Dream - Young self one and two, dreams of different lives

In January of 2008, I had what were really two dreams, one after the other, perhaps one leading into the other, which showed younger versions of myself, when I was a kid, but different from what I was like back then. They were other lives lived in which things had turned out differently, including a different version of my grandmother's death.


The first dream took place in a very large house. My mother was there, and at some point she encouraged me to go out to a patio or porch on the side and back of the house. Lots of little tables were there with food and things. Two little kids had been left with us who were kids or grandkids of my brother or one of my sisters. My mother and I had to watch them. They ran around among the tables, playing and being a nuisance.

The boy later wanted some orange juice, and I went back inside the house, toward the front of a long room filled with rows of tables to get it. I was pointed by someone toward an odd device made of ornate tubes that looked something like a harp frame. It contained orange juice and poured different kinds - high-pulp, no-pulp, normal, spicy - depending on which opening it was poured from. I was surprised at the elaborateness of it, but I was assured that the kid was used to it. A much smaller contraption held lemonade.

It was dark and late at night when my brother came back. He seemed happy. Someone was with him, and I believe some other people also came, including my father. The scene kept replaying itself, changing a little each time.

A younger version of myself showed up, I think maybe actually brought by my brother in one of the replays of the scene (in real life my brother is younger than I am). My younger self was perhaps 12 years old, with short hair perhaps an inch long, maybe slightly longer toward the front. He had a big smile like my brother did, but didn't look quite like I actually looked back then. I'm not sure my younger self knew who I was.


In the second dream, some people were going to make a movie about my life. Danny DeVito was chosen to play my younger self. I thought it was a strange choice, partly because he wasn't tall enough and partly because he didn't look anything like me or have the right personality. His hair was dark and he looked much younger than he does now, but for an instant when I contemplated his age he looked much older with wrinkles and gray hair and then he was young again.

He went to go through a door and looked back at me and laughed, and then continued through the door. I thought, well maybe he was the right choice after all.

I then saw various scenes of my life, my life as it had been in the dream. Apparently my life was being reviewed in an effort to get material for the movie script.

In the dream version of my life, my father was much different. He was tall with dark hair perhaps one and a half inches long on top, a long rectangular face, and a long muscular torso. In real life, my father was tall and strong, but started going bald fairly early, and tended to be overweight. My mother, who was shown in a separate scene, looked about the same as she had in real life, except she was thinner with more of a medium weight. They were both in their mid-thirties at the time shown, and seemed happy.

In the dream, I was put with foster parents for the 7th and 8th grades, but I'm not sure why. I looked back at the 8th grade time and I seemed to be happy. My younger self didn't quite look like I did, looking more like a combination of my brother and myself. In real life, I have a brother and two sisters, but in the dream I didn't have any sisters, though I think I did still have a brother. My younger self also seemed to interact more with the other kids than I did in real life, though he still seemed a little bit shy.

I watched my 8th grade class, at a time when the class was not in session. Kids were in the classroom, standing in various groups, talking to each other. Watching the scene, I saw some girls and remarked to someone with me that I liked a particular girl back then, she was hot. I gave her first name and a couple of different possibilities for her last name, and was a little bothered that I was unable to quite remember it. I don't believe the name in the dream quite matched a real name, but in real life there was a girl something like that - slim with a reasonably good figure, light brown hair and perhaps a little taller and somewhat different looking than the one in the dream. In real life I thought she looked somewhat attractive - especially her figure - but I didn't talk to her and thought someone else looked better (I didn't talk to her either).

My impression is that my younger self, in this new version of my life, did have some interaction with the girls, even if in a relatively minor way. I'm not sure which girls, though, and it may or may not have included the girls mentioned above. And while this version of myself was less shy than I had in reality been, he still tended to let the people around him, whether boys or girls, do most of the talking.

Toward the end there was a scene at a restaurant where I was with my mother and grandmother and perhaps someone else. I was now older than before, an adult, though younger than I am in real life. The tables were widely spaced, and we were sitting down at one in the middle and toward one wall.

Then the scene moved forward in time a little and my grandmother was on the floor on her side, partly curled up from where she fell off the chair. Everyone in the room was staring at her. My mother was leaning to the side and forward, looking at her, an expression of alarm on her face. I was farther down the table, in the process of standing up.

Some time passed, while various people went over to my grandmother and looked briefly at her, perhaps touching her lightly but apparently not doing much else. I could hear them talking among themselves about her, in low, mumbling tones. I didn't catch much of what was being said. I went over there, too, in the form of my younger self, after the others had finished and had indicated that I should come. I bent down and looked at her and I think touched her shoulder, but there didn't seem to be anything I could do.

A little while later the ambulance arrived. Bright light poured in through the suddenly open door and across the floor past where my grandmother lay. A paramedic was in the doorway in silhouette, his shadow stretching across the floor toward us. He went to her and looked at her briefly, then looked up and shook his head and said, "She's gone."

I was watching the scene from the side and above like a ghost. I nodded and acknowledged to someone with me that, yes, this was always sad when things like this happen, though I seemed somehow far removed in time from the scene and even reality itself and could only manage a wistful sort of sadness, like sadness at the passing of an era, and retained a small, understanding smile.