Embracing Myself (Literally)

I’m a vivid dreamer. I wake up each morning having experienced an alternate, but realistic reality in my dreams. I’m also generally an analytical person, and I look into things deeply — so when I have these vivid dreams, I obviously try to find a deeper meaning to them.

I was a dancer as a kid. Ballet, jazz, tap, hip-hop, you name it — I was enrolled in the class. I was never the best dancer of the group, but I committed to dancing for 10 years because I had fun, and it provided me with an outlet to exercise. But there were definitely times that I felt inadequate as a dancer, either because of my size, my ability, the way I looked, or a combination of all three. When I stopped dancing, it was bittersweet for me. I was happy that I stopped participating in something that often made me feel those feelings of inadequacy, but it was hard letting go of something that became entrenched in my daily routine. But I had to move on.

When I turned 21, it was in the midst of the pandemic after the whole world had experienced a shift. I too had experienced shifts on a microcosmic level. I would speak about how I missed the way I used to be “easygoing” and “weird,” in a “good way.” I thought about those fun ways I was perceived as a child, and wanted to channel those qualities for my current self. I wished I could go back to being that way. I wanted to embrace those parts of me again.

I had a dream that I was in my old dance studio as my adult self with my sister as her adult self standing beside me. We went to visit our dance teacher. We walked into the dance room and saw our teacher leading a group of dozens of young dancers preparing for the annual dance recital. I grasped my sister’s hand and said “look, Noa, it’s you!”

I was looking at my sister’s younger self, approximately 10 years old, dancing.

My sister went over and hugged her young self, then started speaking to her. I then glanced over and saw someone else who looked familiar.

It was me. 5 year old me. I ran over to her and gave her a long, strong hug. We then started talking, the details of which I don’t remember.

Then my dream ended.

I woke up and had an epiphany: I literally embraced myself in my dream. I looked at 5-year-old me — innocent, young, funny, happy, weird, unapologetically herself— and gave her a long big hug. Not only was it exciting to see myself in my dream from a different perspective, but also so powerful to embrace my literal and figurative being, and all of those qualities that she held.

I realized that this dream was a sign and a reminder for my current self. A sign that it was time for me to embrace all parts of myself, and a reminder that I still have those parts of myself within me, even those childlike qualities. There are also other ways to look into the dream: my future-self providing love and support to my past self, and my child-self receiving the love she needed in a place that sometimes made her feel lesser-than. The dream was so full circle for me because I could finally let go of some of those negative feelings I associated with dance and embrace all the positivity that it brought me: my love and freedom to move and to dance unapologetically. And overall, the dream was a nudge for me to move forward and embrace my childlike qualities that I cherish.