Dreams, cats and baptism
Of course, from time to time I’ve had nightmares – and then awoke with a fast beating heart.
I also have funny dreams, and have frequently woken myself up by laughing. I call out and talk in my sleep – it’s altogether quite a performance.
In remembering the dreams I can usually make the connections, and suss out their origin.
The other night I dreamed that I went into “Easton Road Methodist Church” - a Church not too far from where I grew up (and a Church long since closed).
In my dream the Church became “Eastville Methodist Church” (also now closed) – the Church where my parents got wed, and where I was baptised in 1944.
My dream told me that I was there to baptise a baby. I found the wee child, wrapped tightly in a blanket, but left alone on a pew in the corner of the Church. I began to baptise the baby - with hot sauce. Naturally the baby protested, and immediately became one of my cats - glowering at me for the indignity of hot sauce on her head.
The cat turned back into a baby who kept saying “Mowl Hall”. My dad appeared in the dream saying that the baby had been born in a house named “Mowl Hall”.
At that moment I awoke, to hear my cat Ada outside my bedroom door uttering loud “miaows” - which of course had become “Mowl Hall” in the dream.
Earlier in the week I had been looking at old photographs of Easton, Bristol - so that’s where “Easton Road Methodist Church” came in.
And the week before I had put some “Front-Line” anti flea medication on the back of Ada’s head - much to her annoyance - and that’s where the baptising a child/cat/child with hot sauce came in.
The poor wee baby – left alone on a pew? Of course that was me (all the characters in our dreams are manifestations of our selves). That spoke of my fear (and a common human fear) of being alone, and perhaps forgotten.
This all has left me thinking about Methodism in east Bristol - of which I will write tomorrow.
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