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I had a therapist who wanted me to record my dreams.
He had me keep a pad and pen by the bed. If I woke up in the night, write down what I remembered. But mainly, first thing in the morning, no snooze alarm, wake up - grab the pad and start writing - it's usually kind of a backwards progression. You write down the first thing you remember - usually the last dream, but as you trace it back you remember the one before that and the one before that. Don't let people talk to you. Don't get out of bed. If you hit a blank spot, "close your eyes and think about the last thing you were remembering" . . .
it was amazing all the "stuff" I was dreaming about. He seemed to find it enlightening.
One really really odd thing occurred (if you're in the mood for a story). At the time - and this was early 1980 - I had just moved and started seeing this new therapist who was assigned to me. He was from an island country - Jamaica or something, he had a pretty heavy accent, but he was also black. Now, at the time - this was in Southern Alabama, I'd been "born and raised in GA and AL" and while not a total redneck, suffered from the prejudices of the "South". I - struggled - with the fact that he was black, but he was the therapist I was assigned to and I couldn't change without good cause (and I don't think that would have been accepted as "good cause" even back then.)
OK - so I had this dream - I still remember it pretty vividly. I was in a hospital looking in at the newborns in a nursery. There was one black baby in there. Then, this black couple picks up the baby and brings it out to me. They want me to take the baby and raise him as my own. I remember (in the dream) thinking, this is impossible! I can't take a black baby. I said as much to them. I'm white, he's not. I can't. But they said they couldn't take care of him and if I didn't take him they didn't know what would happen to him and he'd probably die. So I looked down at this tiny newborn and said, "OK. I'll do it. No baby deserves to die." I and held him to my chest and hugged him gently.
So I wrote up the dream, but I was pretty uncomfortable writing it up because then I thought, well he'll know for sure I'm prejudiced now even though I tried to hide it. Then I got to thinking - maybe this means I'm accepting him as a therapist!! I was quite pleased with my interpretation of my dream, and indeed, my relationship with him changed and we worked together much better. I didn't see him much longer because he thought I needed a marriage counselor instead of a therapist - which was true.
OK - still with me? - Here's where it gets a little weird..........fast forward to 1998 - that's EIGHTEEN YEARS later! New Foster Parent license in hand, my new social worker told me about a newborn baby in the hospital that was going to an orphanage the next day if I didn't take him. 9 hours later she put a beautiful black baby boy in my arms. Two years later I was able to adopt him. His birth parents - though they went through the motions of trying to get him back, were incapable of taking care of him. If he had of gone back to them, I can't imagine what would have become of him. Though I've tried to not impose the image of his birth parents on the people in my dream - I can't help but believe they looked very similar. But that could just be revisionist thinking.
So - was my first interpretation correct - or was it some sort of precognitive dream? I wonder that sometimes . . .
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