Dreams

I had a dream last night that I was swimming in the Western Springs Community Pool. The WS pool is a place where I spent countless summer days as a child. Dad was the one who always took me there. I don’t recall my mom every going with us. He would pretend to be a dolphin and I would ride on his back.

Dad was visibly missing from my dream last night. While I was dreaming, I was looking for him. It was one of those dreams where I was fully aware that everything was make-believe. Does that happen to other people, I wonder? Do other people know they are dreaming while they are dreaming? This happens to me often. It sucks the the thrill out a really good dream.

I couldn’t get passed the idea that I was dreaming of the Western Springs pool and dad wasn’t there. It annoyed me. Where is he, I kept thinking. Oddly my pastor was in the dream. He was my fake dad. Only he was doing things that my dad would never do, like swimming in the deep end where his feet couldn't touch and jumping off the divingboard. It was like he was trying to be a fill in, but doing a really bad job at it. Didn't he know that my dad had a fear of deep water? I kept calling him dad. It was peculiar.

When I woke up I could hear the water running—Aaron was in the shower. Maybe that’s where the dream came from? I haven’t been able to get the dream out of my mind. All morning I have been obsessing over it. I think my pastor represented my dad because he just learned he has a tumor growing behind his eye. He has lost nearly all of his vision in his right eye. He has been told that his loss of sight has nothing to do with the tumor. His doctors are baffled. I am concerned because I remember all the confusion when my dad first became ill. My mom sought out the best docotors and got numerous opinions. Because of this, years were tacked on to dad's life. Whenever I see my pastor I worry about him. I feel like I need to urgently persuade him to get the opinions of the very best doctors but I don’t want to be alarmist. I say nothing. Instead I am dreaming that my pastor is my father. Weird.