I got up at 7.30 this morning but went back to bed for another short blast of sleep, and had a powerful and vivid dream in that time.
My family arrived for a family get-together, and some of us were out in the back garden, despite looming clouds on the horizon. I said "It's going to rain within the next minute!", and sure enough, only 10 seconds later, the first big drops of rain started to fall, and everyone quickly moved inside.
I went through to the living room with a view onto the street infront of our house and by the time I got through, the road and pavements were soaking wet. My sister commented about how the rainfall could beat the storm that flooded another town in Scotland a couple of years ago, and my cousins agreed.
With everyone now sitting in the living room, my younger cousin opened with an anecdote about an episode of "The Big Bang Theory", and how they discussed a Romulian snack from Star Trek called 'Rickenbacks' (or something like that), but the story kind of fell on deaf ears.
I replied to say, "Strangely enough, I was going to mention both "The Big Bang Theory"
and a story about a woman I used to work with called 'Reichenbach'...", but interrupted myself to say... "...but firstly, hello to Grandma, and hello everyone!" which got a small laugh.
I then started to tell the story about when Ms. Reichenbach, a German girl, tried to order a taxi in Glasgow over the phone (which I've also
mentioned previously here. After the first part where I mention her first name (in the dream), my Grandma and Auntie were standing by the door, as if waiting to leave to use the restroom. Everyone laughed at the first half of the story where she struggled to tell the phone operator her first name, and my Auntie said "Can you wait until we get back if there's any more?", and I laughed and said "Oh yes, there's much more to come!", and so they both left the room.
By this point I was a little bit confused, and was realising that however lovely it was to see my Grandma so well and happy, there was something not quite right with the scene. So I went over to my cousins and said to my older cousin, "How come Grandma's here??", and he looked back at me without saying anything. It was at that point I realised that it must be a dream because my cousin shouldn't be there either. My Grandma died in 2001, and my cousin in 2010. I was immediately angry at myself for questioning it and not just playing along, and then I became very upset before waking up.
It's quite incredible how vivid and realistic it was, and however upsetting it was, it can really feel like you've spent some time in their presence again. I've had many dreams about my cousin and they are almost always pleasant, but this one shook me up a bit.
In hindsight, there were so many things wrong with the dream - firstly, the back garden and view from the front window as the rain started was my childhood home where I lived until I was 11, and the rest of the 'living room' scene was in my parents' house where they lived until 2003, so none of us have been in either place for many years. Interesting, however, that the locations were roughly accurate for the people involved though.