A troubling dream

I usually remember the dreams I have. I think that's because I'm a light sleeper, and I'm prone to wake up at some point in the dream (I think sometimes my brain wakes me up when it gets too scary/sad/whatever).

Last night I had one. And it's bugged me all day. And usually when a dream I've had continues to bug me or make me feel unsettled, I think it means my subconscious is trying to tell me something.

In the dream, I still lived with my parents, and my brother lived there too. (My brother and I were adults, but must have been young adults - he was not married yet and I kind of think I was in my 20s). We lived up on a mountainside that looked down over a retirement community of small brick houses.

An earthquake hit. Up where we were, our house sustained little damage, but it looked like the brick houses were leveled. The news-people said (this was somewhat confused) that either everyone in the houses was evacuated, or everyone had been killed - at any rate, there was no rescue effort going on.

Then, a couple days after the first earthquake, I was looking down at where the houses used to be, and another earthquake hit. And one of the toppled walls fell down slightly more, and I could see into the house, and I could see people in there. And it looked like they were moving.

And I yelled to my brother: come, bring the tools, there are people in there, we need to get them out! And while he was gathering stuff (I suppose things like crowbars and mallets), I was lacing up my field boots. And I briefly thought: Dear God, I am probably not prepared for what I will see (or *smell,* as it had been several days) when I go in there, but I have to go.

And then I realized maybe I could let the people know that rescue was coming. So I went to an area that was kind of like an enclosed staircase (dreams are not always logical; this was actually a lot like the basement stairs on the house in which I grew up) and cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled: "WE KNOW YOU'RE THERE! WE ARE COMING TO RESCUE YOU SOON!"

And then a man's voice called back: "Just leave us here! We want to die in peace!"

And that was what really slammed into me, and made me wake up a split second later, but not before I realized there was a real moral dilemma here: on the one hand, that man was obviously in good enough shape to yell loudly enough I could hear him...so every impulse in me said, "Get down there and start digging people out." But on the other hand...he said they wanted to die in peace, they didn't want help. And was I putting myself and my brother at risk (both physical and emotional - as I said, I was expecting to see mangled bodies) for something we might not be thanked for, and would perhaps be reviled for?

That dream bothered me the rest of the night (I woke up at about 3:15 with it). And it still bugs me today. I assume my brain is telling me I need to be able to let something go, but I can't tell whether it's merely related to the deaths my congregation experienced this past week (Actually, the back-of-the-head of one man I saw moving around looked like Mr. B. looked, and he was wearing a burnt umber colored sweater - and Mr. B. had a sweater like that) or if it's related to all the work I'm pushing myself to do, or what.

I think the best way I can describe how I felt was "unsettled," with a little bit of sadness in there.