Jed woke up and described his dream:
It was a very peaceful dream. It took place in a large art installation in nature, (reminiscent of the Dana Milbank article about being in touch with nature and his brother on the Appalachian Trail). Maybe it was also inspired by our walks: noticing shrubs changing, new flowers, colors. It was an outdoor installation that provided different perspectives over time and space. I was standing at the base, and then the top of a crest; there were multiple changing lights and the dimensionality of time. I experienced [my] perspective changing from moment to moment; there are many ways to contribute and all are true.
When Jed described this dream to the therapist who is helping us navigate his illness as a couple, Jed resisted the thing that both the therapist and I had experienced: that this is a vision of illness as illumination, as a different way of knowing that most people have little access to.
She and I both thought of Jed’s vision as a way to bust out of what Gabor Mate describes in The Myth of Normal: all the ways we are trained from early childhood (and prior generations) to silence our unique visions and try to make ourselves like others and to live in service to others’ needs and their ideas of who we should be.
Over the coming weeks, Jed and I came to see that our life right now includes many vantage points, and they are all shifting all the time.
The builder in me wanted to create a place in nature where Jed’s multiple vantage points could manifest! Jed didn’t think of his vision as having meaning outside of his illness. Perhaps the first impulse of a reasonable person is to resist prophecy, as each of us did in our own ways. Perhaps prophecy is always there, just beyond what we usually experience, and from time to time we are given the chance to welcome it in.
Can you remember a moment when you saw something in a way that felt markedly different from other people – and bigger than your everyday self? Slow down and describe what you saw. Was anyone else there? Did you tell them or anyone else? What would happen if you shared the vision with that person and other people today?