My Mother Was A Dream Interpreter

Last night I dreamed I was sitting at a table with my mother's "Writing Sisters," a group of women she loved, with whom she workshopped writing, and especially with whom she share a passion for writing.

My mother was a dream interpreter. Like the biblical Joseph she could sometimes be blunt in her interpretations. I can't tell you whether she thought much about her interpretations first. As a mother myself, I can say that she probably didn't - she just spoke the truth that came to her in the moment, when I came to her with my dreams, often waking her from her own.

One particular dream I remember, I must have been eleven or twelve, came after one of our rabbi's rousing, demanding, terrifying sermons against nuclear proliferation (I had several dreams/nightmares after his sermons). 

We were walking in a wasteland, along a bar of sand raised above more sand, as far as the eye could see, to the flat horizon. Only the ridge stood out, and maybe a few broken pieces of metal machinery. I was with my parents. At this point I can't remember whether my brothers were also there, but I think not.

Up over the horizon a few large missiles, blue and silver, rose, veered towards us, and landed - one nose down, tailfins jutting up in the air, very near to the ridge; the next nosecone piercing the ridge we were walking on. I was, naturally, terrified. I guess I turned to my parents for reassurance. My dad said, "it's just a test, don't worry. We are okay." My mom said nothing.

I woke from the dream terrified. I went to my parents bedroom, this time looking for reassurance in a waking state. My mom came out and sat with me, and I told her my dream.

"Oh, that just means he will be in your next life, and I won't," she said, as if it was the truest, most obvious thing about this dream.

Had I asked her why she didn't say anything in the dream? I don't remember. Either way, to this day I find her interpretation not in the least bit reassuring.

In these first few weeks since Mom's death, I have thought often of this dream - and her response. Did she really believe this? In these past years when words were absent from her mouth due to a stroke did she remember, and know how close her interpretation was?

My dad and I carry on. Mom is gone to Olam Haba, and we are here, in Olam Hazeh. For nearly three years, she was unable to speak much, and for the last year really not at all. 

My dad and I live on. We speak to each other. In some ways her loss of speech opened up pathways between him and me that somehow stayed narrow in the time that she and I developed an incredible friendship, starting right after my high school years. 

And now my mom is gone. And in some ways it is like my dad and I are forging a "next life" together. We reassure each other. Is this a test? No - this is life. Eventually we all lose close family 

I'm not sure what Mom would say about last night's dream. Still, her voice lives on in my memories of her, and in her writings - personal and professional. And I will continue to listen, to seek connection to her through those writings. Maybe, just maybe, that's what last night's dream was about - that I, as her writing daughter, am thus kin to her writing sisters. May the Sisters and I continue to write, to honor her memory, and to follow our own passion.

Dreams and Dreamers

Joseph is a dreamer. His dreams - or at least his sharing of his dreams put him in danger. They are the dreams of a prophet, dreams that know something that can't be known.

Dreams can be like that. Dreams sometimes tell us a situation is or isn't right in a way we don't seem to grasp in our waking life. 

The double entendre of the word "dream" is really quite profound. We dream in consciousness about our hopes, and we dream to process life while we sleep. I believe that in dreams my subconscious mind can work in the space, the veil, between olam haba (the world to come, or the spiritual world) and olam hazeh (this world, the physical).  

Someone recently asked, thus reminding me, about my journey from anthropologist to rabbi. It is a multifaceted journey, one that relies on conscious and subconscious dreams. Since childhood, I have loved digging through layers of past cultures, and this passion is directly connected to my spiritual and moral identity. 

Sleeping dreams have directed my journey through these interests on more than one occasion. A series of dreams during my work as an archaeologist ultimately led me to leave that academic field and pursue the rabbinate. The dreams were difficult, filled with ethical dilemma, and left me raw. The transitions weren't easy (if ever they are).

Unlike Joseph, whose initial downfall may be in sharing his dreams too readily, I was cautious about with whom and how I shared my dreams. But like Joseph, my dreams have led me on a long, sometimes arduous, often splendor-filled journey.

I am never sorry when I follow my dreams.  It is good to be reminded of this.

How do you make use of conscious dreams - dreams of hope? And how do your subconscious dreams - of sleep - speak to you? Do you have a little Joseph in you?

[edited for clarity]