My Faustian Dreams

 This morning, in the pre-dawn darkness, when I opened the sliding door to go out to the porch, the pleasant smell of the overnight shower filled my nostrils. At once I remembered that I had woken in the middle of the night, at some undetermined time, and had heard the soothing sound of the rain on the roof.

I had forgotten about the rain, or rather it had no registered in my recollections on waking. It felt a dream that had come back to me, triggered by some incident in the waking hours that jarred the previously unretrievable memory of the images that filled one's mind during the night.

In that instance, my mind brought up  the opening lines of Goethe's Faust:

Ihr naht euch wieder schwankende Gestalten, 

Die Früh sich einst dem trüben Blick gezeigt.

Versuch ich wohl, euch diesmal festzuhalten?

Fühl ich mein Herz nach jenem Wahn geneigt?

 

Again you show yourselves, you wavering Forms,

Revealed, as you once were, to clouded vision.

Shall I attempt to hold you fast once more?

Heart’s willing still to suffer that illusion?

I had been having rather interesting dreams lately, ones in which certain people from my past, living and dead, were making repeated appearances. I rarely dream about anyone in my life at the moment. Mostly it is about people from whom I am estranged, and who have passed away into the next life.

There is often a sadness about these dreams, even as I dream them, as I often have felt the distance from these individuals who have been dear to me. 

Lately, however, there has been a shift in the tone of these dreams. I feel in the dreams as if the estrangement is over, and that I with them in fellowship again. Even the dreams of the ones who have died seem to feel comforting. Of course there is still the poignancy of waking from these dreams, and realizing that it was merely in my imagination.  Yet I am of the inclination to believe that something has changed, or is changing, on some scale that I cannot understand. I don't really expect to see any of these people again in this life. If my dream means anything, is connected to something that many people are probably experiencing, and its meaning can only be vaguely inferred from my own small nighttime imagination.