Allow me to make the blog a little more depressing...

Erica suggested that I write about my disturbing dreams. I hope blogging suffices, Erica. I kind of feel like a 14-year-old, using my blog to detail my dreams, but I also kind of don't care.

Well, we're not having a very good rancha (spanish for spell, as in a bad spell of time) here at the house of nerds. I, too, have lost a friend. One of my good friends from my hometown, Stephanie, died unexpectedly of a prescription medicine overdose a few weeks ago. She was 24 years old.

The time surrounding her death was a bit hectic for me. I was finishing my summer internship, and preparing to move all of my stuff from New York to Maryland and then to Buenos Aires. I ended up postponing my flight to Argentina, and going to Stephanie's funeral instead. So in the span of 4 days, I spent time in the following places in the following order: New York, Houston, Maryland, to Buenos Aires.

Needless to say, I didn't have a lot of time to sort things out for myself. Now that things have slowed down (way down, considering my sub par grasp of the Spanish language), my subconscious is apparently sorting out Stephanie's death in a fairly disturbing (but apparently, common, according to my google research) way.

All of my dreams involve very realistic conversations between Stephanie and me. In all of the dreams, we both know that she is dead. Usually she feels very chagrined and apologetic about the whole thing, and she also feels pretty stupid that it happened. We both maintain our sense of humor though. ("I'm such an idiot!" she said once, in regards to her dying [she had a very self-deprecatory sense of humor]).

Although I have had many dreams about her, I will describe the three most vivid ones:

1. (This was the first dream, and what I hoped to be the last dream, since it does suggest a sense of closure). Stephanie, Erica, and I were sitting in an apartment, chatting. We were all completely aware that Stephanie had died, and that this was crazy that we were all there talking to each other. Erica and I didn't directly confront Stephanie about what had happened, because it seemed like Stephanie was embarrassed about it, and we didn't need to confront the obvious that no one could change.

We sat and talked about her death indirectly though, and Stephanie said how weird it was going to be not to be able to see anyone anymore. She said it was particularly strange for her never to see Sundie again (her older sister). And then Erica touched Stephanie on the shoulder and said, "You wouldn't ever hurt yourself, would you?" And Stephanie said that she hadn't, and to not worry about her, because she would be all right. It was an altogether poignant moment.

I was just sitting there the whole time, completely blown away by the fact that we were having this conversation. I realized that it would be the last time that the three of us were going to be together, so I made us all hold hands. Erica and Stephanie laughed at me and were making fun of me, but they agreed to it, and we all sat together for a minute, without saying anything.

2. This dream was particularly disturbing because the entire plot revolved around Stephanie "proving" to me that she was not just a figure of my dream, but something real that I should pay attention to and help. She did various things to prove to me she was really there. Finally, I made her scribble something on a piece of paper, and initial it. For the rest of my dream, I went around showing it to people, trying to figure out how the hell this was all happening.

[At this point I started feeling like I was going crazy. However, Patricia Garfield, whoever the hell she is, says this is normal. Swell.]

3. Most recently, I had a dream that Stephanie and I were talking about her funeral. I was confused about exactly where/what she was doing now (post-her death), so I asked her if she was "at" her funeral. She told me, again in a laughingly embarrassed tone, that she hadn't attended her funeral (in spirit) because at that point she hadn't even figured out what had happened to her. So I told her all about her funeral, including how all of her sisters spoke. I said that Erica's and my eulogy was really funny (I know, I'm so modest). She laughed at that.

Anyway, these are my weird dreams. I've been dreading going to sleep, but some further googling has indicated to me that these dreams are VERY common. There are basically two death-dream camps (ha?) : those who think that it is a psychological reaction of the brain trying to process the loss of the deceased, and those who think that their dead friend/relative/significant other is communicating to them from the afterlife.

That first link (the psychological camp) will get you to the New York Times. That second link (after life communication camp) will get you to a website with a revolving butterfly .gif promoting a book entitled "Hello from Heaven!"

I've decided I belong in Death-dream camp 1. I may be kind of crazy, but I do not yet believe that butterflies are communicating messages from the afterlife.