Rarity of Recall

This morning, just before waking, I had a short but vivid dream. The dream was notable because I was able to recall it. I’ve long envied people like my friend WJT and my beloved wife, people who can remember their dreams in meticulous detail. I probably remember one or two dreams per year, and even then only fragments are available to me, and the fragments fade so quickly that I can’t retrieve them after a few days or sometimes even after a few hours.

That’s why I thought I would record what I can recall of this morning’s dream: to prevent the complete decay, and for my own future reference.

So here’s what I can remember…

My wife and I were at some sort of picnic or outdoor gathering. It was summertime and the locusts and katydids were deafening in the evening air. My wife was about sixteen years old; I am not sure if I was my present age or if I was young like her. I could smell her hair and her skin as I stood next to her. People who seemed faintly familiar to me moved around us, speaking to us and laughing and talking.

My wife was wearing a t shirt with horizontal stripes of blue, white, and brown, and a pair of jeans. She looked at me, worry scrawled on her pretty face, and told me that she had let someone…she spoke the name but I couldn’t understand it; it was a familiar name in the dream…she had let someone borrow our car, and they had returned it damaged.

We walked together to the car, which was sitting in a pool of silver moonlight. I think some of our friends/acquaintances walked with us. When we reached the car, I saw that there were animal footprints all over the hood, fenders, doors, and top of the vehicle. A closer look showed me that the prints were a dog’s tracks. But they weren’t mud or dirt. They were imprinted into the metal of the car’s body. But not pressed from outside in. It was as if the prints had been made from within the car, like a pressed tin pattern, with the prints distinct and convex. I ran my fingertips along some of the prints and could feel every nuance of the dog’s pawprints.

My wife said something to me that I couldn’t make out. When I turned to look at her, she was writing on a piece of graph paper. Looking over her shoulder, I could see that there were some directions on the page, along with an address and phone number. I took the page from her and tried to read it, but everything blurred when it was in my direct line of vision. This is a common element in my dreams….when I look into a person’s face, their visage is blurred out and I can only see the periphery. I tried looking at the edges of the page and could almost, almost make out the writing in the center. Just as the words started to become clear, my wife took the paper from my hand and tore out the section with the address and phone number. I looked at her and could see her face clearly as she handed the partial sheet back to me. She smiled and looked so young and so achingly beautiful, and then she said something else I couldn’t understand. Then she turned and melted into the crowd of people around us.

I couldn’t call out to her, though I tried. I looked down at the page in my hand and saw that something…rain or tears or something…had blurred the words and reduced the paper to the consistency of wet tissue paper, unreadable and degrading fast. I was overwhelmed with the sense of loss and the need to find my wife. I knew that the torn-out section of paper was the key to finding her, but I was frozen to the spot and mute as a stone. I heard a car starting up in the distance, and the twin beams of headlights swung towards me.

And then I awoke. I arose and dressed and went to let the dogs out. I stood in the backyard and felt the deepest sense of loneliness and loss that I can remember ever having. While my wife was busying herself with the coffee maker and the dogs’ breakfast, I stole away to the back bedroom and scribbled down these details, even while they were melting away.

To be able to recall any part of any dream is so rare for me. Perhaps someday I will understand.

~ S.K. Orr