Stimming memory dream?

 Not dream:

In the day I was walking past a school sports day on Hackney Downs. They had loud music playing and I shuddered at the sensory overwhelm. At the edge away from everyone with two adult supporters was an autistic boy (I guess) age about 13. He had a white t-shirt on with the word "DANCE" written on it in gold capital letters. He was smiling and "stim dancing" happily to the far off music.

I smiled at him, he saw me and smiled back.

Dream that night:

I was with T&S at a dance class. Sarah had performed a dance move well. It was my turn and the teacher came up to me in front of everyone and said "stop moving your arms in that stupid / silly way!". I felt two parts of me, a younger part steeped in shame. An adult part of me was instantly furious and shouted "No!" putting my hand up. Thoughts flitted through my head along the lines of:

"I have just found out I may be autistic, these are my stimming arms, how dare you shame me like that, its not ok to do that!".

By the time the words were formed the teacher had gone, I walked off to find him. I couldn't see him, but I found my mum! She was sitting at a table with headphones on working on something. I sat next to her and started crying - weeping / sobbing uncontrollably actually - saying "mum I need help".

I felt how warm she was, that she loved me too, through her eyes. But her body stayed with her task, in her own world - and she did not respond or move help me. Looking at her profile was very like a picture I drew of her as a child, of the profile of her face. I have often felt that drawing conveyed something about how I predominantly saw her. I touched her arm a few times but then went on my way.

I collapsed by a wall and was once again weeping / sobbing uncontrollably, even more so this time. I was kind of vaguely aware that I was having a total melt down. This time my Dad appeared! I sobbed "Dad, dad, I need help!" He moved towards me and seemed to know  exactly what to do: he touched me firmly to comfort me (pressing my body hard in places) and I was grateful.

Before the dream I had been very anxious about something at work. I felt a dark dread that someone (a male client) might make a complaint about me. I felt gripped for a while, by a terribly anxious old shame place of feeling "wrong". After the dream - I felt thoroughly relieved of this shame state - like a catharsis had taken place through the dream and something had released from my body.

Memories:

The dream reminded me that I went to dance school - I have pictures of me looking like I am really enjoying it - but then I suddenly stopped. I can't recall why I stopped and I wondered, did a teacher actually say something to me about how my arms moved when I danced? Before I went for my ND pre-diagnostic session, I went through old photos of me from when I was young and found a couple in which my arms were twisted into "odd" shapes.

I also recalled that my Dad would play with me very physically and vigorously. We would play "bucking bronco" where I would sit on his back and he would throw me off. He would tickle me hard, bury me in sand on the beach, we made HUGE sand castle cities that took a whole day to build. He was quite unavailable in many ways emotionally, but I have pictures of me looking very happy playing with him when I was young enough to want to do that.