losing the sun

I had a scary dream last night, and I thought, why not record it here. People generally don’t care to listen to your dreams, but this blog is pretty much read only by me and occasionally by my good friend Lisa. (Hi Lisa! Want to hear about my dream?)

So anyway, I dreamed that my family was moving into a new house. It was smaller, but a cute house, and we were trying to figure out how to fit the furniture that we wanted to keep and figure out what we should get rid of. While Scott was working on something inside, I took the girls outside for a little walk around the block to check out the neighborhood.

As we walked around, saying hi to the neighbors, I suddenly saw someone gasp and point to the sky.  I looked up to see the sun – rather low in the sky, as it was about five or six in the evening – spew out a big fountain of fire. We all instinctively ducked, and I grabbed the girls to protect them (in the dream, they were little girls again – not any older than 8 or 9). I thought to myself, we are going to burn up right now. We can’t survive something like that coming out of the sun!

But we didn’t burn up – didn’t even feel anything – and then, with a few more flashes, the sun started to dim, then just went out, like a burned-out lightbulb.  I thought, why aren’t we dead right now? The earth can’t survive without the sun! The next thing I thought was that we needed to get back to Scott so we could all be together when we died.  We ran back to the house (but since it was a dream, it was so slow and difficult to run -- like running through jell-o or something – so frustrating!) We got there and all huddled together on the couch as I tried to explain to the girls that the world was going to end, very soon, and that our lives would be over, and that our lives had been so wonderful and I loved them so very much.  We all cried and were so distressed and sad…and yet nothing happened. It was dark outside, but streetlights began coming on, and we turned lights on in the new house, and we didn’t die. 

Then it seemed like days went by, and the world began to get used to not having a sun. I couldn’t believe this could just happen – shouldn’t we just float out in space now…lose gravity…lose our atmosphere…something? Without a sun to revolve around? How could this be? And then one day, the sun turned back on. As if someone had just replaced the bulb.  Everything was back to normal, as if it had never happened. We continued to work on the house, and everything was fine.

I woke up with the strangest sense of relief and wonder at where this surreal dream came from. What does it mean? Am I worried about my company’s recent request for me to not work on non-billable projects – which has drastically reduced my income all of a sudden? Does this equate in my mind to the sun’s light going out? What about the new smaller house? What about the feeling of keeping my loved ones together – letting them know how much I love them? I feel like I need to marinate in this for a bit.

I have been struggling with a cold virus, and running a temperature, which I have been trying to rest through so I can burn out the virus. Maybe it was just one of those crazy fever dreams. But so vivid, and worth thinking about.