It’s weird: I only started dreaming again (or remembering it) more or less the same day I started the Lucid Dreaming course. There are a couple of very fuzzy on-my-way somewhere dreams that have been recurring for two or three years, maybe longer. Maybe they’ll grow in clarity. I also had a relapse dream – as in, relapse into alcohol abuse. Anybody who’s been in recovery knows these. They’re always worth paying attention to. This one was weird and unexpected. I left alcohol behind some time ago. But in this dream, I saw myself as I’d probably be if I hadn’t stopped when I did: bloated, bloodshot, hellblown, miserable.
Not a pleasant dream, but kind of a freeing one. I felt it was telling me I’d done very well to find my way out of that road not taken, or not continued. That I’d dodged something far worse than a bullet.
that’s pretty incredible to have a “near miss” dream - where you see what could have been. Like going there without going there and getting to experience the relief of knowing you didn’t. Do you notice any lingering feelings?
Yes. I feel like that particular mara has been sent off packing at the real root mind level–meaning, that the idea of (in my case) drinking is repulsive in a way that it never has been. It mostly was (I’ve been sober a lot of years) but it’s as if that version of ‘me’ has FINALLY dissolved. But I also feel shaken by it, the way you do when you’ve just missed having a really bad accident.
Appreciate you sharing this. I have been 5 years sober. These dreams can leave you will a really awful feeling right before waking, which, upon waking turns into a sigh of great relief that you did not relapse.
They were a little troubleing when I first had them. But upon a great deal of reflection, I realized how important the take away was:
The daytime ‘incubation’ of sobriety from Alcohol, had now sown seeds in my subconsciousness, meaning even when I lost the prefrontal cortex (will power) in the dream state, sobriety had become such an intrenched habit, that just the mere dream of a relapse, really rattled me.
I am glad you shared that dream, It sounds like an much more evolved one of the type that I listed above.
AMEN my friend, I think you are spot on with that interpretation, and yea you definitely dodged a Mack truck or a freight train…