Today’s guest blogger is Mysterious Ways assistant editor Daniel Kessel.
“The weirdest thing just happened,” I told my mom on the phone. “I think part of my dream came true.”
I’d woken up in a daze that morning, the details from my dream still in my head. I’d been at some sort of banquet hall with people I knew from high school, good friends I had lost touch with. Maybe this was our high school reunion? I was most excited to catch up with Maryanne Klima, a friend I haven’t spoken with in years.
Only one person at the dream gathering seemed out of place: Gary. He’d been a friend throughout college, not high school–though like the others around me, it’d been a while since we’d crossed paths. Even in my dream, I had to wonder: What was Gary doing at my high school reunion?
Back in the real world, I spent my Sunday afternoon taking a long walk to my favorite coffee shop in a different part of town. I called home along the way. I’d just started talking to my mom when I turned onto a side street and saw a familiar face.
Gary! He was sitting on the stoop of an apartment building, talking on the phone as well.
“Hey, Dan!” he said, extending his arm for a handshake. I found out Gary lived in that building, right around the corner from me. How had I never run into him until now? We made plans to get together in the near future.
I chuckled at the coincidence. “You know, Gary shouldn’t have been at that dream reunion,” I told my mom. “He didn’t even go to our high school!”
I ambled on, stopping at one point to look at some graffiti on a building across the street. I squinted for a closer look.
“OK, now this is just strange,” I said into the phone. “I have to send you a picture of this!”
There in the center of the building, someone had spray painted the words KLIMA KLIMA KLIMA–as in Maryanne Klima, the friend I spent so much time catching up with in my dream.
Why did these elements from my dream crop up in reality? What did it mean? It’s the same question Editor-in-Chief Edward Grinnan asked in the April 2014 Editor’s Note in Guideposts, when he wrote about his “Dartmouth dream,” as you may remember. Like Edward, I’m still puzzling over what my dream meant.
Certain dreams can lead clearly and directly to monumental change in our lives, like the dream that inspired one woman to write a bestselling book. But just as often, a dream provides a brief glimpse–hints and clues that will only make sense to us later. That’s why they’re so fascinating. It takes time to reflect upon their meaning.
Have you ever had a dream like this? If so, please share it with us. In the meantime, help me out, readers: What do you think my dream meant?
