These dreams

It happened again last night, or, rather, in the early hours of this morning.  I was in that place that is not awake, but not fully asleep, either:  cognizant of my thoughts, despite their rapid, seemingly random swirling across my brain.  It was almost like a dream, but not that fully formed--just thoughts, rather than events.  But I was thinking that I needed to get A's mail for him, because he'd been away so long.  And then I thought, I haven't heard from him in awhile.  And then somehow I became just conscious enough to clear up my own confusion.  That's right; he died.  That's why I haven't heard from him.  Boom!

Weirdness abounds in this.  The primary weirdness is that I've had this exact same barely conscious conversation with myself twice now in the last 6 months or so.  In my entire life, I've had three recurring dreams:  one was of being chased through houses of many, many rooms by something/someone I can't see but I know is there.  One is of moving back to my childhood home in Upper Michigan.  And the last is of driving without my headlights on, and I can't see, and yet I still keep driving, panicked because I can't seem to stop the car, and I still have no idea what is ahead of me, and I'm trying desperately to see but just can't. 

So it seems strange that I've got a new one, and it's strange that it would happen now, as I head towards my fourth year without him.  Is a part of me still expecting to hear from him like I always did?  Or is this about the visitations and the big, obvious signs that stopped some time ago?  Has it been so long now that its just too long for even my subconscious to take?

And what's weirder yet is that somehow, somewhere, just for a moment in my sleep, I managed to forget.  I managed to forget that he was dead.  I managed to forget the tear-soaked last 3+ years.  I managed to forget all the trauma around his death and dealing with his family.  I managed to forget how his absence has colored my every day since then to varying degrees.  It was only for a moment, and I wasn't even really awake to enjoy it, but there was a freedom in that moment.  There was endless room to move in a casual musing of, "Hmmm...I wonder why I haven't heard from him?" like he'd been on a trip, and was slightly delayed in contacting me. 

Until I remembered.  I wouldn't say that the remembrance came back violently.  Just irrefutably. 

I have spent all this time getting used to the idea that he is gone and is not coming back.  I have done all this work accepting the reality of his incomprehensible death.  I have lived (begrudgingly) with the truth of his absence every single day for the last 1,351 days.  So how is it even possible that part of me is still fighting it?  How could I forget, even in the fog of sleep and dreams?  How can I still be confused on the point?

Why am I bothered by this?  I guess I'm annoyed and feeling a little betrayed by a subconscious that would tease me like this.  It seems cruel.