Dreams

Everyone who has grieved over the loss of a partner knows how from the first day of the loss you never sleep the same again. Gone are the nights that I fall into bed thinking 'oh this is so nice' cuddle up and fall gently to sleep, or read and chat little before hitting the pillow, Alison would always go on her laptop before sleep, more often than not I would fall asleep to the tap tap of her keyboard, oh how I miss that so much and feeling the warmth of her body beside me and the feel of her baby soft skin as we cuddle into each other. Then of course waking the next morning, how do you ever get used to not seeing her when you open your eyes. The waking up was our special time, she would always roll over into me and we would entwine into a cuddle and doze until one of us got up.

So those first nights/weeks you don't sleep, your mind is in such turmoil and you have to get used to being on your own in bed, which is a whole lot different than Alison deciding to sleep on the top floor if I was keeping her awake because of snoring or if she was stopping over with friend, then you knew she would be back or climb into the bed in the early hours. Now she will never be back or ever be beside me again.

A sort of sleep pattern does eventually return, I don't have trouble getting to sleep as I'm usually so tired of dragging myself through the day. Blowing out the little candles I light every evening for Alison, then turning off the TV, locking up and then switching all the lights off is the nightly ritual that means another day has gone by without her, It is such a sad feeling walking up the stairs to bed on your own!

Then come the dreams ! Since Alison was taken, to say my dreams are weird is an understatement, which ever part of my brain writes the scripts and does the screenplay, deserves an Oscar nomination. For some reason people that were never in my dreams before are now frequently in them, notably my father who died about ten years ago, also my first wife has been frequently in my dreams of late and just about every Tom, Dick and Harry from my past and present.

But there is notably one exception who is missing from them 'Alison' I long for her every night to be in a dream, but she never is, I think of her every moment of the day, she is never out of my thoughts, yet I go to sleep and nothing. I can only assume that my mind shuts down from thinking of her when I sleep. I'm hoping that when I do see her in a dream it will be more than my memory giving me the image, I have read that if the deceased visit you in a dream and it is far more vivid than a normal dream then it could be contact, so I just wait for that however long it will take.

That said I have had four dreams now which have not been normal and I have never had the sensory feeling that these dreams have produced, Alison has not appeared in them, but in each there was the presence of someone that I could not see.

The first scared me to be honest, as I didn't know what was happening as I thought I was wide awake in bed, so thinking I was wide awake, I had what I can only describe as pins and needles or an electric charge combined with pressure starting at my head and moving down my body, I jumped out of bed in panic and only to suddenly wake up. The second dream a few weeks later, was almost the same, again thinking I was wide awake in bed, but this time the bedroom walls where mottled grey and then there was a strong presence of someone in the room at which point the bed mattress started to move in ripples, a bit like a water bed, then that same feeling again from head to toe, as the feeling got to my toes I woke and I swear for a few seconds the mattress was still moving. This time though it didn't freak me, instead I felt real calm and just went back to sleep.

The other two occasions both very similar, but again real calm afterwards.

I did do an internet search for that sort of dream and the strange feeling. Most answers point to astral forces or connection with deceased loved ones, who knows!