I Had a Dream Last Night and I’m Still Undecided How I Feel About It

By Jonathon Nixon, LMFT

I’ve always been fascinated with my dreams.  I tend to be a person who spends a lot of time fixated on the thoughts and ideas that flow in and out of my mind and when I get the opportunity to dream, I really become consumed with whatever I can remember from the twisted scenarios that brewed while I slept.  

Lately, I have been on a bit of a dry spell with my dreams due to different work obligations and lifestyle patterns that have drastically cut into my ability to get quality levels of sleep, but every now and again one or two manage to break free from my sleeping unconscious.  Last night, just happened to be one of those moments.

Now, I can remember most of the details to this dream, but I have yet to make up my mind to whether or not this was a dream or, rather, a nightmare.  I say that because the particulars of this dream had to do with my second oldest son and what ended up happening to him, in this dream, right before I woke up.  It isn’t too often that I encounter a dream that leaves me in a state of indifference like this one and because of that I thought I would write about it to figure out the significance (if any) about its meaning. 

The dream started off in a combination of settings that seemed to be all merged into one.  A combination of a large department store (think Walmart), a large (different) enclosed warehouse and a strip mall, that had an active road going with cars going through it.  At the beginning of this dream, it was evident that I was searching for something within this surreal landscape. Something that I knew that I had to find but couldn’t tell you what specifically I was looking for. 

I remember searching high and low between the long row of cars as people casually shopped just beyond the reach of the busy road I seemed to easily navigate during my search.  There was a figure I couldn’t identify, that kept asking me if I “found something yet,” which was followed by a long explanation by me of why it was so hard to find the object “in this kind of traffic.” 

Eventually, I found the mysterious object by just pointing to something and moved onto find the next object.  I can remember in this dream a string euphoric feeling after finding the first object – the kind of feeling you get when you get praised for completing a difficult job from someone you love.  Next, I found myself in a clothing aisle that had a bunch of people who were just frozen as they were looking at the different clothes.

I remember saying, “excuse me,” a lot while I searched for this second object between the clothes and frozen customers.  Again, the figure just followed me around like it was evaluating me or something as I made my search.  This time the figure told me, “good job” right before I spotted the non-descriptive object, pointed to it and continued on looking for another.  The same euphoric feeling happened once again, but this time I remember telling myself (in the dream) “don’t smile” and hiding my mouth from this mysterious figure as I nearly busted out laughing while covering my mouth with my hand. 

The next thing I remember I was triumphally walking toward what looked like some finished line that had a bunch of spectators watching on as I walked towards them like I was just about to finish some marathon of some sort.  I felt amazing, untouchable and high from my accomplishment of finding those elusive objects. As I got closer to the finish line, I recognized my second oldest son who was standing and looking at me with a casual expression that showed little to no emotion.  I felt really excited to see him and as I got closer, I reached out to him to grab him by his shoulders like I usually do but right before I was able to touch him, he sharply bent backwards and I could physically hear his spine breaking as he awkwardly fell back onto the floor. No one seemed to notice at this finish line as they all continue to casually talk with one another, but I felt a rush of panic and concern as I tended to my child who was now screaming in pain from this mysterious injury.  Right after that, I woke up.

In my next blog post, I’ll make an attempt to analyze this dream to see if I can discover any unmet needs or suppressions that might be trying to come out through the heavy symbolism found within this bizarre dream episode.