I dreamt that, for some reason not entirely clear, it was necessary for me to knock at the door of one of my neighbors (not identifiable as any particular person from my real life) and ask permission to walk through their house and out their back door. I believe some sort of road construction made it necessary for me to take this circuitous route to wherever I was going. The door was answered by a Southeast Asian maidservant who seemed pretty annoyed but nevertheless did show me through to the back door.
Coming out, I found myself in a completely unfamiliar part of the city, the most striking feature of which was a few blocks of parkland where the close-cropped lawns were dotted with gigantic old trees, obviously dating from several centuries before Christ. (One of my favorite trees in real life is a red cypress supposed to have sprouted in the year Confucius was born. These had the same vibe.) They had obviously been planted, with different sorts of trees in different areas. Figs here, acacias there, and over yonder what looked incongruously like beeches.
I thought about the implications. Millennia-old trees in virgin woodland are one thing, but these had been planted -- not an ancient forest but an ancient garden. A garden, not a forest, is the ideal. I thought of the garden of Eden, but of course all its trees would have been young. This was what it might look like today, if we had been able to keep it.
Later, back at home, I kicked myself for not using my phone's GPS to ascertain the location of the ancient garden. The neighbors wouldn't be likely to let me walk through their house again, and I was sure I wouldn't be able to find it any other way.
3 comments:
Steiner's method of dream analysis would (I think) be to try and recall how you felt - behind the surface details. I've noticed that quite often the background of emotion, the sense of what is really going on (or how I felt after waking), sometimes seems different than the surface would seem to imply. For example, sometimes dreams feel inspiring and 'meaningful' - or even mythic - despite trival contents. Did this dream feel 'significant'?
The feeling was one of surprise at there being such a place right there in my city and my never having known about it. Yes, it felt significant.
I've had versions of that dream, with that feeling - usually based in Newcastle upon Tyne (one had a gorgeous medieval university). Such dreams leave behind a very good vibe; and I often remember them 'forever'.
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