The dead, restored to life, consort with me in the dark.

Sleep lifts the curtain of mortality to admit, willy-nilly, the long-departed. Here strides my father. There sits my mother. Uncle Harry might pop in for a chat. They do things and speak speeches of life and relation: acts and words that seem normal, as normality is reckoned in the surreal, trans-midnight landscape of dreams.

One night recently the ghostly visitors were not my parents but my wife’s parents—my inlaws, Joe and Elsa Nelson. The words of our conversation did not survive to daylight. But I do recall that I used soapy water and a brush to clean Joe’s hearing aid, a behind-the-ear model. Only—wouldn’t you know?—it was not Joe Nelson talking with me as I washed his hearing aid, but rather my old grandpa, Alvin LaFollette. 

Not only do the dead appear; they are also somewhat interchangeable. One can sit in for another in a tag-team existence that would be confusing in real life but is par for the course in dreamland.

I worried about shorting it out—the hearing aid—because even asleep I know such devices are allergic to water. But this one was a strange kind of hearing aid. The arc of its form resembled a curved molar or tusk from some long-extinct beast, recently unearthed, more than it resembled an electronic device. It was puzzling that Grandpa should wear something like that on his ear; but I stopped worrying about getting it wet, as electricity did not seem to be a factor.

In their respective factual, pre-death lives, neither Grandpa LaFollette nor Joe Nelson ever wore, or needed, a hearing aid. But in the non-factual, post-death realm beyond the veil of sleep, everything takes on a different aspect. 

I am the only person in my dreams with hearing aids in his factual, pre-death life. I need them to help me hear and am grateful that Veterans Affairs provides them free of charge. (My hearing loss is service-related.) And you can bet I never let them get near soap and water. 

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The whole episode has set me wondering: Could these late visitors be the real souls of persons who were close to me? The notion comforts me, even though these dear departed are just as human and fallible in dreams as they were in real life.

The prevailing theory, in our quasi-rational world, would have you believe my midnight specters are only psychic archetypes, spun up by my subconscious, based on long-ago interactions with the persons they represent: internalized authority figures, programmed to control me from beyond the grave. 

I like my ghost theory better. These folks who arrive from time to time in my sleeping world do not in fact control me. After their deaths, as before, I take their utterances and attitudes for what I think they’re worth. 

But it’s nice to have the visit. At my present age, the companionship is valued.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer