Disoriented

I've mentioned I have a vivid dream life, that I recall my dreams pretty much the same way I recall any memory of my waking life.

It almost seems I live a second life in my dreams. There are places I have come to know, I revisit frequently, which I have never seen with waking eyes.

Sometimes when I am awake, I think about something someone said or did, and then realize that it didn't happen in my waking life. I sometimes confuse my dream memories with the real ones.

It happened several times last night.

I woke from a dream, and knew Brenda was beside me.

I reached over to her side of the bed. It was empty.

I went to sleep again. Dreamt of strange challenges in shadowy places. Dreamt of searching in woods, wading in streams. I knew I was dreaming, which sometimes happens, and I knew that there was the weight of someone in the bed beside me. I knew Brenda was there.

I woke. I reached over to her side of the bed. It was empty.

I groaned and went back to sleep.

Again I dreamed, building a house on an empty hill, and again I sensed that it was a dream. I sensed that in the waking world, outside my conjured reality, I felt her near, felt the slight slope of the mattress slanting toward her, the hint of warmth from her breath.

And I woke.

I lay still, letting my memories sort themselves. What is real? What is dream? It is confusing when my dreams contain dreams within them, or when the outside world impinges evidence of its reality into my sleep.

I woke and lay there. And remembered she is sleeping in a different bed, in another town.

I didn't reach over to run my hand under empty covers.

When I hiked around in my younger days the sun was the most reliable guide for direction. It rose in the east. It always rose in the east. And as it reached its zenith, I knew my shadow was pointing slightly north.

But if I woke in foggy weather, if the sun dimly lit an evenly illuminated sky, I would not know where was east. "Orient" means east, a direction pinning the other points of the compass neatly splayed out in 90 degree increments. Not knowing east, not being oriented in my world, I waited out the fog, or followed trails I knew would lead me to where I wished to go.

Even in my dreams beng married gave me a sense of direction. Even in my dreams, I long to orient myself to the sleeping form to my right.

I wake to a fog of wondering of slowly sorting memories, seeking to know where the light is.

Fully awake I dress and take the dog under predawn skies to pray and steep my heart in the peace of starlight. I walk and pray and the sun rises behind Mount Hood... to the east.

As my prayers of gratitude and prayers for wisdom rise from deserted fields, I find my direction in knowing my words of praise drift toward the only true light there is.

Sometimes I feel that this life I am living is a little unreal. In looking at my history I find it at least improbable.

And there are those few moments in my life in which I felt eternity intersect with my life, those moments seem so much more real than the ordinary life I live. Those moments make my mortal life as dreamlike as my dream life.

To paraphrase Shakespeare: To sleep, to dream... but there's the rub, for in this sleep of life from which someday we will awaken, the pangs of the heart, the struggle of our families, the insolent barrage from those who daily make us feel less than the eternal creatures we are, makes us long for realities we know not of, to flee from the improbable visions of mortality.

As long as God is in my life I cannot be truly disoriented.

Long day. Busy. Lots of stuff to keep straight, classes, boys, household chores...

I'm going to bed.

Sweet dreams all.