My Dream about Natalie

Woke up about 6 AM to darkness and roaring thunder. Thunder subsided and it rained. When the thunder awakened me, I was in the middle of a dream about Natalie Wood. I can remember only (maybe) two times ever dreaming about Natalie, although I spent so many decades with her on my mind. Sometimes it annoys me that I don't dream about her, as I do believe many insights are found in dreams. After all, what we dream about stems from our very own minds: how could dreams not be an indication of deepest thoughts or questions? I usually have pleasant dreams, sometimes detailed and sometimes very complicated with many stories going on at once, but rarely unpleasant. I'm grateful for that as I know some people who have terrible nightmares. I have typical dreams, I suppose. But then, I'm so surprised sometimes about what vividly comes through in my dreams. For instance, this past Father's Day: I didn't dream about my own father (who passed away when I was 4) or my Uncle Jim who helped raise me (who passed away when I was 12). I dreamt about Mr. Ziomek, the father of two of my friends in the 1960's. In real life, Mr. Ziomek owned a bar across from NJ's "Garden State Race Track" (now gone) and was wealthy. When my Uncle Jim was very sick in the 60's, I lived with the Ziomek family for a summer but Mr. Ziomek was hardly around as he worked long hours. But, most every weekend, he would drive us all to the Jersey shore, give us money for the boardwalk, and then treat us all to dinner on the way home. That's about all I really remember about Mr. Ziomek, other than the trips on his boat. In my dream this past Father's Day, Mr. Ziomek put his arm around me and said "I treated you like one of my own because you really were a family member to all of us" (the Ziomeks were a family of five). And that was it. I rarely consciously think about Mr. Ziomek, and haven't seen or talked with his surviving family for 25 years, so to have had such a vivid dream of him on Father's Day only showed me how much I must appreciate him, as our subconscious minds really do remind us of things we forget about in waking life. I was reminded by that dream of how much Mr. Ziomek made me feel secure when at 9 years old, my family was scattered because of illness and I really was frightened of what might come. Mr. Ziomek had a beautiful boat, a 36-foot cabin cruiser, and his family took me on many cruises throughout the summers between 1960 and 1964. He taught us how to fish and how to respect the ocean while boating. I remember making ham and cheese sandwiches in the galley with his daughters (my friends), and remember climbing up to the flying bridge to get a bit cooler up there on the hottest days. We sometimes cruised to an Island for dinner where there was nothing but the restaurant. I recall the peacocks that walked around the Island and we kids would try to find the biggest peacock feathers on the ground to take home. So, last night, when I dreamt about Natalie, how strange that the dream tied in with Mr. Ziomek, two people totally not connected in any way other than in the recesses of my mind. In this dream, I was on Mr. Ziomek's boat with Natalie, but he was not there. It was me and Natalie sitting up on the fly bridge and looking down at the water. A Great White swam by and I told Natalie I had just read on the Internet about sightings of sharks off the coast of Cape Cod (which I had just read about in real life, so this is how our subconscious minds process things for dreams) and Natalie says, "I'm afraid of sharks and that's why I never go in the ocean." And I asked, "Were you afraid of sharks the night you floated in the ocean?" (Guess I somehow knew in this dream I was talking to the ghost of Natalie.) "No, I was afraid for my daughters. I didn't know what they would do without me." Then, Natalie looked down at the water again and said, "I died in it faster than you think, I died from fear." At this point of my dream, I was spooked. Then my eyes popped open when I heard a loud burst of thunder. This dream will stay with me all day, I'm sure.