For most of my life I never put much stock in dreams. They can be meaningless, for the most part. However, I have learned a valuable lesson about repetative dreams. They can really have a significant meaning. For over forty years, at least once a week or more, I would have a dream of being terrified at witnessing a horiffic plane crash in which there would never be any survivors.
I always woke up with my heart pounding, in a cold sweat, only to realize it was just that “bad dream” again. All of my life I had been terified to fly and avoided it whenever possible.
Suffice it to say, after 12 years of intensive psychiatric care, due to serious problems in my life, I mentioned to my therapist this recurring dream. By this time, I had faced a whole host of issues. I’d worked extremely hard in dealing with so much loss and pain in my life and yet, each time I overcame something, I gained greater inner strenghth.
Mystery solved: One morning I awoke beside my husband in bed, after having the dream again and rather then fearing it, I began to wonder why was this always happening to me. Then came the answer from my mind which was now strong enough for me to deal with the truth. In a flashback I was taken back to when I was a young, 16 year old girl on my way to a movie theater.
I was in the front passenger seat of a friend’s car. It was summer and the windows were down. We were just a mile away from the Pease Air Force base and it was just before getting dark. We heard a B52 refueling bomber (I believe that’s what it was called), just get airborne…. loaded with fuel. Three minutes later we were 1/4 mile away when it went down in a ball of flames in front of us. Fifteen seconds earlier and we would have been under it.
As we approached, not sure what had happened, it was right in the road in front of us, broken in 3 large hunks….all billowing horrendous flames and smoke. Somewhere in the background we could hear ambulances and police coming to aid but it seemed like I was in another world witnessing something my mind refused to absorb, let alone process. It was like watching a movie. That is exactly what my mind had done – refuse to absorb what I saw.
I then remembered it had happened sometime in the month of August and I somehow knew the year was 1962. My husband and I went to the library newspaper archives that very morning and after some searching, found that article of that awful ordeal.
Seven young men (the whole crew) had perished. After getting a copy of it, I cried buckets of tears. After facing this long ago real life memory, to this day, five years later, I have never had another dream of plane crashes. I thank God its behind me now and I empathize with anyone who faces such unexpected traumas. My heart goes out to them.
