A brilliant flash of white

I've been dreaming a lot. I believe these dreams to be working on a deep subconscious level attempting physical recovery of brain trauma suffered from multiple concussions throughout my life. The common underlying similarity among all these dreams and these injuries have always been a brilliant flash of white. You can call it blacking out and for me it always starts with a brilliant flash of white light with all physical senses maxing out and then the black out begins. Actually the black out doesn't exist until I consciously understand that there are gaps in my memory. Big gaps. It's hard to know what you do not remember. I can usually remember everything right up to the brilliant flash. Memory reboots right in the middle of a mess of pain and nausea and fear.  36 hours after a major brain impact when you can call it a headache from the concussion is where the memory returns. With over a dozen of these concussions in my past I know the brilliant flash of white light did not always mean unconsciousness and actually meant something far more scary. Functional physicality operating on a completely subconscious unconscious level. On automatic survival mode after facing significant trauma.  For me it was a direct tab to the most base of emotions, rage in particular. It always worked well for me on the football field, but in real life, not so much.

Cold

I woke with that nervous energy you have, like, when you are young and you just know you can make anything you want out of your life. I had been dreaming. A nightmare maybe. What was it? He was there. He was trying to tell me something.  Might as we'll forget it anyway. The morning is so bright, so fresh, so full of promise, so full of potential. This bright must mean it's late, wife already on her run, time to get my girls going. Time to rise a shine. Up the stairs. Their rooms empty.? No dogs on my heals. The house is empty. Quiet. Still. Alone. I open the front door. It's the middle of the night. The middle of winter. Freezing. I wake up. Cold. Old. Almost dead. Then I wake up again. Here. Now.

Second-dreaming

There are many levels to our dreams. If you dream that you wake-up, but are still asleep, you have achieved a second dream. Second-dreaming for me is a little scary. When you wake within a dream you become an active participant. Free to look around, free to participate. What you bring back from a second dream is said to be prophetic. For me, seeing the second dream through is what resolves the fear and nightmare and conflict between subconscious and supernatural.  The conflict of dreaming and seeing and waking and knowing.

So he sitting there

in his eyes he made it plain to see that he could not speak. The look Carol would give. The I want to be able to hear you, just can't look. He looks at me and I can't tell how old he is. He's the perfect age. He's six three and a little. Clean save. So high and tight looking almost bald. he was so handsome. For the first time I really saw why everyone looked when he came in a room. He was also naturally disarming. Always first to say hello. Always reaching out a hand of introduction or of telling another's story.

He looks me in the eye, reaches out and touches my forehead with his forefinger and smiles. I remember our battle-royal the dream before, the one when I caved my head in giving him a flying head-butt to his face. I reach for my face and it is fine and we laugh. He helps me off the ground. We're heading off the field. He beckons to follow. He turns and walks a brisk pace. I struggle to follow. Up the trail he goes, he wants to show me something. He walks so fast, the trail is so steep, but he slows at the the top so I can ketch up.

I'm at that at top of the mountain and winded at 14,000 feet, asthma attack kinda winded and I see he has made the last switchback, He's bent over hands on knees, sucking wind, blue lipped, hypoxic. he looks cold, but unconcerned. He waves me past. He's waving through the switchback. He wants me to keep going, just a little more to the top.

I stop. I will not leave him like this. I stop. He turns and walks back at stiff brisk descent walk. I look toward the peak. What was up there did not matter. He is what mattered. I struggle to follow. He was swift and the trail fell away steep and deep. We hiked to the very bottom of the mountain and through the foothills and into my little neighborhood onto Paradise Corner court and right up to my front door. Home. My dad standing right here on my front step. Ringing the doorbell. Dogs a barking. Kids a screaming. Hugs. Laughter. Smiles. He's at my front door. Been there the whole time. The doorbell rings. I wake up. In the dark. First to wake up. Again. Time to start the day.