A second dream of the dead
I had another lifelike dream of my deceased first lover. It’s been almost two years since I learned that he died (and his life ended a couple of years before I found out), and more than a year has passed since I last saw him in my sleep.
Technically, this would be my third dream of him, but only the second since he died. I had a very brief but realistic vision of him about a dozen years ago while he was still alive. I had just moved into my current house and was falling asleep on the couch. As I was drifting off, my dog had jumped up on the sofa with me, stretched herself out across my feet and ankles and began to snooze. Shortly after she did that, I was also in a deep slumber.
In this first dream, it felt like I had woken up and that someone was in the room with me. I remembered opening my eyes and looking up. There, looking down at me over the back of the couch, was the man with whom I had formed my first intense emotional bond. Though it had been years since I had seen him, his presence was familiar and comforting to me.
“How are you doing?” he had asked, smiling down at me a little as he leaned down a little to look at my face.
Still bleary with sleep, I told him the truth. “Well,” I replied groggily, “my feet are asleep from the dog across my legs.” Saying that, I shifted my legs, the dog woke up, and she jumped down off of me to curl up on the floor. When I looked up again from my supine position, I was the only person in the room. As the renewed blood flow began bringing sensation back to my feet, I turned my head to the side and was again enveloped in silent darkness.
I rarely remember my dreams, but this one was strong in my memory the next morning and for the next several days. As he crossed my mind again and again, I fondly remembered how he had sworn to me when we dated that he strongly believed in psychic phenomena. I amused myself from time to time thinking that maybe he had shown up in my dream and I had shown up in his at the same time – that we had somehow made a mental connection across the distance between us after all this time.
I didn’t truly believe this, of course, but it tickled me a little because it fit so well with what he said he thought to be true. Astral projection, souls reuniting after reincarnation, visiting past lives, manipulating bio-energy…it seemed like there wasn’t much in the realm of the mystic that he wasn’t willing to accept. At the time, I found this openness to be part of his charm, and I fell very deeply for him.
Was it love or obsession that I felt for him? At the time, I’d have said “love” without hesitation. In retrospect and after having lived a few decades more, I’m not sure anymore which it was. I remember that I was emotionally devastated when he ended our relationship and seemed to do everything he could to stay in (and sleep with) my immediate circle instead of letting me grieve the loss and recover.
A person never forgets – or really gets completely over – their “first love,” though. I eventually got over the pain, in part by leaving the state and putting some literal distance from him and the memories of our time together and his shenanigans afterward.
Some years after I had moved to the East Coast, I actually did see him again. I had set up a social media account for myself (since deleted), and he looked me up and reached out to me that way. With no small amount of skepticism, I accepted his friend request, and we began to talk.
He had married a woman and was unhappy in the relationship. That did not surprise me considering how much he had loved cock when we dated. That wasn't a passing fancy, either, since he was repeatedly dicked as he fucked his way through my circle of friends after he broke up with me. He wanted to leave his wife, cross several states, and stay with me for a while.
It may not have been the best choice I could have made, but I acquiesced. I wasn't naïve, but I thought it might be the kind thing to do to honor what I had felt for him at one time. I was living (platonically) with another older man at the time, but he had no problem with that arrangement for the time being. I set up the second bedroom in the house for the coming arrival as my roommate and I shared the largest bedroom.
A week later, I picked my ex up at the bus station and took him home. I honestly think he might have expected to pick up our emotional connection where he had broken it off years before. He dropped a few hints about this, but I demurred every time. While I had gotten over the profound hurt he had inflicted on me years ago, I was not going to fall as hard or as fast for him as I had the first time. “Once bitten, twice shy,” as they say.
I think he was disappointed that I wasn't immediately bewitched by his presence. Maybe he had expected that we would immediately share a bedroom and a bed and a life, but I was being careful. All I knew for certain was that he was just in the beginning process of leaving his wife. I had not closed myself off to the possibility of rekindling things with him, but I was damned if I was going to be his “rebound relationship.” Yes, we screwed a couple of times, but it was -- for me -- as much in honor of the time we had instead of rebuilding what he had torn down.
After exactly two weeks, he decided to leave and go back to his wife. I did not vigorously protest. I took him back to the bus station and never laid eyes on him again. At least, I never saw him again while I was awake.
Some years after this, he died, and I found out a couple of years after the fact. I felt nothing at the time, but several months later I had a very vivid dream of him that lingered with me for weeks afterward. He had come to me in my dream and asked me to go with him. I remembered that he had believed – to some extent, anyway, when I knew him – that souls would meet each other again from one life to the next if they were important to each other. Knowing that he was dead and that I wasn't, I had asked if he would wait for me. He hugged me (and I can still sometimes feel that hug if I think about it), but he didn’t answer.
Now I’ve had my second dream of him since I learned that he died. As with the first, it has not dissipated in my memory. Instead, it has been crawling through my thoughts for days, but not in an uncomfortable way.
I had fallen asleep on my couch again. As my dream began, he was sitting on that same couch next to me. We quickly agreed that I needed a haircut, for some reason, and he volunteered to do it.
Dreams often seem to follow their own logic, and this was a prime example. It seemed natural to me to have my ex-lover cut my hair, even though I had never known him to do that. It also seemed like we were doing the normal thing when we took a quick trip to the garage bay of the nearest fire station (none of the first responders were there at the moment) for him to do it. I also felt nothing was amiss as we completely undressed each other.
We kissed each other, though our lips did not meet. I pressed my lips to the back of one of his shoulders, and his brushed the front of one of mine. I ran my fingers through his hair as his explored my chest hair (which I hadn’t had when we dated). My tongue delicately flicked his right nipple, and his reciprocated on my left ear.
I felt a thrill surge through me as his lips and tongue traced the ridges of cartilage and flicked at my earlobe. This was the lover that I had when I discovered how sensitive my ears were, and he had adored licking, sucking, nibbling, and tweaking them during our foreplay and intercourse. I’ve taken many men to bed over the years, but no one has ever been able to titillate me the way this man could. I felt the same touch in my dream, and the intensity of the pleasure walloped me into a daze.
Naked, he guided me onto a chair as he took a cloth to drape over me. My upper body received more gentle caresses from his lips and hands as he took his time covering me. His touch, though I’d not felt it in decades, was intimately and immediately familiar and welcome. I allowed the sensations and feelings that his handlings brought forth to overwhelm my mind.
I was nude, though seated and covered, but he was naked and standing behind me. As his fingers began to gently position my head so he could begin trimming the hair, shirtless firemen began to filter into the garage bay and sit along the periphery of the room on long benches. They acknowledged our presence, but did not interact with us. They watched us and chatted amongst themselves.
(I’ve always found firemen in general to be intensely erotic. It’s a physical job that requires regular exercise and training to properly use the tools the job requires. A great deal of courage is also needed to fight wildfires and burning buildings trying to save other’s lives. The physical fitness and tenacity of spirit combine to make my defenses melt.)
From behind, my hair trimming had begun. I could feel a comb being pulled through my hair and hear the scissors cutting my locks.
There was a pause as his hand came around my chin and tilted my head one way to better see what he was doing, his finger delicately and intentionally tracing my earlobe and giving me a shiver of anticipation.
Then his lips brushed my exposed ear again as his hand reached around from the other side to re-position my head again.
A single finger touched the very corner of my mouth to tilt me into the light.
This continued for a few minutes. I could hear the sounds of the scissors and the mumbles of the firemen talking quietly between themselves. I could feel my ex’s breath on my neck and the touch of his lips as he continued to gently tease and entice me while he worked. Nothing overtly sexual was happening, but it was intensely romantic and erotic. In this dream, I was having the time of my life.
He finished with my hair and came around in front of me, still naked. He approached my front from the left-hand side and bent down to look into my face. I could see his dark chest hair and the goatee that he began wearing when he and I dated and continued to do so for the rest of his life. His hazel eyes looked into my face expectantly.
It intensely felt that he was there, separated from me by mere inches. If I had taken my hand from under the cloth covering me, I’d have felt his face with the tips of my fingers.
Other sounds in the dream faded as I looked into those eyes, and several thoughts flashed briefly through my mind almost simultaneously. I remembered that he had believed (or said that he believed) that life is a cycle and that people who make a connection in one life will find each other the next time around. I briefly regretted that fate allowed us only a brief but bright flare of warmth and heat together in this life. I recalled that his time had come to an end in this time.
The realization did not devastate me the way it did in my prior dream after he died. However, I needed an answer to the question I had asked him in the other dream to which he hadn't responded.
I looked into his face and asked again, “Will you wait for me?” Will you try to delay coming back into your next life until I can be there with you the next time around?
This time he answered with a single word. His tone was a little incredulous. It was as if he couldn’t believe that I thought it needed to be asked. The answer should have been obvious to anyone who contemplated it.
“Yes!” His face lit up as he smiled broadly, joyously. He leaned in, put his arms around me, and hugged me tightly to his naked body, though the cloth covering me prevented direct skin contact.
Then the dream was over, and I was awake. It was still a couple of hours before the sun would rise, so the room was still dark. I had been sleeping on my side, facing the back of the couch with my arm beneath my head. I rolled over onto my back, repositioning myself, and I replayed the dream in my mind before it could fade from my memory.
Drowsily – it was still the very early morning hours – I replayed the final bit of the dream again. He looked at me. He smiled. He said, “Yes!” and was happy to say it, as if he were looking forward to seeing me in our next lives.
This had been a good dream. Content, I allowed myself to fall back asleep.
