More skydiving dreams

Last night I dreamed again about skydiving. I figure it must be because of my recent trip to Colorado and seeing all my old friends and remembering what it was like to have skydiving in the center of my life. In the 1990s and beyond, everything else was peripheral, including my job and any relationships I had at the time.

I took up video for awhile, since I really wanted to do something other than teach all the time and I wasn't really interested in competing myself. I figured it would be fun to film others who wanted to compete in four-way events, so I was happy to get the camera equipment and find out how to do it myself. It was a lot of fun, except there are some problems when you are trying to video people who are competing: you must be sure to show each separation and the grips that are taken. Four-way competition requires the camera person to fly high above the formation and at a fairly steep angle. As I was learning, I was told to keep getting higher and steeper on them until I finally was in danger of falling on them! It was fun to learn, and I did actually get close enough to fall on my teammates one time.

In my dream last night I had decided to give camera flying another shot, for some friends who needed me to help them out. I pulled out my old equipment and my little portable TV for viewing the pictures and was suddenly aware that all my equipment is completely out of date! Who uses video tapes any more? Everything is now digital, and I didn't have any of it, so as I was waking up out of my dream, I reluctantly decided it wasn't a good idea to get back into camera flying. It was as real to me as writing in this blog is right now. For some reason my dreams lately have been very vivid and realistic, not fantastic like they sometimes are.

My rational mind tells me that I am processing the trip to Colorado and that it's a normal evolution in my consciousness, letting go of that part of my life and becoming more at peace with what my life is today, perhaps. I'm not sure, but I do know that dreams have helped me in the past. They help me with loss, because every once in awhile I am reunited with loved ones who are gone, and in the most real and satisfying ways, too.

Years ago I studied Carl Jung and became fascinated with his view of the collective unconscious. He posits that we all have certain archetypes in common that are present throughout all cultures. My own personal unconscious comes out in my dreams, with strong overtones of the collective myths and desires of every mother who has lost a child. So even though it's possible that my dreams aren't actually REAL, they perform every task that I might require of them: remembrance, interaction, delight.

And just in case I wanted to take up camera flying again, I guess I'll have to update my equipment. You know, I would probably be the first 68-year-old woman to do it. I have to smile when I think of my dream in the light of day, but hey, it was my dream.

P.S.: when I wrote this post in the morning (it's 1:30 pm now), I looked around in my pictures for a scene of a four-way skydive, and I found this one a friend posted today on his Facebook page. I asked him if I took it, because I vaguely remember this skydive, and since I wasn't in it, I figured maybe I was the photographer! Neither of us remembers for sure, but here it is:

The camera angle is steep enough to see all the grips, which is how they count points. I thought you might enjoy this little synchronicity.