Dreaming in Technicolor

Hey there. Bling again. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, 'Oh boy, here comes another story about his brother.' Actually, you'd be right, but this one's a little different. Something weird happened to me recently, and I haven't told anyone about it yet, but I wanted to get it written down. May as well be here, on the big unlocked diary known as the internets. And who knows? Maybe you'll have a similar story that you can share in the comment section (or on your own blog)?

When I was back home for my brother's funeral, my mother told me about 'dream visits' she'd had from both her mother and father soon after they died. In each instance, she saw them as younger people, and she was able to speak to them briefly. Granted, it may have just been a dream, but it felt very real, and meant a lot to her that she was able to spend another minute or two with her loved ones. I took her story at face value, and didn't think of it again.

Cut to last Sunday night. I haven't been having many dreams in the past couple of years, but after my brother died, I've had more of them. Sunday night was especially vivid, with three separate dreams all being memorable, and in full color (I typically dream in black and white). The third one was short, but I'll never forget it. I was in my bedroom here in Richardson, and members of my family were there too, just standing around, looking at photo albums of mine. My mom, my stepdad, one of my cousins, and an old friend all were flipping through them, and laughing here and there. I tried to talk to them about one of the pictures, but they didn't seem to hear me. Then, back by my bathroom sink, I heard one of the cupboards open and close. I looked, and it was my brother, digging in a specific drawer. He looked about the same age as when he died (26), and had his long hair, but he didn't have his beard. I said, 'Andy, what are you doing?' He said, 'I'm looking for some pictures.' I said, 'Here, let me help,' and I opened the drawer and started digging. Then, it hit me. I remembered that my brother was dead, but here he was, so I figured out that it was a dream. At that point, it became a lucid dream. Typically, when this happens to me, I awaken immediately, but it didn't happen here. So, I closed the drawer, and I turned to my brother and hugged him as tightly as I could. I started crying. I said, 'I miss you so much. I miss every stupid little thing about you.' He just chuckled. I started crying harder, and it woke me up.

I didn't think too much about the dream at first. I got up, fed the cats, and got into the shower. Then, I started thinking more about it, and what it meant. Right after he died, I took every picture I had saved of him and put them into one folder on my portable hard drive, so I could take them home and share them with everyone. We ended up using a lot of them to make a collage for his viewing and funeral:


But there was one picture that I wanted there so badly, and I couldn't find it, no matter where I looked. I didn't have it scanned, and the physical picture wasn't in any of my photo albums. It was of him and I on his high school graduation day. I had my arm around his neck and we were both sticking our tongues out and throwing the devil horns. It was one of my favorite pictures of us, and I couldn't find it. Well, after I got out of the shower, I looked in the exact drawer that my brother was digging through in my dream. There it was, in the back of the drawer in a random pile of paperwork. I don't know how long it had been there, but I never would've thought to look there without that dream.

I didn't mean for this to turn into a John Edward, 'Crossing Over' kind of blog post, but it was too weird for me not to share with you all. I don't know if I believe in ghosts, and I don't think this was a ghost or anything. But for my subconscious to tell me where that picture was, and to make my brother be the one to tell me? And for the dream to be THAT vivid, and in color? It's got to mean something, right?


RIP Andrew 'Slayer' Elhard. I hope we can meet again soon.