Dreams

For those of you here for a quick update: My nurse called on Friday to say the biopsy confirmed the original diagnosis of cholangiocarcinoma, among other things. I have an appointment to see the medical oncologist this Thursday and the palliative care doctor Friday. I’m still working on an appointment at MD Anderson. I had a great day back at work today after Spring Break. I feel really good unless I drive or sit too long, and then I feel pain and am zapped for the rest of the day. It's totally manageable, though.

For those of you with a little more time: I have long had a bit of an obsession with all things existential. I really like to ponder the meaning of the Universe. Like a lot. Naturally, therefore, my favorite class of my first semester in the Doctor of Liberal Studies program at SMU was Transformation of the Psyche. The course examined the soul through the lens of philosophy, religion, and psychology. Towards the end of the semester, the professor asked us to record our dreams for a week. He said all we had to do was to ask our subconscious minds to wake us up after dreams so that we could write them down. So, that night, as I lay in bed, I asked myself to wake me up to remember my dreams. Every night for the rest of the week, I awoke to vivid dream after vivid dream.

In one I dreamed I was embarking on a camping trip with my family. At the last minute, I turned back to change shoes. When I reached the building where my boots would apparently be found, the entrance was locked. I pulled on several doors, but none would open. Finally, I found entry to a winding staircase, which I ascended quickly. As I sprinted up the dark staircase, I passed windows that offered quick, awe-inspiring glimpses of the dark, starry night. I encountered several metal doors, each of which was locked, but I continued up the staircase on a sort of hero’s journey that ended in me waking up, never having reached the top of the staircase. The dream felt like a metaphor for life, a constant cycle of ascension and discouragement and the ever-present feeling of trying to get somewhere but never really knowing how to get there. At the time I wrote that the "journey is both dark and pressing, punctuated by the occasional sight of a million shining stars and compounded by the ever-present urgency of reaching our spiritual destination before 'waking up' to our ultimate deaths." It was a bit dramatic before but seems much more prescient now.

In another dream that I had during my “dream week,” a giant, house-sized black snake slithered into the home of my childhood best friend and wrapped itself around the perimeter of a room on a high shelf along two walls. The snake was completely black, about 36 inches in diameter and at least 60 feet long. The snake’s head faced me as I walked past the living room to the bedroom, and its mouth was wide open, long sharp teeth threatening. I had no idea what that dream could possibly mean.

Today I emailed my professor to tell him about my cancer diagnosis. At the end of the message, I jokingly suggested that the giant snake had perhaps been a warning. "The shedding of its skin," my professor replied, "is a transformational process in many more senses than just one. If it was indeed a warning in your dreams, I think one of its warnings was not to leave any possibilities behind.” In my dream, I was afraid of the snake, but I walked right past it, unharmed. Perhaps the dream was a warning after all, or a reminder, at least, that the outcome of fear can have more than one possibility.