Dreaming in Cyber Space

Every day, I talk to Joan Lownds. I know all about the town where she grew up, the cottage she spent her childhood summers in and her life now with he eleven-year-old son. I know she loves to play softball, her favorite baseball team is the Red Sox and she was Baseball Digest's first female writer.

She knows all about my love of art and folklore, how I graduated in visual arts but did not pursue it and how I never miss a Star Trek show. Yet, we have never met in the `real' world. I live in Vancouver, Canada while she lives in a small town in Connecticut, USA-- opposite sides of the continent.

We `met' in the Writer's BBS (Bulletin Board) in a discussion forum where writers exchange news, tips and discuss anything of interest. I'm a freelance writer and Joan was a journalist. On one forum, the members started talking about dreams, dreams coming true, as a reflection of our lives and dreams as inspiration for writing. The conversation followed many threads from writers eager to talk about their own dreams to wondering what if anything it all meant. I expressed an interest in exchanging dreams through email.

I have spurts of vivid dream filled nights. At the time, I was having dreams, about well-dressed people living, working and playing in run down slum buildings and muddy old playgrounds. I wanted to know what those dreams meant.

On October 19th 1998, Joan sent me an email message; "I am very interested in this topic as well. When I was a reporter, I wrote a few articles on dreams and dream interpretation, and learned a little bit about how to interpret them."

In my message back to her, I asked her if she would be willing to exchange and interpret my dreams. She agreed. The Internet and email seemed to both of us the best way to share our thoughts. Through email, strangers could share their deepest secrets.

Every morning I turn on my computer and more often than not, I will have an email message from Joan starting with `Dear Devorah' with a description of her dream that night. After I read her message, I tell her my thoughts on her dream. At the end of her morning message, she always asks me what I dreamed. If I remembered my dream that night, I will send her an account of it. An hour later, often less, she will send me a message with an interpretation of my dream, thanking me for my insights into her dream. Sometimes she would have weeks of remembering dreams while I would go through a dry spell or the reverse. Occasionally we would both be dreaming wildly on the same nights.

We often look for patterns in each other's dreams. One time she dreamed a boyfriend's mother was a man. She wondered what that could mean. I thought about it and emailed her saying the man was so manly, so out of touch with his feminine side, his mother was a man. When I sent the email off, I got a message from her coming to the same conclusion! I had a dream where my bearded husband dressed in 19th century woman's clothes was talking about a military operation. Joan told me my husband was getting in touch with his feminine side. We both laughed about it!

Through the months of dream exchanges, bits and pieces of her dreams entered mine. I started to dream of running. One night I dreamed I was running alone on a track and then the field turned into a jungle. This was similar to a dream she had. "I dreamed I went to the track where I run, and I was running great---very fast. The track was crowded, and it usually isn't." When I received this email, I felt there was a connection. We were dreaming the same thing; though my track was empty and hers filled with people.

In our dream exchanges, we discovered that despite different backgrounds we had many things in common. We are the same age, both mothers and writers. We hold similar views on many issues. The Internet had brought us together.

Joan's dreams center on her hometown, her childhood intruded by images of violence. She dreamt someone was shooting at her in her old neighborhood. I had a terrifying dream of my daughter killing a man who was hoarding food after a nuclear holocaust. We interpreted these dreams as telling us our day to day struggles, have their own hidden traumas.

When her father died, she confided in me; "I was wondering why I keep having such bad dreams about the city where I grew up---if my dreams were trying to prepare me for something. I read that Jung believed that they do...And last night my father passed away... So maybe they have been getting me ready for this awful news...I'm in a state of shock right now. But I think our dream correspondence did help me prepare, in a way---if anyone is ever prepared for this."

When my aunt died on my birthday, I confided in Joan. Life for us continued with the year bringing many changes but we stayed in almost daily contact. We both dreamt about death and the hereafter. I dreamed of standing in line in a dreary place I knew was limbo. She had a few dreams of meeting all the dead Kennedys and her mother, in what could only be heaven.

On December 10th, I met her in a dream. I saw Joan as an astronaut. Her brown hair cut in a pageboy, fair pale skin and slender figure. Though there was spacecraft full of people in space suits, somehow in my dream I knew this person was Joan. I wrote and told her. Excitedly she wrote me back "What a nice dream! You must be psychic because I do have brown hair, now cut in a page boy---and I'm not exactly slender, but not overweight, really. (and have lost weight recently)" I was amazed because I had never seen a picture of her! I even got her hair cut right. Months later, I showed up in her dream. I was there standing beside her when she visited Lincoln's monument in Washington DC. She imagined me a little taller than I am. When this happened I knew we had a special friendship and that now we had finally met, even if it was only in our dreams.

We continue to exchange dreams but our friendship has broadened. We started sending each other pictures of ourselves and critiquing each other's writing. Now we talk in an online chat room. One day we hope to meet in the real world. Till that time, we will see each other in our dreams and in cyber space!