Dream 032712: Exerperiencing Inevitability

Late.

 Night. 

5 freeway south somewhere near Lake Forest.

 It’s raining. Pouring really.  

I’m driving. My Pregnant wife Jamie is passenger and there is an old man in the back seat behind her. I don’t know who he is but he seems like he has a bad past. Like a street dog who was taken in by a good family. My beagle Juno is in the seat beside him looking out the window. Jamie is saying something about my driving. Maybe I’m driving too fast for this weather. The exits are blurring by like bright liquid light streaming past my windows.

I seem to be taking what Jamie is saying too personally. I’m saying something stupid like “I know how to drive!” Coming to the off ramp at Oso Prkwy for some reason I say “This isn’t a car, right? It’s a sling shot and I can only go in one direction as fast as possible” and while saying this I am seeing, yet missing, the sharp right curve ahead. I can adjust but that would steer me directly into the stopped cars ahead so I try to steer of the shoulder but all goes wrong. I feel the gravitational pull as the car spins out of control. It hits the curb and it its momentum causes it to flip side over side down into a ravine. I can feel the violent rolling so vividly.

When the car slams to a halt somewhere below the freeway the collision is softer than Id imagined it would have been. I don’t know what happened to my wife, my dog and the strange old man. I can’t turn to see them all I know is that I’m still strapped into the driver seat.  Out my window is a viscous mud bank that is slowly seeping into the car. I hear noises.

 I know I need to get up and get out to survive, but the impulse isn’t there. 

Something is wrong.

 I look at the flowing mud now making its way into the car via the broken driver-side window and everything starts to get a bit vague. A spreading vacuity between the severity of this situation and the hopelessness and calm that is slowly taking my consciousness away. 

Seconds before I black out completely I become aware of something above me working its way into the vehicle via the skyward passenger door.

The next time I open my eyes I am above it all. There is bright light coming from above and people gathered around. I sit up suddenly trying to comprehend the situation. When my vision clears I see that this isn’t the afterlife but the edge of a large sinkhole next to the freeway off ramp. 

Mercifully, the rain has stopped. 

Jamie is beside me me crying with her hands on my chest. I fear for her and the baby. I ask if she’s OK. She’s shook up but thankfully she doesn't seem to be injured in anyway. The old man is here as well, also uninjured. Apparently this man saved my wife and then came back to save me. I don’t even know how to begin to thank him. 

I’m still completely out of it. I feel disillusioned and child-like.

I look down into the hole. The car, a cream colored 4 door Porsche Panamera (that I must be borrowing since I wouldn't drive such a thing on a regular basis) is sinking slowly in watery mud on the north side of the pit about 25 feet below us. It must have landed with the front sticking straight up. It’s listing toward the driver’s side which is now completely submerged. If I was in there any longer I would still be there now.  

The passenger side window was slowly filling up with mud and I see Juno is still inside looking up at us. Without thinking I yell “Juno!” “JUNOO!” and hurl myself back into the pit. I land in the water on the east side and make my way over to the car. Everyone above seems to be upset that I jumped but my dog means so much to me I was in motion before I knew what was happening. I pull Juno out of the car through the narrowing gap. She is shaking and whimpering. 

We laboriously make our way out of the pit. The crowd that had accumulated was clapping but still looked at me severely. I let Juno down close to the rim of the pit she limps the rest of the way up. Her left front leg is hurt. IT hurts my heart to see her in pain.

 I get back to where Jamie is and collapse on the ground. Lying flat on my back I have a brief moment to let my adrenaline die down and as it does I start to feel pain in more than one place I look down at my body and for the first time I realize I didn’t make it out 100% like the rest of the passengers. I am covered in blood. Fresh blood. It seems that its mostly coming from my upper torso area. I turn over and look down into the pit. There is a muddy red trail mapping the path I took to save my dog and back. 

A rush of realization took control of my mind. Too many sadness's to bear. Too many thoughts you can only experience at the very end invade my fleeting consciousness as I lay back down and stare at the night sky. 

My wife is there crying, She is beautiful but soon she as well as all the colors and lights around me blur together in a bright ring on the edge of my awareness as the dark clouds above get darker and darker and push the light out completely

 until all is black

 and silent…

Then I woke up.

 

NOTE: I am usually very happy with vivid quality of my dreams. There are times when I just know it’s real and it isn't. The details are always finely tuned and there is just enough reality to create an alternate world hard to differentiate from our physical world even if I can fly or teleport or something of that nature. It’s what makes me look forward to sleeping. I even enjoy my nightmares because they are like a suspense or horror film you get to create while you are asleep.

But this....

This dream was different.

 It didn’t feel right.

 It was too real and I remembered more of it than I normally do. 

Because of this dream I experienced all the diminutive worries, feelings and thoughts that rush through your dying mind before your life ends and all is black. 

So much loss.

So many missed opportunities and failed accomplishments. 

The idea of my Daughter growing up without her father. I knew worry for those I've left behind and what they will have to go through in mourning. I felt so many things a human is not meant to feel until the end. 

It’s maddening.

 I logged this dream in hopes to take its power away in telling it. 

-SCRaM