A post about dreaming

It happened again last night.

I've been waking up between midnight and 2am pretty much every night and last night was no different. Midnight came around and I woke up, turned over put on a Netflix show and went back to sleep for another hour. I was up at 1am cause I needed to go to the bathroom and then back to bed. I was awake again at 2am with a hot flash. After throwing back the covers, adjusting my blinds to let air flow in and scrolling through Facebook, I was finally able to go back to sleep.

That's when it happened. I knew I was dreaming but I was having a dream within a dream. In the dream within a dream, I saw my Dad standing at my bedroom door in his trademark t-shirt, shorts and Teva's. He was saying something and whatever he said made me aware he was going to leave the room and, on an even deeper level, I KNEW he was going to leave me, forever. I heard myself say "Daddy, don't go, I need you. Daddy, I need you, don't go!" I saw him smile, and move across the room. The next moment his arms were around me and for one brief second, for the first time in 5 years, I was on the receiving end of a Dad hug. I physically felt his arms around me and then I was sobbing, "Daddy...daddy...daddy," as I could feel the moment and both dreams slipping away. I struggled to stay right there with him. I woke up with tears streaming down my face.

I've had dreams of my Dad off and on over the last five years. The last time, he was very unhappy with me in my dream. I woke up devastated that I had let my Dad down, somehow. The tears flowed then, too. Last night's dream was the first time I felt like he was really there hugging me. I've missed his hugs. I miss him.

In college I took a class on Dream Interpretation. It was a weekend course, worth one unit that I took because I needed that one unit to graduate college. This morning at 3:30am, I was wishing that I had paid a little bit more attention in that Dream Interpretation class. I was also wondering, was it just a dream, or was that a visit?

Whichever it was, I wish that hug could have lasted just a little bit longer.