A DREAM SPACE LANDING

It started off simple, and it was just your average confusing dream, yet upon awakening, the after effects burned in my mind like a candle with a lighted wick that you can't put out by just blowing on it. At first the pieces did not seem all that important but over the next few months a scattered scenario would become a frightful nightmare that would continue to add extra confusing scenes and leave me with a silent fear that something was up. My radar was honing in on something brewing and I had no idea what it was trying to tell me. I would try to talk about it with my Mother who as usual would dismiss the dream as a silly nightmare and to just forget about it all. That was so easy for her to say, she was not the one holding that scenes and confusing information inside a head that was already crowded with too much information.
I tried to take her advice and just put it out of my mind and let the radar feeling go but no amount of loud Beatles music or the sweet sounds of Brenda Lee could sway the fears away completely. Each night that I slept the recurrence of the jumbled information would become more defined. As the dream continued nightly the people and places all began to fit into one finely edited mind film. I became obsessed with anxiety as to what the hell was going on inside the orb that sat upon my shoulders.
I dare not take another stab at retelling the story again to Mother as she had already heard it many times before and still came up with a response that was just too generic for me. This had to mean something and yet I had no concrete answer as to what that might just be.

This particular nagging dream had all the familiarity of something that had already passed and had played out exactly as I had seen in an subconscious state. A scene that repeated until it became a reality. Firstly assuming it to be another forgetful dream, I dismissed it and did not focus on it. It would soon become reality and in a split second it was over. When your dream starts to become a reality you are quite helpless and are not able to alter the outcome as it happens so very fast.
On this particular day our uncle had been visiting for a while. He was a funny man with a cleft palate who talked oddly and he had the best sense of humor that compensated for his disability. He would visit often and that always made for lots of laughter when he was near. We were kids and hearing him speak nasally, was hilarious to us, but we dare not let him know we thought it sounded funny. I already knew what it was like to be different. Mother did not like us to be in the car with him due to his erratic driving abilities, but that bit of instruction went in one ear and out the other. I decided that it would be a great idea to get a ride to the record store as he was always eager to please us kids and since my brother was not at home and I had the sudden urge to take advantage of his vehicle, I asked him to drive me to the store and did not heed my Mother's advice. That would prove to be a bad omission from my present state of reality.
We were less than a mile from home when the cognitive realities of my dream began to play out like a video being shown inside my head, I suddenly knew what was around the corner if we proceeded further and became frantic with fear. I spoke of urgency and told him to turn around and go back home, but I was hysterical and he just shrugged it off and continued on. I was out of control with fright and just as we crossed the neighborhood intersection he ran a stop sign and a car decided to greet us on my side of the door. End of dream! I knew the ending and tried to stop it but to no avail. I walked away with a broken shoulder and a morbid fear of my uncle and of that intersection.

It was because of this situation that I became overly focused on the major reoccurring dream of current day reality. I had learned from the previous
debacle to pay attention to detail and I wanted to change the outcome. We all know how that doesn't happen easily. As the time moved on with nothing happening in relevance to my dream, it slipped from my constant focus and settled somewhere between fantasy and reclusive reality. Life just moved on and left me on my own yet the emotional connection kept me in touch with how I felt inside. For this particular dream would not rear it's reality force until later. By the time I knew what was happening, I had no way of altering the end. In looking back on it and how it all played out, I am lucky to have not been a participant in a reality that really seemed as if I was there. Now I understand that I never was really present, I observed what could happen and viewed it from afar.
It started off like any other day, it was Friday which always brought joy as the weekend was near. It was also grand as it meant that my brother would be at the Friday football game and out on dates all weekend. Sheer delight! Only this particular night my parents had plans to spend some well needed time together and talk and have a dinner without the kids. I balked severely about not wanting to go to this "away" football game with my brother. He also did not want to drag his younger brother to a game and be peer embarrassed by the drudgery of this pain in the butt standing by. During that Friday school day my restless behavior became full blown defiance by the evening and I stood my ground. I was not going! I had my first realization that something about going to that game did not feel quite right. The evening planned for the parents was now to be a party of three.
Two nights earlier, I had the recurrence of that crazy dream again and gave more details to my Mother who politely listened but would tell me not to worry about it, only this time the details were more explicit and visual as I tried to explain. In short, she asked me to not talk about it anymore and to move on with my day.
I was truly affected by the dream, but now the viewing was more graphic. It involved a crowd of people, much like a state fair, with people walking around and vendors selling food and drinks and souvenirs. I saw myself running crazily around the area looking for my brother. I could see the mass of people all going into the circled area and taking their seats in the stadium. They were wooden oval bleacher seats and all the people just kept moving and finding their way toward the seats. Hundreds of people all yelling and screaming and jumping up and down. It was a football game that was taking place and the crowd was frantic. I felt lost and was afraid to go near the crowd as they seemed to beckon me to join them. I wanted no participation and just kept running away yet I seemed to return right back to face the crowd again. The crowd suddenly stood up as if too reach out for me and then suddenly the entire oval seating arrangement collapsed and people began falling everywhere and then I saw my brother high above on the top level of seating go tumbling down and holding onto a flag pole. In the dream I turned around to see the masses of people laying everywhere on the ground and I remember the feeling of crying as I could not locate my brother. Suddenly the view of the flag pole caught my eye and there he lay, motionless, on the ground with the pole piercing his leg. The sounds of moaning and crying rang loudly and then pandemonium happened. Police and ambulances were everywhere and then quickly everyone disappeared leaving me alone and looking at the collapsed mountain of boards left behind. I was overwhelmed at what I had just witnessed and the graphic detail was right out of a good disaster movie. Night after night, over and over I would recreate these images. It was not appealing to go to bed with a fear of what the outcome would be during sleep. It was all very real for me to assimilate.

With a terse attitude toward me, I reluctantly went to dinner with the parents, knowing full well that I had spoiled their private time and their evening plans. I was very agitated during dinner and kept being asked to be quiet and sit still. I had the oddest feeling that something was wrong and mentioned that to my parents and their response was something definitely would be wrong with me if I did not stop irritating them and making the evening worse than it was already. After that tense dinner, Mother wanted to stop for a bit of shopping and I expressed my desire to go back home which created another round of arguments, and my Father turned the car around and headed home. As the radio played in the car there broke the news that the parents of all kids attending the "away" football game that my brother was going to should immediately go to the local hospital in the city where the game was being played.
My Mother quickly awaited a repeat at what was being said and then the details of what happened were being spoken and the blood drained from my Mothers face as she turned to look squarely at me. At that moment I knew from her look that she had heard this spoken scenario before as I had been repeating this story that culminated from my nightly dreams. What took place was horrendous and could have been worse than it turned out.
Some of the delinquent students at the school where the game was taking place had removed the bolts on the metal framework that held the bleacher seating on the visitors side. At the point of the kickoff when everyone stood up quickly, the weight of everyone shifted and caused a domino effect that caused the whole visitors seating to collapse in on itself. People fell from the top level and others were thrown under all the wooden boards. Over 250 people were victims of a prank that went awry. My brother was one of the ones on that top level who fell to the ground holding the flag pole that held the school spirit flag. It narrowly missed piercing him completely, but did leave it's mark on his leg which I had seen in my dream. If I had attended I would have been right where he was and would have been one of the victims of that horrible prank.
Dad dropped me off at the house and they drove quickly to the hospital where everyone had been taken. I had to face that house alone for the next few hours until I had heard any news. I was so very frightened that I had done something to make this all happen, yet I knew that I had no part in it. I saw this happen over and over again for months in my dreams but never knew it would actually be a reality.
When they returned with a very battered,bruised,and punctured sibling, I somehow felt relieved that it was all over and felt the fright that my brother had just faced. Mother had returned with an unusual demeanor and I knew that sometime soon we would have to face that dance of recognition as to what had transpired before the event actually took place. Total dread consumed me.....I did nothing wrong except to speak of what I had dreamed. This would profoundly confirm what she knew all along and had no idea on how to deal with it.
For the next few days, hoping to avoid any confrontation with Mother, I made myself scarce. I was happy that no one had been seriously hurt or lost their life but was very confused as to the how and why I had predicted such an event. There would be more to come as I matured, yet this one was the most intense and probably because it was the most vivid recollection due to the many repeated dream similarities and because it involved my brother.
The moment of the dreaded conversation happened very quickly a few days later. it was not the horrible situation I was prepared for. In those brief moments of our private talk, she spoke of the acknowledgment of what happened and said that it was obvious that I had a keen sense of intuition. She was obviously unsure of what to say further about the incident but stated that she would prefer, once again to keep this among ourselves and not share the information with anyone else, as it would appear to others that I knew something about the details which might not be in good favor with the authorities. I kept quiet and was to scared to talk further about it.

I did not have anymore dreams in relation to that particular incident. I no longer feared the nights of sleep. While other dreams would create future realities I had my first really strong look into the power of dreams. I was too young to fully comprehend what had taken place. It would forever awaken my consciousness to listening when something is being broadcast via my brain. Sometimes the noise is too loud and yet it still repeats until the reception is confirmed.

My radar signal still blinks daily and at times my airport is fogged in, but I just circle the dream space until I get the A-OK from my tower and make my landing with both feet on the ground.