“Justin’s Dream”

March 28^th 2016

Had a dream about Justin last night that woke me up in the middle of the night. We were playing music in his parents’ driveway, but of course in dreams everything is skewed and the driveway was rainbow shaped with the real driveway being the entrance and the shape extending across their front lawn. Justin was playing drums and I was playing bass. Evan wasn’t in the dream for some reason. I think because he was always very understanding of substance abuse having lost his brother to addiction. Joe and Ryan were playing with us and mid jam left the driveway while continuing to play and started to walk up the street. We were in the middle of a jam on a song called “July 17th”. My brain picked this song because we have been rehearsing for Justin’s memorial with a new drummer and we just can’t seem to get this down without drawing it out unnecessarily. Justin used to lead us through that. I went to follow Ryan and Joe, but my cord pulled out. At that moment Justin’s brother CJ pulled up in the driveway. Justin and I followed him into the house.

When we walked into the house all of Justin’s family members and extended family members were there, as well as Ryan but not Joe. At this moment I realized Justin was a ghost, so I was freaking out and trying to whisper to Ryan to ask if he could see Justin sitting here beside me and asked him if he we had just been playing music together. He confirmed that he indeed could see him and that we were. At this point he started to feel as uneasy as I. It was like when we were outside I didn’t know he had passed and when we were inside I remembered he had. I whispered to Ryan, after he confirmed that he could see Justin, “Wasn’t he cremated?” Ryan looked at me and was about to answer when an extended family member that I have never met, a middle aged man in a buttoned down blue shirt with no tie said that indeed he had. This middle aged man reminded me of Justin and my friend Anthony.  Somebody passed Justin a pipe packed with marijuana and he took a hit. He blew out the smoke and turned to me and said, “This is what killed me.” Now, obviously marijuana has never killed a single human being ever, but I understood it as drugs did. The party continued on and Justin was still hanging out. Justin and I then went to hang out in the garage. We were sitting on a sofa together with a dry erase board in front of us. A name of a person whom I know who is alive and has substance abuse issues was written on the board, formally as it would appear on a gravestone. As I was looking at it, with Justin sitting next to me, I passed out.

When I awoke it was morning and Justin was asleep next to me on the couch. I was still freaked out as I was looking at him wondering if he was a ghost or real. So I built up the courage to lean over and poke at his knee. I felt cartilage! He was alive! I was so happy! But then I realized I was late for work. I began skipping down the driveway, which was the way it should be now, and as I got to the end I saw CJ and his friend whom I don’t know doing the same skipping motion, but mockingly. They were mad at me that I thought he was alive and was spreading these rumors about being able to see him at the party that was being thrown for his mourning. I told them, “He IS alive! I just felt CARTILAGE!” as I pointed to the sofa in the garage where we were. He told me there was nothing but garbage in there and that I was crazy. I then began to question my sanity and wonder if I was seeing Mocha the cat as Justin for some reason. Then I woke up.

Well, obviously I miss Justin very much. When I woke up at 3 am the first thing I saw was a shadow glide across the ceiling. It was my girl Tracy’s getting up to go to the bathroom, but in my semi-dream state I was wondering if I was still dreaming and that it represented Justin’s spirit. When she came back I told her I had the most intense dream with Justin in it. She said she saw that I was crawled up and talking to myself.