I am about to meet a friend (IF) I have known since high school. We are meeting at her father’s small shop. He is selling small art pieces, including some of my father’s, and there is also a tiny café with one or two small outside tables. I talk to him a bit. He is disheveled, disorganized, and seems to struggle with life. It reminds me of how grateful I am for my own father. My friend arrives, and I am also struck by how different she is.
In waking life, I will meet with my friend this coming week, so that may be why the dream director cast her and her father.
Mainly, the dream reminds me of how grateful I am for my own father and my parents. (In spite of intergenerational traumas etc.) At least, they provided a stable and beautiful home, they were supportive, they loved me, they had good friends they met with frequently, they had very good taste in art, they read their whole life, often one book a week, and so on. This was in the dream, and also with me as I woke up.
My friend is also much more together, and I am struck by the contrast.
In waking life, I never met her father, although in high school, she did tell me he had alcohol problems. Maybe that’s the waking life seed of that particular side of the dream. (He was not drunk in the dream.)
This dream partly reminds me of how grateful I am for my parents and what they gave me.
As any dream, it’s also a reminder of who I am. I am this disheveled, disorganized, slightly disastrous person. I have that side too. In another life, in a different set of circumstances, that would be me and what I lived out.
On days when I have very strong brain fog, or my system feels generally disorganized and off, I can feel this side of me closer. I don’t necessarily live it out, but it’s closer to me. Can I find peace with it? How is it to relate to that side of me with more understanding and kindness?
After writing this, I am doing tonglen first with her father in the dream, then with the three of us in the dream, and then with this side of me as I sense it right now. It feels a little sticky at first, more than usual, maybe because this is a side of me I haven’t consciously explored so much yet. (Or it’s because I am writing this the day after, and I am groggy after just four hours sleep. I was up until 3-4am to join Adyashanti’s final (?) gathering.)