The Lost Boy

Bug and I were on a San Francisco sidewalk adventure in search of a park when I asked her if she dreams. She hesitated before saying, 'yes.' I took that hesitation to mean that she wasn't sure what I was asking, or that she wasn't sure what a dream was.

When asked a 'yes' question, Bug sometimes likes to say, 'no.' She’s not lying, though, because has this way of looking at you with a smile that gives away the game. She’s playing with you, and she wants you to know it.

When I picture Bug, which is often, I see her with that smile. She cocks her head to the side, and looks up at me with a knowing look in her eyes. Then she drops her head back with a short burst of a single laugh. “Ha!” Her smile always penetrates, and... there’s something about it...

Her smile was different this time, and I couldn't read it. Then she slayed me with, "I'm dreaming right now. Watch me, I can fly," and she spread her arms wide and tilted her body right and left as she ran down the hill ahead of me.

I don't remember much about being six years old. Or four, or eight. My childhood memories are sparse and episodic. It's as if I didn't exist until I did.

When I try to remember how old I was in a particular memory, it’s always five, seven, ten, or eleven. I’m never certain. Except for ten, it’s always an odd number. I have no memories that I associate with twelve, fourteen, sixteen, or even eighteen. Odd, indeed. I remember nothing before five, and nothing between eleven and thirteen. But these gaps are logical. I can rationalize cause and effect.

The gap beginning at eleven, suggests that that’s the year of my attack. The second one, I mean. The attack that happened outside the home. The first... well, I don’t know when that was either, so let’s say five.

Pre-five, I was neglected and frightened. I presume that when one is hiding, or pretending to be asleep, there’s not much to remember. On the other hand, Bug doesn’t remember further back than a few, maybe several, months. Memory doesn’t work the way we think, but that’s a topic for another time.

I remember my childhood dreams more vividly than my childhood. I don't understand how that could be, or if I should trust it.

I remember dreaming that I was in the kitchen with Peanuts who started barking and woke me up. And there I was, standing in the kitchen, and Peanuts was barking at me.

In my earliest flying dreams, I would sit, kneeling style with my legs folded under me, hands resting on my thighs. In yoga we call this Vajrasana. Sitting this way, my body would float six inches above the ground. Once suspended, I could move at will, like a human hovercraft. I could traverse walls, and houses, and hills and trees, going anywhere I desired. I once flew into a television show I had seen, with boats and sailors and captains.

Zhuang Zhou was a Chinese author whose work is one of the foundations of Taoism. In his book, The Zhuangzi, he wrote:

Once, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering about, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know that he was Zhuang Zhou.

Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuang Zhou. But he didn't know if he was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he was Zhuang Zhou. Between Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things.

One of my earliest memories is of looking out my bedroom window and seeing an ape-man in the crook of a branch of the large oak tree that lived there. He had a classic neanderthal appearance, hairy body, large jaw bones, and extruding brow. He was in a squatting position, with his forearms wrapped around his legs, and was looking at me. His interest in me was unmistakable, but instead of fear I felt curiosity. I felt his curiosity about me. I wondered more about who I was to attract such interest, than I did about who, or what, he was.

Obviously, I’m describing a dream, not a memory. I can see him now, probably more clearly than I did at the time. Nothing happened except the seeing of each other, this neanderthal and me. But the image has always been with me. It feels as much a part of me as any other memory.

It’s as much a part of me as the recurring nightmare of dinosaurs emerging from the ground. This recurrence wasn’t a theme of dinosaurs. It was the same dream, with the same events, in the same sequence, every time.

When I described the sidewalk exchange between Bug and me to my therapist, I kept coming back to that playful look on her face. I said it felt like it was consuming me in the most wonderful way. It felt like she was inviting me inside her special place of spontaneity and joy. He asked where in my body did I feel these things? I paused and I took it in.

In my head, I said. In my face. In my eyes. I keep seeing her eyes. And in them I see my own. Looking in Bugs eyes in these precious moments, I am dreaming. I am dreaming that I’m young again. I am dreaming that I am she and I am looking back at me again. I am remembering, as if it were a dream, the little boy I thought I had forgotten. And here we are, together and apart. Different, yet the same.

I no longer care if a memory is a memory or a dream. They feel the same. What happened, or happens, in them doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s me, the boy. I’m the dreamer, I’m dreaming, and I’m the dream.