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Dreaming with
my neighbors
by Wanda Easter Burch
Keep a Journal. That is the first rule of good precognitive dreaming
recall – and then go back again and again for that feel-good
confirmation that we do dream the future; and the future can range from
the next few moments after a dream to days, weeks, months, and years. A
recent example of my own involved a search back through my journals to
find a dream of Johnstown [the city where I work] burning down – or at
least a large enough portion of it to make me think, “that can’t
happen,” when I awoke. Several years later I “saw” that dream come to
reality in a block of fires that registered on Doppler Radar as a storm.
The only difference between the dream and waking reality was that the
mayor, a player in the dream, was a different person than the one
serving at the time of the dream. The role played by “the mayor”
remained the same.
Recognizing that dreams, such as the one of the Johnstown fire, with a
solid grounding in a reality check – yes, I know the person; yes, I know
the place; yes, this could happen now or in the future – often find
solid ground in waking, right down to the most minute detail, as in
dreaming a fire of unlikely size, that in waking reality, is so large it
shows up on radar as a storm, I immediately shared one such “yes, this
could happen” dream with my neighbor, Byron Nilsson.
The dream dated to more than two years ago – the spring of 2007. It was
simple: “Byron is walking from the stage of a small New York City
stage, smiling so broadly that his face lights up. His first play has
been produced with good reviews. My husband, Ron, and I are in the
audience. I do not recognize most of the people in the audience; and I
am struck by the absence of some of Byron’s theatre friends and
colleagues that he works with in his home area. Byron has made some
money on his first play. This pleases him, but having the play produced
pleases him more. The scene shifts to a small café where we are sitting
with Byron and several of the play’s supporters. We are sitting at
several small round tables pulled together and there is no wall to the
left of me. Byron reveals that he has lost friends – or people he
thought were friends – because of their jealousy over his play being
produced before something of their own. He enjoys his friends. This
saddens him and he is hoping they will return when they realize how
important this is for all of them.”
Byron is a creative writer who pens witty reviews for food and media
magazines. He sings – quite well. has played comic roles in opera and
has acted in numerous area play and movie productions, including small
parts in TV series. He wrote a children’s opera – “Pirate Pip” - that
was produced across New York State a decade ago and had the privilege of
numerous readings of his plays by a number of director/producers over
the course of the last several years. They liked the plays, wrote
charming letters, but nothing came of the readings. Byron reminded me
several times that he was relying on my dream and kept it close in his
memory. We laughed about that.
Then, a few months ago, Byron called me from New York City – “Remember
that dream?”
“You mean the one about you having a play produced in a New York City
theatre.”
“Yes, that’s the one. Well, it’s happening – right down to my being
abandoned by my friends who thought the director, David Baecker, should
have cast them in the parts just because they were my friends.”
And it was the dream. On Thursday, August 27, Ron and I sat in the
audience in the Soho PlayhouseTheatre on Vandam Street in New York City;
and we watched Byron’s play, “Mr. Sensitivity,” a bawdy tale with good
reviews produced for FringeNY theatre. Byron feared the content might
not be “my cup of tea.” In fact, he warned me that I just might hate it;
but, hey, that didn’t matter. This was all about supporting a dream that
was right there in our faces, making its way step by step out of the
dreamspace and into the waking light of day. After the play, with
neither Byron nor I mentioning the dream, one of the play's supporters
invited several of us to come together for a toast to Byron. He led the
way to a little café a few blocks away. We sat – where else – at two
small round tables pulled together just inside the shelter of the
restaurant ceiling. To my left the walls had been opened to the
beautiful warm sunny day – hmmm...just like my dream – and the
conversation centered on the difficulty of moving from writing for a few
friends to writing for a director who will take a play, choose the best
people for it, and, if he is good, show it in a different light to an
entirely new audience. And sometimes you lose people you thought were
your friends along the way; but they come back – if they are really
friends – when they realize you have actually taken them along with you.
I looked at Byron and he winked. “I’m just waiting for the money part,
but I won’t know that till I settle up all that I’ve spent on this,” he
said. The people at the table look puzzled. We laughed. Byron nodded and
smiled in my direction. “Keep dreaming for me,” he winked again.
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