2000-09-27 - 20:45:56
But A Dream

But A Dream

I have long been fascinated by dreams, and I take my own very seriously. Today has been quite the day. First, Paul wrote about his dream about Joey and I. That was interesting enough; but when I excitedly told the news to Joey on the phone a couple hours ago, he nearly had a heart attack. You see, he dreamt about Paul and I last night too!

(I myself remember no dreams from last night.)

But the uncanny thing is that while Joey and I are best buddies, face-to-face, our connection to Paul down in New Orleans is only through his fabulous diary and several emails back and forth.

As Joey and I are beginning to find, Diaryland is an ever-deepening adventure. We have talked about how we feel more connected with a lot of you Diarylanders than we do friends here in town; such a rich sharing and dialogue unfolds here.

For me, last night's uncanny synchronicity brings up a similar experience I had, almost exactly a year ago. After a brief but intense fling abruptly soured, I was so fucked up that I came close to drinking again: my nearly 3 years of sobriety from alcoholism at the time was in jeopardy. I nipped that crisis in the bud, but a few days later I awoke at 5 am from a vivid dream:

I am living here in my house, but room-mating with Morrie [a 19 year old I'd had sex with off the computer chatlines several weeks' before]. I return to the house, having been out and about somewhere, cruising for sex; I am unsettled and compulsive. When I enter my house, I find my sister, Anne and some girlfriend of hers visiting Morrie here. They are drinking beer in the living room.

Soon after I arrive, they all go downstairs for some reason, so I am left alone. Immediately, I pick up a bottle of beer they've left, three-quarters full, and guzzle it all down in one swig.

I soon begin to feel woozey, light-headed. At that moment, the phone rings and it's John [former roommate and good friend] calling from back in Toronto. We talk very superficially at first, then all of a sudden he starts to cry, tells me that his brother had committed suicide a month ago! I am shocked at his news, but even more shocked at how open and vulnerable he is being with me for the first time in so long. He says he really needs my help; I talk to him in a soothing tone. One of the things I say to him is that I think he should move here, get away from the heavy drinking and drugging crowd he hangs out with in Toronto.

We keep talking like this. But then all of a sudden I begin to throw up, vomiting up this gross cottage-cheesey puke. But I only vomit for a little bit and John doesn't seem to notice so I keep right on talking. I can't clean up the horrid mess, so when Morrie comes back up from downstairs, he complains about it. I ignore him and keep on talking to John.

All of a sudden, I feel frightened for John, ask him if his brother's suicide has made him feel suicidal. John breaks down into even more sobbing, admitting that, yes, he is thinking of killing himself.

The second John utters this tearful announcement, I begin to throw up all over again, this time uncontrollably, unstoppably. I have to put the phone down as I puke all over myself. I run to the bathroom, but discover someone is in there with the door locked, so I run to my den and continue to vomit voluminously into the garbage can.

At this point, I realize for the first time that I am actually drunk from that 3/4 of a beer. What's more, I realize--bent over, upchucking into the garbage can--that I myself am in crisis, that it is impossible for me to help John right now because I am in trouble with my alcoholism.

I wake up, feeling frightened, freaked out.

Pretty heavy stuff, eh? I've had "drinking dreams" before, and I interpreted this one as a potent warning that my sobriety must remain a top priority.

I had often dreamt about friends or loved ones, but I didn't take their part in my dreams seriously as anything other than a reflection of my psyche. In other words, I had never had a "psychic" dream which tapped into another person's experience.

Nonetheless, I sent John a friendly little email that morning, wondering if everything was okay, and I thought about him all day. When I hadn't had a reply by that night, I gave him a call.

He has call display, so he knew it was me calling.

"I can't believe you are calling me right now!" was how he answered the phone. A muted, emotional tone.

"Oh yeah?"

"I am in trouble. I have never needed to talk to you as much as I do right now. I need your help. I dreamt about you all night last night. I dreamt that I was calling out to you for help."

I couldn't fucking believe my ears. Calmly, I heard the rest of the story. No, his brother had not committed suicide; John's crisis was that he'd just been fired from a job he loved, that he was totally married to, because of his drinking. He finally recognized, he said, that he was an alcoholic; he knew of no one else he could turn to for support. John is not someone who asks for help easily, and there he was--inebriated, I soon realized--begging me to please please please help him.

Let's just say it was a very intense, healing conversation.

So there I was, dreaming about being too fucked up with my own drinking problem to offer John the emotional support he needed; and there he was, dreaming about calling out to me for help about his alcoholism.

I will never forget this healing synchronicity as long as I live.

Unfortunately, John's resolve to deal with his drinking quickly evaporated; as a result, he has largely avoided me--not returning calls or answering emails--ever since that intense conversation. I feel sad about that, but I accept that his struggle is his, not mine. All I can do is keep myself sober and open to supporting him should he ever ask again.

But ever since this synchronous dreamtime overlap, I have been more open to the profound ways we communicate and connect with one another. So that I'm not completely surprised when Diarylanders--privy to each others' inmost expressions of self--start dreaming together.

It's not just that we can hook up through our dreams; it's that we are--all of us, always--dreaming each other up from within.

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