Sweet Dreams

Sweet Dreams

by Kari Larsen

My mother and I would visit my grandparents often. We lived an hour and a half away by car on good traffic days. I loved our visits. I remember the excitement I would feel as we made the left turn off of the main road onto Westmoreland Drive. My mother would pull over onto the grass so we could switch seats. She let me drive from that point to the house. We kept it our secret from my father. I would have to stretch my leg a little to reach the gas pedal when she first started letting me drive. We would pass the horse farm and take the winding road that lead to my grandparents’ house. It wasn’t a long drive, but it was the happiest few minutes of every trip out to Shelter Island. Which is ironic since we had to take a ferry to the island and I’m sure most kids thought that was the most exciting part of the car ride.

My grandmother would always know the minute we pulled in the driveway. She would come out the screen door with a big smile on her face and comment, “did you hit traffic? I’ve been worried about you”. Which really meant we were late and she had been waiting for us. I would put the car in park, jump out and give her a quick hug before running into the house to see if it was there. The smell gave it away every time. Always in the same spot, on a white milk glass cake stand, on the credenza behind the dining room table…my grandmother’s devil’s food cake with 7 minute frosting. It was my favorite. There was something about the chocolate cake with the sticky marshmallow frosting that I loved. I would sit at her tiny kitchen table eating a big slice of cake while my grandmother sat with me asking questions about school.

I would spend my summers at their house baking with my grandmother, fishing for snappers off the dock, going to Louie’s beach and swimming in the neighbor’s pool. My grandparents’ house seemed fancy and elegant to me. It was a long ranch style house with a front screened in porch that looked out to a horse farm, and a back screened in porch that looked out to the water. There were four bedrooms in the house, two at either end with the dining room, kitchen and living room in-between. The two bedrooms at the far end of the house were my grandparents’. He slept in one room with two twin beds and she slept in the other in a queen bed because of his snoring. I slept in the guest room which was turned into my grandmother’s art studio. It was a creepy uncomfortable room, especially in the dark on a squeaky cot. My grandmother’s paint brushes soaked overnight in old tomato cans filled with turpentine. Her half painted canvases would line the walls. There was one painting of a naked red headed woman sitting backwards on a green tufted chair. I always wondered who the woman was.

Every night after dinner my grandparents would have an after dinner drink and make me a Shirley Temple. I would sit with them in my pajamas before it was time for bed. My grandmother would read me a bedtime story before tucking me in and saying “sweet dreams”. Little did I know then how much she meant it.

The dreams started the summer I was six. Most of my dreams would be insignificant and mundane; like getting an ice cream cone and the top scoop falls on the ground in the parking lot. When a dream like that would actually happen a couple days later I never gave it much thought. As it started to happen more frequently I assumed everyone experienced these types of dreams.

The first dream I remember paying attention to was when I was 8 years old during a summer on Shelter Island. I woke up from it sweaty and crying. My mother ran into my room with a concerned look on her face. Instead of hugging me or comforting me she asked me what my dream was about. I told her two people had been on a red sailboat in front of the house two doors down from my grandparents’ house. The sailboat hit something and both people had died. The Police, an ambulance and even a police boat arrived. My mother asked me a few more questions and if I would like a glass of water. I did not. 

A few days later the neighbor’s son and his fiancé, visiting from Boston, were electrocuted when their sailfish hit a down power line in the water in front of their house, two doors down from ours. It made the front page of the local newspaper. My mother and I never discussed it, but I knew I had dreamt about the accident before it happened.

A few months later I had a dream of being locked in a closet with my best friend Michelle. The next day her older brother locked us in their attic closet upstairs and left us for hours. I remember being so upset with myself for knowing this was going to happen. From that day on I made a promise to myself to pay attention to my dreams, and it was exhausting.

I began to avoid people, places, even food, like sour ball candies after I had a dream that I almost choked to death on an orange one. I hated going to sleep. I was always nervous to fall asleep and dream so I would keep myself awake for as long as my eyes would stay open. Then there was the bus dream. I was assigned to the brown school bus to and from school everyday. It was a regular yellow school bus, but it had a brown piece of construction paper in the front, side window to distinguish it as the brown bus route. Every bus had a different color piece of paper in the window so the kids would know which bus to get on at 3:00. On this particular day, I refused to get on the brown bus. I had, had a dream the night before that we were in an accident and people got hurt. That was all I could remember. I couldn’t tell the Safety Patrol lady why I couldn’t get on the bus so I faked being sick. It worked and my mother picked me up from school. The next day I missed the bus by hiding in the bathroom and it left without me. On the third day when I still wouldn’t get on the bus the Principal called my mother. I sat outside of his office waiting for my mother to arrive thinking to myself what I would say to her. As I was sitting on the blue plastic chair next to the secretary’s desk she received a phone call. She marched quickly past me and into Mr. Koble’s office. She grabbed her purse and the two of them ran, somewhat calmly, out of the building. I sat there watching the commotion. Teachers and administrators were in the hallways, phones were ringing. Something had obviously happened. My mother arrived and I could see her talking with my art teacher who was crying. My mother found me and took me by the hand to the parking lot. She didn’t say a word until we were in our car. She looked at me and said, “the brown bus has been in a bad accident and three people were killed”. She looked straight ahead and said, “is this why you wouldn’t get on the bus?” All I could say was “yes” as my heart raced. It turned out the brown bus’s driver, Donald, was drunk and he hit a UPS truck and another car killing two of my classmates on the bus and a mother in the car.

After the bus incident my mother finally talked with me about the dreams. I guess she felt she had to. She told me she and my grandmother have the dreams as well. I was shocked and mad. Why hadn't she told me sooner? She explained she and my grandmother never told anyone about the dreams because no one would believe them, or worse, put them in a mental hospital. My mother said this was not something we could share with friends or family. It would have to be our secret. My first question was, did my father know? “No and neither does Grandpa” my mother told me. This was a secret that would be kept between us, forever. There was one person who did know about the dreams and she could help explain it better than my mother could.

We lived on Long Island so we took the LIRR into Manhattan. We took the train into the city for special occasions; to see the Christmas Spectacular, or most recently to see my first broadway play, A Chorus Line. Today we were going to visit a friend of my mothers. We took the train to Penn Station followed by the M4 bus up Madison Avenue watching the fancy store windows go by. I remember seeing my face in the reflection of the bus window, my blond short hair, the bangs I had cut myself with the kitchen scissors, and my favorite white top from Lord & Taylor. I looked at myself and thought, "I am different from other kids”. 

We got off at the 93rd & Madison Avenue stop outside The Corner Bookstore. We walked across the street onto the tree lined block between 5th and Madison to a white brick building. The building was covered in ivy and it looked equally beautiful as it did scary. My mom pressed the button for #9B and the front door buzzed open. We walked to the end of a row of mailboxes and got into an old elevator with a metal gate that we had to push open and close manually. We got to the 9th floor and an older woman with lots of blonde hair and slippers on came out of 9B. She and my mother hugged and acted like they were close friends, but I had never heard of this woman. There was a long rubber tray in the hallway and the woman asked us to take our shoes off. Being from the suburbs this was very odd to me. I wished I had worn nicer socks.

We walked into the apartment and followed the woman into a small office off of her kitchen. My mom and I sat down on a yellow floral couch in the corner and the woman on a swivel chair. Her office was cluttered with books and knick knacks. My father would call them dust collectors. My mom introduced me to Dr. Bloch, Carol. Apparently, she knew my grandmother for years and had helped my mother after a tragic dream she had, had in college. I was hearing stories about my mother before she had me and it felt strange. Strange to think about her life before being my mother. 

Dr. Bloch, Carol, was a type of dream interpreter expert, but according to the cream business cards on her desk, she was a child psychologist. Carol looked at me and said, “Esme, you have been born with a gift. A precognitive experience that very few people are born with. It comes with a big responsibility. Your brain is able to produce visions, snapshots of the future while you sleep before they happen. Some scientists called neurologists refer to these dreams as predictive dreams or even prophetic dreams. Most people will not believe in this ability and so, to protect your mother and grandmother they did not tell anyone about the dreams. It was safest to keep it a secret for fear people would think they were making it up, or worse, crazy. Most of your dreams will be about day to day occurrences and it will be up to you to decide if you act on them. If you take an umbrella to school because you had a dream it would rain even when the forecast is for clear skies. If you stand back from the sea lion exhibit at the zoo because you had a dream one splashed you. If you don’t walk in front of a blue car because you dreamt it hit you. The problem you will encounter is, you don’t know which dreams will come to fruition, come true, and which ones are purely figments of your own imagination and nothing more. This is where things get tricky.” 

My mom shifted on the couch and looked out the window at a sparrow in the nearby tree. Carol continued, “In the past, I have suggested to your mother she steer people away from certain decisions and events because of a dream she felt strongly about. You have to be very careful with the knowledge of your dreams. People will not believe you if you simply tell them you had a dream and therefore they should not do something. Instead, you may create an obstacle, or a distraction. You can make them believe they have changed their own minds”.

My head was pounding and my throat was dry. I spoke for the first time since we sat down, “I don’t want to have these types of dreams anymore. How do I make them stop?” The two women looked at one another. There was no response. My mother could tell I was overwhelmed and it was time to leave. She asked me to get my shoes and wait for her in the hallway. I could hear Carol reassuring my mother that everything would be ok. I knew it would not.

We took the M4 bus down 5th Avenue and did not speak a word. I watched Central Park pass by. I could see the zoo as we sat at a red light on 64th & 5th. I caught a glimpse of the zoo’s Delacorte Clock with the figurine animals that dance to music every hour. In my dream the night before I saw a man’s wallet being taken as he looked up to watch the clock strike noon. I was hungry so we stopped at a hog dog cart on the way to our train’s platform. We grabbed two hot dogs with mustard and a Coke to share. 

Not much was said after that meeting with Carol. My mother told me to tell her about any dreams that concerned me. Other than that, we just went on with life and I tried my best to ignore my dreams. Until the one in which my mother almost died.

Five sleepless months after meeting Carol, I dreamt I had come home from school to find my mother sick in our upstairs bathroom. She told me she must have eaten bad shrimp salad for lunch earlier and went to bed. In the dream her pain increased quickly and I could hear her crying in pain. I ran upstairs to find her on the floor of the bathroom. She told me to run across the street to our neighbors’ house to get help. I woke up at that point sweating and crying. 

I told my mother about the dream the next morning before my father came downstairs. She assured me she would avoid any shrimp for the next week just to be safe. A week later I got off the brown bus and ran home to find my mother sick in our upstairs bathroom. I asked her from outside the bathroom door if she was ok. “I had a tuna sandwich for lunch, maybe the mayonnaise was spoiled” was all she said. An hour later she told me to call my father at work. An hour after that I was running across the street to our neighbor’s house asking Mrs. Markezin for help. A doctor arrived and spent some time upstairs with my mother. He agreed it was food poisoning and said it would pass in 12-24 hours. Later that night, when my mother’s condition worsened, my father woke me up and told me an ambulance was coming to take her to the hospital. I was taken across the street in my pajamas to the neighbor’s house and put back to bed in her moth ball smelling guest room. Of course I could not sleep. All I could do was think about my dream. What if my mother died? I hated these dreams!

My mother’s appendix had ruptured. Thankfully, the ambulance got her to the hospital in time to operate. I was sent to stay with my grandparents’ for three weeks. I remember feeling very nervous to see her again. She needed help walking into the house, my father was holding her thin frame. She didn’t look like herself or smell like my mother when I hugged her. Her perfume had been replaced with my father’s Ammen’s talc powder. I started to cry. 

I did not want to have any more dreams or the responsibility that came with having them. I was exhausted. I decided that, that night would be the last of these horrible dreams. I wrote a note to my parents explaining I did not want to have the dreams anymore. I figured my father deserved to know our secret. I waited until my mother was asleep and sneaked into her bathroom to take her medication bottles. I took all the pills that were remaining in both plastic green bottles with a gulp of my flat Shirley Temple. 

As my luck would have it, I had a dream that night of me waking up in a hospital room with white squares of padding on the walls, very much alive.

(wc 3,000)