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Coming Back From A Dream

I stand atop a gleaming white snow-capped mountain looking down on the frozen tundra with the winding trail that awaited me below. There I stand resplendent in all of my gear in awe of this wondrous world that will soon be my personal daunting challenge. My gloves firmly grip one pole in each hand. The goggles are in place over my somewhat blurred eyes from the radiance of the white. Each toughened boot is strapped firmly into my skies. A deep breath is drawn almost immediately proceeded by a long slow exhale.

My moment of truth has arrived. One last breath in and out is taken. With a lurch and a thrust forward my downward spiral begins. Picking up speed as I recklessly round each turn. Faster….faster….ever faster I go. Now flying past the waving flags and the wobbling markers uncertainty approaches. Twisting turning slipping and sliding my way through my travel I wished I’d never begun. Inside of my chest, my heart is relentlessly banging as if it were struggling to free itself from entrapment. Sweat is incessantly pouring out from underneath my goggles onto my now reddened frostbitten face.

To no avail could I cry out. Just ahead my eyes capture the image of a contorted cliff almost daring me to challenge it. Despite plunging my poles into the depths of the snow I could not slow down nor regain traction. My body now ravaged by weariness is at a point of collapse. In a hunched over posture, my ski found itself stuck in a crater of ice. In a desperate attempt to free me from this almost certain death trap, I  jammed my pointed polls into what was mostly a resemblance of granite. With a violent forward thrust accompanied by an equally violent lunge, I made my exit.

Soon after obtaining my freedom from the self-proclaimed death trap that had ensnared me the aftershock of my contortionist like movements propelled me to the very edge of that cliff that was once so far away in the distance as if it were a mirage. The blinding sunlight led me to become dazed and overcome by dyslexia. The ferocious unforgiving wind sent me spiraling out of control to my destiny of doom. Now in a state of unconsciousness somewhere in mid-flight, a creature created by terror appeared to me. With saliva drooling from his mouth at the prospect of dismembering me and devouring my remains for his dinner the creature constructed a knife from glaciers which he used to slice my throat through to the bone. The last thing I thought I saw was my blood-soaked headless body laying next to my severed limbs.

Suddenly I awoke to discover I was laying in my bed quivering with fear. My urine streamed over my sheets that I would immediately discard. I thirsted for water to soothe my painfully cracked lips. Unceremoniously I exuberantly leaped off my mattress to joyously exclaim I AM ALIVE! I AM ALIVE! Being in possession of this newfound knowledge I pulled my multi-colored quilted blanket that was woven with the finest wool under my chin so I could contentedly return to my slumber. I had no reason to suspect my nightmare was still engraved inside of my brain that would cause me to awaken once again quivering with fear. No longer in control of what I was thinking, I wondered out loud if the nightmare was really reality while the reality I thought I was in was, in fact, the nightmare.

When Calm and composure returned the next morning I tried to rationalize what happened in addition to determining why it happened. My background in behavioral psychology taught me to locate the trigger that set this whole sequence of events in motion. Hard though I tried the trigger could not be pinpointed. My next step was to seek out men of good wisdom who could untangle this web for me. At the end of my block, there was a shtiebel where holy men would come to daven and learn each day. A grandfatherly type of a  man with a gray bushy beard peered at me through his horn-rimmed glasses greeted me with a generous smile. Could all the knowledge this man had acquired throughout his life allow him to help me resolve my dilemma that was shrouded in mystery these last 24 hours?

I confronted him with all the details that I could remember. Yet again he would peer at me through his horn-rimmed glasses while greeting me with his smile. His mouth formed no words as he went about the task of continuing his studies. Naturally, I was perplexed as well as puzzled at this turn of events. In dire need of answers to my questions but not wanting to appear as being rude or disrespectful I whispered in the ear of this man who as it turns out was a Rav. He then told me all that all the information I sought would come to me in a dream that night.

The next morning I was woken up by the sound of somebody knocking at my door. Much to my delight, it was the Rav who came by to visit while inquiring of me what the dream the previous night revealed to me. To relieve me of my angst from not being able to recall the dream the Rav explained that the night when I had the initial dream was in actuality the night I died. The creature that killed me while I was in mid-flight was none other than ME! I was killing all the evil that existed within me these many years. Despite all that evil, I had done so much good and gave so unselfishly of myself that it was decided my soul would be returned to my body so that I may go on living. Having revealed all this to me the Rav stood up in front of me put on his wide-brimmed black hat buttoned up his near ankle-length black coat gave me something he called a brucha.

“ Come dance with the west wind and touch on the mountain tops. Sail o’er the canyons and up to the stars. And reach for the heavens and hope for the future and all that we can be, and not what we are.” These words are an excerpt of the lyrics to the song Eagle and the Hawk that was written by the late John Denver.

My friends, we must continually take stock of ourselves. Our dreams may not be self-generated but they can contain messages we must take great effort to figure out. We go into and come out of dreams without realizing it during the course of the day. While a nightmare is a manifestation of our dreams we cannot simply ignore them or let them go uninvestigated. May your dreams reflect that which is good about you.

Goodnight!

Joel Elveson
Joel Elvesonhttps://jelveson.wixsite.com/recruitersite
INDEPENDENT Executive Recruiting By Joel is an "up and coming" Executive Search Firm formed and headed up by Joel Elveson whose visionary ideas, leadership & creativity have brought to life a more "user-friendly" approach to recruiting. His clients and candidates form powerful strategic partnerships that we use to help you. Joel’s Firm offers Permanent, Temporary (case by case), & Temporary To Permanent staffing solutions for all of your Human Capital Requirements. Contract IT/Consultants are available if needed. Above and beyond they are experts (by way of their personal industry work experience) with mortgage, mortgage banking, middle-market banking, accounting, along with many others under the vast financial spectrum of disciplines. Their business goes beyond candidate recruiting as they also train, mentor and develop your internal recruiting staff with an eye towards helping you reduce the cost of hiring. They will also work in areas such as compensation, effective onboarding processes and alike. In other words, their business is to help your business by becoming an extension of you by filling in gaps that cause delay or waste. The recruiting methods employed by Joel’s team are time tested that results in a high rate of successful placements. Joel was trained in the art of recruiting by some of the top staffing industry executives in addition to the best recruiter trainers who to this day drive me to exceed the lofty goals he has set forth.

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8 CONVERSATIONS

    • Lynn, I don’t always remember my dreams but some stick out in my mind. Dreams sometimes show us scenes of what may be in store for you at some point in your life. Thank you for taking the time to read and comment on my article. This was very thoughtful of you.

    • Larry, Thank you for the compliment which coming from you is the highest honor I can get. I don’t remember how I got into the habit of attaching music to the articles but that practice has become part of the creative process. Thank you again, Larry.

    • I am always looking for work.
      I get a ton of job alerts each day throughout the day until midnight!
      The ones I am qualified I send out resumes to.
      The article was a FANTASY about a man (not me) who had a nightmare.
      Nothing in the article was about me or anything that happened to me.

  1. “Learning to dream” is a very difficult task to conceive and undertake in this super fast world where if you are not connected to some application, you do not exist. And let’s face it: in the app world you do not have time or space to dream, but only to consume. However, in addition to becoming virtual clones, we are still thinking beings in the flesh, with a brain and a frontal lobe that allow us to already plan in our mind all that we want to see realized in our lives. “Learning to dream” therefore requires not only the courage to dream big, but to dream by exercising a conscious, future-oriented look.

    • Aldo, Your comments caught me off guard as I was not aware the article was being viewed as I have not shared it yet. My article was philosophical in nature with some religious references. I apologize if you were under the impression that the subject of my article was related to applications, drones, etc. Many thanks for reading my article in addition to sending me your very well written comments. I look forward to your continued readership.

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