Sometimes my Bubbi, who was the grandparent I was closest to as a child, will “visit” me in a dream.
I hesitate to use the word “visit” because in the spiritual and personal work of dreams, the word “visit” (when associated with our loved ones or family members who have passed) is a loaded term with both emotional and philosophical implications. Many people desperately long for dream visitations from the departed. Others fear them.
But I am using this loaded term nonetheless because in the dreams with my Bubbi, the encounter often feels temporary — like a short visit would, as opposed to a long stay. The interaction with her in the dream often gets hijacked by a reaction in me, and therefore doesn’t last long or go too deep, though I wish it would last longer.
Why do I react when I see my Bubbi in a dream?
Well, to me, she often doesn’t seem “herself” in my dreams — she seems distant, confused, or distracted. As a result of interpreting her behavior in this way, I myself get very distracted. I spend most of the time in the dream encounter treating my Bubbi like a dementia patient or a confused old lady, rather than sitting with her and enjoying our interaction. When I wake up, I don’t often feel as if I spent quality time with her in these dreams, despite my excitement to see her each time she shows up.
I had a different kind of “Bubbi” dream earlier this week, however. The results have me contemplating (again) the ways we might communicate with…let’s say… non-human entities. (For the sake of this article, I’m referring to spirit of any kind, including the departed, our own higher self, angels, consciousness, the Divine, etc.)
In this recent dream, I am in what I believe is an old hotel in Atlantic City, NJ, with my “daughter,” a young girl about age 6. Earlier in the dream, she and I had been through a somewhat terrifying trial together, and both of us made it out okay. Next, we are inside this hotel and at the entrance to what I believe is a “mocked up apartment” from an “earlier era,” one I believe “they” have created for us to tour and experience as if a museum exhibit.
Inside the dream, I suddenly have a recollection of having visited this apartment before, a long time ago, when I was a little girl. I’m excited to return.
I slowly move through the rooms of the apartment and in each one I am so taken with all the decor: the vintage wallpaper, the “tzotchkes” lining the wooden buffet. My senses are enlivened. I step into the bedroom and feel enchanted by the yellow quilted bedspread on the twin bed and the cherry-stained desk. I love this place, this tour!
Then there is a woman with us, a stranger, but someone who feels familiar to me or kind. Ahead of us, she makes her way up a staircase and I think to myself, “I don’t remember there being a second floor on this tour. Are we allowed up there?” But this kind-looking, familiar woman is walking assuredly up the steps. No one is stopping her; so I follow, excited for what I will find. Something new, perhaps?
All along the walls of the stairwell hang various items, one of which is a green felt “Strawberry Shortcake hat” I remember from my childhood. (In waking life, I don’t remember such a hat, but I did love Strawberry Shortcake as a young girl.)
What? I can’t believe it! This hat is here?! I think. I touch the soft green felt, and something in me softens. My shoulders drop and I suddenly feel a desire to just stay there with the hat, to try it on even.
And then, in the very next instant, I smell something delightful all around me — a simmering brisket. I say out loud — to the woman, perhaps, or the girl (who is no longer visible) — “that smells just like my Bubbi’s brisket!”
And it smells amazing…. I want to stay. I want the smell to linger.
(Read more about smells and smelling in dreams here.)
And then a feeling arises. Rather, I am engulfed by a feeling, such a good feeling, such a good, good, pleasant feeling. Comforting…delicious, I might say…. I want to linger in this, too.
It’s the feeling — not a memory, but a feeling– of being with my Bubbi, at her house, as a little girl. I feel infused by her presence or by the presence of the girl I once was when I would sleep at her house on Saturday nights.
She is not there, not visually, and yet she is there. Inside me. All around me. In my nostrils, yes, but also coursing through the surface layers of my body like a vibrating moving sidewalk. It’s a kind of warmth.
I feel it. The love. Love. Big love. Love for me. Knowing I am loved. Knowing I am adored. Wanted.
Presence. Her presence. Embracing me. Inhabiting me. It is in me and around me.
I don’t know that these words above truly describe the feeling inside dream. I am doing the best I can to communicate a feeling that is beyond words or before words or after them.
It is simply “feeling.”
And this, I believe, is one way our spirits communicate with us. Whoever or whatever those spirits “are.”
It could have been the spirit of my Bubbi communicating with me via my dream senses. It could be my own soul reminding me of what it was like to be the little girl my Bubbi loved, the little girl who actively engaged with the world of the senses around her. It could be some other kind of essence or entity or function I have yet no understanding or awareness of.
Whatever it was, when I awoke from this dream, I felt different than when I do waking up from a dream in which I see my Bubbi and she seems confused or distanced; when she doesn’t appear herself, or not as I expect her to appear. She was not there with me visually in the Atlantic City dream; and yet everything good I associate with my Bubbi and my Bubbi’s love for me was there with me, inside me, and all around me, in such a moving way it stuck with me for hours after waking from the dream.
Most of us tend to favor the visual senses; and there are evolutionary reasons that vision dominates our perceptual sense, even in dreams. The visual helps us analyze, make sense of, and evaluate what is before us. Unfortunately, however, because vision dominates our sense field, we tend to not pay attention to the other senses, and perhaps, even “extra” senses we each may have, such as intuition (a much more feeling-based sense.)
Dreamwork, however, enables us to open up more to receiving input from our other sense perceptions, and even our extrasensory perceptual abilities. To start this work we must first slow down our dreams and question the stories that rise so quickly in our minds when we see something or someone in a dream. It starts with us stopping to challenge what we believe we are certain of or simply “just know” about the dream.
My dreams may have offered me “Bubbi’s love” in a different format this time (via smell), on purpose, because I have been so prone to reacting to the sight of her. As I have become more engaged with my other senses in dreams, the dreams (and spirit) could now possibly offer me communications in other ways.
Was it actually a “visit” from my Bubbi? I don’t know. And I am not sure I ever will know or that knowing is ultimately necessary. What I know for certain is that the feeling was delicious, and that I identify that feeling with “Bubbi.” It was a match. There was no confusion, no reaction.
The visit was still temporary … but a lot more satisfying.
