Facing the Dream

--warning--slightly graphic--do not read if you get upset at scary dreams


I dreamed last night that Mr. Strega and I went into my sister's apartment to witness the immediate aftermath of her death, and I saw her blood-soaked clothing all over the floor (part of her death in the "real" world involved a hemhorrage). Her phone was buried under old clothes and off the hook, and her apartment was in the kind of disarray someone might leave if they have to go out suddenly,expecting to be back later. We were frightened in the dream and cleaned up the mess. I wandered to a set of revolving mirrors, out of which my sister stepped. She told me she wanted me to live in her apartment, and I told her I couldn't, that I didn't like the city she lived in. She and I spent the time locking doors against "bad people" and trying to figure out where she could plant a garden. She told me she had already planted a flower called schizianthus (which later I found out is called "butterfly flower"--in many cultures, butterflies are thought to be the souls of the dead).

I woke to a state of near-hysteria from this dream, which had an overlay of strangeness and terror that I could not understand, though seeing my lost sister was not scary.

I know in "real" life that my sister got in her car and drove herself to the hospital as she began to have symptoms, rather than call an ambulance. I always wonder what her apartment looked like after she left that night--she must have fully expected to come back there, and she never did. I must have needed the catharsis of this dream, but I am not sure I needed the emotional ratlling for the rest of the day, and well into this evening!