“Life is hitting me like a truck”

[Trigger warning: vivid dream of a car crash with some injuries but no casualties; darkness.]

A couple weeks ago my French climbing buddy left me a very sweet voicemail to say Hi and explain his recent silence — and he said, literally, “Sorry, dude, but life has been hitting me like a truck”. 

Apart from feeling for my buddy because I care about him and know him really well and could hear the sincerity in his voice, the expression he used (in English instead of the usual French) felt very vivid and appropriate to how I’ve been feeling, too, so I could really empathize. 

And I wonder if that expression spurred at least part of an extremely vivid dream I had early this morning.

Dream: 

I was in a vehicle, a small car, with three other people I knew, driving at night, when we were suddenly crunched up by a huge truck. Initially, it looked like the truck was rear-ending us, so we passengers yelled to the driver to slow down. But then, as our driver friend brought to our attention, we saw that the same truck was also closing us in from the front. We eventually came to a halt with our small car partly smashed up & crushed between different sections of the truck. Before this halt, I vividly remember seeing our car getting crushed, with the rear doors, especially the one on the side of the other passenger, being smashed in and myself thinking lucidly about rolling or jumping out of my own rear-door which was still accessible and relatively safe. Which, in fact, I eventually did, saving myself. 

Finally, the crash came to a halt and the other rear passenger & I came out relatively unscathed, although shaken. The front of our car was more beaten up and our other two friends (or parents?) in the front were injured and trapped. As I/we worried & busied ourselves to help them, they reassured us that they would be alright and encouraged us, almost commanded us, to continue our journey, to move on and go ahead without them. All they requested us to do was to leave them there safely, i.e. call medical aid for them and make the wrecked car visible in the dark night road (the big truck was gone by now) so it/they wouldn’t get hit by other vehicles. 

So that’s what I did with my other friend from the rear passenger seat and, albeit with concern & mixed emotions, we set out and moved on along the dark night road, walking against the oncoming (sparse) traffic.  

Afterthoughts / interpretation: 

The two people in the front were definitely older/more mature, parent or care-giver figures. The other passenger sitting in the back seat with me was like a friend but only partly, or vaguely, there. 

If I follow the school of dream interpretation according to which I (i.e. the dreamer) am each & all parts/entities in the dream, then I am the person who got saved & moved on, but I’m also the wiser, caring persons who saved me or encouraged to save myself by continuing my journey leaving them behind; and I’m also my “shadow friend” from the back seat, my own companion continuing the journey with me — maybe another (older?) part of me that can still be helpful to me on this voyage. And I’m also the small car in which I was traveling, which got smashed up and had to be left behind; as well as the big truck that crushed the small car (& then disappeared). And I might even be the (sparse) night traffic, those few cars driving in the opposite direction in the dark, while I walk forward (or, at least, have the intention to do so). 

I find this dream incredibly powerful. And clear. I’m sure it’s telling me to move on from the current wreck of my life — or to move on and make a change, leave something (that seems) important behind, before my life gets wrecked too severely & I get totally crushed. 

Time to move one, even if only on foot, with no vehicle; even if in the dark, walking against oncoming traffic? 

Leave the wreck behind — it will be taken care of, somehow — and walk on, before it’s too late. Continue my journey — whatever that may be, wherever it may lead, despite the current darkness.