Reoccuring Dreams of Fire

By no means am I a dream analysis expert. I'm not even a novice. I basically know nothing about it! Maybe in my free time, I should learn. I've heard people say tidbits about dreams of monkeys or money or madness (ok, going with the "m" theme) but nothing that I firmly recall or believe.

Lately, I've been having dreams about house fires. Always in the house where I was raised, which is no longer in the family. In 1996, my mother and stepfather had a severe house fire and lost 99% of the main house (which was not the house I grew up in). Fortunately they weren't home and the pets all survived. It was tragic for my parents, but I was removed from the situation. I was pregnant and across state and aided in the rubble search in the early throwes of winter when able. I had some things in the home - like my coin collections (I couldn't even begin to guess the value) and then college books and term papers, 6 years of yearbooks and other random memorabilia. My brother had close to 100k in series set baseball cards, special edition cards, etc. But life happens. Still, approaching on the twelve year anniversary, my mom reminisces and pangs for what was, the lifetime of belongings lost, for times lost, for what we can't recapture,what we can't return.

I don't know why, but on and off for the past few months, I've been dreaming of fires. I really should try to determine the correlation or significance. I went to bed rather early last night, was actually in bed around 10:30p.m. and off the phone and asleep before midnight! No small feat mind you! Anyway, before actually getting out of bed this morning, I recall dreaming that my childhood home blew up. The outside mudroom wall exploded. I only know this, since I was able to recreate it and see it, after it had already occurred, in my dream. I was able to have time to salvage something from the home before it happened. And I was lost. I couldn't prevent it from happening. I couldn't stop it. I couldn't stop the pain, the hurt, the damage, the loss.

I didn't know what was worth taking - what is it that we can't live without? What is it that will aid us in the time of loss when we have to pick up the pieces and start over?

I had time to go in and out of the house at least five times. It was if I was in a trance. Analyzing the importance of everything. In complete slow motion, I couldn't grasp the notion of anything that was more important than life itself. Afterall, despite grief and loss, we can and will survive. We will move on, we can conquer, if we choose.

I did manage to grab picture albums and those yearbooks (I sometimes wish I had to share with my son as he enters 6th grade!), some clothes (as the thought that the insurance adjusters would think the fire was intentional since why would I have some of my son's clothes - which ironically enough were nothing I had ever seen before! My son's room was formerly my brothers and the clothes were faded and military themed.)

What does it all mean? What is so important that's worth saving that when we look back we can be proud and understand that for that brief moment I did the right thing? For me, it's family and friends. Everything else material is just that...material.