The New Land
Dreamed c.1985 by Lynette, as told to Patricia Garfield
ACT II wake up with a sense of joy and beauty, of freshness, like a new world, a new life. I have a quiet happiness. A phrase comes into my mind, as if someone inside were speaking, "You are going to help your mother to die." I feel no sorrow; I didn't know she was sick.I am at some villa at the seaside with my mother and my father. All of a sudden I see the waters are coming in, and the level is going up. I notice that if we stay there, we are going to be stuck. You can't open the doors anymore.
I tell my parents, "Don't be afraid, we can open the window. We have to leave all our belongings, just let them go. If we jump out very quietly and just float on the water surface, we'll be safe." I'm a good swimmer and had taught my parents how to swim by first floating with their hands on my shoulder.
I jump out of the house onto the water and I am just waiting in the sun--I feel a beautiful liberty to float in the sun.
ACT II
The waters have gone; the house is gone; my parents are gone. Now I'm in a beautiful countryside. You can tell that the waters were there. The road is still wet, shining in the sun.
It's beautiful! It's like spring. I see white and purple lilacs, soft and tender, and rose tulips with pale green tender leaves, apple blossoms, and cherry blossoms. There is a lot of rose and purple and tender green. It's like Ireland, so very green.
I'm walking on this barely wet road with grass on the sides. Everything is glowing, shining, like pearls and glistening like diamonds. It is like a beautiful new country.
--Lynette
In fact, six months later Lynette's mother was diagnosed as having cancer. She went through a painful dying process. Lynette feels she was able to support her mother because of her dream, to smooth her mother's transition, and to better prepare for death herself.
--Patricia Garfield
SOURCE: Women's Bodies, Women's Dreams by Patricia Garfield, 1988, pp.300-301
EDITOR'S NOTE
Skeptics generally see dreams of an afterworld as mere wishful thinking giving emotional comfort in the face of death--but here neither Lynette nor her mom had conscious reason to be thinking of death at all! The dream was right in its six-month forecast, giving it some credibility for its seven-month forecast. That's no mere dream of comfort.
--Chris Wayan
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