ONLY IN DREAMS

I used to dream a lot about the prison experience...especially the earlier years of this journey, when we often would be fighting the 'machine' and its injustices. When we hadn't yet become as accustomed to the unfairness and often bizarre goings on in this topsy turvy upside down world that exists outside, hidden behind the walls, in plain sight from the 'real' world. But more recently my "prison" dreams seemed to have receded into dormancy.

However at times they are awakened from their slumber, such was the case last nite, by some anxiety created by a 'real world' situation, inconsequential though it may seem but clearly with more depth to it than I like to give it.

Rod suffers from migraine headaches, has for so many years I can't count them. They are cyclical..he can go a year without one, then bam, they come upon him and he suffers acute pain with sometimes twice daily (sometmes more) of the punishing pain, which can last an hour at times. When they arrive, they will hang around for weeks, then suddenly, abruptly, be gone...until the next time. Well currently he is suffering through one of these bouts. As has been happening almost daily lately (well, mostly "nightly") I awoke mid of the nite (2:30 last night to be exact) to see the hall light on, and found my husband just recovering from one such severe headache, sipping tea and reading a book to relax him and hopefully allow him to get back to sleep. I returned to bed, and fell into dream-filled repose. I would call it a nightmare, except over these years the fear I used to feel upon awakening from such dreams has diminished... due to their at one time "regularity". As with most things one "adjusts".

Well last nites dream, I can only deduce, came about from the anxiety I was feeling about my husbands pain, as well as an email I'd received from my son earlier in the evening. It seems a buddy of his had been expecting a visit from his wife and mother that day (sunday) and they had never shown up. To make things worse, the prison phone system was down (as always seems to happen when this type of thing occurs, they call it Murphy's Law) so the poor man couldn't even call her to find out if she was alright, and ask what had happened. Corey asked if I would please call the mans wife and make sure she was ok, and email him back so his friend could stop the anxiety and worry he was suffering.

As wonderful as it is to have email in the prison system it is very slow...they must read all incoming and outgoing messages (security precautions) so basicaly it takes 2 hours from the time Corey sends me an email before I receive it in my Hotmail Inbox, and the same when I shoot an email off to him. After calling the mans wife, explaining who I was and why I was calling, and her telling me what had happened,it would be yet another 2 hrs before Corey's buddy would have his answers and be able to relax. IF that is, the email was processed and delivered to Corey's inbox before 'lights out'. Thankfully it was, I discovered this morning, and the man had been able to relax and get some sleep last nite.

But back to my dream...as I said, these two happenings must have been the catalyst for my dreams last nite.

I woke up after first one dream very early morning (probably 4 am 'ish'), then slid right back into a 'same scenario' dream, pretty much a 'continuation of' the first one, when I drifted off again. In the dream my son was in the SHU (otherwise known as the "hole", where prisoners who have been deemed guilty by the prisons kangaroo court system, of breaking prison rules, are sent as punishment). I was standing outside the cell (it had bars on the front in the dream, although none of the SHU cells Corey has been in have bars, just solid walls, & if lucky, a small window), but you know how dreams are. In the dream I was visiting with my son and was very worried about what was going to happen to him. The next thing I remember of this dream, I was in the prison parking lot next to a building and saw him sneaking across the yard to a box on a pole (very odd but NOT odd in my dream) where somehow I knew his personal property was located (the guards box up your personal property in your locker when you are sent to SHU, and you have no access to it, except after a few days - if lucky - and at that its limited to what you can have). I knew, in this dream, my son only wanted to get his books and some snacks, but was so scared he'd be seen and further punished, it was wide open out there and he was completely visible in that yard! I was terrified!

Suddenly I saw 4 cops (prison guards) riding up on little (I mean, seriously, they were toddler-sized!) skooters (only in dreams!) so I dropped to the pavement hoping I wouldn't be seen (apparently I wasn't supposed to be whereever I was) even though I was in plain site in this big empty parking lot!! They did see me of course, and I curled up and pretended to be asleep! (LOL!) I told them I had just been visiting, and was so tired that I guess I fell asleep in the parking lot! Well next thing I know I'm inside this big room and a woman 'cop' is showing me a bunk bed amidst boxes of stacked stuff (in a storage room of some sort) telling me this is where I can sleep if I get tired again. Ha!!! I know, pretty crazy...theres more, the dream went on causing me even more anxiety, but thats the gist of it. To be honest, I can't tell you how the dream ended...usually dreams don't just end like in a movie or book...after waking I could only recall so much of the dream, so i can't tell you if my son made it safely back to his SHU cell or not at this point. But I DO know in THIS reality he's ok, he's NOT in the SHU at all, as I got an email this morning where he was relieved to have gotten my response for his buddy, that Frank had been able to get a good nights sleep, and he, Corey, was off to his first RDAP class of the day. I haven't had a 'prison' dream for a while and after this I hope it will be quite awhile before another one manifests.

"Those who have compared our life to a dream were right.... We sleeping wake, and waking sleep." ~ Michel de Montaigne, Essays, 1580