Fri 01 May 09

I dreamed that D and I went back to the U.S. for a visit. We were staying with my Dad and his wife in their old small house. It was Christmas Eve.

My cousin came in through the back door with all of her many children and grandchildren. I went into the lounge room to avoid them as there was just too many of them. Then the door from the kitchen opened and they came in the lounge room. The children went straight for this huge present for Dad that his wife had wrapped. It took up about 1/6 of the room and was shaped like a huge disk. I had touched it and found that it was very soft as if filled with gossamer quilt stuffing. I wondered what it could be as it was very unusual seeming. The children went right for it and I thought they would likely destroy the wrapping. Thankfully Dad came in and ushered everyone out. I was glad because I didn't want to deal with all the people.

Dad and his wife had to leave for a bit to do something with some money which they had stashed in bundles throughout the house. They left us alone in their house.

In this dream was the feeling I went back home but I didn't want to visit people from my past. I didn't have a lot of passion, but I still had deep feelings about home. I knew I had my son with me, but I didn't actually see him in the dream. We decided to go to my favourite mall for some last minute shopping. I took off my clothes before we left, for some reason. D talked me into not putting my bra back on. I felt ridiculous but he assured me it was good. We went to the mall and I went into the public bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I was kind of mortified seeing myself without a bra, but I started to realize that what you get used to is what you end up liking. I just had to get used to it. As I looked at myself in the mirror I saw some of my flaws but I sort of started to change them by how I looked at and felt about myself. I began to transform into what looked like Mariah Carey, as if this was an easy classical look of beauty to take on.

I went into another area of the bathroom. There were workers in there. One was dressed in black and white. Her face was white with black shadows painted on it, like a caricature. It was eerie and scary and yet it also wasn't. She was supposed to be like Mariah Carey, too, but then I realized it was a woman from long ago that was famous, maybe Oliva de Havilland. It was as if to symbolize that there is always this type of iconic beauty in each generation.

It was almost closing time for the mall on Christmas Eve. One of the male clerks saw me as he walked by and he was attracted to me because of the way I now looked. I realized I must look good now. I left the bathroom and he helped by carrying a lot of my stuff, all of which I owned, I assured him, and that I didn't need to pay for because I already owned it. He was just happy to carry it for me because he was enamoured.

When we got out to the paying counter, D was there. The lights began to dim as it was near closing time. As we stood there waiting for our purchases to be rung up by a female clerk (and as I wondered if I should buy more gifts for my son for Christmas at the last minute, or if this was just a reaction to the store closing), my Mom walked by. I was utterly surprised and delighted to see her and yet somehow not surprised to see her. It was as if part of me knew what was happening and going to happen and part of me was unaware. Mom came straight over to me and said, “Alisa! What a great surprise!” I was filled with delight! And for a split second I thought, Oh Mom, how wonderful! My God, it's so amazing that she ran into me while I happened to be here. All of these thoughts ran though my mind very quickly, but then I thought, No WAIT! She's Dead! She came to me and I turned toward her, held her face in my hands and looked deeply into her eyes. I searched her face. Her eyes were really blue (though in reality Mom's eyes were green). She had on her usual blue eye shadow. Her face was very pale white and her hair jet black. She had a bit of rosy rouge on her cheeks. She looked so perfect and crisp. She wore a black trench coat (which was unlike her taste). Her look was all very contrasting and stark (like black and white). She looked beautiful to me, as she always did. She looked about 30 or 40 years old. I saw her skin in detail. It had all the hallmarks I remembered as she had aged and it became so sweetly soft and pillowy.

I said with sincerity, “Mom, you are dead!” I was looking intently, searching her face, feeling love for her, wanting this all to be real, but absolutely feeling and knowing that it wasn't. It felt real, but my logic would not accept it and said, No it's not true, this can't be. Mom agreed saying, “I know. Maybe I was just given a chance to say goodbye and see you once again.” And then she was pulled up into the ceiling which was a false ceiling made of light weight panels, very, very high up. She was as if on strings (in my mind I want to say tenterhooks and that freaks me out). It was like she was a puppet.

Once again, it was eerie. Well, in the dream I didn't see it as eerie so much, probably more once I woke up. I said to the clerk, “Did you see that?!” And she said, “Yeah.” Because I thought and hoped I was in the same reality as everyone else. I said, “Did you see how blue her eyes were?” and I knew they were green in real life. The clerk said, “Yeah.”

The clerk gave us a receipt. This made me note the time as there was a time stamp on the bottom of the receipt. It was 4:40. It made me gasp with realization that it was this day, however many years ago, that I last saw her in this mall and at this paying counter. And I further realized that it had been virtually the same time of day as well, as I remembered the receipt time-stamp back on that day long ago as being 4:44. It had stood out to me and was easily accessible to my memory because of its pattern. I wondered why there was a 4 second discrepancy though between the time today and the day long ago. I thought that there must be a good reason. And on top of that, I realized it was not the exact same date as I had seen her there before. It wasn't exactly Christmas Eve, but maybe the same day of the week in the same month. I was immersed in the ideas of time correspondences and patterns.

Then Dad called us on our cell phone and wanted us to come back for Christmas Eve dinner. I was really excited to tell them that I saw Mom and to try to figure out what it meant.