My teen self and I decided to go ahead and share the dream we had about a month after the original post in this thread. Before, I felt this was too intimate and I didn't want to betray the trust we finally established.
This dream illustrates and highlights several aspects of the original post, as my heart and mind have attempted to work through these things. I have highlighted the aspects I believe are applicable to the original post in
red:
4/19/2022 – Healing the Connection with my Teen Self
I was my adult self this whole dream. For some reason I was traveling with Christopher and his younger brother Michael. Christopher was a kid I knew in my neighborhood. He was about 4 years younger than me and was on the swim team with me when I was 16 and he was 12. I babysit him and his brother and sister a few times. His younger brother was about 4-5 years younger than him. I always liked Christopher and wanted to act out with him but never did. And I didn’t get to be his counselor for 6th grade camp but wished I had been. I’m pretty sure he represented my teen self and Michael represented my younger, 5-11-year-old self.
We stopped late in the evening at a college campus and stayed in a dorm room that was kind of like a hotel. Once we got to our room, we laid on the floor to go to sleep (apparently there were no beds?). Michael - the younger brother was off by himself and slept soundly. In fact, Michael slept peacefully the entire dream, which is confirmation to me that my young, 5 to 11-year-old self, is largely healed and re-connected with me. But Christopher, age 13 and representing my teen self, was dozing next to me. At some point Christopher snuggled up on top of me, still asleep, and I found myself getting aroused. I put my hand on him to be more intimate as he slept. He stirred and moved my hand off him. But then… he started kissing me - intimate kissing. I didn’t stop it right away. But then I did stop it, and I got up while he went back to sleep.
I went downstairs to the dorm / hotel’s front desk area to get food from the little pantry you find in many hotels. I grabbed a bag of Cheetos and opened it before paying and ate some of them because I was so hungry. When I went to pay, I realized I had forgotten my wallet and so I set the bag down by the register. I told the woman at the desk (I’m pretty sure she represented my therapist) I was really sorry, but I would be right back down to pay. She was so nice and said it was no problem. She wasn’t scared I wouldn’t pay. But then I realized I’d also forgotten my room key and I had to also ask her for a key. Again, she was not bothered by me asking. She asked my last name and gave me a Master key (not just the one to my room). Inexplicably though, I then couldn’t remember my room # and I had to ask her for my room # too. She told me I was on floor 3 1/2 - which was weird - and we were staying in room 402. Floor 3 1/2? What is that all about? After I awoke from the dream, I pondered this, and what resonated with me was this: I think I was 3 1/2 when my dad started abusing me. This has been a question I’ve had my whole life but have never known. And I think my subconscious decided for whatever reason to serve up the answer in this dream. Room 402? The only significance of 402 is it is a family member's birthday - but I couldn't think of why that would be thrown in this dream.
I got on the elevator to ride up and pressed the 3 1/2 button (yep, there was actually a 3 1/2 button ). A bunch of guys got on the elevator with me. Disappointingly, the elevator had to first go down to the basement before it went up (when I told my wife about this dream, she told me this made sense: before we can go up to re-connect with our parts of self, sometimes we have to go down into the darker places first). The elevator then stopped on the floor before mine and these guys were all talking and getting both off and on the elevator (again, they were all guys). And they were standing in the elevator doorway while talking and were really slowing things down for me since the elevator couldn't move while they were in the doorway. I thought I recognized someone (a neighbor from my childhood who lived on the street behind me) but it wasn’t him when I looked more closely. Frustrated, I finally said out loud, “Dang guys. This would be much easier and faster if I just took the stairs!” The guys laughed at that. And then several guys asked me if I was from South America because how I said that made me sound like I had a South American accent. Huh? The only thought I had later about this was my mind was reflecting out loud that my adult self was heavily influenced by my very good friend I met when I was 18. This friend grew up in South America.
After finishing this conversation, I left the elevator and took the stairs. It was so much faster. I remember thinking in the dream as I tried to find my room how it would have been better to just have a key to my specific room instead of a Master key because I was having difficulty again remembering my room number. I was afraid the Master key would open any door I thought was mine and I’d end up in the wrong room (in someone else’s room). I think this reflected the desire in me to unlock only my kid and teen selves’ door, and the fear I would end up trying to unlock and connect with them – but by connecting with someone else (which would not resolve anything). While thinking this and while trying to get back to the room where the boys were sleeping, all of a sudden someone started attacking me. I could not see them, but the bullets were definitely flying at me. In a panic, I ran all the way down the stairs and out of the building.
I found myself outside my building in a treed area between buildings – like what you see on many college campuses. And walking down the street were the guys ultimately responsible for the attack in the hallway. One was red and one was blue. The blue guy strangely had no head. I don’t think this imagery is that important and is probably a leftover from watching Fringe the night before. I was definitely scared of these guys, and I hid behind a tree and stayed out of their line of sight while they passed by. I crept forward slowly as they moved by to stay out of their line of sight. I really didn’t want them to see me or in any way get their attention. I finally came out from behind the tree because they had passed completely by and made my way towards the other building - but then someone started shooting at me again! So I ran back into the building I started in.
I went back up to my room - but I don’t remember getting there. I was just in the room again. The boys were sleeping soundly, and I went into the bathroom because I was a little rattled by everything that had happened. I looked at my face in the mirror, but oddly it didn’t look quite like me. I recall telling myself that I looked very tired - in an effort to explain my strange appearance in the mirror. Then I looked down and away from the mirror and then back up again to try and “reset” the image of myself to normal. But every time I would look down and then back up at myself, my face changed slightly from before. And every time it still wasn’t me. I think there were maybe five slightly different faces of me in the mirror – each one was a distorted image of me. This began to get disturbing, so at that point I started trying to awaken from my dream. But while trying to wake up, I had a bit of sleep paralysis, and I couldn’t wake up right away. Then finally, I woke up. I don’t know the significance of the faces not being me. Or perhaps, maybe I didn’t want to know (that thought crossed my mind when I thought about it).
Once I was awake in real life, I went downstairs to write down this all out because I had laid in bed trying to make myself remember so I could go back to sleep. But while trying to memorize the dream, I could feel the details of the dream fading away because I wanted to drift back to sleep so badly.
Once I had written out the entire dream, I took some time to think about it to figure out what each element in the dream might represent. And then I talked with my teen self; we had a conversation. I told him that our connection does not always have to be sexualized. There doesn’t need to be sexual touching or kissing in these dreams for us to connect. Instead, I said told him that I will hold him, I’ll put my arm around him, or I’ll even kiss him on the head when he needs to feel connected and loved. He gave me the thought of holding his hand, but I didn’t like that idea. I thought holding his hand would look and feel gay (Note: this is not a statement about people who are gay; rather, this is a personal preference for me and my teen kid who are heterosexual). But he kept going back to the idea of holding his hand. So I finally agreed we could do that, and that it could be a way of him showing me he needs affection and connection if he grabbed and held my hand in a dream.
I did feel from my teen self that he was very afraid when I started talking about not needing the sexual aspect of connecting. He was very, very afraid of losing the only means of deep connection he ever knew. It was the only thing that ever made him feel deeply connected with someone and alleviated his feelings of being so very alone. So I tried to reassure him that we could still connect deeply without sexualizing things. And I felt he tentatively accepted it and is willing to try to connect without sexualizing things as we go forward.
Finally, I told my teen self that I love him, and I really will be here for him when he needs me. I felt like he received everything I said this morning. But I also feel he still isn’t at peace or settled like his younger, 5-11-year-old self. But he does trust me now.
This dream was so deeply emotional that I had a physiological response to all this when I was done writing. I was so emotionally overwhelmed that I was even shaking / shivering a bit. But that’s okay. Because I know this dream was deeply significant in helping me connect with my teen self.