True account to the best of my recall. (Because the memory function rapidly deteriorates immediately upon crossing the membrane from sleeping to waking — the sudden influx of sensory inputs taxes one’s will in an overpowering way.) Note: look here to see a previous dream narration in this series.

In an endless mansion with many many varied halls and pleasant private nooks, and a large central staircase connecting numerous levels. The place has a flexible structure in that lots of spaces consist of ‘outdoor rooms’, with beautiful meadows and grassy expanses and trees. She is there, somewhere. I sense she is there, and that also she senses me. There are other people around — some I vaguely know — but the focus is the two of us. I become aware she is soon to come down the staircase to the level I am sitting in. I feel her presence approaching, maybe her fragrance or essence, and she knows too. She is humming, or the air around her is humming. Now she is there, present, near me. We both are aware this moment has weight to it, for it is the first time of actually meeting. Before now, we merely know of each other. But here, we are in each other’s direct presence. She looks a little different, more mature. and the hair is different a bit, curlier and shaped. She is wearing something casual yet distinctive and she flows comfortably in her being. We greet naturally, wordlessly. We have an unscripted affinity. Soon her head is in my lap and I am holding one of her hands. And we are in an ouside room now, a garden with ten or so others, a group. There is a leader who is speaking about something, but she and I are only marginally involved in this group activity. We are in the group yet out of it, in our own privacy. It is pleasant but there is a sense time is ticking, change is imminent…

A clear thought connects between the two of us, we both know it at once: “if I kiss her — if we kiss — all will evaporate. The conditions will change. The ‘dream’ will exit”. Then the briefest of interludes. We are suddenly in yet another different room, also outside. The surroundings are vibrantly lovely. A row of trees, a rolling countryside, a few parked cars, and the morning light is wonderful, the air crisp and sweet. She is present somehow but more distant in some way, I cannot directly see her. A next thought transmits between us… “Apologies… but it is not only that I kiss you which brings a close to all this. It is merely if I simply think of kissing you! And that has occurred”.

At this point the consciousness shifts, the mansion is gone, the morning sunlight is gradually growing into my bedroom. And I am lying on my back — not my usual position — on top of the blankets. And it seems about half an hour past dawn. I am waking…

Waking Thoughts

This dream had less of a degree of ‘lucidity’ than the most recent one I wrote about. But still, it had more than what is usual. There was a ‘dreaminess’ about the whole thing, a sumptuous mood. Yet the encounter between the two of us had a reality to it. As though it were possible or even likely she was having a similar dream at the same time, though perhaps she was more in deep sleep while I was close to waking up. Also, there were elements of awareness towards the end of the dream that I was in fact ‘in a dreaming state’ and soon about to exit it. And there was an awareness of regret associated with this, because I would lose the encounter. Dreams like this seem to straddle reality. The odd body position upon waking also seemed to be of some unknown significance. How did that happen?

_______RS

Image : detail from a visually dramatic ‘dream painting ‘ by Henri Rousseau, the “Sleeping Gypsy” (1897). I always looked at this painting, which lives at MOMA, a museum in New York City where I frequented in my later teens and 20’s, as a representation within the dreaming woman’s consciousness. Note the dreamlike quality of the moon and even the lion, and the horizon. But the more usual interpretation and discussion over the years has been more literal, about an actual gypsy woman laying down to sleep with her mandolin and being visited by a curious yet un-menacing lion.

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