Unconscious Grief

I haven't posted in a while, obviously, even though I've had plenty of time and actually have plenty to say. Those thoughts are all rattling around though, not piercing through like previous posts. Until last night. Suddenly something shattered through and inspired me to write this post. I rarely dream about real life, it seems. I often dream about places and things from my past, and even people, but not the people I see the most often. I have had a few dreams about my daughter since she passed away and of course each one is like a blissful opportunity to spend a little more time with her. I haven't had one of those in a while. But until last night, it was almost like my unconscious mind wasn't quite convinced that she really is gone. In most of the dreams I've had about her, she's obviously alive, but somehow I'm aware that she shouldn't be with me. Last night, I dreamt that I was attending a meeting of some sort of grief group, maybe for parents who've lost children. I did attend one real meeting like that a few months after losing my daughter, but haven't been back since. Nothing about it comforted me and I didn't feel a connection to anyone there. So the meeting I dreamt about was purely fictional. All I remember is that at this meeting, we were reading something from a book. And like many such things these days, what I read made me cry. It made me so, so sad. This woke me up, somehow. And I realized I was actually crying. My pillow was wet, so I had apparently been crying for a while. Initially, I thought maybe I just haven't taken the time to grieve enough, or to do comforting things for myself. Later today, I realized maybe it's my unconscious mind finally realizing that she's gone and grieving. My unconscious mind seems to be doing something these days. Last week, I went away for a few days to a conference. It required a 4-hour flight there and 5 hours back. On the way back, I started to doze off and suddenly found myself back in the car being driven home from the hospital after saying goodbye to my daughter. I can't remember the actual drive at all--can't remember the car, the route, anything that happened or that we talked about along the way. My husband's bosses at the time picked us up. I'd never met them before and I have absolutely no memory of them other than just initially seeing them in the hospital. In my half-asleep dream, I was in the car and screaming to be let out. I was completely falling apart, insisting that I couldn't leave her there. I've said that out loud many times, that maybe if I hadn't let them take her to the hospital, or hadn't left her there, maybe I could have done something. I was finally acting on that in my dream, but it wasn't a good feeling and I woke up almost in a panic. And then I spent the next 15 minutes or so pulling myself together so I wouldn't burst into tears there on the plane. As I said, it seems my unconscious mind is doing some processing that it hadn't done before. I think I really need to get in to see my therapist again. I believe it's been about 6 months--she doesn't even know I'm pregnant. I feel OK about both of these experiences, I am just sort of baffled at how unique they were.