Drenched in cold sweat, I could feel my heart jumping in my chest, I could feel it in my throat and in my head, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. It was the dream again, the one where my oldest sister, Maria dies before my eyes. Different scenarios, but all ending the same way, my sister dying in front of me and can’t do anything about it. I wake up needing to call her and making sure she is alright.
To begin with:
I have two sisters but I only dream about my oldest dying. My little sister, Jacky rarely appears in any of my dreams, most of my dreams revolve around Maria. It is always her. In my sleep the images play so vividly that I can’t tell if I am dreaming or not. I wake up in cold sweat and crying, longing to see my sister. Maria’s death is usually caused by me or by a something I have no control over.
I haven’t lived with Maria for about three years now. When she moved out it was very strange I felt like I lost my other half because we were very close as children. We shared a room and a bed and when she moved out I got my own room and bed, but lost a sister. I get to see her in the weekends but it is not enough compared to what I had with her before she left home. I miss her and what used to be of our relationship.
Is it a Dream or a Nightmare?
In my latest dream she was in a car accident when she was on her way back home for the weekend. In the dream I could see it all happening, it was like watching a movie, always switching from scene to scene. In my dream I had just got back from school and had bought a bar of World’s Most Famous Chocolate from a small boy and his mother raising money for a fundraiser. Earlier that day on a phone call with Maria, she had just mentioned that she was craving chocolate. The dream then switched and I was able to see Maria loading her weekend cloths to her car, and was on the phone with our mother telling her that she was on her way and to be expecting her in an hour or so. At home my mother and I were getting dinner ready. We were talking and laughing when we got a call on the house phone, which was very strange for us to get calls from it. My dad decided to answer it which was also strange because he had never gotten up to answer the phone, not since when my grandmother passed and he received the call. While on the phone his grin from the previous joke I just told disappeared instantly in to a thin line on his face. His eyes started to water and he started to shake, and that is when he dropped the phone, my mother rushed to pick it up and talked in to it. Her reaction was the same although she was able to hang up ad she just stared in to the abyss. I was scared I could feel my heart racing and I started to tremble. Finally my father mumbled “She’s gone. She’s gone.” It wasn’t heard to piece everything together and I started to cry uncontrollably, and started to blabber in between cries, “She can’t be, she just can’t be because I just bought her, her favorite chocolate and she hasn’t had the chance to eat it.” I woke up yelling no and had hot tears were running down my face.
It felt so real because it was a scenario in which could have happened. What really made me believing that it was real was buying the chocolate because that day I had bought her some chocolate from the small school boy selling them for a dollar for a fundraiser. When I woke up crying I thought that event had happen and I was just having nightmare of the events that had happen earlier that day. I just had to call her and see if she was okay.
Whenever I call early in the morning or in the middle of the night Maria is already used to it and knows why I am calling.
“Hello?” she sheepishly answers.
“Maria is that really you?”
“Yeah it’s me. What’s wrong? Is everything okay? Did you have a dream where I died, again?” she asks with concern but in a playful manner, “Is it like the time where Lord Voldemort decapitates me or the time I had the accident?” She already knows, and she is always comforting and reinsuring me that she is alright and not in danger or dead or an imposter. I usually just stay quiet and cry of how foolish I was but she just asks questions about it and switches it to make it seem like a silly dream and helps me go back to sleep.
Questions the Dream Bring Up:
Once Maria moved out was when I started to have the dreams more frequently, before it was once in a blue moon and not as threatening. I was able to just vaguely remember what it was about but now it is more of a lucid, and more vivid, which make them much more intense. After the dreams I always ask myself “what if’s”:
What if it did happen?
What would I do, would I react the same way that I did in the dream?
Am I mentally ready to handle this, am I strong enough or will it break me?
·These are some of the questions the dreams leave behind along with, why these types of dreams?
The Path I Took to Find Out the Meaning of My Dreams
In The Psychology of Dreams by Paul R. Robbins, he states that long ago in early civilizations people perceived dreams as having meaning to them, they were not just random ideas in some one’s head. A meaning of the dream could be interpreted and served as messages from a god (4). It is human nature to want to find meaning to things especially vivid images we create on our minds that seem to not make much sense in the first place. We interpret dream to what we have knowledge of our own lives and symbolism that we have created. Dreams are one of the few ways we have used to see into our unconscious and interpret it, to understand what is beneath the surface of our consciousness. Some people have stated that upon waking from an intense dream, holding on to the feeling we felt once we woke up could help us better interpret our dreams.
Edgar Cayce, a twentieth century psychic and Medical Clairvoyant, states that dreams are one of the few ways that we get to see a glimpse of our unconscious mind. Dreams can just be as simple as to trying to organize the events of the day into our memories or it can be your mind foreshadowing events. Many people believe that dreams can be a way of interpreting the future. It might not be spot on but they hint on clues and symbols that can be associated with future events. Cayce suggested that dreams open out unconscious to poke around to help find solutions to our problems. For example if someone is struggling with a change in their lives and doesn’t know how to make the transition, a dream can hold the key in to finding out how.
The most famous psychologist that is associated with dream interpretations is Sigmund Freud. He focused on the more latent interpretation of dreams that help the dreamer see what he truly wants. Freud believes that the unconscious expresses itself in a symbolic language: id, ego, and super ego. He suggests that when we are dreaming we express id, which is centered on primal impulses, pleasure and desires. He also suggest that when we cannot remember our dreams, it is because our superego is preventing us to remember our desires. Superego is associated with enforcing the moral code we have grown to know, it is like censoring the id. Although Freud was mostly preoccupied with the sexual content of dreams, he believed that everything in our dreams had an association with sex.
One Way to Look at It
According to How to Interpret Your Own Dreams by Tom Chetwynd, dreams are part of the evolution of the human being because they are things that we try to use to fill in holes in our life. They tell us about what we need in our lives or what we desire in order to be complete. The book suggest that my dreams are associated with aggression against my sister, because I always see her dying in my dreams dying it means that I want her out of the way. But it also says that it can mean that subconsciously I am picturing her death in a way to see how I would react to the day that she is to be absent in my life and makes me appreciate her even more when I wake up (76). Chetwynd also gives an explanation why I only have dreams of Maria and not Jacky. Because of how frequent Maria appears in my dreams usually suggests my continued love for her. The fact that Jacky does not appear in my dreams as often, Chetwynd suggests that I am trying to deny the existence of her in order to keep my anxiety under control. If she does appear in a dream I might have wish that she hadn’t because it pains me (133).
The Way I See It
I had the chance to sit down with Maria and ask her some questions about her thoughts about the dream. I explained to her my findings and we agree on some or the interpretations but we do not agree with most. When Maria first heard of my dreams she thought that I hated her because I had these dreams, but soon after she saw the way that it was affecting me in a negative way she reached out to help me get through them. I also explained my dream to Jacky, she didn’t take it very well. She thinks that I do not love her because of what the dreams suggest but that is not the case. I love them both and I just hope they know that by know, but because of the dreams I feel that it can cause a bit of a misunderstanding. I do believe that the dreams are trying to help me prepare to when the day does come because just the thought of anyone in my immediate family died, I think I would lose it completely.
Regardless these reoccurring dreams has brought the relationship that I have with my big sister closer as sisters. Maria and I have a better relationship than the relationship I have with my little sister, Jacky. Although now I can see how my dreams may relate to my relationship with my sisters but it does not change the fact that I love them to death. Although with what some interpretations of my dreams may be, I don’t believe them to be the absolute truth. I believe that they have a meaning to me but I am still in process of figuring it out and it will not be much greater than the importance of my sisters being in my life.
I have two sisters but I only dream about my oldest dying. My little sister, Jacky rarely appears in any of my dreams, most of my dreams revolve around Maria. It is always her. In my sleep the images play so vividly that I can’t tell if I am dreaming or not. I wake up in cold sweat and crying, longing to see my sister. Maria’s death is usually caused by me or by a something I have no control over.
I haven’t lived with Maria for about three years now. When she moved out it was very strange I felt like I lost my other half because we were very close as children. We shared a room and a bed and when she moved out I got my own room and bed, but lost a sister. I get to see her in the weekends but it is not enough compared to what I had with her before she left home. I miss her and what used to be of our relationship.
Is it a Dream or a Nightmare?
In my latest dream she was in a car accident when she was on her way back home for the weekend. In the dream I could see it all happening, it was like watching a movie, always switching from scene to scene. In my dream I had just got back from school and had bought a bar of World’s Most Famous Chocolate from a small boy and his mother raising money for a fundraiser. Earlier that day on a phone call with Maria, she had just mentioned that she was craving chocolate. The dream then switched and I was able to see Maria loading her weekend cloths to her car, and was on the phone with our mother telling her that she was on her way and to be expecting her in an hour or so. At home my mother and I were getting dinner ready. We were talking and laughing when we got a call on the house phone, which was very strange for us to get calls from it. My dad decided to answer it which was also strange because he had never gotten up to answer the phone, not since when my grandmother passed and he received the call. While on the phone his grin from the previous joke I just told disappeared instantly in to a thin line on his face. His eyes started to water and he started to shake, and that is when he dropped the phone, my mother rushed to pick it up and talked in to it. Her reaction was the same although she was able to hang up ad she just stared in to the abyss. I was scared I could feel my heart racing and I started to tremble. Finally my father mumbled “She’s gone. She’s gone.” It wasn’t heard to piece everything together and I started to cry uncontrollably, and started to blabber in between cries, “She can’t be, she just can’t be because I just bought her, her favorite chocolate and she hasn’t had the chance to eat it.” I woke up yelling no and had hot tears were running down my face.
It felt so real because it was a scenario in which could have happened. What really made me believing that it was real was buying the chocolate because that day I had bought her some chocolate from the small school boy selling them for a dollar for a fundraiser. When I woke up crying I thought that event had happen and I was just having nightmare of the events that had happen earlier that day. I just had to call her and see if she was okay.
Whenever I call early in the morning or in the middle of the night Maria is already used to it and knows why I am calling.
“Hello?” she sheepishly answers.
“Maria is that really you?”
“Yeah it’s me. What’s wrong? Is everything okay? Did you have a dream where I died, again?” she asks with concern but in a playful manner, “Is it like the time where Lord Voldemort decapitates me or the time I had the accident?” She already knows, and she is always comforting and reinsuring me that she is alright and not in danger or dead or an imposter. I usually just stay quiet and cry of how foolish I was but she just asks questions about it and switches it to make it seem like a silly dream and helps me go back to sleep.
Questions the Dream Bring Up:
Once Maria moved out was when I started to have the dreams more frequently, before it was once in a blue moon and not as threatening. I was able to just vaguely remember what it was about but now it is more of a lucid, and more vivid, which make them much more intense. After the dreams I always ask myself “what if’s”:
What if it did happen?
What would I do, would I react the same way that I did in the dream?
Am I mentally ready to handle this, am I strong enough or will it break me?
·These are some of the questions the dreams leave behind along with, why these types of dreams?
The Path I Took to Find Out the Meaning of My Dreams
In The Psychology of Dreams by Paul R. Robbins, he states that long ago in early civilizations people perceived dreams as having meaning to them, they were not just random ideas in some one’s head. A meaning of the dream could be interpreted and served as messages from a god (4). It is human nature to want to find meaning to things especially vivid images we create on our minds that seem to not make much sense in the first place. We interpret dream to what we have knowledge of our own lives and symbolism that we have created. Dreams are one of the few ways we have used to see into our unconscious and interpret it, to understand what is beneath the surface of our consciousness. Some people have stated that upon waking from an intense dream, holding on to the feeling we felt once we woke up could help us better interpret our dreams.
Edgar Cayce, a twentieth century psychic and Medical Clairvoyant, states that dreams are one of the few ways that we get to see a glimpse of our unconscious mind. Dreams can just be as simple as to trying to organize the events of the day into our memories or it can be your mind foreshadowing events. Many people believe that dreams can be a way of interpreting the future. It might not be spot on but they hint on clues and symbols that can be associated with future events. Cayce suggested that dreams open out unconscious to poke around to help find solutions to our problems. For example if someone is struggling with a change in their lives and doesn’t know how to make the transition, a dream can hold the key in to finding out how.
The most famous psychologist that is associated with dream interpretations is Sigmund Freud. He focused on the more latent interpretation of dreams that help the dreamer see what he truly wants. Freud believes that the unconscious expresses itself in a symbolic language: id, ego, and super ego. He suggests that when we are dreaming we express id, which is centered on primal impulses, pleasure and desires. He also suggest that when we cannot remember our dreams, it is because our superego is preventing us to remember our desires. Superego is associated with enforcing the moral code we have grown to know, it is like censoring the id. Although Freud was mostly preoccupied with the sexual content of dreams, he believed that everything in our dreams had an association with sex.
One Way to Look at It
According to How to Interpret Your Own Dreams by Tom Chetwynd, dreams are part of the evolution of the human being because they are things that we try to use to fill in holes in our life. They tell us about what we need in our lives or what we desire in order to be complete. The book suggest that my dreams are associated with aggression against my sister, because I always see her dying in my dreams dying it means that I want her out of the way. But it also says that it can mean that subconsciously I am picturing her death in a way to see how I would react to the day that she is to be absent in my life and makes me appreciate her even more when I wake up (76). Chetwynd also gives an explanation why I only have dreams of Maria and not Jacky. Because of how frequent Maria appears in my dreams usually suggests my continued love for her. The fact that Jacky does not appear in my dreams as often, Chetwynd suggests that I am trying to deny the existence of her in order to keep my anxiety under control. If she does appear in a dream I might have wish that she hadn’t because it pains me (133).
The Way I See It
I had the chance to sit down with Maria and ask her some questions about her thoughts about the dream. I explained to her my findings and we agree on some or the interpretations but we do not agree with most. When Maria first heard of my dreams she thought that I hated her because I had these dreams, but soon after she saw the way that it was affecting me in a negative way she reached out to help me get through them. I also explained my dream to Jacky, she didn’t take it very well. She thinks that I do not love her because of what the dreams suggest but that is not the case. I love them both and I just hope they know that by know, but because of the dreams I feel that it can cause a bit of a misunderstanding. I do believe that the dreams are trying to help me prepare to when the day does come because just the thought of anyone in my immediate family died, I think I would lose it completely.
Regardless these reoccurring dreams has brought the relationship that I have with my big sister closer as sisters. Maria and I have a better relationship than the relationship I have with my little sister, Jacky. Although now I can see how my dreams may relate to my relationship with my sisters but it does not change the fact that I love them to death. Although with what some interpretations of my dreams may be, I don’t believe them to be the absolute truth. I believe that they have a meaning to me but I am still in process of figuring it out and it will not be much greater than the importance of my sisters being in my life.
Works Cited
Chetwynd, Tom. How to Interpret Your Own Dreams: An Encyclopedic Dictionary. New York: Peter H. Wyden, 1972. Print.
"Dream Moods: Dream Theories: Sigmund Freud." Dream Moods: Dream Theories: Sigmund Freud. Dream Moods, 3 Dec. 2013. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
"Insights from Dreams." Insight from Dreams: Edgar Cayce A.R.E. Edgar Cayce's Associations for Research and Enlightenment, 2007. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
Robbins, Paul R. The Psychology of Dreams. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1988. Print
Selina Salazar is a freshman at California State University Northridge. She is working on her degree on Visual Art and hope to be part of movie productions.