him and always be his friend, but we no longer have much in common, and, in real life, we seem to tolerate each other, rather than truly enjoy one another anymore.  So I think maybe God was sending me a message that, unless things change, I should let my friendship with John rest on its laurels.  I’m actually pretty comfortable with this thought, surprisingly.  John and I used to be so much alike.  That has changed, especially since I got married.  He interprets me by my previous life, which is not really accurate anymore.  I didn’t even know how strong a change there had been until his last visit to our house.  He kept saying what he thought I was thinking.  I grew sadder and sadder as I realized that he was mind-reading the me of ten years before, not the me that exists now.  I was sad for him.  I was sad for me.  And I was sad for us, the friends who had always been so very close….non-romantic soul mates, we termed ourselves.  This is the only example in my life of a close friend and me just drifting apart.  I don’t rule out that the friendship COULD grow back to what it was, but for now, it’s time to release him.

And on that note, I will conclude this entry.

Much love,

Jack