The Grandparents Dream
I dreamed of Grandma Kitty, Grandpa Paul, and Grandma McCune (who was my great grandmother, but was called Grandma McCune). All have passed away at least four decades ago.
In my dream, I was a young man in a city. I wandered about, looking for food and exploring places. The city, packed with small concrete buildings abutting one another, had many narrow alleys and roads. I explored to sate my curiosity about what the city held, peeking in throug windows, entering buildings, and walking through rooms.
Eventually I went into a large house. This belonged to my family. Large rooms with golden pillars. Pale gold walls, white ceilings, soft, low golden light, and deep red carpeting. A mansion, I realized with surprise, that belonged to my family. I had not realized their wealth, I thought in the dream, because in RL there wasn’t such wealth. The family was solid middle class.
People were busy with activities when I entered. I was now a teenager. It wasn’t many people and seemed to be family. I don’t know what they were doing. As I walked through, taking it all in, I saw Grandpa Paul, just as he was when I last saw him, smile, and turn away. As I went on, I spied the back of Grandma Kitty bustling around a large kitchen area. Grandma McCune (a tiny, thin woman, barely taller than me whenI was a little boy) passed and gave me a meek wave and a small smile, as she always did (she passed when I was five or so).
What next transpired is muddled. I ended up learning from Grandma Kitty that I would not receive Grandma McCune’s legacy unless I told her that I love her, because she was upset with me. I knew that she was due to pass on. I tried approaching Grandma McCune but then returned to Grandma Kitty. I told her, “I don’t know how to tell Grandma McCune that I love her.” When I spoke, I’d begun sobbing. Grandma Kitty took me in her arms and hugged me with a smile, telling me, “Don’t worry, it’ll be alright. She knows.”
I left and wandered the city. I was trying to return to where I was before. I thought I knew the way sufficiently that a shortcut was warranted. But when I entered the space, I realized that I didn’t have a mask. Exiting, I walked along a broken drainage ditch, thinking about how to get a mask, trying to remember where I’d left it. I decided that I’d sneak in one way and try to get back to my place. Thinking I knew the right door, I entered a pink hovel.
Inside were several men in a small, dark room. I nodded at them as I passed through. Reaching the other side, I opened the door. I expected to leave; instead, it was a tiny bathroom occupied by a man taking a piss.
I backed away and shut the door. Certain that I’d passed through here before and that I could return to where I had been, I walked around, hunting for another door. None were there. There was only the one, to the bathroom.
The man using it exited. I entered the bathroom and searched for a secret door. I didn’t find one. Yet, I remained confident that I was right.
I stepped back out to the other room. Four men were still there, older, bearded, sitting. I stood in the room’s center, thinking. I decided that I would wait for the men to leave and see how they left. Meanwhile, I’d keep thinking about the room and looking for a door where I was. As I decided this, one of the sitting men said, “Hey, is anyone else waiting for the john? I thought you were all waiting for it. If you’re not, then I’m going to go ahead and use it, if you don’t mind.” He had an Australian accent. As he passed me, I turned, and thought I caught sight of the door I sought in a corner.
The dream ended.
The Broken Mirror Dream
Dreamed I was outside with lots of people. I could see myself among them. I was wearing a short-sleeved yellow shirt. All the people were my age, and I was younger than I am in real life, with longer hair, maybe twenty years old. I seemed to vaguely know a few of the other people. The area appeared to be a college or business campus. Sidewalks connected plazas with fountains, gardens, and buildings, bisecting swatches of cut green grass. Forest lined the edges. I don’t know why I was there. An air of excitement almost shimmered, giving me — and others — goosebumps. A few of us talked about it.
My vantage kept changing. Sometimes, I was outside, looking at myself with other people from ten feet away or so, or coming in for a close-up, but other times, the point of view was from inhabiting myself.
I’d been laughing and talking with others but ended up walking alone, and decided to check out the woods. After passing a line of mature trees, I discovered a stream and began following it. After some distance, I saw a clearing ahead on the right. Climbing the bank, I drifted that way. As I did, a flash of light caught my attention.
I headed there to investigate and discovered a shard of mirror on the ground. The clearing was all dirt. Wondering how the mirror had gotten there, I picked it up, careful not to cut myself, and glanced around for clues about its origins. When I did, I spotted broken mirror pieces littering the ground not far away.
More puzzled then ever, I tried putting some context around the pieces of broken mirrors in what was a clearing in the woods. I guessed there were more than a hundred pieces, thought about counting them, but then shrugged that off as irrelevant. I thought, someone would have needed to bring the mirror here and break it. Part of me guessed that children could’ve stolen the mirror somewhere, brought it here and broke it, but that seemed like a lot of trouble to go through, and an odd location to do that. There weren’t any clear paths into the clearing that I saw.
Going toward the pieces, I glanced at larger sizes. None of the pieces seemed to match to the other pieces, like they’d been separated after the mirror was broken. Dirt smudged some surfaces, making me think that they’d been somewhere else, and then brought here. Bending over pieces, I realized that they didn’t mirror the area. On the ground, they should’ve been displaying reflections of sky, trees, or something. Instead, each looked like an opening into another place, a weirdness that made me shiver.
None of them reflected me, either. I leaned down lower for a closer look at one, trying to see the place in the mirror. Seeing gray behind bushes, I thought it could be part of an old castle.
A noise like a large tree cracking and splintering came behind me. Standing, I turned to see what it was.
The dream ended. Or, that’s all that I remember. Remembering this dream feels creepy. I feel like I’m being watched.
Before, when I began recalling this dream, the song, “Touch Me” by The Doors, began playing. I wondered if my mind had created some connection to the The Doors and the pieces of mirror – the doors of perception.
It’s another dream mystery.
Michael Seidel, writer 