MY 3 REOCURRING DREAMS

Jun 23, 2024

Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver;

I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.’ Isaiah 48:10

Dreams in my childhood were dreadful, being as I was, born into a family full of conflict, strife, sickness, cruelty, and other torments.

I never heard my parents say ‘I love you’; My father was a mean alcoholic; My mother’s anxiety was like an eggshell constantly waiting to break into wrath - at which point she’d break wooden spoons over my head, or wake me from a sound sleep with the heel of her shoe to my head. It was the first of a litany of life’s coming trials.

So, my earliest dreams were nightmares.

The nightmare I remember most vividly was of the world spinning around me.. In the dream state - if I dared to speak, the chaos would explode into an unimaginable circus of horror. I was as if I were being trained to ‘remain silent’. (Which for many years I did. But I no longer do.)

I moved from my parent’s home at 17 years of age, never to return, but while I was yet living with them, I started to have dreams that would repeat themselves over and over.

THE FIRST DREAM

In my first dream, I saw a house, where I was a ‘housemother’ taking care of young boys; The house was set alongside a forested woods to its left, with an antique car in the driveway on the right.

THE SECOND DREAM

In my second dream I also saw a large house, set on a series of hills,.. rolling land. The house had many rooms; Behind every door were people living in the rooms;

THE MANIFESTATION OF THE DREAMS

One day, some years after I moved to New York State in 2016, I began to understood the dreams. It dawned on me that I saw both of my 2 houses in my dreams..

Look at them..

THE FIRST HOUSE

This was my house in Virginia. 6442 Overlook Drive, Alexandria Virginia. You can see my 2 Australian Shepherds, Cooper and Marshall in the shade of the FOREST OF TREES on the left side of my house. (A pilot named Tim still owns the 1.5 acres of trees next to me. He was going to build a house, but when the economy crashed in 2008, his plans cancelled and the lot remains treed to this day. )

This (below) is a GOOGLE Map capture of the lot to the left of my old house. (6444 Overlook Drive, Alexandria VA)

Living in the house with me, was my son, his dad, and young men rented rooms from us, who came from Korea, or Saudi Arabia, or Egypt, to study English in area schools. I was as a house mother to all.

The ‘antique car’ - was my 1979 VW Bus in the carport on the right side of the house. (In the photo it’s a garage, because we closed the carport in 2015) (Here’s the bus below outside Yosemite National Park, on my drive home from active duty in California in 1993)

THE SECOND HOUSE

My next house is the one I’m still living in now; It’s large - 7 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, kitchen, living room, dining room, office and art studio on a 1/2 acre of land.

The lot of land is rolling, terraced, sloping down from the buildings.. going down one, then two, then three levels, before rising again to the street behind us.

The house is a BED & BREAKFAST; Behind the doors there are people in the rooms…

THIRD DREAM

My 3rd repeated dream continues to this day. In the dream, I point my hands like a swimmer and rise up from the ground - above the heads of crowds of people, taking off into the air flying… rising, swooping, high above the crowds on the ground; This dream is especially vivid - like it is really happening each time.

REALIZING WHAT I WAS SEEING

One day it hit me like a ton of bricks, that I was seeing the 2 houses I have owned. (Not the too many rentals I have lived in, in this life of itinerant wandering - alone like Abraham, from place to place, looking for a city whose builder and maker is God)

MOREOVER - the striking difference between my bedroom in my first house and my bedroom now also hit me like a ton of bricks….

In the first house in Virginia, my bedroom was all ‘EARTH’ colors;

From the painting on the wall, ( a copy of ‘March’ by Issac Levitan), to the window treatments, to the brown wooden floor, to the wheat colored striated walls..