I have lost the voluntary use of most of my muscles with the exception of my neck, swallowing, speech and those which control my right big toe. So my physical activity has been greatly reduced especially when I am put into bed. At that point, my hands are placed on my chest and my legs are raised to keep my feet from swelling. Then my covers are put on me and my ventilator is placed over my nose. I will remain that way for the next eight to nine hours with only the ability to move my head from side to side. I once thought that being in this situation would be horrifying to the point of insanity. It could be if my subconscious mind didn't love me so much. What I mean is that most of this time is filled with dreams. Not your ordinary dreams but one's filled with adventure, creativity and romance. I fly, I go to school in my underwear (or even naked), I can... I can walk again. In every dream, with the exception of one, I am healthy! It's liberating! I know everyone has these same types of dreams but there's something different about them now. They are far more real than ever before and, on occasion, I am conscious that I'm dreaming. To the point that I can change the direction it's moving. I never had dreams like this before my disease and I don't believe I ever would have without it. I think my mind is helping me keep my sanity in a situation that, by all measures, should break me. Well, whatever the reason, I welcome it. I look forward to bedtime with excitement now. It's nice to live in the moment but we all need a break from it and these dreams provide me with the break I need.
What follows is one of my dreams from several weeks ago and the subsequent discussion Deanna and I had the next morning.
What follows is one of my dreams from several weeks ago and the subsequent discussion Deanna and I had the next morning.
- One night, not too long ago, I had a dream and it went something like this. I was operating an excavator in a cavern with a bunch of archeologists somewhere in Egypt. It was very sandy material I was digging in and very easy to remove by just dragging the sand away from the wall of the cavern. On one of the passes of my bucket a small room was exposed. It seemed to be a spiritual place with an alter and religious artifacts lying neatly about. It was still very colorful and was bordered on each side by two well decorated block pillars. The discovery of this piece of antiquity made world wide news and we were all featured on a panel news program where we would give updates on the find. I'm not sure why I was on the program because all I did was dig with a glorified shovel but I was treated as another archeologist by everyone. Anyway, after one of the news shows we went back into the cavern to look at the altar room. I had an uneasy feeling about the safety of the area since cave ins are a common threat with sandy soil. I was standing by one of the pillars when the material started to cave in. I decided that if I pushed over one of the pillars it would stop the cave in (remember, I was a ditch digger before ALS). It did! All of the other archeologist were upset with me but glad to be alive and went back to their work. I then take a close look at the pillar that I had just destroyed. It turns out it is made of concrete reinforced with steel. Steel with modern english writing and numbers on it none the less. Now I'm no archeologist (though I play one in my dreams) but I'm smart enough to know the ancient Egyptians didn't have concrete technology and definitely didn't use modern steel. It turns out that we had discovered the buried, perfectly preserved, remains of a Hollywood movie set that had been buried by a sand storm in the mid 1930's. I was able to decipher this based on my interpretation of the writing and numbers on the steel. It said "Made in U. S. A. 1935. Yes, I am that good! So we go back to the news show to report this important find to the world and everything goes crazy! The people of the world need to know what movie the set was from and insist that we get back to work immediately. Now, at this point I'm saying "Why don't we look at movies about Egyptian mummies from the 1930's and look for the altar in one of the scenes?" But everyone throughout the world says that we should continue digging since that is the only way to offer validity to the find. Okay, fine, what do I know since I am just a simple man of the earth. So we go back to work and I knock down another wall leading to a new room. There is a door with the words "The Prop Room" This is the Rosetta Stone of this very important dig. On the wall are pictures of Gary Cooper in various stages of being made up as a mummy. So I go on my phone and research Gary Cooper and mummy and up pops Youtube with a video of a scene by the altar we discovered. My phone gets amazing underground service in my dreams unlike reality. It turns out that he played a mummy that haunted the archeologist that disturbed his tomb. With the mystery solved, everyone becomes world famous for this most important find. The whole time I'm thinking this is just common sense and all we had to do was look on YouTube but who am I but a simple ditch digger.
- When I woke up I told Dee about my dream. She quickly replied "That's an easy one to interpret! You are seeing life differently than everyone else because all the stress of work and life has been removed so that you see things as they actually are. The New Don" now see's the world this way and tells everyone about it. "
- I looked at her and said "Oh, that's what it meant? I just thought it was a good dream and I wanted to share it with you."