Last night I had a dream I don’t much remember. All of the details evade me, except one: Toward the end of the thing, I began singing “Straight from the Heart” by Bryan Adams. It was still ear-worming around inside my gray matter through breakfast, causing me to hum and sway while pushing eggs across a cast-iron skillet with a wooden spatula. All day I’ve been consumed by the “Whys.”

In my dream, I think I’d been approached by someone in a negative mood. I don’t know who it was or whether their attitude was directed at me, but I began singing that song, out-loud but softly to myself, as if to avoid an interaction. I simply sang a few versus and then woke up. I remember the song left me in a bittersweet mood, but that’s pretty much the extent of it.

Just like every emotional, prepubescent American youth in the late 80s and early 90s, I straight-up adored Bryan Adams. His confidence and raspy quality sang straight to my own heart, truth be told. Still, why that song? I hadn’t heard it in years. It isn’t even on my “drunken-sing-song mood” playlist.

So, of course I had to look the song up on YouTube. The first version I found was a rather poor-quality filming of Bryan on stage, strumming his guitar and rasping out to thousands of screaming bodies and faces. It felt so authentic. I was transported. I began singing along with him. Then, right around verse 4, that stinging vapor began tip-toeing into my sinuses, as my eyes built little wishing wells. It caught me off guard.

The strangest thing is, other than maybe one little memory about this particular song, I couldn’t think of any reason I might have reacted that way. So as a part of me sang along with him, another part sent out a search party for that memory…

It’s funny how memories work, isn’t it? We remember bits and pieces of poignant “moments” in time, while so many others simply slip away. For me, the interesting thing about what sticks, is that some of my most vivid memories seem insignificant. The memory that surfaced after a few minutes of digging into my psyche was no different, until today….

In an instant, I’m there again—a pre-teen passenger on the way to my birthplace, Lubbock, TX. I can see us now—cruising up those stalwart Texas roads for several hours toward the panhandle. To my left, the driver: my dad. We’re headed home to visit his parents for an unfortunate reason. His own father resides temporarily in a hospital room, dying of colon cancer.

The memory lies soaked in pre-teen apprehension, as if I really didn’t want to be on the road with my dad that day. When we finally arrived, he’d spend a considerable amount of time at the hospital by his father’s side while I hung out with cousins in a house across town. He’d watch his mother talk circles around everyone as she visibly quaked to her core.

Before today, I’d appreciated the memory of that trip because of the music. My dad let me listen to my Bryan Adams cassette tape the whole way there—and that was a “win” for me. Bonus points for getting to skip school for a few days. And that’s the moment my tears began to fall again…because that’s not who I am anymore.

After getting real close and personal with this memory, I accepted the importance of shifting perspectives—which is something I pride myself on day-to-day, but I’d never used that skill on a memory. Now, prepare yourself for the onion (#layers)……

After digging a bit deeper, I recalled trying to feel something that day. After all, my grandfather was inevitably dying. I remember listening to Bryan Adams’ music, singing along, and forcing myself into memories of Grandpa…

He was always a tough guy, to be sure. He spoke quiet around the kids, if he spoke at all. He smelled of chewing tobacco and a strong, burley cologne. His favorite place seemed to be an upholstered Lazy Boy in the corner of the living room, where he regularly surveyed the land and his kin. He seemed gentle enough, but also stifled in some way.

I still couldn’t seem to feel anything. I’d settled on the thought that maybe we just weren’t all that close. I’d convinced myself that was probably why I couldn’t access my emotions in that moment, but in hindsight, I could also maybe blame Bryan Adams. His songs back then covered topics such as losing the love of a woman, finding the love of a woman, memories of youth when someone else loved a woman, tips for how to love a woman and reasons why you’re doing it wrong. In other words, it was pretty clear he wasn’t singing about a slowly fading elder family member. I imagine it would be difficult in the moment to make any emotional connection, under the circumstances. At the time, I’d just wanted to listen to the music I loved during an uncomfortable moment—and dad let me…

That’s when a realization slapped me in the face. My perspective had been built around the view from a child’s eyes. I’d never thought to shift that perspective before the dream. I never assumed it’d be useful to revisit that seemingly ambiguous memory from different angles.

Thanks to that little message from who-knows-where, I now realize the importance of opening up those memory boxes and flipping them around. In that way, I guess shadow work is sorta like playing with Pandora’s Box.

My new-found perspective made me realize that I’d struggled to find my emotion that day because I couldn’t connect the dots between my memories and the trigger (the music). It also forced me to shine a light on what my dad must have been going through in that moment—and the tears fell unabashed down my cheeks when it hit me. Was this the purpose for that song sneaking into my subconscious? And the words…as if a message about honesty and feeling, begging me to dig deeper into a thing I hadn’t thought about for many years. The memory has now changed for me. This new-found perspective paints a darker day, somehow less pastel but also more layered and noteworthy.

And when those words rang in my head for the first time, it was like a knife to the ribcage: His dad was dying. There I sat, cross-legged in a boring IKEA office chair, pulling teardrop after teardrop from lake to temple—hastily in an effort to not be seen by an often un-announcing 7-year-old boy in the next room.

His dad was dying and he let me listen to Bryan Adams in the car, for hours. He likely allowed this for several reasons, but one of them may have been related to his lack of an emotional tie to the music. His memories and just the right trigger might have caused him to lose his cool—maybe triggering a public, overflowing emotional response—just like it would have for me under different circumstances.

Now I find myself wondering what was going through his head that day, while I sat in the passenger seat beside him, just a semi-bratty-minded pre-teen, wishing I were somewhere else—yet too well-behaved to admit it.

When I look back on that moment now, after the deep dive, I’m going to feel it from more than my own perspective. I’ve succeeded at layering a memory that beforehand felt insignificant. It’s much richer now—and it’s driving me to do it again and again with other flashes. In changing my perspective, I’ve changed the memory and the way it makes me feel forever. This also means that now, “Straight from the Heart” will likely always trigger me to tears—and not for Bryan’s intended reasons.

Needless to say, I’m glad I didn’t ignore the message. I’m grateful I put in the work to add richness to 2 now-connected days, layered across time and space. I’ve deepened the hues upon the tapestry that is my life, if only slightly. In a way, I now exist in tandem with the memory.

Even if Bryan Adams infiltrating my dream space wasn’t a message about perspectives and memory, I 10/10 would recommend diving into your own and flipping that perspective. Whether or not any action comes from this little message, the power is in the knowing—and this feels like a damn good place to start.