Intense Memories...Or Dreams

Its amazing how out of all of the life experiences that you have, you have a few that stick with you hard.  I wonder if they remain with you because they were unforgettable or because they actually meant something to you.  I have one memory that I have wanted to shake but cannot.  Its the memory that I have of meeting someone in my dreams once before.  Although the strangest experience that I ever had...it's impossible for me to get rid of his memory.  How we initially met, I can't recall.  But I do remember that each time we met, there were things from the past dreams that resurfaced in the newer ones.  It was as if we always just picked up where we left off.

After my first dream, I woke up feeling drenched in passion and affection.  I felt his love all over me - I could even feel sickness settling in the bottom of my stomach as I realized that I had just been torn away from my whole life and my best friend.  What I cant forget is his face as he watched me separate from him as I went back into 'my world.' I grabbed hold of this playing card of ours (we used to play these card games) as I faded away.  His eyes told me not to worry because we would meet again.  Months after that, I had another dream with him.

In this dream, I found myself on an 'active' football field-confused about where I was and why I was there. My mind felt so boggled down with the answers slowly trying to force themselves in but nothing was connecting. And that's when I saw him.  He was in the game...he took his helmet off and he looked at me.  All of his teammates stopped in mid-play and looked up wide-eyed as if they were staring at a ghost.  They knew that I was important.  I don't remember the body of the dream but at the end, we were getting torn apart again in a forest.  I handed him the playing card as a keepsake and this time no words were exchanged as I dissapeared.

The last dream I had was nearly a year later.  This was the one that scared me the most.  In this dream, I was dropped into a room with him alone-like an interrogation room, or a visiting room of some sort.  Everything around me was white and there was a long rectangular table in front of us.  I remember asking him where we were and if he was in some type of trouble but he never answered.  He held my hands though from across the table...looked me directly in my eyes and told me that as much as he loved me, he knew that this was not our time and that I had to let us go.  I told him that he was crazy - that he was my soul mate just trapped in another place.  He looked so close to tears and repeated to me again that I had to let us go in order to move on.  I asked him so many questions: "if I do that, will moving on eventually move me into you." and "will I ever see you again?" "why are you doing this? we only see each other once every blue moon anyway.  how is this hurting me?" He leaned into me, smiled a corner smile and told me he hoped that this wasn't the last time that we would see each other.      

I never had another dream about him and its been over 8 years now.  I think about him occasionally which feels so weird because he was just a dream.  But unlike a dream, it always felt as if I stepped through time.  And the fact that the dreams with him always just started where we left off was so strange to me. I wonder til this day what the room was for. What was going on that day? ...even if it was just a dream.