Recurring Dream

I have a recurring dream.

A bomb is falling out of the sky. It’s large and oblong, a dark form made of steel. The bomb falls quickly, gaining speed as it gets closer to the Earth.

The first time I dreamt of the bomb I was 10 years old. I awoke feeling certain that it would hit the house at any moment. I curled up in a ball in the corner of my bed and waited for the impact. I thought about my parents in the next room and how maybe I should warn them. I thought about my brothers and how maybe they could make me feel better. I watched my sister sleep and thought it best not to wake her. After all, if I didn’t know about the bomb, I wouldn’t be scared, and I didn’t want her to be scared.

So I waited.

and waited.

Nothing happened and eventually I went back to sleep.

As I got older the dream evolved.

I am riding a bike down my driveway trying to reach my house before the bomb hits. It is the same dark, heavy form and I can feel it hovering over me, its shadow growing larger on the ground beneath me. I want to warn my family so I ride faster but can’t get any closer to home no matter how fast I pedal.

This dream stayed with me—through adolescence and into adulthood. It followed me to college, South America and Asia. It was always the same threatening bomb, always the impending doom.

Occasionally I wondered what it meant—Is danger ahead? Am I making poor choices? Do I lack control of my own fate?—but these were fleeting thoughts. I never tried to interpret it; I tried to forget it.

Then, a funny thing happened: After 15 years of the same dream, it changed.

It happened only once and it happened after I met Jordan.

The setting of the dream was the same. I recognized it immediately even though I hadn’t dreamt it for a while.

A bomb is falling out of the sky, only this time it is not steel gray rather baby blue, and it has flowers and peace signs painted on it. It’s not heavy with doom, rather short and plump, and it does not plummet toward the ground rather flops out of the air and drifts through the sky. Instead of running from it, I watch it from a grassy field. It comforts me.

I used to have a recurring dream.