Dreamscape: Grandma
Dreaming of the dead, part 2
This is a companion to my recent post, Dreaming of the dead.
My grandmother died last week around 4am on Monday morning, June 3, 2024. That night, she visited me very clearly in my dreams. From my dream journal:
I’m by a small tree-lined lake that is near some apartments. I’m in the parking area on the side of the lake and getting stuff out of the car, when I see grandma. She’s with another woman- maybe a little older than me, maybe a neighbor, someone I don’t know. She seems kind but very focused, determined, purposeful. They’re walking swiftly on the path like they’re on their way somewhere but she stops and comes up to me.
“Hi Steph!” She says to be with delight. I’m so happy to see her too. Like we’re surprised to see each other but really happy. We hugged.
She looks beautiful, glowing. She looked like herself maybe 20 years ago. She is wearing sort of layers with a bright yellow jacket with a white shirt underneath and pants and a blue head wrap that looked very stylish. She looked beautiful, stylish, happy. She was moving with ease and able to move swiftly.
I could tell they were in a hurry, they were trying to get somewhere. “I don’t want you to be late for church,” I say to her. “Oh, it’s ok,” she says, and the woman says “We have 5 minutes.” Grandma is standing there smiling when I think Daisy wakes me up.
I woke up and sobbed, letting some grief flow that I had not yet been able to access amdist the busyness of the end-of-semester. Thank you, I said aloud. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
The dream very much felt like a visit, like she was telling me she was ok on her way out. In the dream, she was on her way, and it feels significant that she was on her way to church. She was a godly woman, a devoted Christian (which meant my witchy Buddhist ways often put her at unease). It was interesting that she was on her way to church, like she was on her way to heaven, to God.
The energy of the dream was powerful. It was loud. She was more than ok. She was her best, brightest self. She was glowing and radiant and happy. She was moving in a fluid and easeful way that she hadn’t been able to move in years. When I dream of my mom, it is often like this - she is often the brightest, happiest, most shining version of herself that I can imagine.
She was my last living grandparent, and that loss feels significant, that part of the familial line all ancestors now. She was also my mom’s mom, and my mom died three and a half years ago, so there was an aspect of my grandma still being here that felt like my mom still had an earthly presence. They’re both gone now, they’re all gone. That generation has passed on.
I am also far away. I didn’t get to be there when she passed. She died where she was born (and where I was born), in Pittsburgh, PA, and while the place in the dream was nonspecific, it certainly was a landscape that could be found in southwestern PA. There will be a memorial later, when more people who want to be there can make it.
There is a strangeness when you are far, that it doesn’t feel real, that it won’t feel real until I return to Pittsburgh and she is not there (for she has been the main reason for me to return to Pittsburgh for the past 17 years since my parents moved from there). But the dream helped it feel real, that that she is more than ok. She is at peace.
The dream has given me a portal to my grief. My grief for her loss is connected to the grief of losing my mom, my grief that they are both gone and I miss them. I miss her already. The dream allowed me to access some sobs, some release, and also some gratitude.
She knew the portal of my dreams was open and that she could find me there, and I would listen. And for that, I am so grateful.
Grateful to my dreams for delivering that message.
Grateful to my dreams as a portal to the unseen.
Grateful that my dreams can sometimes be a portal to those who have passed on from this world, to let me know that they are still here, and we are still connected.
My own thoughts about the afterlife are best summed up by the lyrics of the Iris Dement song, Let the Mystery Be:
I don’t claim to know where we go from here, but I definitely entertain the possibility that there are realms beyond this earthly one. What I do trust and believe - a belief rooted in my practice - is that dreams help us weave a relationship with the unseen realms, which also feel beyond words and rational understanding. We can try to articulate the meaning of our dreams, but they ultimately always escape words. What I can say is that this dream meant a lot to me. I leave the portal to my dreams open, and attend to and honor them as best I can, with gratitude and appreciation for what and who shows up.
Wishing you sweet dreams,
Stephanie
Stephanie Knox Steiner, PhD is an enchantress, mother-scholar, dreamworker, community weaver, and peace educator who currently lives and teaches at the University for Peace in Costa Rica. She has been writing down her dreams since she was a teenager, and studied community dreamwork as part of her doctoral studies in the Community, Liberation, Indigenous, and Ecopsychologies specialization at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She writes prolifically about enchantment, interbeing, and re-imagining education at her other Substack, Enchantable.
what a gift this dream was <3