Interpretation of Dreams

I dreamed about my mother last night, not once but twice -- two distinctive dreams about mom in a slightly more communicative state than she is in at this point in her disease.

In the first dream she was trying to tell me something, but each time she kept slipping and thinking I was a friend from her high school days. She would then begin to talk about her brother Chuck (Charley Boy she called him, when they were in high school). I couldn't seem to get her back into the present moment. It was shortly after that that I woke up from that dream.

In the second dream her sister Louise was still alive and very vibrant (which she was almost right up until she died at about age 90) and had come to see mom, but mom was very confused. Louise seemed to think that all mom needed was more exercise, to get out of the house more (mom had become very house bound near the end because of her fear of her bladder control issues). I was walking outside with mom and we kept meeting people that she knew, and she was pretending that she still remembered who they were, but she didn't actually remember any of them, and then I woke up from that dream.

It bothers me a little that I dreamed about mom twice in one night, and both dreams involved her dead siblings. Do these dreams have some underlying meaning or am I just beginning to grieve that she is the only one left of her three siblings (and their spouses for that matter)? After I woke up from the second dream I was so rattled that I couldn't get back to sleep.

Maybe, this is all just part of the process of my saying goodbye to mom. After all Alzheimer's disease is called "the Long Goodbye". In my dreams I actually get to talk to her again, even for a little while. I would give just about anything to have one more conversation with her.

Pax