Sweet Dreams

The dream:

I am running away. The world behind me is the city and crime; buildings, and debris. The ocean is ahead. I wade out into the deep tide and begin to swim. I don't look back. A fairy tale I once heard is resonating in my head, something unforgotten through the decades. I know that if I believe, there is a whole civilization in the ocean, places untouched by human ignorance and greed. I believe that if I swim long enough and hard enough, I will find them. The cleansing sea would transform me.

With darkness came the rain, and the lights of the city disappeared. I was far from any shore. I stopped swimming and began to tread water, wondering why I hadn't yet found what I so desperately sought. Maybe my belief wasn't strong enough. If I drown, another world would welcome me, but not the one I was searching for. As I despaired, there was a ripple in the water, and I realized the danger of sharks was very real. A dolphin emerged against the silvery reflection of the moon, and as we watched each other, I suddenly felt a deep communion with her, the ocean, and life. I was besieged with emotions, feelings of love and forgiveness, joy and rebirth. I understood her and she felt compassion for me. I grabbed her dorsal fin, and she swept me to the horizon. This dolphin was the catalyst to a new and exciting world, and a journey was plotted to take me there. As I gained a deeper understanding of where I was going, I realized it was just as much a state of mind. On a spiritual and moral level, I could only carry in my heart those things that are good and true. Harboring ill feelings of the people in my past would only become a barrier. A physical transformation consumed me, the final transcendence. My fingers and toes became webbed, and I found I could negotiate the large waves with ease. My ears were slightly pointed, and my eyes changed to a brilliant blue-green hue. By daybreak, the dolphin had navigated me to a small island. A Spanish style home was built in the rocks, and the orange terracotta roof seemed strange to me. The west wing of the home was in ruins, but the east wing had glass windows that sparkled in the sun. The dolphin told me that a baby and a man was imprisoned there, and that I would have to free them. They were people of the ocean, my new family. The baby would be mine, a daughter; but as the dolphin explained this to me, I was afraid that it meant the man would be my husband. She carried me to the rocks. Land felt awkward and foreign. The baby was crying. I hurried through the house until I found her, and began looking for the man. Each time I came to a window, I could see the dolphin far below bobbing in and out of the waves. She was calling to me. From her vantage point, she could see men racing toward me with guns from another part of the house. She wanted me to jump from the balcony. I hurried out onto a a thin brick ledge, and the distance between us seemed terrible. But as the men rushed forward, I leaped into the air, and plunged into the blue waves. The baby was laughing as I kicked to the surface, as if this was where she was supposed to be all along. The dolphin retrieved us and carried us away. We came to a small harbor, but an impending storm tossed and jostled us through the waves that grew larger and more dangerous by the moment. Men were waiting at the docks, and these people seemed to know me. They had webbed feet and hands, just like me. I was hesitant to leave my companion in such a turbulent tide, but the dolphin assured me she would meet me on the other side. The men explained that we would "cross over" to a new world very soon. I would never know the cruelty of humans again. Apparently, I was not human anymore. I was taken to a small, cluttered house near the pier. The men explained that I could rest there while they sent a team to retrieve the prince from the Spanish prison, and then we would never look back. The small house was dark, and I huddled on a small cot as the hurricane swept closer. I had not found Atlantis, because such a place did not exist, and this one was very real. The baby was sleeping peacefully. I pressed my face against the wall of the house, discovering that with my heightened senses, I could feel the calling. The dolphin was singing a lullaby. Her words were full of clarity. Whales and dolphins had forever been telling humans how to find this utopia, with directions as clear as any map. The strange chirps and whistles had been studied and misinterpreted by marine biologists, and the language barrier was never broken. The songs that spoke of a paradise was understood by only a few in the passing century. I rejoiced that I was nearly home.