Dream of the Past

Dreams of the Past

I had a dream last night and although I can’t remember a lot of it, I remember the overall concept. I think it’s important enough to write down.
In the dream I was walking with and talking to my old friend Sarah. It’s been twenty years since I’ve seen and talked with Sarah, and Sarah died about three years ago. I was told by a mutual friend, about six months after her death.
I’d always meant to call her but I’d lost her number and I couldn’t write to her for the same reason. However, if I’d made the effort I could have found someone who knew what her phone number or address was. I never got around to making the effort.
In my dream we seemed to be as we were twenty years ago as if somehow I’d been thrust back in time and she and I were younger, more sprightly, and able to take up where we’d left off…with one difference. I remembered that she was dead and that this couldn’t be real.
I walked beside her trying to enjoy the moment and the joy of seeing her again, but I kept wondering if there was something that I could do; something I should do. Should I tell her that she was going to die and when; should I try to put into words how I felt about her as a friend and say my goodbyes? What should I do? And how had it happened that I was here with her and able to talk to her, the mystery dangled before me.
The dream is fuzzy. I saw us walking along, talking. We seemed to have stopped at a restaurant that had tables outside for lunch. It was a beautiful sunshiny day and we were happy. Although my happiness was spoiled by my knowledge that this couldn’t be real, and my uncertainty of what to do, I was happy.
Why did I have this dream? What did Sarah come to tell me? She was happy and spoke with a cheerful voice. She seemed delighted to go to lunch with me; together once again. Was she telling me she understood and that we would have lunch together at a future time as we did in the past? Did she miss me and come to visit from that other world? Or did I go to her and bring her back to recreate a past that seems gone forever?
Was she just a resurrected memory?
Dreams are enigmas.