Driving toward home on these country dirt roads last week I met with a van that was coming down the mountain. The driver stopped to ask for directions; he was a chimney cleaner who had cleaned my chimney last year. He recognized me and said, “You’re the dream lady!” Well I guess I am.

Today I’m thinking that the Rip Van Winkle-esque sleep that I woke up from and wrote about yesterday set me up for what was to come last night. That long sleep might have been an immersion into the dreamtime so that I could move a little deeper and further into its terrains. I did not come back from that sleep with significant dreams; but last night’s dream was seminal. And a nightmare. I thought, in the dream, that D.H. Lawrence had written the same story in one of his novels and it was being lived out in my own life  just a little differently from his telling. Due to the archetypal quality and insights in his writings, the patterns in human nature and the stories are recognizable; again this was a dream thought. “Oh, this is like D.H. Lawrence’s novel,” I mused, (though in waking life the story doesn’t actually resemble any of his books.) If I were to do justice to recording last night’s dream I would almost be writing a novel; the scenes, character and plot development were intricate and highly developed. Each person’s psychology and choices influenced the evolution of everything else. And it was a terribly sad story.

I think I will be unpacking this one for a long time, and I have hope that it will illuminate some areas of psyche in need of witnessing, understanding and compassion. I can feel empathy and understanding for each of the characters, no matter what role they played. I’ve been asking for a dream to provide insight into some mysterious aspects of my psychological life. I’m very grateful for a response; but am also reminded: Be careful what you wish for.