A dragon's beating

I’m reflecting on a dream I had once, many, many years ago.  I was 31 at the time.  It was more than a nightmare to me.  It had seemed real, so much so that when I had woken from my dream, I had felt very exasperated and physically tired. 

I began wrestling with a dragon, the typical dragon – long tail, spike-fins up the backbone, Tyrannosaurus Rex-style dragon.  It was about four times my height.  I don’t recall how the dream started, but fairly immediately I fell into the dragon’s grasp.  It toyed with me at first, then grabbed me in one of his claw-hands and began slinging me around.  Suddenly he started banging my body against the ground.  That hurt, of course.  

I saw no end to this slinging and banging and hurting.  I cried out to the night sky (or at least the sky was dark), begging anyone who could hear to help me.  No one heard.  I kept calling, begging the dragon to stop.  I remember thinking, “How long? How long?”  I thought I would die in the next instant if the dragon didn’t stop.

Then I woke up.  It wasn’t a startling call to consciousness, but a slow and groggy swim back to the reality that the dream had ended.  Or was it a dream?  I couldn’t tell at first.  It seemed so real.  I was exhausted from the fight.  I still felt the pain of the slinging and banging and hurting.  Distinctly, I remember thinking that if no one helped the man, he would certainly die from the beating.

After a few minutes of slowly realizing that the episode was a dream, I tried to think that the dream applied to someone.  I immediately thought of my brother.  A little later in the day, I called him to see if something horrific had happened or if he could see that something was about to happen.  No, he said.  So, I relegated the dream to the back of my mind, thinking that if I recognized that this allegorical dream matched someone I knew, then I would tell them.

I never met anyone that matched this dream at that time.  But, as I grew older, I realized that the dream would apply to a lot of different people, including me, because it was one of those universal allegories.  Most dreams represent jumbled thoughts and become scenes in a dream in order to work through situations, so it probably was something I needed to work through.

A number of years have passed since that dream occurred, but I still remember it vividly.  It could apply to a number of situations I’ve had through the years if the dream was meant to be predictive in any way.  Likely it was not.  But I certainly have had a number of symbolic beatings in my life when I thought I would certainly suffer to the point of death.  The 13 months my son had cancer and his subsequent death tops the list of a very black time in my life.   The brilliant sun of another period in my life has set in the west and night has set in.  Other times could be represented by the dream as well.

And what about that man?  Did he certainly die?  He’s still kicking, as they say, but the dragon’s beating has taken its toll.  He’s not so much reeling from the blows now because he knows the answer to the sentiment, “Will anybody help this man?  He will die if no one helps him!”