Not Bad At All

I woke this morning
From another religious dream
They always leave me feeling funky
This one was no different
I tried not to dwell on it too much
Hoping I'd just forget about it

I rolled over and saw that
Kodi was already awake
Sitting up in bed, writing in a notebook
I didn't want to disturb her
So I didn't say anything
I just rubbed my hand down her back
To let her know I was awake
She said, "Hey, baby"
And kept on writing
Which didn't bother me
Sometimes she wakes up with story ideas
That she wants to get down
Before she forgets anything
So I went to the bathroom
When I came back she was finished
She told me that she had a pretty cool dream
It was religious and she was trying to figure out
If it came from my dad
As I laid back down on the bed
She told me her dream

It was quite impressive
It was very powerful and gay positive
I told her that I'd had a religious dream as well
But I thought hers was better than mine
She asked me to tell her about it
So, I did...

In the dream I was in the living room
Of the house I live in now
Only the furniture was laid out differently
There was a couch along one wall
Then a loveseat along the adjoining wall
There was another couch
On the wall opposite the other couch
They formed a "U" shape
On the first couch sat both of my brothers
Each one sitting at opposite ends
While Kodi and I sat on the loveseat
Then on the second couch sat a woman
She was a Jehovah's Witness
She had her Bible out and was preaching at us
I don't recall exactly what she was saying
But she was probably telling us all
How we weren't living right
My younger brother had his Bible with him
Which surprised me
Since I'd never seen him as religious
The woman asked him to read a chapter
And he replied, "The whole thing?"
I could feel his distress
At being asked to read out loud
Since we're both dyslexic
But I didn't volunteer to do it for him

Then I noticed that my older brother
Was no longer in the room
And Kodi who was still beside me
On the loveseat was now asleep
But she was sort of upside down
Her head and back were on the seat
While her legs were up and over the back
The woman looked over at me and frowned
I looked at Kodi and then back to her
And just shrugged my shoulders at her
As if to say, "I'm not waking her up"

Then the woman started talking about homosexuals
And what the Bible says about them
I didn't have a Bible, but I knew where one was
So, I slid off the loveseat onto the floor
And reached over into a magazine rack
And pulled out my Bible
I started trying to find the scriptures
That she was talking about
But no matter how hard I searched
I could not find them
Which totally shocked me
Because I knew I'd seen them before

Frustrated, I flipped back to the front
And it opened to a photograph of two women
That covered both pages completely
Only their heads and shoulders could be seen
They were moving in the image
Like it was a video
I took a closer look at them
One of the women was older
While the other was younger
I wondered if they were
Mother and daughter
Then they embraced each other side to side
And kept looking at me
And I realized 'Oh, they must be lovers'

I thought I heard the younger one speak my name
When she said it louder a second time
I thought it sounded more like Kara or Karen
But that is pretty damn close to Corene
Then the older woman said,
"You don’t have to listen to this,
You can leave, you can walk away."

I was still looking at the photograph of them
When arm in arm the women turned
And walked away, getting smaller and smaller
It looked like they were in a train station
I looked up from the photograph to my surroundings
And noticed that I was no longer in my living room
But instead was sitting on a bench in the train station
I could see the two women still walking away
Confused and wondering how I got there, I woke up

Once I finished relating the dream
Kodi just said, "Wow, that was a really cool dream"
I was puzzled by her reaction
Thinking the dream was nothing more than
The usual self-righteous rhetoric I'd heard all my life
So I asked, "How do you figure that?"
That's when she told me
Her interpretation of my dream

First off I dreamed about being preached at
For being bad because I'm gay
But when I tried to find those passages
In the Bible they weren't there
I found a lesbian couple instead
Who told me I didn't have to
Continue to listen to that bullshit
I could just leave
In essence, ignore the preachers
Seek God for myself
Then I entered the Bible
Which was a train station
Kodi really loved that imagery
The idea being there are
Many intersecting paths to God
Not just one like I'd always been taught
Then I watched a lesbian couple
Walk off into the sunset
A common symbol for a happy ending

As we continued to discuss my dream
We found even more connections
Kodi and I were sitting on a loveseat
A symbol of being a couple
And she was upside down
Being contrary to the norm
She was also asleep
Her sleep schedule is likewise reversed
From what most people's schedules are
And the lady was looking me
As if to say, "Fix that"
But I said, "No," meaning I accept Kodi as she is
As for my brothers
They were on either end of the couch
They bookend me, I'm the middle child
And me identifying with my younger brother's anxiety
About reading in public
And not doing anything about it
Matches how I've stopped
Putting myself in the line of fire
To protect him from his problems
The fact he had a Bible in the dream
Might represent that in real life
He has actually been talking to the Witnesses
And finally my older brother leaving the room
Could signify the reality of him
Being disfellowshipped from the Jehovah's Witnesses

After analyzing my dream with Kodi
I was as impressed as she was
Everything we'd come up with felt right
It all rang true, nothing felt the slightest bit false
I was totally floored at the significance of the dream
But the older I've gotten
The more I've come to believe
Dreams are an important part of life
And if I still remember it after waking up
Then it was trying to teach me something
And it's up to me to learn from it
There is no doubt in my mind that this one
Was definitely trying to get my attention
And it's not one I'll soon forget

In the past, whenever I've had religious dreams
I wake up in a funk
That feeling can last for a few hours
Or as long as a couple of days
I hate being preached at
It's bad enough that I get it from my mother
But then to dream about it feels much worse
Like there's no escape from it even in my sleep

But after Kodi helped me to understand the dream
I realized it wasn't what I'd orginally thought
It really wasn't bad at all

7.8.07