A life changing dream
The following story is true. It happened to me around 1984. My son was 6 years old, I had been remarried a little less than a year to a man named Tony.The knocking sound was loud and consistent. I remember thinking, "What in the world is making that I sound?" No sooner did I get the words out of my mouth did I realize it was coming from the basement and the washing machine was off balanced. I started down the stairs to adjust the clothes and as I almost reached the bottom step I noticed the door to my basement was wide open. My first instinct was that an intruder was in the house and I had to run upstairs to protect my young son who was asleep in his room. While I was running upstairs I was trying to understand the door in the basement. I don't have a walk out basement, but I couldn't process that inconsistency in my mind because my focus was to protect my child.
As I rounded the kitchen and stepped into the living room looking down the hallway towards the bedrooms I saw the intruder standing in the hallway between the door to my sons room and my bedroom where my husband was asleep. I had to figure out how to stop the intruder from entering my child's room. What appeared to be the only logical thing to do was to push the sofa down the hallway to block the entrance to my son's room.
As I pushed the sofa down the hallway I was surprised that I recognized the intruder. It was me! But different. She was beautiful, she wore a red dress that enhanced her beauty even more - even with this recognition I feared for my son. As I got closer she jumped into my bedroom. I thought this was great as I could now go get Tony and he could protect us.
As soon as I ran into the bedroom the intruder took that opportunity to run back across the hallway into my son's room.
I woke up shaking, sweating and crying. I had trouble catching my breath. My first thought was that this was a message that my son was in danger. I didn't wake Tony to tell him about the dream but I knew I had to talk to someone about it. I checked on my son and he was sleeping soundly.
The next day I found a psychologist who advertised that he interprets dreams. This somehow made it a little more palatable to see a psychologist. I told him every detail of the dream, not one detail of the dream had faded. He asked me several questions like: "what does the color red mean to you?" I told him that I can't think of anything specific that is a sign of danger, I just think of red as bold. After a while this is what he told me. Since the dream took place in my house the dream was about me, not my child. He assured me that he was was not in any danger. He explained that the child in the dream represented me, the child in me that needed to be protected. The intruder also represented me, the bold confident woman. The fear was that the bold confident woman could hurt the child. My husband's role in the dream was to point out that he couldn't come to my rescue. This revelation was significant as I married Tony after only knowing him for a short time. He swept me off my feet and even though I always had a little hesitancy about the relationship, I felt I needed a husband. Part of this comes from my Mother who always told us girls we needed a man to take care of us. All of us girls are very strong independent women, as was my Mom, but I think she always wished for a strong supportive man in her life so why wouldn't she believe that her girls needed the same thing.
After processing what the psychologist shared with me and letting it settle in I realized that I could let that bold confident woman free in my life. I knew that the little child in me had to trust her. The scared child stayed with me a long time. There is another story where I helped this little girl deal with her hurt but I will tell that at another time.
So what changed? The first amazing part is I went out and bought myself a red skirt and jacket for work. I would never wear red because I didn't want to attract any attention to myself. I now felt confident in red. I still have that suit today. My husband? Shortly after our first anniversary I told him that I realized what a mistake I had made. I was sorry but we couldn't stay together.
I felt bad once again bringing a man into my son's life only to have him go away but I felt this was the right thing to do. Even for my son.
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