Tuesday, September 22, 2009

dreams and more dreams.

Let me begin by wishing all of you a very happy festival season. A Happy Navarathri, Id-ul-fitr and in general a happy, pleasant time to all of you. I started writing something serious but retained it as a draft because I felt that this was not the time for it. Vacations have begun and we plan a trip to Shiridi, Mumbai and Shringeri. I hear that the Malabar coast is luxuriant after the rains and I've never been to Shringeri.

In this post I am generally going to share with you some eerie dreams I had. Sue had long back tagged me asking me to write about my dreams. Being the boring teacher that I am, I wrote out a long list of figurative dreams of how I wanted terrorism to be wiped out and other similar stuff befitting my age. She then told me that she meant real dreams and I had promised that I'd share them later so here I go.

Dream no.1 I was around 13 years of age and it was a Saturday morning. I was studying in a residential school and we were allowed an extra hour of sleep on saturdays and Sundays. I woke up sweating profusely. I had a dream that my dad was in hospital and he was on some life support system. There were all kinds of tubes and stuff and he was all skin and bones. I recognize him only by his voice. We, in the boarding school believed that Friday night's dreams come true but if it was a bad dream its effect could be neutalized if shared. I quickly woke my friends up and shared my dream. Unfortunately the dream did come true and in the months that followed the same dream recurred a few more times and 4 months later when I visited my father in hospital I was shocked to see everything exactly as it was in my dream. My dad, a 175 pounder had been reduced to a skeleton and some 6 months later he died. I had never seen the interior if a hospital room before so I cannot explain how I got such a vivid picture of the hospital scene.

Dreams no.2 Just before my marriage I had a dream that my dad had come with a suitcase and said that he planned to spend sometime with us. He continued to come in my dreams prior to my younger sister's and older brother's weddings. My younger brothers got married some 12 years after our weddings. I almost expected him to come in my dreams when the two younger brothers got married. But no, he didn't.

Dream no. 3. This again involves my dad. I had, by then, almost stopped expecting him to visit me in my dreams. It was more that 33 years since he passed away. I was advised bed rest following high blood pressure. My dad took me in my dream to Patna for an interview. He leaves me at the gate of the Secretariat and vanishes much to my annoyance. My name is called out and I try to go in when a little girl asks me if I was PR and when I answer in the affirmative she asks me to go back saying that I was not called. I insist saying that I had indeed been called but she does not let me in.

I wonder what dreams are? I've had my mother in law coming in my dreams soon after her death. My father in law's blood urea count shot up before his death and he developed blisters all over his body due to that. A few days after his death I dreamt that he was looking good and was telling a friend of his that he was fine and all his blisters had healed. But for some reason my mother has never comes in my dreams. I think it is because my mother lived to see us well settled while my father didn't. If there is something called soul then my father's soul perhaps wanted to be part of any celebration in the family.

I have regular dreams but most of the time I cannot remember anything when I wake up. But these are a few that I can remember and they usually involve my dead relatives. I don't read too much into my dreams nor do I look for interpretations. But I do offer a silent prayer asking God to take care of things.

9 comments:

shoba said...

I get dreams of varied sorts almost every night and sometimes enact them in my sleep too...Your first dream about your dad becoming reality is very astonishing... My dreams are usually about the past than the future..

Cantaloupes.Amma (CA) said...

Were you very attached to your father?
I rarely remember my dreams ... most of the time its about exams.

Anonymous said...

Hi.

First time on your blog.. and after this blog, you can congratulate yourself on another loyal reader! :)

I could relate to the dreams that you mentioned. I remember the night my grandmother died, my father was extremely restless all night. We stayed far away from them, and my father was greatly attached to her. Unfortunately, my relatives could not keep her body for long and they had to cremate her before my father could reach. I can sometimes to this date, see the pain in his eyes. Its almost as if she was suffering in her last moments and calling out to him.

My heart goes out to you and your family and I want to say that you will be in my prayers today and I will pray for you.

Samvedna said...

My sister always gets dream like premonition, and thats why I always pray not to have such dreams.....they are quite scary actually..can u believe it once she saw that Antulay(politician) had an heart attack and in the morning all the news papers had that as news, that tinme she was very young, I think a teenager only.

Hip Grandma said...

Shoba:I normally forget my dreams but this one has stayed for more than 45 years.

CA: I was rather attached to my dad.I used to think that my dad was the most handsome,kindhearted, generous and jovial person on earth.There is a group photo taken at his farewell from Coimbatore.We kids were made to sit in the front row and my head is turned towards him as if I could not take my eyes off him.I remember thinking that he looked great with garland and all.I must have been around 5 years of age then.


worldthrumyeyes:welcome here.I think I can understand the thing about premonitions.A friend of mine felt that she heard her mother calling.Thinking that she had come on a surprise visit she rushed to the verandah.There was no one there.The very night her mother died.


Antarman:welcome here,Yeah it is kind of scary when bad dreams come true.But it does not always happen does it?

Sumana said...

It is scary when such dreams come true. It still makes me think and curious the world of dreams how they arise and what makes you dream that?

Usha said...

I sometimes think that it requires a higher level of consciousness to understand what is happening in your dreams. My dreams are always absurd, vague and totally unrelated and it is good I don't remember them in the morning. But just a couple of times when something happens I have a feeling that I have seen it all somewhere (a sense of Deja Vu), perhaps in one of the dreams I did not remember.

Poornima said...

My husband is from Dharwad in Karnataka, where the staple diet is 'jolad roti'. These are made of jowar; the rotis are beaten into shape on a flat surface with the hands. No belan. No luck making ‘em either.

My recurrent dream has me triumphantly holding a hot, perfect, jolad roti in the air, the National Anthem playing in the background, & my teary eyed mother in law presenting me with the Jola Cup. And actually SMILING!! :-)

I must confess that Im usually awake when this dream happens.

Sigh! May my dream come true! Wish me luck, HHG!!

Hip Grandma said...

there are many unsolved mysteries in the world.Dreams are one of those.Many times however dreams are related to your innermost thoughts.But it still does not explain all dreams.say for instance my first dream.

usha:i too get a sense of 'deja vu' at timeslike when i say something it seems as if I've said it before.

poornima:Best of luck and may you be a champion not only in preparing jolad roti but in being your mother in law's pet DIL.

'I must confess that Im usually awake when this dream happens.'

So this is your dream in a figurative sense is it? :-))