Lavinia's post reminded me of two dreams that I've had that still "haunt" me to some extent. Forgive the length of this post.
I had this first dream two days after my wife died (1993). It was in the morning and I was dreaming about being at the airport (probably JFK because the Port Authority police seemed prominent in the dream). I was apparently just walking through the terminals when all of a sudden there was a tremendous ruckus and as I looked down to see it I noticed two planes were afire, split open, with passengers trapped inside screaming for their lives. I hopped down of those old-fashioned stairs things that they wheel up to planes in small airports. I wanted desperately to help those trapped inside but the flames kept beating me back. I became REALLY frustrated that I couldn't help anyone and I started crying, yelling out "someone call 9-1-1", "9-1-1". It was at that moment that my phone rang waking me up from the nightmare. I was sweating, trembling and crying. The clock read 9:11. (It was my sister calling me to tell me she was coming over).
At the time of the dream I thought I was crying (out of frustration) because I couldn't save those people, and my conscious thoughts of those days were of frustration out of not being able to save my wife. I didn't make any connection to the Twin Towers until many years later. (9/11, two planes, the Port Authority, many people dying, etc).
About a year later (1994) I had a somewhat "comforting" dream about my mother talking to me. She was saying that she was happy that I had a good friend in whom I could confide, especially during the troubling year I had just passed. She didn't know it but I had befriended a gal from work whom had become VERY close to me and she was extremely important to my well-being. A year after that dream my family had a big get-together and it was important for me to show my family I was OK. I invited this gal as my date and about halfway through the party she came out of the ladies room with my mother. Her face was ashen white because my mother told her verbatim what I had dreamt a year before.
