Dreams of Surrogacy and Sacredness

I was sick recently and, as a result (I think), I had some very unusual dreams. In fact, over the course of one week, I had three dreams in particular that really stood out. All seemed to involve my students in some way, sharing a common theme.

The setting for the first dream was the Arizona desert. My wife and I were living in a house with a bunch of the students from Watts. We were living a commune-like existence, and my wife and I were kind of like the parent-figures. It was 4:30am and I was standing out on the driveway with some of the students. We were gazing up into the sky at some shooting stars. One of my students—Naliesha, I think—fearfully asked me, “Are they [the meteors] going to hit the ground?” “No,” I reassured her, “Most of them are just made up of small dust and ice particles. They will burn up in the atmosphere long before they reach us. You don’t need to worry.” I continued scanning the horizon for shooting stars when suddenly, out of the east, emerged this gigantic meteor. It hurtled across the sky at a low altitude; its immense girth, glowing hot like an ember, slowly rotated before my eyes. It was so close that I could clearly see details upon its surface, which was covered with flaming, scraggly, rocky points, still raw and sharp from the lack of smoothing friction in outer space. It streaked over our heads with the deep rumbling sound of a Concorde jet, and I whispered to myself, “Oh my God, it’s going to hit!” My eyes continued to trail its downward arc while my body was paralyzed. Off in the distance, at least some several miles I saw it make impact. A mushroom cloud exploded and I told all the students to run into the house. “Get down!” I yelled to them, and we assumed the classic hands-clasped-over-the-back-of-the-head earthquake stance. I didn’t know whether the impact wave would completely obliterate the house, and us, or not. Soon the earth began to rumble and shake. The quaking became more and more violent, but it was not enough to tear the house apart, and then it subsided. I was relieved to find that everyone was safe.

The second dream took place in a wooded area near Belmont High School (I know no such place exists, but this is my dream world). I was walking along near a group of young people, but I was not with the group. I recognized one of them as a student of mine named Brenda. She was with a group of boys. They were all gang bangers; I didn’t know any of them. I stayed within earshot of the group, just far enough away not to be conspicuous. I could overhear their conversation. They were trying to get Brenda to murder someone. It was as if they were “jumping her in” to the gang. They picked out the victim, who was within sight about 20 yards downhill. They passed her the gun and I could tell that she did not want to do this deed. However, she also wanted their approval, desperately. They were fervently whispering to her, “Do it! Do it, Mija! Shoot her!” I was paralyzed by indecisiveness. I knew it was my role to intervene, to save the innocent woman whom the gang had selected for death, to save Brenda from the gang’s evil influence, but I knew then that the gun would likely be turned on me. I was stuck between self-preservation and self-sacrifice, and I chose the former. And I was ashamed.

In my third dream I, again, was with a group of students (some were my own while some were not). I had been selected to participate in a radical new form of therapy called “surrogacy counseling.” [In real life, I’ve never heard of what I am about to describe to you although such a thing might exist.] The clients were all young people who had lost a loved one (i.e., their loved one had died). Each client was paired with a surrogate counselor, usually someone whom they knew before and felt close to and/or could trust. I was paired with one of my Watts students named Aidee. Aidee married young, as a teenager, but her husband had been killed in a drive-by. The surrogate counselor’s role was to fill in as the deceased loved one so that closure could take place. The group’s facilitator took us through a series of activities that progressively drew the group closer and allowed us to open up. The session culminated with Aidee and I standing and talking, face to face. “Why did you leave me?” she sobbed, “Why did you have to die?” “I’m sorry,” I whispered, “I’m so sorry.” We both hugged and tears were streaming down both of our faces. I intensely felt her pain; psychologically, I had transformed into her lost loved one; I was deeply, deeply sorry.

The way I interpret all of these dreams is that we are the surrogate fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters for the youth in our programs. Their lives are laid before us, vulnerable, wounded, in mortal danger. Our lives are expiable healing forces to be poured out upon them. In my heart, I feel like ours is a sacred role. I am reminded of the New Testament passage in Matthew 25 where Jesus says to his disciples, “I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.” Then the disciples incredulously ask him, “When did we see you hungry and gave you something to eat? When did we see you thirsty and gave you something to drink?” And Jesus answers them, “Whenever you have done this for the least of these, you have done it to me.”