At 2331 this evening I awoke from the following dream:
    My mother and I were having dinner with MPS and her family at their house in the Phoenix Metro-plex. We were eating outside at a picnic-style table bedecked with some sort of celebratory spread. My mother, by the way, although the same age she is now, was completely mobile, etc., and wearing the dress in this picture of her.
    It began to rain as we were eating. We all arose, gathered up the feast and dashed inside to finish our dinner. As we were resetting the inside table, my mother and MPNP were at the sink doing something, probably wiping rain off plates. I heard a hard gasp, like a sudden outtake of air. I looked to the sink and my mother was slumped over. She had accidentally stabbed herself through the chest with one of those two-pronged forks used to hold down a large cut of meat as its being sliced. My nephew immediately gathered her up, explaining as he moved toward the door, "She's 90, she wasn't watching what she was doing and fell against the fork." As he headed out the door toward his truck I shouted after him, "[Name of hospital she usually goes to in Mesa]! [Name of her Mesa PC] is her doctor! Her documents are on file there! Tell them to do everything necessary! I'll be right behind you!"
    He nodded as he ducked out the door carrying my mother.
    I awoke as MPS and MPNC were locating their car and I was locating my car in a huge parking lot in order to follow MPNP.
    Although events were moving furiously in the dream, I wasn't particularly panicked when I awoke. I can't recall ever having a prophetic dream, let alone a truly prophetic thought. Considering the peculiarity of the dream, though, and my first awakening thought, that my mother might be having a heart attack, I decided it might not be a bad idea to call the facility and check on her, just in case she was having a heart attack or had already had one and was laying dead in her unmonitored (by instruments, at least) bed.
    I explained, by way of apology, to the fellow who answered the phone that I had a peculiar request as a result of an unusual dream I'd just had and was wondering if he could have Mom's floor nurse (I identified Mom by name, room and bed number, and, of course, identified myself, as well) check on her and make sure she was "breathing, asleep and alive". It took a few minutes on hold for this fellow to walk the floor, check on my mother and return to me with confirmation that she was asleep, alive and fine. I thanked him, of course, told him that normally I was not disturbed by such dreams but that since this one was so unusual and I awoke with the idea that she might be having a heart attack I just wanted to check to make sure she was all right. He had no problem with that.
    You'll notice that I've included very little fine detail about the dream. At the time I awoke out of the dream I didn't think any of the detail was significant. Following is what I can now remember, in case, as I'm mulling the entire dream over in my mind over the next few days, something of personal significance jumps out at me, since the dream obviously wasn't:

• Although my dream thinking process placed us on my sister's property, that property was significantly different than it actually is. The house was large, multi-leveled, although not storied, with a huge kitchen and dining area. The "yard" in which we were eating was an acreage in what could be described as a "gentleman farmer's" area: Large, square tracts of land, separated by local roads, over a vaguely rolling countryside, mostly lawned in, rather than actually farmed. MPS's family actually owns a typical two bedroom, single level home on a typical neighborhood street with many more homes much like it surrounded by decent but not ostentatious yards;
• As it began to rain, everyone was excited because it hadn't rained in some time and it appeared as though we were going to continue to eat in the rain as an additional celebration of this welcome deluge. The only reason we decided to take the dinner in was because I cited my mother's recent pneumonia and felt that, for her, eating in the rain might not be a good idea;
• There were at least four children of various ages between 5 and 11, I'd say, maybe more, attending the dinner, all of which my dream self "knew" were my mother's great grandchildren (my mother has, at the moment, only two great grandchildren. One of these children, a male child of about 8 or 9, said something significant to me as we entered the house about seating arrangements, with which I agreed, although I don't remember, now, what he said;
• After we moved our dinner inside and were setting up the spread on the dining room table, there was some importance attached to making sure everyone's plate was reassembled and contained exactly what they were eating prior to moving in. In particular, there was some concern that my mother's plate get "the baked apples and not the baked potatoes", which looked similar in the dream.
• Only MPNP was parked on the property. The rest of us were parked in a lot that belonged to some sort of restaurant establishment located so unobtrusively that as we were eating dinner outside it's presence was not apparent. All of us, though, including MPNP, had to leap a wall to get to our cars; for some reason, in the dream, it was a big deal to me that I was able to leap the wall sideways in one bound;
• MPS/MPNC and I were having a lot of trouble locating our cars. We realized that, on that particular night, it looked as though the establishment was sponsoring a holiday party (although I had and have no idea what holiday was being celebrated) and, as we scanned the still sparsely populated lot for our cars, it occurred to me that our cars may have been towed in order to make more room for the celebrants. I had dashed to the front of the building and was about to inquire about this possibility of a gentleman who was guarding the front door from a crowd of people awaiting entrance when I awoke.
• In the dream I was not concerned that we wouldn't quickly locate our cars. As I was heading toward the front of the building I was calling out directions to the hospital to MPS and MPNC, "...southwest corner of Broadway and Power..." which was accurate in the dream, although the location of the hospital is, in reality, on the northwest corner of Baywood (which lies between Southern and Broadway) and Power.
• Although in actuality MPS's family lives quite a ways from my mother's usual Mesa hospital, in the dream their residence was very close. At a point just before confronting the gentleman guard at the door of the restaurant I was quickly figuring that if our cars had been towed we could run toward the hospital on foot and still arrive within minutes of MPNP's and my mother's arrival;
• Despite the type of injury and my mother's age, in the dream it seemed likely that she would survive both the injury and treatment in fine shape. In other words, despite the quick-step of events in the dream, panic was not one of the overriding emotions any of us was experiencing in the dream.

    Think I'll head back for bed. I'm satisfied that I've recorded everything I can remember, all, for the moment, is well, and will remain so for the next few hours.
    Later.
- posted by Gail Rae @ 23:55   email  this post