On the Horizon Summer 2019

Letter from the editor—The Unfinished Business Dream

It’s rare that I see a theme emerge from all the submissions to On The Horizon but this issue had one: dreams and their links to karmic family ties. I think all of us at one point on the path start asking questions about what our family means to us in terms of our spiritual growth. Why this family? What have I learned from being with these people at this time? What past lives have we shared and how do those lives affect who we are today?

One of the things I am most grateful for and fascinated by in terms of dreams and karmic ties are what I call my “unfinished business dreams.” I seem to have enough of them to be uncomfortably aware that I have had a number of personal relationships that were left hanging in one state or another. My dreams have become a place where these unfinished moments that we all have in life get resolved.

I had a friend that I went to college with whom I enjoyed spending time with quite a bit. We were able to share some of our problems and affinities at important transition points in both our lives. He was funny, creative, brilliantly artistic, and unfortunately haunted by a past of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of his father. We lived far apart but would get together whenever I was in Los Angeles, his city, and renew our connection. A number of changes then took place in my life—my trips to L.A. were dramatically reduced, and we began to lose our regular communication over time. It’s something that happens to many people who move around from place to place over the course of their life. A few years later, not having heard from him in some time, I discovered that his phone was no longer a working number. I reached out to some mutual acquaintances and found out, like a bucket of ice water thrown on my back, that he was dead. He had been laid off from his job and, because of his earlier emotional baggage, had started drinking heavily. He essentially drank himself to death.

I was left with the feeling of unfinished business. Could I have been a better friend? Was there something that I didn’t see or do that could have helped? And then—the dream. I dreamed that we met up, like we always did, just hanging out, laughing, talking, doing everyday things. There was nothing dramatic in the dream at all. However I was acutely aware that he was no longer alive on earth in the dream. We were somewhere else and the only connection that mattered was Soul to Soul. He knew it and I knew it. There was no sadness or even regret. When I woke I felt a flow of warmth that said, “It’s OK.” I felt a subtle release because I was no longer asking the questions about what might have been. We both understood that things happened the way they were chosen and that the invisible, powerful connection was still there.

I have had this same dream experience with other people as well, helping me to let go of things I might have handled differently but getting more out of the experience than just letting go. It left me with the love that existed from that connection, in whatever form, which is the most valuable thing to be left with after all.

With heart,
Matt Brunner
On The Horizon Editor

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