Holding the Hand That Isn’t There
I woke this morning from one of the most vivid dreams I have had in a long while — or perhaps two dreams that were really one conversation, spoken in different languages.
In the first, I found myself among people who had worked underwater, laying cables or performing some unseen labour beneath the sea. Their bodies bore the cost of that work. Limbs had degenerated; fingers were missing, as though worn away by time, pressure, or something corrosive. The atmosphere was sad, heavy, and eerily calm.
One man stood out. I felt, without being told, that he was my late second-eldest brother. At the same time — impossibly, but unmistakably — he was also my closest friend, David Carlson, who now lives in a care home in Los Angeles. The two identities coexisted in the same fragile body, as though the dream had folded different chapters of my life into a single figure.
His condition frightened me. Not in the sense of disgust, but in the way loss frightens — the fear of touching what might already be slipping away. Someone said my name aloud. When they did, the sick man stirred, rose as if suddenly awakened, and shouted my name in return. We moved toward each other and embraced.
I took his hands in mine. Fingers were missing. The hands were damaged, incomplete — and yet I felt no hesitation. No revulsion. Only love. I held them firmly, as though to say, I am here. I am not afraid. I began shouting, “I love you,” again and again. When I woke, I was still crying — and still felt his hands clasped in mine.
I must have fallen asleep again, because a second dream followed.
This time I was in a small community. People were sleeping together in one room, and they welcomed me as though they had known me for a long time. There was no need to explain who I was or why I was there. I simply belonged. I asked why they weren’t using an adjacent room, and they told me something strange or unsettling was happening there. I didn’t feel compelled to investigate.
Soon after, I found myself in a large, empty shop lot. I had the sense that I was about to start a small art class there. Nothing had begun yet. No students had arrived. The space was simply waiting.
Then I woke.
At first, I couldn’t make sense of the connection between these dreams — if there was one at all. But one thing stayed with me: the feeling in my hands, and the certainty of love without conditions.
When I woke fully, I did something unusual for me. I immediately messaged David’s partner in Los Angeles to ask how he was. She replied that David now sleeps most of the time and responds mainly to the care given by professional caregivers. She added that she was grateful I had reached out — that it meant a great deal to her.
That response quietly completed the circle.
I don’t believe dreams are puzzles to be solved so much as experiences to be listened to. This one didn’t give me answers. It gave me direction. It reminded me that even as bodies weaken, identities blur, and people drift toward sleep, love still recognizes its own. Sometimes all it needs is to be spoken aloud.
And perhaps, after that love is acknowledged, life gently asks us to return to the work that remains: making space, teaching, creating, offering what we can — not in grand gestures, but in simple rooms that are ready to be used.
Some hands we hold only in dreams.
Some we reach for in waking life.
Either way, the holding is real.
A quiet note from the unseen
Some experiences do not come to instruct the mind, but to realign the heart.
This dream — and the action it awakened — reminds us that human development is not measured by progress, strength, or clarity alone, but by our capacity to remain tender in the presence of decline.
To love without recoil, to reach out without certainty, to respond before understanding — these are signs not of weakness, but of maturity. When we are able to hold what is broken, sleeping, or incomplete without turning away, something in us comes back into alignment.
Perhaps this is how the unseen speaks:
not in answers, but in gestures that restore connection —
not in visions of the future, but in reminders of what still matters now.
Wallahu a‘lam.
#Dreams #LoveWithoutConditions #HoldingOn #HumanFragility #UnseenConnections #GriefAndGrace #AgingWithHeart #SpiritualAlignment #DreamReflections #StillHoldingHands
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