Dreams

I have heard several donor-conceived people and adoptees discuss dreams that they have about their unknown birthparent(s). I thought I would share two of mine. One is about my sperm donor father, while the other is about the loss involved when our records are destroyed.

During my first paternity test, I had a dream where I met my sperm donor on a bus. As we chatted, he checked my reflexes to make sure my body "functioned correctly." His face remained a blur. When I woke up, I found it amusing that the one piece of information I have about this man - that he probably attended medical school - got incorporated into my dream.

I had a second dream during another paternity test. In real life, I live in an apartment complex where the dumpster is located nearby. It is usually emptied around 6 to 8 in the morning. In my dream, this dumpster outside my apartment window was being emptied. I ran outside to explain to the men emptying it that the dumpster contained all of the records for thousands of donor-conceived people, including our medical history, heritage, and the identity of our donors. Despite my pleaing for the men to preserve the records and my cries that destroying these documents could mean that we might never know our families or our own histories, these records were destroyed. When I woke up, the dumpster was actually being emptied.