Aboriginal Walking

A few years ago I had a very bizarre dream. The bizarreness was in it’s mundanity–unlike other dreams where I’m walking naked throughout a city or singing from the top of the Sears Tower while wearing ice skates on my hands. This bizarrely normal dream was about me and one of my high school friends sitting and talking. The friend–whom I hadn’t seen in years–was asking my advice and I was giving it. Just as we had done dozens of times as teenagers. It was sweet and nice and calming.

A co-worker told me that there was a concept called “dream walking”, which the aboriginals of Australia believed gave your spirit a chance to commune with another spirit. Of course, when you look up “dreamwalking” on the web, you get thousands of pages by 14 year old girls who love the show “Charmed”, peppered with a few sites run by aging hippies who sell candles in the parking lots of various gatherings. In other words, it’s one of those serious experiences that gets watered down into a sort of pseudomystical sideshow. [True mysticism doesn’t require souveniers…]

It has been years since I dreamed that dream but I never forgot the peacefulness of it, how relaxing it was to be normal in my sleep and converse with someone I cared about. When Casey died I actually remembered the “dreamwalking” dream and was afraid that something like that would happen with the dog. I did NOT want to dream about him because I didn’t think I could handle it in my waking life. The raw hurt of being without my constant companion is a soul’s pain that goes beyond any superficial bodily injury and I didn’t want my mind to rub psychic salt in it.

But I just woke up this morning after having the dream I knew would come–the dream where everything was normal and I went about my business with Casey at my side. The dream where he came when I called his name, I petted his face and looked into his eyes. The experience was very peaceful and very nice and it confirms something I’ve long suspected. Dreams are one of the greatest kindnesses of God.