The Dream by Juliana Aragon Fatula

I woke this morning and immediately had to record my dream. Vivid and full of similes, alliteration, metaphors, onomatopoeias, rhymes, imagination, and details about a past life and a bright future. The dream arrived on September 9, 2022, at midnight in my home on a full moon. I had an epiphany after this dream. It healed my broken heart and guilt complex over my son’s struggle with drug addiction. I hadn’t slept the night before. A full moon kept me from my dreams. I was awake until 4 a.m.

In my dream, I tried to rescue a teenager, 14-year-old Chicana. She was me. In the dream I didn’t know it was me. She was pregnant and about to get married in love with a man. She was on her way to California from Colorado to marry the father of her baby. And in the dream, it turned out that he was my ex, the father of my son. My son will be 50 this year. In the dream, I was meeting myself. She was pregnant with a son, maybe the son was my son. She was about to marry my ex.

I realized who she was, not even realized that she was me, just realized she was someone like me. I became friends with her, and she invited me to return with her to California to the wedding, as her friend. I immediately said yes. I packed my bags and off we went. We arrived at the wedding, and she introduced me to her parents and twin brother. I don’t have a twin brother. I’m not sure how to analyze that part of the dream, but it will come to me.

There were two of them, a male and a female. The bride sent us to pack up the gifts from the wedding. I shared my secret with her brother. We sat down in a corner and he asked me, “How Mexican are you?” I said, “I’m not Mexican. I’m Chicana. I didn’t want to talk about me. I wanted to talk about his sister. She had a twin, a male twin. I could talk to him because he would feel differently about protecting his sister. I could see in his eyes that he was thinking, why is this woman friends with my sister? She’s the ex of my sister’s husband. She’s here to disrupt and ruin their marriage.

I could see that he had observed this man and the brother had doubts, so he listened. I told him go with your sister when she marries and protect her. I was alone, and I had no one. We talked until his sister yelled at us for not getting the boxes sooner. She wasn’t feeling well. We returned to the party and noticed a lot of the guests weren’t feeling well, and in my dream, I thought of the Covid 19 Pandemic.

The groom’s family eyed me suspiciously; they weren’t friendly; they knew who I was, they knew why I was there. They didn’t try to stop me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see my ex watching me talk to his bride, but he didn’t stop me. The bride was not feeling well. I asked her to sit with me and rest. I didn’t tell her about my ex. I had told her brother and she didn’t ask; she didn’t want to know. I understand that. She was young and in love and carrying her husband’s child.

She was feeling sick and weak. Many of the guests were sick. Did they die? Did they get so sick they ended up with long haulers? Did they suffer? Did their loved ones mourn their death and weren’t allowed in the hospital room with them because of contagion and infection? I don’t know. I don’t know what it means. It was a dream.

When I woke, I knew I had to record the dream. It’s not a story I made up; it’s a dream I had on a full moon. My subconscious trying to heal my broken heart by trying to save my younger self. If I write it down, I will understand it, and if I share the dream, it might just save someone. In life, my ex died from his years of using heroin and methadone. He didn’t survive. But I did. And my son survived. I’m sharing my story.