Deja Vu Dreams

I frequently get that crazy sense of deja vu, where it feels like whatever I'm experiencing at the moment has already happened before. Oftentimes, I can pinpoint it to a dream I had, or a daytime vision like a daydream. I might even go so far as to call it a premonition, although I don't consider myself to be psychic. I'm not even sure if I really believe in psychic ability. I just think some people are more sensitive, perceptive, intuitive, or empathetic than others. For example, I can feel what other people are feeling if the emotion is strong. It's not ESP or telepathy, it's just empathy. With my dreams and visions, I see things. Sometimes they later play out in real life.

The trouble is, the things I see are subjective. They're open to interpretation, especially if they're lacking detail, and occasionally I have the same vision again but details have changed. So I can never say with certainty that any dream I've had will come true. I only know it when it happens.

I also tend to mix them up with my own fears and anxiety. Did I have a genuine dream or vision about that, or did my own emotions cause me to analyze it to the point where I can actually see it happening? Because of this, I trust my nighttime dreams more than my daytime visions, because at least I know my conscious mind doesn't get in the way when I'm sleeping.

I have a recurring trust issue with myself. My intuition can be very strong, and I can know with all my being that something should or shouldn't be the way it is, but just because I see it or feel it, that doesn't mean it's really going to happen. Although I've found that when my intuition is the strongest, things generally do go the way I've seen them, even if I didn't trust myself until I actually saw it happen.

One example -- when Joe went to boot camp, back in July 2008, I had visions of seeing him when he came home, spending all my time with him, falling in love with him, and even marrying him before he left for deployment. But I completely failed to trust my intuition. In fact, I did an amazing job of rationalizing myself completely out of it. I mean, how was I supposed to know that it was accurate and not just something I really, really wanted?

At that point, having only known Joe for a couple days, I wasn't even sure if that's what I really wanted anyway. And given my history of hooking up with the wrong guys, how could I trust my own judgment about this guy? We had no plans and no committment. And one of my other visions about him was that he had seen at least one other girl relatively recently (which turned out to be true), and I definitely didn't want to compete with another girl for his attention.

So what did I do? I ignored my intuition, chalked it up to wishful thinking, and went after another wrong guy. Thankfully fate slapped me upside the head and pointed me back in the right direction. But it was one of those things... I had some really powerful dreams and visions over the course of a couple months, and they all came true. I wish I had trusted myself initially instead of second guessing everything. But maybe the bad experience was necessary to teach me how lucky I am for everything good that followed.

What scared me was that I couldn't see past Joe's deployment. I saw us together, then I saw him leaving, then... nothing.

Later, when I started to get a lot of anxiety about what might happen to him in Iraq, I began having visions of being visited by two uniformed soldiers who were presumably sent to tell me that Joe had been killed. But I fell apart into hysterical sobs before they actually said anything to me, so I don't know for sure what the outcome was. I've seen it at least 3 times. Obviously this has weighed on me very heavily. How do I tell a real vision apart from the images created by my own fear?

Finally last night, I had a new dream. I saw Joe and I together. He had been on deployment, and he was back, and I was with him. But details were odd.

For starters, I don't think we were at home. It was a room with a bed and night tables, a closet, a TV cabinet, some chairs and a love seat or bench. There was a window, but the drapes were drawn, so I couldn't see outside. It was in a larger building with other similar rooms. It reminded me of a dorm, but it could have also been a hospital, a hotel, or some other type of temporary accomodation.

We had bags, and we sort of partially unpacked them into the closet, as if we were planning to stay for a while. Although I don't know for sure that the bags belonged to both of us, or that both of us were planning to stay. It could have been just one of us staying.

We had family come to visit, and it seemed sort of awkward. It reminded me of going to the hospital to see Joe's sister when she was pregnant... the way we would go to visit, and there was nothing to do because it was a hospital. All we could do was sit and make conversation, or watch TV. Sometimes we would just sit there and not talk. There was only so much of that we could take before we had to leave. In my dream it was just like that, except we were the ones being visited by others.

The whole time this was going on, Joe was different. He was quiet, short tempered, less easy going, less openly loving. It was like he was constantly irritated, like he didn't really want to be there, or maybe he was just unhappy with the circumstances. He wasn't irritated with me, and I still felt that he loved me. But it did bother him to have family come and just sit there. He wanted to be left alone. He didn't want to talk or answer questions.

I felt frustrated because I couldn't do anything to help. But I loved him and wanted things to be better. I wanted to be there with him, no matter what.

I could interpret this all kinds of different ways if I really wanted to. What kind of place was this? Which one of us was staying? Why were we there and not at home? Why was Joe unhappy?

What's important to me is that it was a dream that involved Joe being home and alive. I hope it's a sign of things to come.

At the very least, I hope it means my anxiety has subsided a little bit. If I can see Joe being home, that means my brain has made room for other possibilities besides imminent doom. That's definitely a step in the right direction.