Seven questions to write the moment you wake from a dream about someone who has died

Time to get up.

— Not yet. A little longer.

— The dough won't wait.

— I know. But he's still sitting on the back step.

Twenty past three in the morning. Light from the street slipped through the gap in the door and laid one orange stripe across the blanket. I make tapioca dumplings in a small alley, and have for more than twenty years, getting up every day at half past three to knead the dough, warm the banana leaves over the flame, and wrap it all in time for the morning's selling. That day I woke ten minutes early, because of a dream.

Nothing happened in it. Lộc sat on the back step with his back to me, washing banana leaves in the aluminium basin, just as he had for more than a decade. I stood in the kitchen doorway. He said, without turning round: "Is the big steamer still good, love?" I was about to answer. Then I woke.

My hand groped out and picked up the phone to check the time. The screen lit, twenty-one past three, and the back step, the basin, the back turned away, all dissolved like steam lifting off a pot lid. I kept exactly one thing: the question about the steamer.

If you've ever woken from a dream with someone who has died in it, and for the first few seconds couldn't tell whether you were happy or hollowed out, this is written for you. It doesn't interpret dreams. It is seven questions I wrote out of mornings like that, each one answerable in a single line, in the first ten minutes, before everything dissolves.

This piece doesn't say what a dream means. I don't know. Some people believe the person has come back, some believe the mind is rearranging old things, and I've heard both from people I love. This piece doesn't pick a side. Nor is it a way to dream again, or to hold on to a dream at any cost. It asks one small thing: when you wake, what is in your hands.

The first ten minutes, and the phone beside the pillow

The second time I dreamed of him, about two weeks after the first, I had a pen ready. Not a pretty notebook, but a stack of square wrapping paper cut for the dumplings and the red ballpoint I use to note orders, left on the low plastic stool by the bed. At eighteen minutes to four I sat on the edge of the bed, switched on the small desk lamp, and wrote on the back of a sheet of wrapping paper. My hand was still a little shaky, the writing crooked, but readable.

The obvious reason is to write it down so you don't forget the dream. I thought so too. But sitting there I saw that what I was afraid of losing wasn't the images. The images fade whatever you do, and plenty of people have told me the same, including the women who sell near my house. What I was afraid of losing was the few seconds right at waking, when I believed two things at once: he was sitting out on the step, and he was gone. The two don't get along, yet they sat together in my head for only a few seconds. Nobody tells about those seconds, because before they can become a sentence people reach for the phone, check the time, and step into the day's rhythm, and that rhythm, with its dough, its wrapping and its orders, is big enough to swallow everything else.

So the first ten minutes aren't for understanding. They are a small gap between the dream and the morning, and the only thing I do in that gap is set things down on paper, easiest first.

The first time, I thought it was faintly funny, sitting up in the middle of the night to write seven lines about a dream of an aluminium basin. Some mornings I sat down and only then found I remembered nothing to write, and the paper stayed blank. After a week I had three sheets, in three different kinds of handwriting. Some people who try this feel a little lighter, some feel heavier, and for me some mornings were lighter and some heavier, and I couldn't predict which.

I know I'm doing it right when the paper looks ugly: slanted letters, clipped sentences, a line with a single word. On the days the paper looks tidy, with a subject and a verb in every line, I'm usually telling it to an imagined reader instead of writing for myself.

On a day you wake late, or orders are waiting, write only the fourth question, one line.

On the third morning I went wrong the other way, by writing too much. I wrote and thought: I must get all of it down, every detail, so I'll remember it later. I sat forty minutes, filled both sides of the sheet, kneaded the dough late, the dumplings came out slowly, and by noon I was so tired I couldn't see what I'd done for him. Since then I keep one rule: one line per question, and at line seven I'm done, even if I remember more. What's left over can stay remembered.

Seven questions, from light to deep

I order them from easy to hard, because early in the morning the head can't yet bear the heavy ones. You can stop at any question.

I write with a red ballpoint because it's lying there, and red ink on wrapping paper is hard to confuse with an order. Use whatever you like: the margin of a newspaper, the back of a receipt, or a note on your phone, if you're sure you won't slide into looking at something else.

Where are you in the dream, and what is the light like there?

Place only, no people yet. Some people remember only the colour of a wall, and that's enough for a line.

My dream is always in the back kitchen, but the light differs each time: the first was yellow like late afternoon, the second white like a fluorescent tube at four in the morning. I don't yet know why, and I leave that not-knowing alone. This question is easy because it doesn't touch the person. My hand gets used to the pen first, and only then comes to the hard part.

What is the person doing with their hands?

Folding, washing, lifting, holding. If they're only sitting, write how they sit.

One morning I dreamed of him without seeing his face, and all the next day I worried I was forgetting his face. That evening I reopened the paper: line two read "he wrings out the leaf, thumb bent in." I could describe even the thumb. The face wasn't clear but the hands were, and I was a little less afraid. I don't know why. I only know that writing the hands down made me think less about the face.

Do they say anything, or is there only sound?

Write the exact words, even if they make no sense. If it's silent, write "silence."

Mine was the big steamer. One morning I sat looking for a message in it: keep the steamer or replace it, or was he trying to tell me something else? Mrs. Tám, who sells sticky rice at the stall beside mine, listened to the story and laughed:

"You dreamed of him? What did he say?"

"He asked about the big steamer."

"Yes, he worried about that steamer all the time."

She laughed, I laughed with her, and then my throat closed, and both happened at once. I stopped looking for a message after that. The question about the steamer doesn't have to be anything beyond what he always used to ask.

In the first five seconds of waking, what do you feel first: happy, hollow, startled, or nothing at all?

Name it, without fixing it. There is no right answer, and "happy" doesn't have to apologise to anyone.

This question is where many people stop, and I understand. The first time I wrote the word "happy" I looked at it for a while and almost crossed it out, as if I were betraying someone. Happy because I got to see him, even if only in a dream. Hollow because I woke. Both are true, and I wrote both, one word to a line. You don't need to decide which is more real.

Some mornings the first word I wrote was "afraid." Afraid of what, I don't know, and I wrote no more. The word "afraid" stood alone on its line, and that was fine too.

Is anything in the dream different from real life, and how do you feel about the difference?

A bigger house, a younger person, a room you've never seen. The difference isn't a sign, it's just something to look at.

In the second dream, the yard behind our house was nearly twice as big as the real one. I thought the bigger yard must be something, then flipped through my neighbour's dream-interpretation book, then shut it, because I felt I was doing something ridiculous at five in the morning. Now I write it like a plain fact: "back yard twice the size." That's all. Writing the difference down the way I'd note the width of a table makes it pull at me less.

If the dream went on for ten more minutes, what would you want added, or where would you want it to stop?

Wanting it to stop is also an answer. Some people want one more sentence, some only want a moment more of sitting side by side.

This is the one I took longest over. I sat looking at the paper for about two minutes. Then I wrote: "Still good, love." Only after writing it did I know I'd owed him that answer since twenty-one past three, since the moment he asked and I hadn't got to reply. This question can pull people far: writing the whole next part of the dream, then sinking into it. I keep it to one line.

What do you want to carry from the dream into today, and what do you want to leave on the page?

Maybe carry one sentence. Maybe leave all of it. Both are fine.

That day I carried exactly one thing: I warmed the banana leaves longer than usual, stood there smelling the scorched leaf drift into the kitchen, and let my hands go a little slower. The paper I folded in four and put in my apron pocket, and forgot until evening. I think leaving something behind is also a job.

On Thursday my daughter, Vy, got up to help wrap the dumplings and saw the paper sticking out of my apron pocket.

"Mom, what do you write that makes you sit on the edge of the bed every morning?"

I let her read the sixth line. She read "Still good, love." and looked up.

"What did Dad ask you?"

"About the big steamer."

Vy was quiet a moment. "When I was little he used to ask me exactly that. I thought he only asked me."

The two of us stood there, our hands still floury. I don't know whether I should have let her read the paper, and I'm still not sure. I only know that after that day one thing was clear to me: someone who remembers him too may be standing right here in the house, and I hadn't asked for months.

If you've tried and the paper stays blank, or stays heavy

Some mornings you don't dream at all, or dream and remember nothing, and the paper sits there blank. For three weeks straight I couldn't remember a single dream and just sat next to the paper like sitting beside an empty chair. That doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. Many people don't remember dreams and nobody can force it. If you feel you're forcing it, drop all seven questions and keep only the fourth: on waking this morning, what did you feel first? That one can be answered even with no dream.

The second place is heavier. Some dreams aren't gentle. The person doesn't look the way they did when well, or there's a scene you don't want to recall. Writing those down can make them clearer, not lighter. Then don't push yourself through all seven. Write only the fourth, one line, then stand up and do something with your hands: wash your face, boil water, warm a banana leaf. Fold the paper and don't reread it that morning. If dreams like that come night after night, make you afraid to sleep or keep you awake for weeks, that is something to take to a professional, and the signs at the end of this piece say more.

For anyone who doesn't suit writing in the middle of the night, you can write at another hour of the day, and this piece about writing memories to honour someone who has died may be a place to begin. Some people aren't suited to writing but to saying it aloud to someone who will listen. That's fine too. The same job, a different place to rest your hands.

That afternoon, after selling out, I washed the big steamer. Its lid still sat a little crooked on one side, as always. I dried it, put it back on the stove, in its place. Still good.

When to seek professional support

This article is the story of a woman who makes tapioca dumplings, about seven questions to write after a dream with someone who has died in it. It cannot replace treatment, and I am not promising that writing will make the dreams come less often or the grief lighter.

But here are a few signs you should bring to a professional, rather than carrying them alone:

• Dreams about the person who died make you afraid to go to sleep, or you can't sleep for many nights in a row over several weeks
• You can't eat, can't sleep, or can't manage everyday tasks for weeks after the loss
• You feel tired for a long time, or chest heaviness or breathlessness keeps coming back, so get checked first to rule out a physical cause
• You think about hurting yourself, even if it is just a passing thought

The last point cannot wait. Speak with someone you trust, today. The Emergency Support page explains what holds true in moments like that.

Talking with a professional about a loss does not mean you are grieving the wrong way. It just means one more person helping you carry it.