Date: 09-06-2015 

Introduction 19-02-2024:

The dream translated below needs a short backstory. My ex girlfriend before I met my wife was a girl from a troubled family. I felt like her saviour, but only later after we broke up have I come to realise that the relation I had with her was a surrogate relation for the one I did not have with myself. I recognised her perils in mine, in an abusive house hold with a mother that took a big role in that psychological abuse, just like me. I’ve come to understand that my desire to save her came (at least partially) forth from my wish to save myself. We broke up after about 2 years of very drama rich interactions and on-off periods, where she would eventually break up with me. She would insist we stayed friends, but I couldn’t just be her friend. I wanted more. But afterwards I found out she had been cheating on me throughout the whole relationship. I found out because she used a phone I had bought her, and I knew her account password, allowing me to copy the phone from a cloud backup into one of my own devices. What I found wasn’t pretty.

I’d like to think that the reason she broke up with me was because she couldn’t bare the lies any more, but it could be wishful thinking. She was a copy of her own mother. After I learned of her cheating ways, everything fell in place. Though, before I realised it all and had learned of her deceit, I would regularly have dreams that involved her. I was processing my urge to save her and transform it into a wish to disconnect from her. That was very difficult for me as in my head she was also still that sweet girl from that horrible family. In my mind I kept excusing her behaviour as being the result of her upbringing by contra-exemplary parents. Our break up coincided with me moving out from my parents, and moving into a student dorm near the train station, and also near the forest. There my new spiritual journey took off, and I would go to the woods there often.

In the forest behind the zoo was a bench where me and her had our first kiss, and I had carved our initials in that wooden bench. The first time I went back to that bench to cross those initials in a sort of self-thought of ritual I found that the bench had been replaced. The old bench was gone. The new bench didn’t overlook the railroad that laid near, but was turned 180 degrees facing the forest. I took this as a sign I was on the right track. I had to take an 180 and do things differently. During that time I would often find myself in the company of old friends, one of which was a female friend who I used to be so terribly in love with, like head over heels. But that was over, and when she visited me she had a boyfriend. A guy from Spain.

Any way. In that forest, on that same bench I would one day feel I was ready for female companionship again, and I asked out loud if the universe would please help me find the woman I deserve and that I’d be or become the man she deserved. Quite a balanced request if you’d ask me. It would take only a few days before the answer came. It started with this dream.

The Game Show:

In the dream of last night it was a fact that I had dreamt about Z’s Spanish boyfriend. In that dream this guy had cheated on her. So to be clear; I hadn’t dreamt this for real; it was a given in this dream that I had dreamt this. Because other things from earlier dreams had turned out to come true, I felt it was my duty to inform her of this dream. But I told her in the most clumsy way I could have. I was nervous, and even inserted some bad jokes, referring to him as “Lupe” in order to paint him as a negative stereotype of a Hispanic dude. Z was not amused and compared this dream I told her about with another dream I had about my ex, which also was about cheating. I told Z about this dream when she came to visit in real life.

But I defended my ex’ cheating, saying there were mitigating circumstances: “That’s not fair, Z. My ex was made this way by her past, but she doesn’t want to be like this.” Z was mad but calm, and firm in her response, telling me that I had no right to tell her about this dream concerning her Spanish boyfriend if I was not willing to see the parallels between what happened in that dream with what happened in real life with my ex, ending with: “Maybe it’s time you dream some more about your ex instead of my boyfriend.” She then turned around and walked away, without looking back. I cried. Z was right. I knew it in my heart. But I wasn’t ready to face that truth. Now I had angered my friend Z and in the dream it was something that would not just be easily repaired. If I wanted to get her friendship back, I had to let go of my ex completely.

After having this realisation, I was suddenly teleported somewhere else. It was a featureless greenish dark grey room, but so big and dark that I could not see where the walls started, and how high the ceiling was. My ex was there too, but she was unable to speak somehow. I think her mouth was taped shut with duct-tape. She pushed me away when I approached her. So I took my distance, but then she stopped me and tried to get me to come closer. When I did, she pushed me again. This went on a few times, until I broke the cycle and told her: “If there is something you want from me, this is your chance, cause I want to move on with my life, with or without you.”

It was evident she struggled to let me go. Somehow in that dream I was aware of her inner struggle, almost telepathically. It was a fight between her heart and her desire to live up to her mother’s expectations. Following her heart meant failing those expectations. Meeting those expectations meant letting go of her heart’s desires. I felt her pain. But now the dream took a lurid turn. It became a game show, and the voice of a game show host was heard loudly in the room, talking fast and excited. He sounded a bit like an auction host, or an announcer at a baseball game.

The host explained: “Here – we – have Willem!! Willem has a choice to make… He can make one of two choices!” Two doors appeared side by side out of no where. “Be-hind dooooor nummmmber one, there is a reality, where she would always stay with him, but she will never change…! Be-hind dooooor nummmmber two, there is a reality where he will never get back with her, but she would have a chance to free herself and discover who she really is. WHAT WILL HE CHOOSE?! Will he pick, door number one? Or door number two? We are about to find out…” I didn’t know what I wanted to pick. This was a difficult choice for me. What I wanted was the best of both worlds, but I understood this was not possible.

I could never trust her if we remained together, but if I didn’t allow for her to lose her friendship with me there would be no incentive for her to change herself. Meaning she could only change if she lost me, but I wanted her to stay with me and change. It was a dilemma. I wasn’t allowed to think too long about it though. It wasn’t clear how much (or little) time I had, but it was implied there was a limit because above the doors appeared an analogue timer, counting seconds past, that ran after the host had finished talking, while a tick-tock sound played. So I looked deep within myself and thought it through. If I could have her, but she would remain untrustworthy and deceitful, that didn’t sound appealing. But losing her forever was also not what I wanted. But then I realised something, and asked myself the question: “Do I love her?”

If I did, then my own wishes should not stand in the way of her happiness. And I could never truly make her happy if she remained with me. But if I allowed her to move on, there was a chance she could free herself. She would not have my help, but perhaps that was the point of it and it something she should do on her own. The more I thought about it, the more I realised there was truly only one choice. I would have to let her go. I chose door number 2, and I understood to finalise this choice I had to open op that door and walk through it. And so I took the first steps in the direction of that door, leaving my ex standing behind me.

But there was still some doubt in me somewhere, and I think my ex picked up on that, and now had removed the duct-tape from her mouth. She screamed in panic and agony: “PLEASE WILLEM NO! PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME! PLEASE!” It hurt me right in my soul. I looked back and she was on her knees, one arm stretched towards me as to begging me to take her hand. I felt a certain lure, as if it was a last ditch effort of a siren, persuading me to enter the mist. I felt hesitation build up in me. But I wanted to be done with this love. It hurt me too much. I hasted towards the door, and I knew the moment I went through the decision would be final, and irreversible.

I grabbed the door handle of the second door, and immediately blinding light came forth from the edges of the door, all around the rectangular shape of the doorframe. It was light, but it had properties of water, as if a wall of water was being held back on the other side. It was beautiful, and I was surprised. And now I was actually curious about the reality that awaited me behind that door, which I hadn’t even thought of. What would my life be like? I heard one more plea from my ex, as I pushed the door handle down, and as I had pushed all the way down I woke up immediately by the sound of a very loud bang noise.

 

Aftermath:

It was really strange to be awake after this dream. I wasn’t at all sure if the loud noise was part of the dream, or part of my reality, or perhaps whether dream and real are actually a merger in another way. But even though I was quite sure the noise came from somewhere in the house, it was too coincidentally timed, which is why I was a bit in doubt. Later that day I found out one of my house mates in the student dorm had accidentally kicked over her night stand at the end of her bed in her sleep with her feet. Truly an amazing coincidence. She came to apologise for the noise, but I actually think it was meant to happen.

Here’s the most beautiful part of that dream. I dreamt this on the night between Monday and Tuesday. The next day after this experience I would meet a woman online, and talk to her. We chatted and chatted, and eventually I called her so we could hear each other’s voices. We really clicked. Only a few days after, on the 13th of June, we would meet on a date. That date actually never ended, cause we are still together. There is nobody in this world who has given me more love and appreciation than her. I think she was behind that door. She accepts me as I am, strengths and flaws. Being with her is the happiest I’ve ever been. She is the light that entered my life once I had made the decision to truly part with my ex, spiritually.

And as for my ex, I truly hope she finds a way to free herself from the entrapment of her family situation.