Dreams and what they mean?

I met with my group of liberal minded friends this evening and our assignment was to bring a dream that you have often or a dream that particularly stood out in your memory that you would like to share and discuss. Interesting right. It was, especially getting different idea's and viewpoints on what it could mean.

I brought up a dream that I have often in which I am in a house that is empty except for these floating sphere like objects that follow me around the house but at the same time continue to get bigger and bigger and bigger. They keep growing until they have consumed all of the space in the house and right before I am about to suffocate from the all consuming sphere objects, I wake up.

Far back, like 10-12 years ago I wrote a poem about this all too familiar dream. During that same time period I also created two photographs that illustrate my dream as I see it. One image is titled R.E.M. and the other one is titled Dream Passage.

After talking about this dream I brought up another dream/premonition that I have had as far back as I can remember. It is a dream experience that was difficult to even say without getting a bit emotional. A feeling that has haunted my thoughts since I was 11 or 12 years old. This haunting thought was one in which I felt without a shadow of a doubt I would not survive past my 40's. This feeling has always been present and has never subsided. Turn back almost five years ago when I turned 40 and this feeling was still something that I could not shake or ignore. Almost two months after turning 40, it's 10 at night and I get a call that my Dad is ill, the paramedics are on there way and I better get over there right away. So I get there to find the medics trying to resuscitate my father who has had a heart attack. We are waiting and pacing the house waiting for a sign that he will be OK. I walk outside to be alone and am leaning against the cold garage door the weekend before Thanksgiving and a feeling of calm comes over me and without being able to explain or understand it, that premonition comes back into my thoughts but with a feeling of relief and I immediately lost that feeling I was going to die and it has never returned. To this day I don't have that feeling anymore. I face the sadness everyday that my father is no longer here and I will probably never know the answer to whether it was a coincidence or something else. Ah dreams, can they really set you free and if they do, at what price?