I’ve had a recurring dream for many years. My father returns from the dead. He’s seemingly unchanged but there’s a proviso to his re-birth, namely, he’s going to die again. Every moment is precious. He’s the best version of himself. My sister, mother, and I love him so much. But even as we talk with him we know he’s only with us for a few more minutes.
Alcestis, Orpheus, Jesus, certainly this is a provenance of stature. Its also “Mono no aware”—steeped in recognition of transient beauty. These are clear. And to say the least, its significant as hell that my father died quite suddenly on Easter Sunday. Of course I would have this dream.
My manifest father appears decades after his death. Carl Jung would say the personal and the archetypal have become fused in the image. As I dream about him, I’m also dreaming about my own relationship to structure, judgment, lineage, and what it means to be a son or daughter.
So the dreams are an invitation. Jung would say they offer an invitation to practice what he called “active imagination”—a difficult process and one that should be done with a therapist. Essentially you re-enter the dream after quietly mediating, letting the images come, allowing the people in the dream to live while you’re awake. This is tricky. It requires tremendous meditative skill and a lot of practice. If I could do this, and I can’t, my father, mother, and sister would all be there. And if this re-dreaming isn’t trivial we’d get to say important things, though knowing time is short. In every version of this dream my father’s re-gifted time among us is short.
The urgency is the key. Hurry. The bell is ringing. I’d ask him, who are we? Who are you? Are you the same or are you now my father on archetypal steroids? Do you love me more than you did in life? We wouldn’t talk about heaven.
In life my father was warm to others, cold at home. This is an old story. In life he was successful in the “outer” world. At home he was an eclipse. (The eclipse is Emily Dickinson’s term for her own father.)
Father we have so little time, I want to be you but in a better version. I’m getting old. I get it: now I’m the father. I get it. But I don’t. Which is why the dream comes back.
Poet, Essayist, Blogger, Journalist, Memoirist, Disability Rights Advocate, Public Speaker, Professor, Syracuse University
