A Dream I had This Morning.

The Characters in the Dream:

Me - Stephen M. Bauer
Rod - a friend, colleague, and neighbor who died in the WTC on 9/11.
Pat - Rod’s widow.
Pablo - a current friend and colleague, from Argentina. Two years ago the woman he loved, and her son and daughter from a prior marriage, who he also loved deeply, died from carbon monoxide asphyxiation from a faulty heater in their house. The impact on Pablo is as though, spiritually he is dead also.

The Dream:

We were all sitting in a living room. Pat and I sat in chairs across from each other. Rod’s ghost-spirit and Pablo’s ghost-spirit sat on a sofa to my right. [Even though Pablo is alive in real life, it was his ghost that was in the dream] I was saying something to Pat, and I made a reference to her husband, as if I had forgotten that Rod had been her husband and as if he wasn’t sitting right there. I realized my mistake right away and saw that it caused Pat sadness and anguish. I apologized. She said it was O.K. A minute later, she excused herself to go out of the room.

With Pat was out of the room, I apologized to Rod for my mistake also. He was in his usual good mood and said that it doesn’t matter. Pablo nodded in agreement. Rod, Pablo, and I continued talking about some banal topic. Then, I abruptly said to Rod, “I’m real sorry that you died on 9/11.”

Rod grinned and said, “That’s O.K. I probably deserved it.”

Abruptly again, I said to Rod and Pablo: “The strangest thing about all this is that you guys aren’t supposed to be here. You are both supposed to be dead.” To emphasize my point, as I said this, I pressed each of my hands on their chests, simultaneously, and pressed real hard, saying, “See, you are really here.”

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How do you interpret this dream? The, "I probably deserved it," remark disturbs me. People aren't supposed to deserve what happened to them. It also bothers me that, in the dream, Pablo is dead.