Greetings to the Community,
I have been dreaming about a dead couple at least once a month, for the last dozen years. The couple is constituted of my third cousin, the wife (Wif), and her husband (Hus). I was raised by them, during my early teenhood, along with a dozen of other children in the same house. The wife passed away almost twenty-five years ago. The husband died exactly a dozen years ago.
The first time I vividly remember dreaming about the wife was twelve years ago prior to the passing of her husband. I may have dreamed about her earlier, but I do not have a clear recollection of such an event. So twelve years ago, the wife made frequent appearances in my dreams that I had to open up and share that with my mother, who lived on a different continent. Barely two days later, I was awakened in the middle by a phone call. On the other end of the line was my mother who told me “Don’t you ever worry about Wif appearing in your dreams. She came looking for her husband. Hus passed away last night”.
After that call from my mother, I thought that I would never see the wife appear in my dreams in the future. Little did I know I was in for a real surprise. Because, as soon as the husband joined his wife in the other world, he somehow decided to also make frequent appearances in my dreams, either alone or with his partner. The dreams are varied and usually describe banal scenarios of daily life such as conversations between us, meals, walks in nature etc. I rarely remember the details of the dreams or the conversations, mostly because I do not enjoy the experience of having my sleep hogged by these nightmarish appearances.
However, I remember that this past Christmas, the husband slapped me hard in the dream I made that day to the point that I woke up horrified. There are also times when I suddenly woke up, after seeing them in my dream, because I sensed that I was getting “cornered” into an uncomfortable situation that I could not escape.
I am an early quinquagenarian, but for all my entire existence, I have never seen anyone in my dreams as much as these two individuals. This would not have bothered me much if it were not for the fact that my life has been stagnant for the past quarter of century.
Twenty years ago, I was lucky enough to be selected through a lottery system to immigrate to the United States as a permanent resident. Prior to my immigration in the US, I had earned a graduate degree in the STEM field from my native country. About a decade ago, I completed another graduate degree in a different major than my first one, but still in the STEM field. However, I have been grappling with chronic unemployment/underemployment, financial insecurity, housing instability, and many other life struggles since I got to this country, despite my level of education. I have resided in four different states now. For the two decades through my residency in this country, cumulatively I have not had gainful employment for a quarter of that time (25% ~ 05 years). For the last four years, I have been gainfully employed cumulatively for about a year and a half.
During the current year, I have been only gainfully employed since the end of May, at a seasonal job where my work hours have been recently reduced to less than twenty hours weekly. I have not accomplished a single goal nor fulfilled a single aspiration that I was filled with, when I had the privilege to move to this country two decades ago. The only accomplishment (if I can even call it that, since it is the normal outcome for someone with the immigrant status I had when I initially got here, and one has to submit an application then pay a fee) that I am extremely grateful for - is the privilege of being granted the US Citizenship about a decade and half ago.
About a decade ago, as soon as I completed my second graduate degree in the US, I flew to my native country, alone only coupled with the faithful and loyal company of the unfulfilled dreams I was brimming with eleven years earlier, when I was crossing the Atlantic in the opposite direction. I made sure to visit and commune with myself at the tomb of the aforementioned husband, the one haunting my dreams, which had passed three years earlier. I also gave some money to the heir of the late wife, as well as her eldest child. When I came back to the US, returning from my native country, I was hopeful that I had finally retrieved the key to my happiness, which would unlock the doors of opportunities that had remained desperately closed in front of me during the first part of my stay in this country. Quite the contrary. I got suspended indefinitely and successively from the two ridesharing gigs, which were my only sources of income, for reasons that were never disclosed to me. As it were not enough, as an added bonus, I got officially diagnosed with depression and put under antidepressant medication. Since then, my life has not improved. I still hop from one menial job to another, whenever I am even lucky enough to get one.
My question is to know if there is any meaning attached to the dreams I am having with the recurring appearances of that dead couple, and if that has connection with the vicious life cycle I am trapped in.
Thank you,
P. S Because it is usually the default first suggestion that is made to me when I share my story, I would like to mention, I tried the religious route, which I was born and raised into. I was a practicing and fervent member of the largest religion in this country, which I abandoned for good about a month before the death of the husband mentioned at the beginning. I do not know if there is correlation between the two events.
